Prologue I: The Wolf
Surrounded and lost in a barren land, a wolf lies on silver, darting and biting at the skin of his enemies. Blindly, he struggles, cursing the empty heavens and his lost lady who shields herself continually from his sight. The moon…how he longs for her. But she is gone.
He is the hunted now and the world, his hunter.
Everything so silent. The snow…the air…the world halting in its play, watching him…toying with him… suddenly caught by the tempting gleam of cruelty reflected in his vacant eye. His torn eye caught in the wind, weathered by stone and shattered skin. They are one and the same. The lady, the hunted, and the hunter. The moon, the wolf, and the world.
All are forsaken.
...o...o...o...
872 A.D.
Exhausted, the lycan dropped to the snow, his breath coming out in a haggard rush, fingers slipping, blood coating his tongue, desperately trying to hold the ruined half of his face together. A single flare of memory. Fire…coals…the brand of Amelia searing into his eye. He had screamed. Yet still, he could hear her…the sound of this child crying beside him. Feeling her shaking hand on his arm…and sucking the frozen air back into his lungs, he forced himself to rise.
Such pain…
The sound of wolves howling in the distance…and dogs.
Many dogs…
"They're coming…" he murmured brokenly, his one eye masked in darkness. The other layered in greys and whites. The black of blood on his fingers. The tint of ice caught in a single iris.
"W-wait…" the girl whispered. She was shivering from the cold, kneeling beside him, her body worn and laced with exhaustion. Small fingers gripping his coat…her voice weak and caught in the unnatural fear of one who had seen Death, but had never known it would see her in return. He knew she was going to die soon. A silver bolt lodged through her left arm…and no time to remove it.
"There is time…" He growled, stubbornly pushing her fingers aside, grimacing as he forced his back against the frozen rock face behind them. Lifting his nose to the air around him. The scent cold…but the blood of their trail. Wind on his side. A draft. Had to keep moving…had to find a way out. One hand clutched about the sword hilt, ignoring the agony of his shredded face, he wrenched the girl to her feet with his other arm.
But she would not have it.
And he could no longer carry her.
Snarling, he fell to the rock face again, unable to lift the dead weight. Unable to force her after so many weeks of running. She had followed him day and night since the coming of Amelia and now the child would not have it. Merciless…a being of cruel winter death…dissolving before him into the shivering lycan pup she still was. Seventeen years old. The shadows on her face. Quiet…cold…and afraid…
…he swallowed, the anger melting away as he gripped her hand. His voice one of love…
"…I…I will stay with you…" he whispered.
"No…" She said softly, her words faltering beneath the storm, her body curling beside the funeral mound…tired of running from death. Numbness traveling quickly through the silver bolt…her fingers already lying dead against the stone. She would lose the arm. She was dying. But he did not want her to die. Soon, the glint of gold would be gone from her eyes…
The glint…
He could see colour.
Realizing too late, he shifted round …snarling as flames surrounded them. A circle of vampires...an army of mounted creatures wielding curved blades and the sinister crossbows of the new age. At the fore…her lips twisting coldly as she stared at their frozen forms…
…Amelia.
They had been cornered the entire time, his crippled senses fooled by agony and the scent of his own blood. The dogs…no longer howling in the distance…but snarling before them, their thirst heightened by the red dripping from his gaping wounds. He had dragged the girl here…but why? The pain affecting his thoughts…
From afar, he heard the coven mistress speak, calm and powerful. "You know your crimes."
… crimes?
His memories…
…broken.
His one eye still darted…trying to comprehend why he had led them to the old mound. His head whipped to the dark crevice gaping in the ground behind them. A draft. Wolves howling in the distance. He must beg…for the sake of the girl, he must beg upon this witch.
"I beg you, Amelia, leave the child. She is innocent…you cannot…"
But she could…
The words seared into his head as surely as the fire burned into his eye…
"Urith, daughter of Seule, you are cast out." She spat the words at the child at his feet…as if she could banish the hatred with bile from her tongue. "Abomination to Blood and the Brotherhood which gave you your name. Henceforth you are stripped of your role as Seeker. Your line is cut." Raising an outstretched palm, she turned to the mounted warriors on either side, gesturing towards the hunted prey. "For all who witness under my rule...this one is dead to this noble coven and the cup which holds our blood." Amelia leaned forward, hissing the final words through a glint of fangs. "May your veins seal. The blood of your clan on the creatures that reign below."
