by Billy Wong
The Golden Dawn
by Billy Wong
Smashwords edition
The Golden Dawn Copyright © 2017 Billy Wong
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.
All characters in this compilation are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Credits and author page
Sample of Stand Short and Proud
Chapter 1
Princess Julianna frowned, looking out over her city of Myrrhise from the balcony. The white-clad soldiers of the One Army fought through the streets, driving her troops before them as they sought her palace. Should she act? She knew that lives of her people were being lost and hated it, and it didn't seem like her army under General Duncan would be able to repel the enemies on their own. But if she used that power...
"Saint Princess," a deep voice said behind her. She spun to regard her dim-lit throne room. The invaders' leader, King Galen Kord, towered beside her throne. With his gigantic white armor, massive sword and long flowing hair, the man who called himself the Unifier appeared every bit a hero-conqueror of legend. Compared to his, her light plate and the short spear in her hand seemed rather inadequate. She found him to look a tad vain though, his armor molded to accentuate the contours of his huge yet lean and athletic figure.
"You're already here?" she asked. "Your troops aren't even halfway through the city."
"I have my ways. Anyway, it seems that the nation of Aerilea cannot stand for long. Why don't you surrender and save me the trouble of killing a few thousand more of your countrymen?"
"Why would I surrender? Do you think I have no pride, to lie down like a dog at your feet?"
He scowled, his face admittedly handsome despite being so large and thick-boned. "You are so stubbornly opposed to me. It is not as if I desire to slaughter your subjects, or weigh them down with the chains of slavery. This continent merely needs a single government, under which the endless strife between its inhabitants will stop. Do you not wish for peace, and for us to finally be strong together?"
Julianna sighed. "I appreciate the ideal of unity too. The royal family of Aerilea always has, which is why we brought the five nations together under our banner. But there is too much that separates our people and yours, hence why in the millennia of Aerilea's existence we never tried to force you to join us. We knew you wouldn't accept our rule. So why can't you accept the opposite?"
"Because that is why you are weak, and I am stronger. You content yourself with half the land, because some would not want for it to be united. But the greater good should outweigh dated loyalties. I gave you the chance to ride the wave of progress with me. If you refuse, it will destroy you."
She leveled her spear at him. "Let's see it try."
"I knew that would be your answer. If nothing else, you are known to be a valiant warrior. Then, let's see how strong the strongest princess really is." She charged back inside at him and he met her with equal zeal, sword and spear clashing so hard her cup jumped on the arm of her throne and curtains were blown back against the windows. For a moment they strained against one another, then he shoved harder and threw her back. "That's it? For someone called the strongest in the world, you don't feel that strong."
"You know it doesn't refer to sheer physical strength," she snapped. It wasn't as if she was some weakling though, but he proved to be immensely strong—even moreso than he appeared, the fabled martial training of his heritage supplementing his bulk.
"Then why don't you show what it does refer to? I would hate to defeat a worthy adversary thinking they never gave it their best."
She considered how to respond. "For you? I don't need it."
"Then die, if that is your wish." They engaged again, the chamber shaking with each collision of their weapons. Even though his blows tested her balance and grip a bit more than her blows did his, she was skilled and strong enough to hang. She had to do more than just hang, though. She found an opening to thrust at his belly, but he turned so the point glanced off his armor. He punched her staggering her a couple steps away, cut at her neck. She blocked, but was sent skidding across the floor. Galen rushed after her, drawing streaks of light in the air with his slashes while she evaded. A retaliatory jab at his face made him lean far back, giving her the chance to knock him down with a kick to the stomach. He sprang up with a sweeping cut which made her jump back, lunged after her. She caught his descending blade on her shaft, shaking it in her hands, but whipped the butt of her spear into his face and backed him up in turn. "You are impressive," he said.
They traded hundreds more blows, grunting and panting as they grew fatigued. His defense and offense were damn solid, enough to make his physical advantages count. Eventually he gashed her chest open with a horizontal stroke, and she stumbled away grimacing. He followed and hammered his sword down into her shoulder, breaching the armor again so blood sprayed. Legs buckling, she grabbed her throne for support, and he grinned. "It is over."
She shook her head. "As long as I draw breath, it's never over."
"Heh... good. Predictable, but good." He swung the blade down, making her gasp as she desperately parried and her pole was almost pushed into her skull. Another blow threatened to rip it from her grasp, and her arm hung down as if depleted of strength. But when he aimed a big chop at her head, she dodged out to the side and speared him through the sword arm.
He punched her away using his other fist, snapping her head back hard, but she flipped in midair and landed on her feet. "Was that predictable?" she asked, wiping blood from her mouth. He had dropped his sword and now bent to retrieve it, but she said, "Wait. I hear you take pride in your ancestors' hand arts. So why don't we settle it with our hands?"
Galen looked up. "Are you serious?"
