Prologue

The battle raged all around the Father. He stood calmly on a grass hill watching the chaos unfold. His court surrounded him: ten elderly priests dressed in gold-bordered black robes standing at his sides. Circling around the group were the priest’s Sword Bearers. Fully armored in battle-scarred chain and plate, they held large two-handed swords and moved around the priests, wearing down what looked to be a dirt moat in the grass. Dying soldiers were piling up a few feet away from the moat, the victims of the two-handed swords of the Sword Bearers. The Father remembered a time when these Sword Bearers were younger. They were all getting older, and it was becoming difficult for the Church to attract fresh recruits.

Not for the first time, the Father regretted that his own Sword Bearer was not with them. She had been the finest swordswoman and tactician the Church had seen in the last hundred years. Her passion and egoless service to the Church grew their numbers more than any of the Firsts before her. The Father knew that her sacrifice would guarantee the Church’s continued survival. The prophets had made that clear—as clear as anything the madmen and women shared. But even so, he wished for her guidance and leadership, and, he allowed himself to admit, her companionship.

The two armies clashed around the Father and he let thoughts of the First slip through his mind. He breathed deep and slow, trying to find calm, even as the excitement of battle threatened to overtake him. He heard the raspy breath of the other priests doing the same, preparing themselves for whatever the Father may ask of them. The battle had broken down to individual fights after the lines had met. Wedges of attacks made their way toward the Church’s priests and the Empress’s sorcerers, but none broke through. Both sides’ command was faltering, and it was difficult to see who had the upper hand.

The Father found solace in the chaos, accepting his part in the war and his hope for the salvation of those who fought it. He tried to remember that they fought for the greater purpose, that victory was all but his: “Sons of her blood will seal the empire’s fate.” He repeated the prophet’s words to himself, trying to wrap them around his sundered soul and taste their sweet promise.

The Empress’s soldiers were breaking through his lines more often, the Sword Bearers having to kill to protect the vulnerable priests. They were the last and only line. The Father knew his army would not hold without him. They were there to give him time, but in the end, these battles did not mean anything. The spiritual conflict always determined the outcome, and this time, the outcome would be as promised. A priest fell to the ground, an arrow piercing his black robe. The Father did not look to see who had fallen or move to offer any help. He banished the vision of the old man falling to the ground from his mind’s eye. It was too late to help him, and his death was only a distraction to the cause.

The Father began chanting quietly to himself, preparing for the rituals that would bring about the great fires of the heavens. He would ask no more of the priests than he was willing to risk. The energy filled the Father and he felt the heat rise up through his feet into his body. The energy he summoned was great, but not greater than he could handle with the proper concentration. He saw in his mind’s eye pillars of flame exploding throughout the battlefield, the soldiers caught in the pillars burning in blue balls of flame. A moment after seeing it in his mind’s eye, the flames exploded on the field. He tried to use the pillars to open holes in the Empress’s lines, but seeing much through the smoke and haze of battle was difficult, and he knew he sacrificed the Church’s faithful along with the Empress’s soldiers. Again, he thought of his Sword Bearer, he quiet commands whispered in his ear. His pillars exploding where she pointed, allowing the Church’s faithful to move like pawns on the chessboard to trap the Empress’s back row.

The Sword Bearers, still circling the priests, called out commands to the other priests. The priests called down their own pillars of fire, smaller than the Father’s pillars, but as effective and better controlled by their Sword Bearer’s commands. The Father allowed his two pillars to finish erupted and slowed his chanting, letting the energy dissipate through his feet into the earth. He knew the Sword Bearers would help their priests find advantages in the battle. For all their size, the Father knew his pillars would not affect the battle. He hated to think of how useless he had become, a magical font with no way to direct the powers to help the Church.

The Father felt the Empress’s sorcerers at work. She was not with them. This was a minor skirmish for them, but it meant survival for the Church. The Father prepared himself for their onslaught. He watched the Church’s faithful, hoping they would break through the defensive line around the sorcerers, but they did not.

Rain began falling across the fields. It was the angle of the falling that convinced the Father that this was their attack. The Father changed his chanting to answer the rain and the heat rising from the ground through his body summoned a great wind in his mind’s eye. He finished the forms and watched as the wind blew the rain across the middle of the battle. The rain ended stopped as abruptly as it began, and the Father with great reluctance dismissed the wind from his mind’s eye. The power required to control the weather was intense, and the energy that flowed up through the Father was sweet and enticing.

The Father lowered the cadence of his chanting and allowed himself a look around. The rain and wind had kicked up the dust and he could not see much beyond the hill. Three more priests were down. Two killed by the rain of arrows that followed the rain, and one, still alive, but wandering the hill in disbelief, her power burnt out when she called down more than she could handle. The Father would have liked to put her down, end her misery, but he could not take the time or waste the power. He pushed down the shivers that came with the thought of burning out, losing the companionship of the earth and its powers. Death was a sweeter companion than that thought. But still six priests stood around him, their Sword Bearers calling down death from the heavens for the priests to deliver.

