Guardian_The Sanyare Chronicles Companion Novella, page 1
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Blank Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Blank Page
Free Short Story
Review Request
Sanyare: The Winter Warrior
Acknowledgments
Author Bio
Copyright © 2018 Megan Haskell
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced in any form or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations used in book reviews or certain other noncommercial uses as permitted by copyright law.
Cover Designed by Deranged Doctor Design (http://www.derangeddoctordesign.com/)
Edited by Katie McCoach and Kimberly Peticolas
Published by Trabuco Ridge Press
CHAPTER ONE
A voice screamed through Judith’s mental pathways, a deafening shockwave of panic and pain. Her eyes snapped open, her senses awake and alert.
All available level two guardians and shepherds, alert, alert! A breach has opened in Hollows North! Repeat, a breach has opened in Hollows North. Make haste!
A breach? In Hollows North? How was that even possible?
With deft fingers, Judith hurried to strap on the custom armor and enchanted great sword she’d been issued when she entered the level two choir. She wouldn’t know anything until she got to Hollows North, and she’d have to fly fast to make it there in time. The archangels wouldn’t wait.
Hidden in the deepest caves of the Wasteland canyons, Hollows North was the last chance of redemption for the wicked souls of the Human Realm. A rehabilitation center of sorts, the horde housed within the cavern was the worst humankind had to offer. Or very nearly—Hollows South held the truly irredeemable.
If the souls of the wicked escaped their prison and possessed the bodies of the living, they could destroy the weave of fate. And if the Moirai lost control of the weave…Chaos would come. The god of entropy would have nothing to stop him from destroying the mortal realms.
Judith flexed her wings between the straps of her breastplate, ensuring freedom of movement. Silver metal gleamed. Offduty or not, a breach was an emergency that required every available hand and sword.
Selfishly, she thought it was also a chance to prove herself ready for promotion to level three and join the choir of counselors. It was now or never—there might not be another opportunity for a thousand years.
A niggling sense of shame wormed its way into her heart. Angels were born to serve in one capacity or another. Ambition wasn’t punished, but it wasn’t exactly encouraged either.
Blowing out a swift breath, Judith let go of the traitorous thoughts. She launched herself off the aerie ledge to join several dozen angels as they dove for the Wastelands thousands of feet below. The wind rushed through her hair and feathers, her heart rate sped as the dry, desiccated ground neared. Snapping her wings out at the last second, Judith veered to avoid a rocky cliff, then flew a circuitous route through the canyons at speed.
A grin broke across her face. She wasn’t the strongest of the guardians, but she was amongst the fastest and most agile. She hadn’t flown like this in years, hadn’t needed to since the first level training races. She hadn’t realized she’d missed it in her seemingly endless days of guarding the paradise islands and the peaceful souls of the deserving.
Dodging beneath a low overhang, Judith swung her feet down to land hard on the ground in a crouch. Wings wide, her hand touched earth to stabilize and halt forward movement. She lifted her head. Thuds and sliding sand announced the arrival of the rest of the flight of angels behind her.
The entrance to Hollows North was a narrow crack between two boulders. Beyond lay the antechamber of Cerberus, the three-headed hellhound whose fangs dripped venom and whose fur writhed with snakes. He and his offspring were the vigilant guards of the wicked and would tear apart any soul who tried to escape. In fact, hellhound venom was the key ingredient in the enchantments placed on the soul-destroying weapons of the guardians. Without them, all souls would break loose.
The hellhounds weren’t in position.
Like a slap to the face, the shock of their absence sent Judith’s mind reeling. It was unheard of. There was only one place they could be: inside the cavern, sending the wicked to their final death. It made sense of course, but she hadn’t considered the ramifications of a breach until that moment.
Judith swallowed, preparing for the battle that was to come. These souls were supposed to have one final chance at life, an opportunity to side with virtue instead of vice. Instead, Cerberus’ venom and the guardians’ swords would deny them that chance. Those that fell would be returned to the nothing. She’d never witnessed the final death of a soul before, and had hoped she never would. Hope would be denied.
A chilling howl echoed from the tunnels. Judith rushed down the path, her wings clenched tightly to her back. The rock walls encroached, dimly lit by the emergency torches spaced at long intervals in the passage. The tunnel was narrow and twisted, allowing only one angel to proceed at a time.
A head shorter than most of her kind, the brown wings in front of her were all Judith could see. She had no idea what they were walking into. But the hellhounds’ growls and hissing snarls, and the snap and crack of whips convinced her that whatever was happening, the souls were winning.
Or at least, not losing.
Archangel Michael held up a hand, just visible above the crowd. Judith felt herself leaning forward with the rest of the angels, anxious to hear what the greatest of them had to say.
“Spread out. Try to flank them, push them away from the void. Gabriel and I will close the breach while the rest of you keep them from passing through.”
Not profound, but practical. Judith knew how to take orders. She followed Gabriel in the path to the left along with about half of the assembled flight. The rest followed Michael to the right. With their backs pressed to the wall, they waited to engage until they had the strongest possible position.
