Legacy of the Defender (The Defender Series Book 1) (17 page)

My master was in trouble.

His stance suggested he was trying to withdraw.  As I approached, fighting my way through the shifting battlefield, something caught my eye that I had never seen.  He had majestic wings...huge and beautiful.  They shone brightly as if they exuded power and occasionally extended, bashing the horde away.  The angels I had fought along did not command the same kind of presence-that is when I truly realized what he was and smiled. 

Mathias was an Archangel
.  Even under the threat of being overrun, he gracefully backed away where anyone lesser would have lost hope.  He parried and attacked in the same strike.  I had never seen this move before.  My jaw dropped in awe seeing him unleash.  Several of them went down, but the hundreds advanced with more coming through the portal.  The next wave arrived.

They were even bigger than the ones we were fighting.

I moved towards him, studying his movements to anticipate his retreat, carving my way in that direction.  The large daemons tried to parry my first few attacks.  With their eyes wide with terror, they fell by the dozens now with each swing, black swords cleaved and broken in half.  The carnage inflicted upon my foes was unfathomable.  Today was to be the day that retribution balanced the ledger.

I got within several yards and called out, “Master, it is Tathlyn, fall back to your left and I will meet you.”

“What are you doing here?  You should be with your teacher!” he hollered over his shoulder as he spun a few times to give himself some room before falling back the few yards allowing me to reach him.  A small lull in the tide gave us a few seconds.  I was not wearing a helmet, whereas he had to flip his up and gave me a bloody smile.  “It is good to see you, but what are you thinking leaving your teacher?”

The sensation rolled up to my neck and back to my hands, adding to the rune already forming.  Mathias raised his eyebrows as I made a funny expression.  Air expelled from my lung as the energy released into my blades.  I swung hard at the same time...they simply blew to pieces and continued to combust as they hit the ground...leaving no trace.  My jaw dropped and so did Mathias’s.

“That’s new!” he yelled as he began to engage new targets.

“I know.  It just happened.  A lot has happened today.”  I felt a twinge.  A lot truly had happened today.  My mind raced back to what cause all of this, and I thought at that moment that I had seen a lot of the horde coming as they darkened the skies.  The horde attacked the strange creatures with the tentacles for arms.  Their method of catching and killing was unique.  To round out the day and my getting swallowed and then finding the siege of heaven from the other side and seeing the horror that stood at its gates.  I did not know where to begin with him, so I started at the end. 

“Malnuras is dead or missing.”  I choked on the words.  This was painful in ways that I truly could not fathom at that moment.

“What?  What happened out there?”

“The same thing that happened in here happened to us out there.”  My flesh seared hot causing severe pain and I growled to quell it down.  It moved to my forehead.  The heat was intense.  My knees buckled for a moment, and then I realized this was the moment.  I did not want to look back today in regret.  My feet stayed strong and my arms continued to fight as this new rune formed.  I wanted to curse the timing of it but knew that events triggered the changes so I bit my tongue and kept swinging.  It must have been a few seconds of silence as we both continued to end daemon lives and move closer to the portal. 

How I even attempted before in training had to be my teacher's influence.  That day in that town where the daemon fled and Malnuras called me back.  It was puzzling.  I felt the rune near completion as my gifts adapted.  A voice chimed in my head, the duo of swords always spoke at the most in opportune time, but the wisdom was usually mind blowing.

"It was an illusion," they said.  The pieces finally fit now. 

"Huh!"  I said, rolling a few more heads.

"What did you say?"  Mathias barked.

"Nothing.  Just a realization."