The blood of his clan…
… the pain of his loss…
They had already buried Gode…in secret…in the night…
…and now, he would lose Urith…
…no.
No!
Unheard to the warriors around him, the Wolf-seeker groaned suddenly, squinting through memory as the unseen threads of time took him by force…strands of silver brushing his face, so crusted with gore and mingling with blood as he began to howl. The name ringing silently as he cried out to his dead brother. Leuric. Drawing upon that which had first brought him to this forsaken land. Leuric. Staring into Amelia's eyes and wrenching that Sight which must be his in this final hour.
Leuric, my brother.
Aid me. Aid me, brother…
The world slowed…
For the first time since the death of his twin…he saw the world as it was meant to be.
Horses pawed the ground dangerously, slowly as the snow falling dimly in the light. Eyelashes flicking, blood dripping quickly from his skull. Tears stained in red. The wind was at his side…the darkness from below. The scent of forbidden wolves…silver…and frost. The child at his side…Her fingers cold against the stony, dark crevice. Whimpering and afraid of the dark…
Not enough strength to move either of them.
Only to watch. There was more to see…
…he needed to see more.
Growling, the lycan wrenched the Foresight into his hands and quickened the pace, pressing the vision onwards and forcing it to go beyond.
Beyond…
Quickly, the world flashed through the scene before him, running from the prey and keeping time with its own rhythm. The horses now rushing against the ground, galloping in one spot, their dark riders moving in awkward silence, bodies jerking and jolting as if their raised weapons could compete with the speed of…
…wolves.
In his mind, he darted to the left…
…and shuddered as unseen bolts pierced his body, each one digging out a grave before dissolving into the redness of time. The child was riddled with silver. Her neck and back starting to seize and arch as she passed from the land of the living. He blinked.
Not left then.
Furiously, he replayed the scene in his mind…memorizing the layout of the execution, wary of any bolts aimed carefully for those prisoners who were quick on their feet. Dogs tearing into their bodies. Horses hurtling forward to trample what little remained.
No more. He could see no more.
The Foresight ended.
Abruptly, the world returned to its proper tempo.
Only a second had passed.
Still gripping the shreds of his face, the lycan shook his head at the sudden stillness…the shock of stirring to a world only moments from the future he had seen…focusing on anything that might keep him from betraying his stolen vision. Events could still change. Think on the cold…anger…pain. Focus on the pain. Growling again, he managed to raise his body from the ground, kneeling upon the rock face before those who had conquered him. Exhaustion upon his frame, broken. The bitter cold seeping into his knees as he snarled.
Readying himself for that which had to come…
"The blood of your clan on the creatures that reign below," the vampire warriors intoned, their voices stony and harsh in unison. The final execution rite.
Soon…
Blindly, he searched for the hand beside him…dragging the girl closer as he wrapped his arm around her once more, hugging her body close to his frozen armour. They would not take this final one. They would not have her! His breath started to slow. The vampires closed in upon them, their vicious dogs yapping and howling at the mound and the tomb where Amelia wanted to throw their empty and battered bodies.
…but not yet.
Already he could feel it. The moment Leuric had gifted him with. Adrenaline. Colours shifting themselves around his form as his heart began to quicken. The light was so beautiful. The blood rushing through his veins, poised on the point of flight. Not yet... A shift along his knees as they raised their weapons, each crossbow in perfect synchronization. Firelight glinting off silver…
The light was so beautiful…
"I will be your eyes…" he whispered fiercely at the girl…
"Fire!"
They dropped.
Free-falling into the dark crevice of the funeral mound behind them, bolts flying past their battered bodies…slicing through earth and stone…leaving nothing behind as they plunged into the darkness of wolves howling in the distance below.
The Wolf flees the stone.
The Dog loss of bone.
The Raven dead.
The Lark alone.
All are forsaken.