“They’re coming through,” he heard a Sword Bearer yell. The Father watched as three Sword Bearers converged on the break in the line. They stayed far enough apart for their swords to fully arc in front of them, but moved in quickly, grabbing the dull sword block behind the hilt when the attackers got too close to fully swing their massive swords.

The Father changed his chanting until he drew up the energy to clear the attackers around him. He felt the edges of the hairs on his head begin to burn and smoke. The battle would end for him and end poorly if he did not do something quickly. The Father did not understand how the battle was going. He was unsure of whether to call for a retreat or push the army’s advantage. He wished a Sword Bearer would advise him, but they were busy keeping the area around the priests clear and focusing their attacks. The priests still summoned pillars of fire, unable to change their chants or refocus their energies. He should have spread out the priests, allowed their Sword Bearers to focus their energies on where the fighting was most intense and the most help was needed. But it was too late for to change his strategies.

He had gathered the priests on the hill for a reason. He wanted to use them as a conduit to focus all of their energies for a final strike if it was needed. It was risky, but he knew if things went badly, he would be left with little choice. If the Empress’s sorcerers were not killed, his magic would be wasted.

“On me,” the Father yelled, already beginning the chant to combine the energies the other priests would begin funneling toward him. The strike would have to be sudden and extreme. He could not let any sorcerer survive. They would be vulnerable after the strike, and if they were taken out, he left no hope for the Church’s army.

The Father felt the energy flowing through his bare feet up through his body. The heat was intense, and he felt the hairs along his body singe. As each priest channeled their energy toward the Father, he wound it around his body. He felt a static force forming around him. He kept up the chanting, directing the energies up and around him, no longer to contain so much energy in his body, the air around him became alive, until the energy flowed no longer just through him but through all the priests and all the Sword Bearers and all the fighters, Church and Empress’s, that were near the mound. He knew the hill must be glowing like a lighthouse to the Empress’s soldier, and he wondered for a moment whether they would prepare to counter or flee for the riposte. His thoughts were fleeting as every part of him concentrated to focus the energy, to bring it to bear and in line with his chanting.

He emptied his mind’s eye, not willing to focus the power on anything except building up the font, preparing a pool of power that he would in a fleeting thought. In his mind’s eye, he formed the battlefield, the positions of the battle between the armies raging. He could see clearly that the Empress’s army had the advantage, and the attacks on his hill were the result of this advantage. He saw the sorcerers preparing the final blow at the other side of the lines, pushing their advantage and ignoring the power he was building up. They were underestimating him and the other priests. They would not do that a second time.

When the power became almost too much for him to bear, he changed the picture in his mind’s eye and saw the rear lines of the Empress’s army explode in a wall of fire. The wall’s ends closed in on themselves and began encircling the Empress’s sorcerers. The Father allowed himself to feed all the energies he had collected and held close to his chest into the scene, he allowed his hatred and insecurity to float through the energies until there was no difference between who he was and what he saw. He heard his voice, now raw, chant the words that would control his will and make what he saw a reality and released the power. The earth trembled beneath his feet as the torrent of energy flowed through it, through the priests, and into the heavens before returning to feed the wall of fire that quickly encircled the sorcerers. He saw all of it unfold in his mind, the sorcerers, trapped in the blaze, altering their chanting to counteract what was happening, but it was too late. He released his vision on the world and with the explosion, he felt a momentary lapse in the battle, as if the soldiers on the field were taking in the spectacle and trying to figure out what it meant for their own small lives.

The Father knew something was wrong when his chant ended and the last tendril of energy bled through his feet and down into the earth. He heard the commands of the Sword Bearers directing the other priests to bring their magic to bear on the Empress’s fleeing army. But even knowing that his spell would mean the victory for Church, the pain of the release was too much to bear. He had felt something snap after completing it. He summoned the discipline of self-understanding and examined each part of his own connection to the earth. When he reached his legs, he saw what had snapped. He could no longer sense the magic of the earth. He did not remember beginning to wail but he felt his voice rip through his throat. He did not understand it. How could he have burnt out? How can he, son of the blood, the son of her Empress, how could he no longer have the power to seal her fate? He had been guaranteed victory not in this small skirmish, but in the larger war, in the downfall of the mother that had ordered him killed. Even the pain of his knowledge could not drown out the loss of the connection with the earth. A Father without a connection, no longer a priest, no longer a bane, all he wanted was for one of the other priests to take pity on him. But he knew they would have no time for it until after the battle. The Father fled the field, running down and away from the battle and the Church.

Word Count: 2,237

Words Remaining: 15,282

Feeling: Bleh. THAT WAS TERRIBLE. I was hoping this would take me out of my rut, but after spinning my wheels, the rut is deeper than ever. The end is in sight—at least the end of the count. I have to work toward wrapping this up. There’s much to work with, but I sit down to write when I’m tired, and I leave little time to think on what it is I will write. I’m throwing stuff down that I haven’t thought through. It shouldn’t surprise me why it’s so difficult. With but a few words of summary, how do I expect to understand all sides. Or it could be fatigue from my new job and the work it entails. I’ll fight through it until the number above is zero, I hope. As for climaxes and conclusions, at this point, I have no idea, and I’m not willing to hold my breath to find out either.