Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (79 page)

“You see what I see?” Lucian asked.

“It is impossible.”

“Yes, it is, but Galaglea is burning, and the fires grow stronger every second.” From the tops of the trees along the eastern ridge, not only was the sky orange and red above the city, but every so often tongues of actual flames licked upward; the fire was raging now.

Lucian shifted his gaze from the line of flame to the cabin, then to the hill above it. He winced. Shadows were coming, dust billowing, as riders wound down from the hillock. The roadway had only one possible destination, their father's cabin. Adrea and the child were there alone. Worse, these riders were not the blue cloaks of Galagleans, not even Daath—these were dark riders, as he had never seen, with night-black cloaks.

“Adrea,” he whispered, and without even waiting for a response from Antenor, sent his charger at top speed for the cabin.

Adrea sat across the room from the hearth, a broth of herbs and roots bubbling slowly. She had grown suddenly uneasy and had even searched through the windows of the cabin for Marcian's boys. Something was wrong; someone was coming, she was almost certain. She felt things at times; she was unsure of her powers, but certain now she felt danger. When Sandalaphon had brought her to Marcian, he had told her that she would be left with mixed memories of where she had come from and of the events that had brought her there. As well, he had given her a box. In the box, he had explained, was a ring and the day would come when she would know to open it. Until then, she was to keep it always sealed, never to even look on it, so that her memories were left uncertain and jumbled to hide her.

“There are hunters who will seek you, always, but unless you take the memories of this ring, they will not find you. However, a day will come when you have no choice, when for some reason or another, the warriors who seek you out will discover you. When that happens, open the box and touch your finger to the stone of the ring within. You will bleed with memories, and quickly both your powers, your skills as a spell binder and the knowledge of who you are, who your child is, will flood you. I pray in that moment, you are able to find the help you need.”

She glanced now at the box where it rested on a wooden dresser. Its edge was glowing, and she knew it was time. She needed to open it, to touch her finger to the stone; the days of hiding had ended. She suspected that it had begun when Marcian and his older boys were called away to Hericlon. Her memories were jumbled and confused, but she knew if Quietus was leaving for Hericlon with the legions of Galaglea, then time had grown thin. Someone was coming from the south, and she knew he came with dark and dread.

That night, the night Marcian left, she had wept bitterly when finally alone. She perhaps had never had a chance to love him, but she knew he loved her, deeply, and his sheer devotion and care had broken her heart when she realized that, of course, he would not return. The Enochian prophecies were unfolding like a rising blood moon, nothing wavering, just as foretold.

Whatever the Galagleans rode out to face, it would swallow them. Her knowledge of such things came in bits and pieces, but she was sure of it as she watched him ride away with his four sons.

After Marcian had left, the nights had become a terror for her. When the sun would start to go down, a far, whispering panic tingled, and she shivered with an unknown sadness, with thoughts of Loch, whose memory Sandalaphon had left with her. Though he had dulled these memories and the sadness that went with them he had somehow eased them, as well, as though she were drugged.

Oddly, Marcian's sons had been well trained and never questioned that he had brought back a girl who was nearly full term. Their father's business was his own, and they accepted her readily, though she found herself being treated more as a sister than as a mother, something for which she was thankful.

It was Marcian's youngest boy, Lucian, who had given her the greatest comfort. He was ten and six, and he was not ordinary. Adrea had always felt that a protector would come,
the knowing
in her always whispered it, but she thought it would be one like Sandalaphon. In the days after Marcian left, she came to realize that instead, her and the child's protector was to be this strange boy.

Once, the young, stocky Lucian had come to her and asked if he could speak to her alone before Antenor returned from the fields. She nodded that, of course, he could. At times he may have seemed slower mentally than the others, but that was just because he was so stocky, so large, and he looked far older than his ten and six years. At times, when she saw only his shadow, he was as large as a man, with broad, muscular shoulders. He had knelt beside the bed and spoke very carefully that day.

“I had a dream, and you should know of it,” he said. “I know that you understand magick, that you could spell bind if you had to.”

She started to speak, but he waved her off. “No denying, Adrea, you know magick. I have seen it in your eyes. In my dream I was told you are a queen. I know my father is not a king, and I am not sure I understand, but it was a strange dream and I could not question the things I saw, the things I now know. The child you bear, it is not Marcian's, I know that. My brothers do not, but I have learned through my dreams. Do not be angry with me and do not attempt to lie; I believe it is the light of the mothering star that speaks to me. I was told, as well, that when the child comes, I am to be its protector, both to protect you and him.”

“Lucian—” she began, but he waved her off.