She replaced her spear on her back and put up her fists. It hurt to move her left arm with its injured shoulder, but he had a bad arm too. "Why wouldn't I be? You are arrogant, thinking this world is yours to do with as you please and the desires of other people matter naught. If I beat you in the realm of your pride, maybe that'll be enough for you to learn otherwise."
"There is no one here to see."
"Well, it's not as if I don't have any pride myself."
He picked up his sword—then slid it back into its sheath. He raised his hands into a boxer's stance, displaying no visible pain from the spear wound. "Fine. These fists have not been stained by the blood of women, but I'll make an exception for you."
They closed. He flicked out a jab she leaned aside from, followed with a cross she dodged too. The punches were fast, though. She ducked under a hook, landed a hook of her own to the body but remembered the armor as it hurt her knuckles. Darn, he probably hadn't felt that much. A heavy shot crashed into her temple, spinning her around while her vision went white for a moment. She stumbled to one knee, quickly stood and
ducked what would have been an immense strike to the back of her head. Kicking backwards while his fist passed over her, she smashed her heel into his knee. Hobbling momentarily, he said, "I thought you would only use your hands."
Julianna shrugged. "I don't see a need to restrict myself that much."
He drove her back with a flurry of punches, several getting through to numb her cheek and shred her lips. An uppercut landed directly to her chin, making her knees wobble, and he aimed a kick of his own at her face. She swayed aside, kicked the single leg he stood on for the moment. He lost his balance and his raised foot came down hard as he just saved himself from falling. She threw double leaping kicks which he blocked, sent a lightning straight punch through a gap in his guard. Teeth broke over her knuckles, cutting them too, and his hands dipped. She blasted him with a twisting hook, clenched her jaw as his own heavy hook crashed into it. More blistering exchanges. Eventually he blocked a high kick, almost took her head off with a punch while she was too off balance to roll with it. Her vision wavered. Dizzy... Leaning clumsily sideways, she barely avoided his next haymaker. Yet her return punch made his eyes roll back a bit, and the hope that gave her helped clear her head slightly. She could outlast him. She jumped at him, gave him a good shot to the eye. But instead of punching her back, this time he grabbed her by the neck. And he complained about her not sticking with punches?
Galen lifted her high, ignoring a glancing knee to his head on the way up. He slammed her down hard, cracking the stone with the back of her skull. She tried to seize his arm between her legs, but in her dazed state another huge fist to her jaw was enough to weaken her so he could shrug off her attempted hold and impose his will. He mounted her to pound away, punching her head this way and that with an occasional elbow mixed in.
"Now do you regret your hubris?" he taunted, turning her features to pulp with sledgehammer blows that would each have killed an ordinary man while she whimpered.
She hit back. Though strikes from such a position wouldn't carry much force, a perfectly aimed punch to the nose was just enough to push his head and chin up a little. Her other hand shot up—open, her rigid fingers piercing into his exposed throat. "I told you," she said while he choked, "I'll beat you any way you want."
He fell sideways off her hand, leaving her fingertips bloody, to lie gagging and wheezing on his back. She stood wincing from the pain of her battered face. Medium difficulty fight, but for the supposed rightful emperor of the floating continent, Galen disappointed her a tad. His troops though, unless they would retire with his defeat, were still a problem.
Keith, her tall lean love with a narrow chin and one of the kingdom's five High Knights, stepped out from behind a pillar. "You were watching? Thank you for not interfering."
"I know how my monarch is. If you used your magic, you could have obliterated him in an instant."
"That would be a waste. Besides," she added with a smile, "I prefer to fight at least somewhat fair."
"What will we do about that army? Have you decided?"
"I'll show them their king's corpse." Julianna hung her head. "If that doesn't stop them, however... Myrrhise can't fall. I suppose I'll have to."
Galen's voice surprised her as, clutching his neck, he managed to get words out through the blood that clogged his throat. "Don't think today... is your victory. If I can't have this world, neither will anyone else. I've set an awakening spell to activate... with my death. Soon the Father of All Monsters will rise... once..." His words trailed off, and his eyes closed for good.
Keith stared. "He can't be serious, right? He didn't seem so crazy as to rouse the Father—and it would take an immense amount of magical power to break that seal, wouldn't it?"
"It would. But with the amount of time he's spent planning this, it's not out of the question his allies could have harnessed enough to do it." She gulped. How wasteful to use so much of the continent's remaining magic on such a thing, in addition to everything else wrong with it. "And he may not have appeared too insane on the surface, but he was completely obsessed with conquest. If he couldn't have his dream, I wouldn't put it past him to drag the rest of us down with him. We will just have to wait and see..."
It didn't take long for them to. In the distance, one of the mountains in the nearby range started to shake, then broke apart. Something immense rose from the wreckage—a creature like a gray tortoise made of rock, almost as big as the mountain itself. Hundreds of spines the size of towers covered its back, and fleshy whiskers large enough to uproot ancient trees writhed around its snout. It roared, so loud even from here that allies and enemies alike fell in the streets as they covered their ears in agony. Julianna and Keith stayed upright, albeit with pained looks.
