Divided (#1 Divided Destiny) (10 page)

That was an awful thing to be contemplating, especially when surrounded by the dead, but only the village had burned. The damage was clearly recent; he could still feel the warmth from the burning timbers, and smoke still spiraled into the sky. Leo wouldn’t have been surprised if they were the first people to come across this disaster. No one was here, as they still would have been if they had come across it and fought the flames. Somehow, the fire had burned out on its own and hadn’t spread to the forest.

Leaving aside the fact that the fire, unchecked, should have spread with the wind and hadn’t, if a dragon was responsible for this, why did it care whether it roasted a village or a forest? Surely, if it had been swooping down for dinner, or because it had been angered, then it would have been breathing fire pretty indiscriminately. The dragon should have set light to the trees, not just burned the village to the ground with precision.

Perhaps it was because he found the idea that dragons were real a step too far. He just couldn’t get the physics or the biology behind how it was legitimately possible for an animal to breathe fire. Maybe it wasn’t a dragon, in terms of a blood-and-flesh dragon; it could be an illusion, some form of technology. The purpose behind it was unknown, but then, everything about this world was unknown.

It was in the center of the village, not far from the well, what had likely once been the trading hub for the village, that Leo saw something that made his blood run cold. There was a body here, a body unlike the other villagers. Metal didn’t burn like flesh, and certain fabrics retained their shape. There was no denying it; the body in front of him was one of their own, a member of his unit.

He was still holding his assault rifle; his hands had melted into the grip, but the shape was undeniable. His tactical vest could still be made out; it was different from the villagers clothing. Leo didn’t know for sure—everything had been turned to ash—but he suspected that the clothing had been simple, coarse linen for peasants. He could have been getting influenced by the knight in armor he was traveling with, but the whole structure of the village screamed medieval, and so he had certain expectations.

Leo knelt down next to the body carefully, wary of the heat he could still feel rising from the weapon, and he snapped off the dog tags. He wiped the ash from the nameplate and read the stamp; it was one of the gunnery sergeants from the headquarters element. Leo hadn’t known him all that well, despite the fact that they had been in the same unit for the past few months. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t liked him much, but no one deserved to die like this.

“What happens now?” Leo straightened, brushing the ash from his hands against his combats. He put the gunnery sergeant’s dog tags into a pocket on his tactical vest. “We report it in the city? I suppose given the number of casualties, as distasteful as it is, a mass grave? There’s nothing really left to salvage, and the fire has mercifully not spread...” Leo trailed off suggestively, hoping that Mathis would explain how the fire had been contained to the village, or at least offer a theory.

Mathis had followed him into the village square. He looked ill at ease, and the horse looked even more spooked. He shook his head. “Report, yes, but there will be no grave. We should move on immediately; the dragon is very territorial of the areas it has claimed. We do not want to be here if it should return.”

Mathis tugged on the horse’s reins, moving out of the village, over towards where the path picked back up again. He didn’t look back, and his pace was fast; he meant what he’d said about leaving the area.

“What do you mean, no grave?” Leo pressed, hurrying after Mathis. “We can’t just leave these people out here in the open like this.”

“I understand how you feel, and I agree, but we must. In the beginning, we buried our dead, looked for what little might have survived in an effort to salvage something from so many lost lives. However, that just seemed to anger the dragon, and it attacked again, destroying all within the burned village. It attacked another village, and then another. Kaslea is a small kingdom; overnight, we lost so many. We found that if we left the burned villages alone, the ones that the dragon had obviously claimed, it attacked less frequently,” Mathis explained. “I am sorry. One of the dead back there was your friend? You can’t help him now.”

“I know.” Leo nodded in acceptance.

He tapped the pocket where he had placed the dog tags. It wasn’t the first time he had been forced to leave the body of a comrade behind; the living always had to take precedence over the dead. That was why they took the dog tags, so they could take some part of them home. It was a ritual because they didn’t like to leave anyone behind. It was a core part of the military, a matter of honor—’We don’t leave our people behind.’ Out here, you had to depend on your team, had to know that they had your back.