“I know I am young, only ten and six, not the age of a warrior; however, long ago I was given something of my father, and now I understand its meaning.” He pointed to a crate in the corner of the cabin. “You should know that in that crate, wrapped in fine cloth, is the great axe of my grandfather, Moloch of Galaglea. Some weapons, just as people, are ordinary, but my grandfather was no common warrior and his axe grew stronger with each righteous kill he made. Each he made for the kingdom of heaven, and so many did he slay, so valiant did he defend the light and the peoples of the mountain, I believe with my soul that Elyon imbued his axe with power. And when he died, something of his strength was left within its blade. If Antenor were here, he would be shaking his head. He has always believed I am touched, but I think you understand the things I tell you. I have been touched, it is true; I was never ordinary, and this is why. All things for a reason, my father always told me that. My father also told me when I was young that he had been given to understand this axe was to be mine, that the time would come when I should take it out and that he would teach me how to use it. He is not with us, but I believe the sword itself can teach me, or so say my dreams. Does that sound strange to you?”

She did not know how to answer, but she shook her head. The dreams were a way the heavens spoke; it had been like that for Loch. She remembered that of him.

“I will speak of it no more, but I wanted you to understand, to know that it is me. I am the one that is sent. I know, as well, that just as the axe of Moloch is not ordinary, neither is the child in you. He will be born a savior.”

She shivered. “Did you just call him a savior?”

“Yes. It means one who will save. And three or four times, I have seen over the cottage silver eagles. They are his signet. All this is between you and me alone, but I know I am to protect him, to guard him all the days of my life.”

The son of Loch and Adrea was born on a hot afternoon, and she had borne him alone, sweating in the dark of her room, gripping the brass headboard with both hands until her knuckles grew white. The pain was severe and she believed there were times she had passed out, but when each surge came, she braced and tried not to scream. She did not want them hearing; they were boys and would only complicate things.

Near noon, lying naked in the shadows, streaked by the dusty light that slivered through cracks in the wallboards, delirious with the pain and weakness of pushing, she finally gave birth. She did not panic; she knew of birth, for she had been taught. There was a moment, just as the child came free, when the cabin was bathed in blinding light and she thought she was passing out again, but this time it was a different light. The child had been trying to cry, but it was covered with a pinkish covering, and was fighting for air against it. Seraphon had been born in a cowl. She quickly peeled away the tissue. Warm water soaked into the floorboards.

Afterward, as the brightness cooled, she could see beings, shadowy, ethereal, but there—watching, all around her. She did not move or try to touch them, but she did lift the child where they could see. They were beings of a choir, and she heard them naming him in the words of the seventh star, the choir of the fiery serpents, the Seraphim. He was born the seventh and last king of the Daath. In the scriptures of Enoch he was named the Arsayalalyur, who would come to answer the blood of innocents laid at the feet of the Fallen. The Earth would, in his day, be enveloped in the first apocalypse of men.

Once the linens were changed and the blood and afterbirth had been washed away, she put on a light cotton dress and sat in the coverlets watching him. There was much of Loch in the tiny face, but she could also see herself in the high cut of the cheekbone. Since Sandalaphon had brought her through time, Loch's memory had faded somewhat, the sadness dimmed almost as though by some drug, but that day she had seen a tiny cameo of him, molded in his features, letting her remember what he looked like, and through the child, she remembered also his love, how it reached through the aeons.

“We will find him, little one,” she whispered. “Somehow, we will find your father.”

He looked far more Daath than even Loch, and no one who had spent company with Daath would have guessed this child for a Galaglean—but Lucian and Antenor were young; they had never even so much as met a Daath or seen a newborn. Lucian knew the child was not his father's, but Antenor did not know to question it, even though the child's skin held a pale bluish tint. For the longest time his eyes burned with the tendril of the light of the mothering star.

“Will they always be this way—burning like this?” Lucian had asked.

“No, they will turn. It is heaven's light you see. The veil is open and as long as he remains a part of heaven, his eyes will glow with its knowledge. In a few days it should fade.”

“I will tell you the exact moment he was born,” Lucian said. They were gathered about her, having come back from the fields to find they had a brother.

“I was in the field and the sun was exactly mid-sky and that was when I saw the eagles. You did not see them, Antenor?”

“What eagles?”

“Silvered eagles—the purest silver, their wings were fantastic, they were the color of mercury. They came streaking out of the eastern clouds. Seven of them—seven exactly. They circled the cottage and then soared into the heavens. I can even tell you what they were.”

“Please do.”

“Messengers. Heralds. They came to honor him.”

“Do not worry of him, Adrea; he has always been touched. He talks to the horses, has given them all mythical names. Father is somber; I suppose he got it from Mother. She was filled, like him, with imaginings.”

“Say any more of my being ‘touched,' Antenor, and I will bloody your nose.”

“Let us ask Adrea; she is bright, smarter than anyone I have known. Adrea, do you believe silver eagles came out of the sky to celebrate the birth of … of …”

“Seraphon, his name is Seraphon.”

“Yes. So, do you? Came down from the heavens to honor Seraphon's coming as if he were born a king or a seer of some kind?”

Adrea paused. “I believe he is a very special child, Antenor—but all mothers believe that. As for the eagles—I was inside, birthing. I did not have time to study the skies.”

Antenor stared for a moment, then turned and shook his head at Lucian.

“There is more to this world than you think, Antenor,” Lucian proclaimed.