THE GUARDIANS OF LIGHT: BOOK 1
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Epic Fantasy, Novella
Gryphon’s Gate Publishing, August 2017
She can’t ignore the mystery he carries.
Other than being taller than the other village girls, Senia had never thought of herself as special, until a mysterious man stumbles into their village with a large bundle he protects with his life. Now something is calling to her, something so familiar it sings in her soul, something she can’t ignore… something that will change her life forever.
Ahrn was named after the most powerful of the gods, but he failed to protect his friends and brothers, the monks of Embreth. All he could save was the precious artifact they were carrying to St. Antin Abbey, their northern stronghold. And when a girl comes to claim that artifact, he finds his heart torn between the mortal woman who captivates him and the god he serves.
CHAPTER 1
Senia.
Again, her name was whispered on the wind.
She lay awake in darkness. Night deepening beyond her shuttered window. Sleep eluded her, as it had since she’d lain in her straw-stuffed bed that evening, as it had since she had first heard her name called quietly, urgently, barely more than a hushed breath next to her ear.
Come to me, Senia!
She sat up, sweat beading on her brow at the call. This call was much closer, louder, more pressing. She clutched her woolen covers to her neck, the fibers rough against her skin, and searched for any hidden figure. Only three faint lines of moonlight slipped through the slats of the shutters. Her eyes were keen, they always had been, and adjusted well to the black of night, yet she saw no one there. Only her small chest of drawers along the far wall across from her bed and the small night table next to her.
She shivered despite the comfortable warmth of the late spring night.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
Come to me, Senia… please. The call echoed, distant, like the footfalls of someone out on the street below her room, not at all as strong as it had been just a moment before. And there was something in the voice, a strained, hoarse quality as if the last call, so strong and clear, had cost it much.
Senia, terrified, trembling, but somehow curious and drawn, slipped from her bed. Every word, every sound, every breath of this voice resonated within her. She was a bell and it rang through her, beating at her. She couldn’t help but move.
She crept to the door of her room, the smooth worn wooden floor cold against her bare feet.
Her hand touched the latch before she realized she wore only a light linen shift, hanging loosely over her, cut at the knee. She looked over at her chest of drawers.
Senia.
The voice filled her, shook her. Chest forgotten, clothes forgotten, slippers left next to the bed, she slipped into the hall.
She had always been quiet, always able to move undetected. To her own ears, sharper than anyone else she knew, her footfalls were the barest of whispers on the planks of the upper hall. Having lived here since her parents had died, nearly twelve years before, she knew every board and every creak. She was no more than a mouse, scurrying through the corridor, past the rooms of her adopted parents and siblings, down the stairs to the shop and smithy below, and out onto the street.
The village lay still, the sky bursting with stars, the dirt of the road soft with evening moisture against her unshod soles.
It must have been late, for no one else walked the street. No drunks staggering home from The Silver Stag, no late night lovers. She looked to the wall around the village. Shadows moved slowly along the upper walk, pausing at length to lean on the rough timbres encircling the town. The fact that there were any guards up there at all spoke volumes of the unusual events of the previous day.
Senia, yes, come.
The voice was stronger. She was near. She knew not how she knew where to go, but she did, drawn, inspired.
She crossed the town, unseen, unheard, and found her hand on the latch of the door to The Silver Stag. Without hesitation, she opened the door and slipped inside.
The two large hearths of the tavern glowed faintly, the coals banked for the night. There was only one candle lit, standing in a holder next to the dozing form of Kamdon, the tavern keeper. Forms large and small slept on the long tables, unable to afford a room, or unable to stagger home.
The rough straw, thick over the dirt of the floor, trampled flat by so many, muffled her passing. No more than a shadow, she glided across the large room to the stairs in the back corner.
So close… I have waited so long… you cannot know how long.
She ascended the stairs, a puff of wind, and billowed down the upper hall to a room.
She stopped before the door, her breath still within her, uncertain and yet, completely at ease. There was something familiar about this voice. Was it her father’s, from beyond the grave? Maybe an uncle or sibling she had never known. She could not place it, and yet every fiber of her being knew it, responded to it.
“I’m here,” she whispered as she entered the room.
It was a simple tavern room, two beds, each with a chest at the foot, a small table under the shuttered window. There was a form on the one bed. In what little moonlight filtered through the closed window, she could make out the sprawled figure of a man. One line of light lit on his cheek, illuminating enough of his face for her to recognize him as the stranger who had staggered into the village late the previous day. He had worn an old cloak over leggings and a shirt, all the same uniform brown. He was young, perhaps only a year or two older than she, and he had carried a large and heavy bundle, something nearly as tall as he, wrapped many times over in rough cloth, which he’d clung to like a lover.