“We shall reach Termont before dark,” Mathis told him, attempting a smile.

“Looking forward to it,” Leo said tightly. “Why’s it called Termont, anyway?”

“It is named after a hero of Kaslea’s past,” Mathis explained simply.

“Yeah, I get that,” Leo commented absently. They did that too, the US capital of Washington was a case in point.

He had hoped Mathis would launch into a story about what the ‘hero’ had done to be honored in such a way. However, it didn’t seem like he was keen to share, and Leo wanted to keep the conversation going, to think about something other than the smoking wreck of a village fading into the distance behind them.

“Do your people have a name for the world? We’ve got a collection of…kingdoms too, and we call the world Earth,” Leo said.

Mathis shook his head. “Your people must be explorers indeed to concern themselves with such a thing. We do not venture far beyond our own borders; it is not our way.”

Leo frowned. That was odd. However, he already knew that Mathis was superstitious due to his insistence on leaving the village how the dragon had left it. Perhaps superstition was ingrained in the local culture.

All he had seen of this world so far was a forest and a burned-out shell of a peasant village. The city, Termont, supposedly a bastion of civilization, should be a big clue as to the development of this kingdom. He hoped that by the time he reached the city, more of his unit would have already arrived. The place between his shoulder blades itched; he felt vulnerable out here alone, despite how friendly Mathis had been.

“So what is your kingdom called, if not Earth?” Mathis asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Oh, right.” Leo looked sheepish for a moment; he hadn’t thought that one through. “It’s actually called America, but I’m here on behalf of all the kingdoms. The aliens that are attacking us are a threat to all of Earth. So I’m a representative—an envoy—for Earth.”

“Ah.” Mathis nodded in understanding, clearly coming to a decision. “Then Earth is your kingdom.”

Leo shrugged. That was fair enough, and it kept it simple. He had started to wish he hadn’t asked the question. He checked his watch and then reached for his radio. It was a prescribed checkpoint time, and he now had confirmation that at least one other unit member had landed within the area. Hopefully there would be others.

“This is Alpha One Actual, does anyone copy?” Leo transmitted.

He repeated the words twice more. Mathis watched his actions curiously but said nothing. The only sound Leo heard from the radio was static. He would try again later.

This world was full of unknown dangers. They had known that when they’d stepped forward onto the platform. They had known they would be facing the unknown. However, that didn’t make dealing with the unknown any easier to bear. This was a team mission, and he needed his team. He just hoped that when he found them, he found them alive.

Chapter Eight

Magic was in the world now.

Yannick had taken his first breath nearly 1700 years ago. Back then, this land had been ruled by the Emperor. Some whispers said the Emperor had created this land, caused the birth of magic. The Emperor was all powerful, immortal; the whole land had fallen under his Eternal Empire. Twelve men had been chosen to be his Dark Knights; they had been given magic to wield in the Emperor’s name. Yannick had been number five.

After almost 700 years, there had been a rebellion. The Dark Knights had turned the Emperor’s own power against him because he was immortal. For all the power the Dark Knights held, they would only ever be slaves. The long-oppressed kingdoms had eagerly formed an alliance, but they were not the fools he had hoped.

At the end of the battle, Yannick had been the last one standing. There had been nothing between him and the throne; he would assume the Emperor’s place and finally have the power and the respect that he deserved. Whether the heroes had known his true intentions, or were merely far more self-serving than he had expected, the result had been the same. They had betrayed him, betrayed the agreement they had made.

The Emperor was too powerful to be killed, but he could be contained. They had caged him, banished him magically to a pocket dimension, using his own power against him. The Dark Knights were immortal to the ages, but they could be killed. That had been proven beyond doubt when eleven of their number had died battling the Emperor. So long as one Dark Knight remained alive, the cage would hold; he was the last, so they had placed him in stasis. That had simultaneously ensured he would be unable to do anything nefarious and also guaranteed his survival, and thus the eternal imprisonment of the Emperor.