"The Father of Monsters, the god of destruction itself was sealed that close to us?" Keith asked.
"Apparently."
The Father walked in Myrrhise's direction, each step shaking the very world. From here it was hard to tell which was bigger, it or the city. "That thing hates humans, doesn't it? Surely the first thing it'll want to do is destroy the nearest center of civilization, which happens to be us."
"Probably," Julianna confirmed. "I have no choice, then."
"But can even you..."
"Let's hope so."
She stepped out on the balcony and spread her arms, sensing the magic around her. It didn't feel like very much, so she cast the net of her will farther. All through the city and its outskirts, golden sparkles of magical power manifested in the air as she called it forth. The Father of Monsters stopped some miles away and opened a maw that could have swallowed the palace whole. Light glowed from the depths of its throat, and people cried in panic below. "It's gathering energy!" a man shouted. "Is it going to..?"
A white ball of chaotically swirling light flew towards Myrrhise. Just before it would have reached it, Julianna used the magic she drew upon to summon a translucent shield around the city. The ball struck it, exploded with such force its energy washed over it and briefly covered all of the city in light. "The Saint Princess blocked it!" somebody marveled. "Truly our ruler is the most powerful sorcerer in history!"
She didn't know if she would go that far. History was a long time, after all. Though, nobody else slew the Father of All Monsters when it appeared before, and that had better be the outcome today considering no others seemed acceptable. But there were more pressing concerns than her historical standing. A direct shot like that would destroy Myrrhise, and the magical energy she dared to use wouldn't allow her to block more than one or two more. She would just have to kill the thing before then. She summoned the magic to herself, forming a golden aura that blazed around her, and took flight off the balcony. "Be careful!" she heard Keith yell behind her while she shot forward like an arrow.
As she passed over the invading forces, she showered them with massive explosions of magical force, killing hundreds as they were ripped apart and throwing the rest into disarray. Their screams of terror didn't exactly overjoy her, but she might as well given she was already committed to using magic and may not get another chance to aid her allies. "Fight hard as true Aerilean soldiers and drive back the enemy!" she said to encourage them further while they rallied, tearing into their bewildered foes. "I'm counting on you!"
Julianna streaked over green fields far below towards the Father, saw light glow in its throat again. She raised an arm to shield herself, but didn't worry too much yet. The golden aura would serve as a personal shield, probably enough to withstand at least one of its blasts though it might knock her around somewhat. But when an energy ball flew from the Father's mouth, she noticed it to be larger and swirling more violently than the last. It crashed into her, and her aura wavered and disappeared. Instead of just the jarring impact and perhaps mild pain she expected, such agony filled her arm and torso it almost stole her consciousness. She tumbled through the air out of control, also perplexed as to why her arm only hurt badly near the shoulder and her body only above the waist. Had she been that lucky to avoid s
erious damage elsewhere? Then why had her head become so light, and her vision so blurred?
She glanced at her injured arm—and found most of it missing along with her spear, save for a short stump attached to the shoulder. No, no, gods no... she didn't want to look, but inevitably her gaze drifted down her body. Her legs weren't there nor anything else below roughly her navel, blood trailing out into the air from her severed trunk. She wondered that she even still lived after all that shock, the magic coursing through her and her natural stubbornness perhaps sustaining her for the time being. Yet it didn't matter—survival wouldn't be possible with such wounds. She was dead...
#
Keith's jaw dropped, tears streaming down his face as he saw Julianna's one-armed partial torso fall from the sky. The most powerful person of this era and leader of its strongest country, and the woman he loved, was gone. And now that nothing stood in the Father of Monsters' way, he and the rest of Myrrhise would soon follow.
#
Julianna knew she would die soon, but fought through the terror and dread also knowing she needed to stop the monster first. She drew more energy from the surrounding region, reaching a score of leagues away and farther, in preparation for one final shot at the Father. She feared doing so would ruin the land, as magic was said to be its life. But if she didn't, all the thousands of people in the city would be killed, and probably many thousands or even millions more before someone found a way to stop it—if anybody did. Right now, lives in immediate danger took priority. With her unprecedented magical ability, she should do one more good thing for humankind's sake. What would Keith think of her? She hoped she could leave him a good memory at the last. Restoring her aura stronger than before, she righted herself in the air and flew for the Father again.
She called upon even more magic as she neared, aura turning so bright she struggled to see through it. Or maybe it was that her eyes glazed over with impending death. Her enemy spat another energy ball. This time she passed right through it, its explosion washing over her to no effect. Almost at its head now... her sight was almost gone so she could hardly make out any details, but in spite of that she felt disbelief at how enormous it truly was. Its visage alone seemed akin to a small mountain. Could even she slay such an entity, which the ancients had chosen to seal instead? But there was no going back now. Once more, against her reservations, she summoned more power and increased the size and intensity of her aura. The Father of All Monsters was nothing but an indistinct outline now, what must be its strongest attack yet pulsing outward as it built up in its maw. An instant later, they collided...