The souls hadn’t noticed the angels behind them, their attention riveted on the breach between worlds. They desired one thing, and one thing only: a new body, and they’d do anything to claim one.
One by one, in slow progression, the souls slid through the gap, their incorporeal bodies squeezing and shifting to accommodate the sliver of space-time between the realms. A dozen lanky four-legged arachnia-daemons with enchanted flails weren’t enough to keep them back.
“Where does it lead?” Judith asked Asher, the brown-winged angel she’d run in with. He was a high-level sorter. He should have a better idea of the problem they faced.
Disdain curled his lip. “The Human Realm.”
Gods above . . . the humans had no protection against possession. They would be easy targets for these souls who had succumbed to the darkest emotions.
The wicked swarmed forward, groaning their torment as they twined together and apart. The hellhounds snapped their teeth. Three of them guarded this cave, each with three heads. Nine maws filled with venom-coated fangs tore at the souls that ventured too near. A woman’s soul screamed as a hound shredded her existence, sending her back to the nothing from which all of creation was born. Yet still, the plasma that shaped her remembered form reached for the freedom of the gate.
Judith couldn’t watch as the soul disintegrated, burning away to ash on the wind. A sob caught in her throat.
Did the woman deserve that final death?
Did it matter?
“Charge!”
Judith hesitated, instincts screaming. Her sword would do the same as Cerberus’ teeth. Could she end an existence?
Asher lunged forward, gleefully swinging into the souls in front of him. His sword slid through the ectoplasm of the incorporeal forms with a sucking gasp.
Judith cringed, her heart recoiling at the other angel’s eagerness. Every fiber of her being protested the necessary death.
Guardians were the protectors of the souls, but also the last defense of the nine realms. No matter the cost, a breach must be closed. It was a rule that had been drilled into her from her first days in the choir. She had been trained for this. Eager or not, it was her chance to prove her worth.
Setting her shoulders against the impending slaughter, Judith gripped the great sword with both hands and swung. The poisoned metal sliced through plasma. The soul before her screamed its agony, incorporeal eyes wide and panicked as its essence was stripped away. Clenching her teeth, Judith pulled the sword back and struck again. This time, she pierced the core of the soul. Its scream was silenced. The gauzy white material faded away.
Judith rubbed away an errant tear that threatened to fall. She had more work to do.
Insubstantial though they seemed, the material that formed the soul was a physical construct. It shaped itself to the thoughts and memories of its living body, but it could also bend and reshape itself into a form of its own choosing. Here in the Daemon Realm, free will took on a whole new meaning.
Such as the soul that now coiled itself in front of Judith like a cobra ready to strike. That is, if a cobra had five thorn-encrusted tails and a mouth full of fangs. The thing’s head dodged backward as Judith lunged forward, two of its tails sweeping out to lash her bare arms. Plasma spines scraped across her skin, leaving a tracery of lines from elbow to wrist, but the soul couldn’t gain purchase. Not in a guardian.
Judith spun, bringing her sword around for another try at the soul’s head. If she could strike a blow to the center mass, the plasma would burn away on the breeze. But the form this soul had chosen gave little room for error. The tentacles swept away, avoiding the blade, while the head taunted Judith from three feet above.
The soul flicked three of its tails in Judith’s direction. Judith brought her sword up in a diagonal slice. Two tentacles fell away on the wind, but the last struck the plate covering her chest. Stumbling backward from the force of the blow, Judith nearly lost her balance. Only a quick extension of her wings kept her on her feet.
Even less human now than before, the soul’s remembered face pulled back in a snarl. The skin, if you could call it that, hollowed out between remembered bones, as if the soul decayed the way its physical body once had. Teeth grew into four-inch fangs. The ghastly apparition lunged forward. Sense was gone.
Judith ducked as the soul charged toward her. Sword pointed to the sky, she sliced the creature in two as it sailed overhead. The white mist of destroyed plasma rained down around her and disappeared.
There was no chance to catch her breath. Two more souls plunged toward her, taking their comrade’s place. Four more behind them. Still more behind them.
Grunts and shouts, groaning wails, cracking whips and the crackle of flames. The sounds of battle between the guardians and their charges. Thought ceased. One action flowed into the next, each swing tearing into the horde. There was no room for empathy, no time for compassion. Everything boiled down to one pressing goal: close the breach.
Michael and Gabriel moved behind the daemon shepherds, to stand near the rent between worlds, but the daemons struggled to keep the souls from entering the void. The horde had become a cloud of thick white fog, obscuring the area completely. If the souls continued to pass through the unauthorized portal, they would destroy any progress the archangels made toward its closure.
Forcing her way through the crowd, Judith once again found herself shoulder to shoulder with Asher. He wasn’t a combat guardian, yet he fought with profound skill and fierce glee. Judith could almost think that he was enjoying the destruction of the wicked souls in their care.