“Can you close that thing?  It is a portal designed to penetrate into Earth and they managed to open it here.  How did they pull that off?” he asked, causing me to shoot him a quick look.  My head nodded slowly before the words came out.  I did not know why the answer was yes until I finished a double swing attack that cut even deeper into the ranks of the horde.  My new rune was the final piece of the puzzle that allowed me to do so, but I had no idea how.  As my blade rose and fell, I looked through my memory for the knowledge of how to approach the task ahead.  No sooner had the idea hit my mind...did I find it.  Just as fast as I could think it, the dark edges of the rift starting to destabilize like a flat piece of paper on a pond and a whirlpool formed beneath it.  Only the whirlpool was the rift and it started to fall in on itself near the edges.  Slowly at first, little rips in the fabric that held it open formed first and the hole simply got smaller as it folded in on itself. 

We kept fighting.  Daemons continued to crawl or fly out of the portal.  The flow did reduce significantly as the opening shrank.  It allowed me to get a better look beyond the opaque curtain.  To my surprise...my eyes adjusted to the dim light on the other side.  A huge winged daemon with a huge nasty sword gazed at me.  He was about twenty feet tall and was disgustingly muscled with what looked like pestilent flesh.  His skin festered with nasty wounds…vapor rose from them.  I could not even tell if there was a gender and almost did not care.  Huge horns adorned the head like a crown of bone that had blackened tips dripping some sort of fluid.  One large horn protruded from his head like a bastardized version of a Unicorn.  The huge wings looked leathery and incapable of sustaining flight, but I knew better.  They could fly with disproportionate wings.

It stood behind a rock pile.  A smaller daemon on all fours stood atop of some human.  Arcane like symbols were scratched and scrawled on the stones and gave off tremendous energy.  The smaller daemon fed on this poor soul.  Its toothy maw formed a smile dripping with blood as it looked up at me.  Blood ran from open wounds on the humanoid, down the rocks into pools that spread out from my vision from there.  A sudden shiver hit when I realized they were using blood magic to open this portal into the same plain, something not thought possible.  I lost sight of the ground as the portal got smaller and the burning sensation on my skin increased.  My energy flowed throughout my body towards the portal now.  I could see it plain as day.  It was still hard to maintain focus on memorizing what I saw.

I leveled my sword at the large daemon in a challenging gesture.  A garbled, throaty sounding voice hollered out one single word, “
Amduscias
.” and pointed to its own chest as if bragging its name to me as the portal closed.  The folding of the fabric became exponential as it fell in on itself, and within a few moments was gone with a small popping sound.  I stood there for a moment processing what just happened when a few daemons tried to attack me and but my protections repulsed them.  I turned my head and looked at them with what felt like a burning hatred.  They were no longer using themselves as a sacrifice to gain access to places.  How they found a way to do so and open a portal in Heaven, which God himself protected, was unfathomable. 

After thousands of years, a breach in Heaven’s walls finally happened. 

The small measure of achievement in closing my first portal dissipated as the memory of the humanoid haunted me.  The view of the poor soul on the rock pile clung to my heart, making it heavier than ever.  A hand on my shoulder pulled my thoughts back to the present.  I looked up and caught the smiling eyes of my master.  He extended his hand to me and shock took hold for a moment.  No one made such a gesture to me since before for I was a student of the two men in my life, not equal.  This was a gesture of respect.  I hesitated while looking at him, not realizing it was dead silent around me.

The tide turned.  With the portal’s closure, the larger, harder to kill daemons began to fall faster to the regular angels that now formed a ring around my master and me.  They crashed up the angelic host and broke while the power of heaven began to weaken the horde’s might.  With cries to the almighty they fell on the invaders with renewed vigor.

My master stared at me.  I took his hand and a deafening cheer erupted around me.  Voices from all around in one accord began to chant something that I did not realize was my name.  My eyes fell upon the faces of those on the wall fighting not for their lives but for the very existence of the promise of life after death.  I saw smiles that were beautiful and delicate, not just the warriors of heaven covered in daemon blood.  Just when I thought my shock was over, Mathias, still holding my hand, raised it up high and hollered something.