When Yannick had gone into stasis, only the Emperor and the Dark Knights wielded magic, and the Dark Knights had only had what the Emperor granted them. For a thousand years, he had slept, and during that time the status quo had changed. Far from magic disappearing, more people, ordinary people, slowly started to gain magical powers.

He had found that magic had become more accepted over time, but generally people still feared it. Those who had the gift mostly kept it secret; he suspected many more people had the ability to access magic than the world would ever guess. People were sheep; they squandered the gifts they were given, wanting to be normal and other such nauseating tripe.

Over the past thousand years, there had been a few good sorcerers, there had been a few evil sorcerers, with very little in between. It seemed magic was either light or dark. People were either good or evil. They didn’t seem to understand that magic was magic; it just mattered what people did with it, and the magic itself did not care.

Yannick had been awake for several years now. The stasis chamber had eventually failed. He shivered sometimes thinking that he could have slept for eternity. When he had first awakened, he had shaken with rage. One thousand lost years; the scale of the heroes’ betrayal was unfathomable. They had quite simply put him on ice and forgotten about him.

It hadn’t taken long before his quick mind had seized upon that fact. Yes, they had forgotten about him. He could use that to his advantage. More years than he would have ever believed had passed; they would have wished to forget the dark days of the Emperor. They would be defenseless, ripe for the slaughter.

Wanting an advantage, Yannick had searched the Emperor’s fortress. After a thousand years, all the items in the common areas had disintegrated. All that was left was worthless detritus of what had once been priceless powerful artifacts. However, the Emperor’s private work area had been better protected. It was there that he had found the scroll.

Yannick growled in frustration. He remembered it like it was yesterday…

*****

It was the red leather box that caught his attention. It was alone, separated from the others, and that in itself made it special. The box contained a scroll. Yannick unwound it and read the contents. This really had potential. He already had forever, but this scroll hinted at something greater. A mastery of time that would give him the edge he needed.

He had one thousand years of history to learn. They didn’t know he was coming, but the longer he operated, the more chance they stood of discovering the truth. This would take him out of time, give him ten times that which would pass for them. He would be invisible, indestructible—it would be glorious.

Yannick read the spell through again; it would require a lot of power, but it wasn’t as complex as he’d feared. The Emperor had done all the hard work in crafting the spell; that was where the real mastery had been required. Simply channeling the power and releasing the spell was well within his capabilities. He wasn’t so foolish as to cast it within the Emperor’s work room; there was no telling what would happen if the magic interacted with the other scrolls, let alone the experimental devices.

Carefully, Yannick left the dungeons and swept through the throne room to the courtyard beyond. The Emperor had cast many spells of great power here, but they did not still resonate; there would be no conflict with his own.

He tossed the scroll with a casual flick into the air, where it levitated in front of him at about chest height. Purple flame was summoned into both hands, expanding into huge fireballs, which he launched towards the scroll. They coalesced into one, a beam of power, just before they hit the scroll. It absorbed the offering and then glowed white. Tiny pinpricks of light appeared throughout, and then there was an explosion of blinding light, a wave that swept across the land.

*****

Yannick snorted, bringing himself back to the present. It hadn’t worked out how he had hoped. After he had cast it, he had been confused because he hadn’t felt any different. The reason for that was because nothing had happened—the spell had failed. However, at least it had just been a complete failure. It would have been irritating if there had been adverse consequences.

The first thing he had done was study history. He’d had one thousand years’ worth to catch up on, one thousand years of alliances and politics to learn and manipulate. He had a stronger magical gift than most, plus the benefit of many years of experience. When the Emperor had granted the Dark Knights a portion of his power, he hadn’t just granted them the power—he had granted the wisdom and the control that they needed to use it. The Emperor would never have wasted his time teaching them; he’d just waved his hand and suddenly they had known what to do, as if they had spent years learning spells and honing their craft.