Senia, here.
It wasn’t the man who spoke, sleeping still. The voice came from the other bed, from the bundle of rough cloth.
Two strides of her long legs and she was at the bed. Sitting on the lumpy mattress, she reached for the bundle. Her heart raced, pounding within her breast, heaving with gulps of air.
A tentative touch. Her entire body rang like a bell, shuddering.
Take me, take me, I am yours Senia!
Frantic, unable to stop herself, she unwrapped the cloth with trembling hands. Swallowing a lump in her throat as the last shred of wool fell away, she saw that which called to her.
A sword.
But unlike any she had ever seen. The ones her adopted father worked on in the forge were an arm’s length of blade, this one was nearly as tall as she. The blade was thick, just wider than the palm of her hand, and sharpened on both sides with a groove running up the center traced with intricate scrollwork. The hilt was made for two large hands with room to spare, at least the length of her forearm, leather wrapped and well worn. The cross-guard and pommel were of thick metal, both delicately carved. The guard depicting roses engulfed in flames and the pommel was fashioned as the head of a hunting cat, proud and stern.
I am Emberthorn and I am yours, Senia.
The trembling in her hand ceased. She caressed the blade, guard, grip, and pommel.
“I… know you,” she said shaking her head, for she had never seen such a weapon before. The idea of this being her weapon was ridiculous, for though she was tall for a woman, and stronger than other girls her age from years helping in and around the forge, she would still never be able to lift such a massive weapon let alone wield it. “But… how…?”
The window!
Senia’s hand wrapped itself around the smooth leather ridges of the grip as her head tilted. A shutter was opening, a body slinking inside.
Her heart raced for the second time that evening as two eyes, gleaming in the faint light of the moon turned toward her. The figure was covered in black cloth, a mask covering hair and face save for the eyes. A knife appeared in a black-clad hand and a heartbeat later was spiraling through the air.
Time slowed, and in between the pounding beats of her heart, she watched the knife as it tumbled end over end inexorably toward her.
Then a flash, so quick and fierce it pierced time itself.
In the next moment, Senia found herself standing, the knife embedded deeply in the door to the room, Emberthorn held easily in her small, fine hands. How easily it had moved, so quickly, knocking the knife from the air.
The landing of the knife woke the man in bed.
For the next set of heartbeats, the room was silent and still as the assassin, girl, and man each absorbed the impossible made real.
You see, I was meant for you, Emberthorn said, the words echoing in her head accompanied by what sounded like purring.
The man in the bed was up in a heartbeat and a swift high kick sent the still stunned assassin tumbling back out of the window. He turned to her then.
“Who are…?”
“Behind you,” she cut him off as another form filled the window.
The man spun another kick, his foot captured by the attacker in black. The assailant threw the foot up and away, but the man simply flipped himself around with it, landing on the same foot before launching himself bodily at the man in the window, both disappearing down out of sight.
Follow!
And without thinking, she did.
Light quick steps, a hop to the table below the window, then out in the night air. Emberthorn moved with her, as one. Flashing out to the side as she tucked around, spinning forward, then reversing in her grip as she righted. She thrust downward, slicing into the ground, and somehow this slowed her so she touched down lightly.
Exhilarated, blood rising, her hair wild around her as it settled, she plucked the sword from the ground, and spun it upright, stalking toward the fight already under way.
The stranger from the room above, though he had no weapon, fought like nothing she had ever seen before. He kept at bay seven men in black though they carried knives and swords and he had but his bare palms. One other dark figure lay splayed awkwardly in the dirt.
Battle! Emberthorn cried, filling her with ecstasy.
A stroke, wide and smooth, and two men were down.
The others backed away quickly, terror in their eyes.
“I am whole again. Feel my wrath.” The words were Emerthorn’s, but it had been her lips that had whispered them.
No! She screamed at the blood-lusted blade. But though she could feel, could think, could understand the death she had caused, she wasn’t in control.
The stranger tackled one of the attackers, hands deftly redirecting the assassin’s knife, before springing away lightly to land on the other side. The knife embedded in the assailant’s black-clad chest.
From eight to four, the attackers’ numbers had dropped too quickly. They fled.
Like nothing more than the darts her father threw at the board in his forge, Senia released Emberthorn in a side-long toss. The blade turned as it spun and cut down two more of the fleeing forms before spinning impossibly back to her hands.
“I am alive again!” She bellowed his words, feeling only its rush of exhilaration.
Emberthorn, please! Stop.
What?
I want my body back, I… please… release me.
Oh! Right… Sorry.
She fell to her knees on the soft earth of the street, weeping, stomach churning at the easy violence she had committed.