“The savior of Heaven!  The Defender has arrived.”  A host of angels all bent a knee, and silence followed.  Not even the fighting on the wall near or far was heard for a moment.  Thoughts escaped me.  Standing there with my hand raised by my master, I was speechless.  My mouth found no response as the angels began to rise still nodding and bowing to me.  I did the only thing I could think of and placed my fist over my heart like a salute in Roman time seen a hundred times in the fire pit.  Moments passed as those alive, behind the line of engagement, policed up the dead.  The battle pressed forward, sweeping the walls.  Angels reclaimed the skies, hunting the tens of thousands of fliers now trapped.  The energy weapons on the walls turned inwards; vaporizing them mid-flight as panic ensued. 

Watching the airborne carnage take place, my eyes caught the splendor of the city for the first time.  Surreal was the view as I stood overlooking the city.  It was true.  The towers and buildings were made of gold.  The light glinted off them like a rainbow when I realized that was the shield reflecting off them.  I walked to the edge, and a mile or so down, I could see the streets crowded with little dots.  They moved about their afterlife with no real concern, considering there was an invasion at hand. 

Time passed.  Angels thinned the horde.  They dropped down from the sky like the helicopter leaves from a tree back home.  They spiraled as they fell.  Many turned to ash, leaving a trail as their bodies broke apart.  The cities defenses, both angelic and arcane, completed their task.  Losses were staggering.  

“Not what you expected?” a familiar voice said.  I turned suddenly and was looking at a man that looked and sounded like Malnuras, but with a different demeanor.  He wore armor, but not like the angels on the wall.  His breastplate was made of cloth like mine and had pieces on his shoulders that looked as though they held the garments in place.  His bracers were gold, decorated with angelic symbols.  The decorated hilt of a sword peaked over his right shoulder.  I studied his features, amazed by how much he resembled Malnuras.  I felt a twinge, as if looking at my teacher, and bowed low.

“The wall is safe.  The portal is sealed,” I said, standing.  “I just got here a little bit ago, Teacher.  So many ha…”  He raised his hand as if to cut me off from speaking and turned away.  I knew that lesson so I fell silent and waited for further instructions.  He, however, did not speak; it was as if he was listening to something and was simply keeping me quiet so he could hear.  In silence we waited.  A few moments later he turned back to me.  Mathias stood at my side, silent as well.  He did not even appear as if he was in a battle because his armor did not have any daemon blood or bits on him.  He glowed.

“Tathlyn, your presence is appreciated and turned the tide in the city’s favor.  We have a situation that has come to our attention that we need to have rectified.”  He did not show much concern in his voice or expressions, but the words he used carried a lot of weight with me.  I stared at him and tried to get past the resemblance to Malnuras.

All I could say was, “Who are you?”  I felt a pressure from his gaze, unlike any other intense stare.  My mother used to give me that look when I was in trouble or when she really wanted me to focus.  This had something else to it.  Perhaps it was his resemblance.  Maybe it was his position, for he was obviously important.  He had a presence even bolder than my teacher and a commanding stature even more robust than Masters was.  It struck me perhaps they were brothers or maybe because they served Heaven that they came from the same family.  I did not know what to think, but I noticed he did not answer my question.  He just stared at me.  My unease grew a tad as his eyes bore into me.

“I do not have time to explain myself to you, Defender.  I need you to be somewhere now.  Do you not feel the matter pressing?”

He meant what he said.  No sooner did he speak the words and my energy surged.  It was the same feeling from before when I focused on finding my master.  The need to be somewhere else right away arose.  It hit me with such a strong feeling that I had a hard time focusing on his words.  His lips kept moving.  I had to play the words back mentally while he continued to speak.  He had said, “Malnuras is in trouble.”  That was all I needed to hear.

“You need to get out there and find him before it is too late.  No one else can do this, for the horde now has our scent.  It has access to so much more that this entire city will fall if you do not succeed.”  He looked into me so deeply it was as though he knew my thoughts.  Nothing felt sacred.  Malnuras had never done this.  I felt violated until memory reminded me of my oath.  My life and thoughts were not my own anymore.  I served Heaven.  Shrugging the feeling off, I dropped to a knee with head bowed.