Seer rising (The Haven chronicles book one)

Prologue:

  The night is still and silent, other than the sound of distant crickets chirping by a stream. Moonlight falls softly on an open field as a gentle, cool breeze rolls through the tall grass. It's the type of breeze that marks the end of summer and beginnings of the fall. The crickets became hushed as branches began breaking from the treeline of the near wood.

   A hooded figure runs onto the field from the nearby wood carrying something close to its chest. Beneath the moonlight, none of its features were visible but its bundles of long and curling blonde hair unfurling from the person's cloak. From behind the cloaked figure howls can be heard as a pack of wolves break from the tree line. The figure turns to their adversaries. There are four wolves in total but the creatures don't look like average wolves, more like nightmares. All the wolves has decaying flesh hanging from their bodies and one of them is missing an eye; maggots crawling within the socket. Each wolf has thick, yellow pus dripping from their matted maws like drool, all but one looked as if their stomach was collapsing in on itself; their bones and ribs jutting out beneath their patchy fur. These were once normal animals that must have died and were pulled back from death into their current gruesome forms. They weren’t wolves anymore, they had become hellhounds.

The hooded figure looks around, there was no where else to run. A frail cry comes from the figures arms. The figure removes her hood to show her face to the newborn baby she cradles in her arm. It's a boy -only few hours old- naked and cold, other than the woman's own body heat. She gives the poor child a thin lipped smile and looks back up at the hounds chomping their jaws as if they can already taste their prey between their teeth.

The hounds only pass back and forth by the tree line, not passing beneath the pure light of the moon. Knowing her time is running out, the woman attempts to calm the crying baby. She lays the child in the grass and slips a necklace around his neck, the chain alone is bigger than his body. At the end hangs a gold ring that shines beneath the moonlight, an engraving is scrawled on its inside. The ring might be the only thing to keep him alive until he can fight for himself.

Clouds drift over the moonlight and the hounds bay slightly closer to the woman and the baby. An acrid smell began to roll in from the woods, the smell of burning flesh and murder. It was his smell. Dark clouds of smoke and ash bellowed from the forest causing the trees to wither into piles of ash that added to the already massive wave that blanketed the grass in a rolling mass. Everything it touched died and it was like nature itself was screaming at the abominations touch. This was his weapon, the Ash.

The wolves paid it no attention, probably because both the ash and wolves served the same master. The ash parted and passed around the wolves, not touching a single piece of fur. Unlike the wolves, the ash didn’t stop at the moonlight more like it absorbed any light that it came in contact with. Inside the ash embers burned rustic vermillion. It might have been the moonlight playing tricks but it seemed as though there were faces inside the ash, pained looks of horror and agony splayed across their hollowed faces. The ash was truly an abomination in its own league, but even more so was its master.

He came from where the trees once stood just like his servants.His black curling hair was flecked with white soot and he only wore a pair a tattered shorts and the scarce remains of  a white shirt. Though he was immune to the Ash’s corrosive touch, his clothes were not. His tanned chest was covered in scars and muscles. As he came closer to the greatly receding circle of moonlight, a faint grin crawled across his face. That was his smile. His teeth were dazzling white, except for the tips which were a pinkish tinge. This was him, the man who killed thousands and added their bodies to that of his beast of a servant. The man who took pleasure in the screams of innocent and laughed at those who begged for mercy. He was the embodiment of murder and he was gorgeous.

Smiling lazily at the woman, he looked at either side of him to his gruesome servants and then at where the forest used to stand. He raised his arms and slumped his shoulders like a child saying oops. I didn’t mean it, though that smile never left his face. That was the same smile she had fallen in love with so, so many years ago. That smile and his eyes were her greatest weakness. They were a deep gray like storm clouds- or ash.

“Where else will you run, love,” he called, a gleam in his eye that hadn’t been there so many years ago. “All your servants, all your friends? Their bodies are just more fuel to my Ash. You have nowhere else to run or hide. Just give me the child and this can all be over. No more grief and sadness. No more pointless deaths and agony. We can finally set an end to this pointless game of cat and mouse. Just give me the child.”

Her heart thudded in her chest. The thought that this could all be over and no more deaths; that she could rest  almost got her to finally give up and let the baby go. But she knew better, as long as that gleam held in his eye, there would never be any rest and there would always be deaths.  “I won’t let you have him, his prophecy will come to pass and he will destroy you and your abomination.” She took one last look back at the child that would determine everything. The baby cooed in the grass oblivious to what was going on not ten feet away from him. She smiled, they were fucked.  With a sigh she turned back to the love of her life and his hideous monsters, arms outstretched to her sides. The air around her hummed with heat as her hands began to glow a pure white and the moonlight intensified. She began to whisper under her breath the language that only she knew for a spell so powerful it would probably be her last. But she was okay with that. This was to save the boy, to save the future. It was her last chance to make up for all the mistakes, all the things she allowed happen. She wouldn’t fail.

With a snap of his fingers, the man sent the ash hurtling towards the woman like a crushing wave. It was stopped abruptly where the last rays of moonlight burned pure as if it had hit a wall. The woman’s mane of hair began to gray then a shocking white. Heavy beads of sweats poured down from all over her and the moonlight grew brighter as her lips spoke the incantation.

That’s when he realized what she was doing, the spell she was casting. His smile fell away and unexplainable a look between anger, fear, and grief crossed his face. “Stop. Stop now! Do you really think you can win? Isadora, stop this now, give me the child!” The Ash threw itself against the new shield of light again and again trying to break through. Small cracks formed in the light but she was almost done, she could almost rest. The quicker she spoke the more her body began to burn, blood pouring from her nose. Her chest shook as her body convulsed with pain and effort. A tear rolled down her face. It was taking everything from her and more. Now the hounds joined in with the Ash and threw their bodies against the invisible wall, yet every time they touched the wall their undead flesh burned from the lights intensity. Cracks could be seen in the moonlight, like broken glass. More tears swelled in her eyes but she whispered on, her breath growing heated as her magic began to fill the air. “Isadora, you will die! Do you hear me, stop this now!” The ash slammed against the shield one last time and it shattered. Without hesitation both the Ash and hounds shot towards the woman who was now a being of white hot light. The monsters were so close she could feel the heat from the Ash. This would be the end. A wisp of a smile rested on her lips as the tears rolled down. It was done.

With a final verse and a clap of her hands, the woman was engulfed in pure moonlight that burned from the sky like a pillar of fire. The hellhounds disintegrated as soon as they came into contact with it’s bright intensity. The world was white, then nothing. Nothing but a man, the Ash, and the moonlight.