An angel shouldn’t feel joy at the ultimate end of an existence.
Sword swinging in broad strokes, she had no time to analyze her wariness. She could only do her job and give Michael the room he needed to fix this problem.
Soon, another angel joined them. And another. Combined with the daemon shepherds and their flaming whips, a cordon around the breach was created, the souls kept back.
Michael and Gabriel lifted their hands to the pulsing gap in space-time. A burning orb of light built between their palms, a physical construct of the force of their will. They would shove the ball into the gap, where it would explode to seal the veil and close the portal. The white-hot sphere grew larger, and larger still.
The souls pressed forward, as if they knew their chance at escape was about to close. The remembered form of a woman slid forward, pushed by the horde behind her. Her gaze darted between the gap in the veil and the weapons of the guardians. Wide eyes met Judith’s gaze. Panic and desire warred for dominance.
“Help me,” the woman moaned, her eyes pleading. Her form braced against the souls behind her, but it did little good. The others pressed forward, jumping and lunging against the snapping and slicing barrier the guardians had built with enchanted weapons, struggling to reach the breach.
Judith paused, her sword hesitated. Less than a length away, she could see the fear in the soul’s eyes. She wasn’t trying to escape, she was being pushed. Judith’s sword dipped.
The woman’s fear shifted to devious glee. She grinned, her incorporeal teeth bared. Jumped. Her body arrowed forward like a bolt from a crossbow.
Judith’s sword lifted, too slow. Her eyes widened even as she shouted a warning, too late. The soul shot past Judith’s head with enough speed to blow the loose hair around her face. She was going to break through.
Michael and Gabriel leaned back, braced themselves to shove the orb into the space between realms.
The woman’s soul curled around the orb and through the breach. Caught off guard in the precarious moment of transition, the orb wobbled and fell from the archangels’ hands.
Everyone down!
The world exploded in white light and a reverberating boom shook the rock, raining gravel and stone around them.
Judith clapped her hands over her ears.
CHAPTER TWO
Someone shook her arm. Judith’s eyes opened. Asher’s lips moved. Silence reigned oppressive.
I can’t hear you. Judith thought at Asher.
Nothing registered in his eyes, though the slash of downturned eyebrows suggested he might not be interested in hearing what she had to say anyway. Spittle flew from his lips as words spewed from his mouth. Words Judith still couldn’t hear or understand.
I can’t hear you.
Nothing. Her inner ear was completely dead.
Judith turned her head. She lay on the dirt floor of the vast cavern of Hollows North. A half-dozen daemons half-heartedly flailed their whips, herding the wicked souls to the far side of the room, away from the guardians who were still recuperating from the blast.
It was gone. How it had been achieved, Judith didn’t know, but the gap in space-time had been sealed and the souls no longer felt the frenzied pull of the mortal realm. They complied with the daemon orders and moved across the space without protest.
Meanwhile, Michael and Gabriel stood peering at the space where the breach had been. Though covered in stone dust and debris, both archangels appeared uninjured. At least Judith’s mistake hadn’t cost any lives.
Asher shook her again, drawing her attention back to his face. His lips moved. She tried to understand what he was saying, but no sound made it through her damaged eardrums. She shook her head, pointing to her ears. Asher gave an exaggerated heave of his shoulders, and rolled his eyes. He pulled her to her feet, then shoved her sword into her hands with enough force to have her staggering backward. It took three tries, but Judith sheathed the blade, and stumbled after him out of the Hollows.
Keeping one hand on the wall, Judith struggled to regain her balance. The walls and floor seemed to keep shifting beneath her. Her head felt stuffed with fine wool. Something wet and warm trickled down the side of her face. Putting a hand to the spot, her fingers came away red. No time to stop. Asher was already out of sight.
Finally, she made it out of the dark tunnels and into the light. It stung her eyes, but she lifted her face to the sky anyway, appreciating the warmth and the feeling of open air around her. A few more angels stumbled out after her.
Asher grabbed her by the shoulders. Judith snapped to attention and regretted it immediately as she nearly fell over. He pointed to his lips. Healer, he mouthed, lip curled in a disdainful snarl. Judith nodded her understanding. She would fly to the healing center in the paradise guardian headquarters. Baruch would be able to fix her.
As soon as his hands released her, Judith took two stumbling steps forward. Wings spread. Wobbled. The tip of her left wing brushed the ground. Righting herself, she jogged forward to catch the air. Flapped once. Twice. And was airborne. Dipping and dodging in an irregular pattern, Judith was sure she looked intoxicated, but Asher played the escort, angry annoyance broadcast with every beat of his wings.
She couldn’t blame him. She had been the weak link in the fence around the breach. She had hesitated, and the end result had been a near catastrophic explosion of focused will. When the others heard the story, she was sure to be blamed for the failure. Yet somehow, the breach had still been sealed. Perhaps the escaped souls had already been returned as well. If she were lucky, the end result would outweigh her mistake.
