Chapter Three/Revival

Silence. The symbolization of utter lifelessness. Silence was what made my skin crawl that day, but the fact that I would not be able to prepare myself for any kind of shock, any kind of surprise... it gave the enemy the upper hand in this battle. I don’t even think this cross could do me much good against so many of them, especially if Bardeleke’s prediction of their objective was to be correct. If they wanted me, not the tomes, this mission would be more dangerous than I could perceive. With luck, I would not be their target, but with my luck... I doubted anything good would come from this act of bravery.

Bravery was not something to be delighted about. It was not about defeating fear and overcoming the odds. Most of the time, it meant accepting the fear and endlessly battling the odds. Even the bravest man in the world had a chill rushing through his spine when he tried to be a hero. The praise that is given to a hero is from the fear they have accepted, masked by the actions that fear has caused. But what could my fear cause? Endlessly I resented these Revenants, these unholy creatures lurking in the dark, and I wanted to burn them alive, watch them die, make absolute sure they were all eradicated. Were my desires the same as those of other heroes, those of other brave men? For that matter, was this act of bravery strong enough to be compared to those of other men? Only the people of Alecnah could decide.

The night in this place was cold under the cloud covered moonlight. I felt the chill of monsters behind me as my leather armor occasionally made a squeaking noise. I still heard Bardeleke shouting commands to the guards. “Get on that corner of the building, Allron! Stand over by that statue, Ewwaur!” His voice was the only familiarity, the only comfort, I had, and Alecnah was so vast that Bardeleke, too, would soon fade into the distance.

Trying to understand the concept of Necromancy without being a Necromancer was something said to be impossible, and I was given just that task. Those tomes of Necromancy I illegally carried were of utmost importance. Figuring out the way a Necromancer works is the key to defeating one because no one outside of their group truly knows how to use any dark magic, or more importantly, how to counteract the dark arts. Those tomes were my only lead on this man, so I prayed to God that they held useful information. If they did not, I guess I would just look to the ends of the earth for him, til my death I might have to. Well, if I survived this encounter, that is.

The library was a short run for me, so this seemed to be as easy a raid as any other, yet somehow... something wasn’t quite right. All the raids I had stopped in the past were in the summer months. The Council of Magic reviewed this as a psychological anomaly, something unexplainable going on within the Necromancer’s mind. But then why would he attack this village in the winter? The only thing that came to mind was that these beings were doing this of their own free will, but would a Necromancer dare to let the Revenants loose? Only a fool would do such a thing.

I heard a roar, a cry from one of the Revenants. Suddenly, more growls struck my ears from every direction, close to illegible. The beings were helpless, their voices scratched, their souls taken from them. I was too empathetic to be a knight. It was always hard killing them after I lost Heraclio, a man who once was my commanding officer. My pity for the dead’s belongings drove my mind from the task at hand, and surprisingly, I have not died yet.

More screams, more roars, and more pained sounds as I made my way past the farm houses lining the city’s tall stone wall. Fire spread from the wood stoves, and through the windows I could see the flames, even shapes of some of the Revenants still devouring human flesh. I shivered at the thought of the children who could not run fast enough, the fathers who gave their lives holding off the army of undead warriors. Finding myself stalled, staring into a house, I shook my head and began to walk forward once more. Concentrate, I thought.

Finally, in my fast walk, I caught sight of one of those ravenous beasts. They stumbled from an alley about one hundred feet in front of me, growling and grumbling. Stopping in my tracks, the Revenant looked at me, eyes open, jaw dropped and hungry. The monster smiled at me, a smirk of pure evil. I sheathed my sword, realizing its apparent uselessness. I’ve recited the Elemental Magic Language enough that I can test my power. “Yerki Tarr!” I bellowed. The words Yerki Tarr were the words used to take control of the element of Earth, and the way Warlocks use the elements is simple, but effective.

There has to be a source for the element, whether it is the ocean, a desert, a camp fire, or the air. In this case, I use my feet to connect my physical body to the earth below me, closing my eyes, clearing my mind of all things urgent. When I have reached a state of serenity, my body senses the landscape around me, almost as if the earth is speaking to me. I view the landscape around me by using my own mind to imagine what the earth is showing me, and the earth corrects me in my faults. It’s an odd process, indeed, but the concept comes quickly to those who listen to the elements.

I shut my eyes tight, beginning to feel the connection I had with the earth, thinking not of my enemies all around me. We began to bond, I could feel the soul of the earth connecting to me, and finally, I had a picture. I knew all that went on around me, from the undead men scrambling toward me to the church hundreds of feet away.

When the image of the environment around me was developed, I was given complete control of the movement of the earth around me. I was not the best Warlock, so the radius of the image, the radius of my control was at least fifty feet, and the Revenants were just entering my range of attack.

Moving the earth was like moving an arm or a leg. In short spurts, it took very little energy, so the attacks were effortless. Using my mind, I struck a pillar of earth, simply from the flat ground, directly upward and into the head of a Revenant. I could only move one piece of earth at a time, so I immediately retracted the pillar back into the ground, creating new ones every second, hitting more and more of my enemies. Their terrifying cries were not heard by me, and throughout the whole process, I had no worries, no uncertain thoughts, until the man with the hammer appeared.

The earth told me of his presence as he entered my attack radius. I aimed upward and launched a pillar of earth toward him, but he dodged it. Confused, I quickly retracted the pillar and sent a new one. Once again, the b*****d dodged it. This is impossible, I thought. No Revenant can sense the thoughts of the elements!

Was he sensing them, or could he feel the vibrations? Only God himself could know the answer. For that matter, who was this man? He did not seem normal, he seemed almost... foreign. Otherworldly, you could say. His eyes gleamed a solemn yellow, his arms lean and muscular, his body fit and full of energy, almost like mine. He didn’t even seem like a Revenant, now that I think about it. No rotting flesh, no gouged eyes, and all the hair on his head showed me that he was alive, but the way he walked, the way he grumbled... that was a dead giveaway.

Drawing my attention from this physical anomaly, I noticed the other Revenants rushing at me, within twenty feet of where I stood. Efficiently, I demolished them with more pillars of earth, one at a time. They almost reached my body, close enough to strike me with their weapons. I would not give them the time. I could not give them the time.

After that battle was over, my attention was drawn back to the man who lived in death. At this point, I could see what he was wearing. His armor was peculiar, his pauldrons carved like the heads of a eagle, his helmet like the head of an eagle. Along with those were purple and black cloaks with the insignia of a... griffin, printed on them? How odd that a man who has a helmet and pauldrons wears no other armor? Very odd. I sent another pillar upward, the man dodged it, and continued to advance toward me, when I realized there was no longer a hammer in his hand.

God help me.

Almost immediately, I was struck in the leg by the head of a mighty hammer. My connection with the earth was gone, and my eyes opened once more. I tumbled forward as the hammer hit my legs, making a cracking noise as it sped by. I looked over to the perpetrator, the man in the purple cloaks, and watched him close his eyes. “Yerki tarr!” he bellowed. The Revenant could talk... this was impossible! Suddenly, I heard earth rise from the ground and retract, and watched his hammer fly over my head into the hand of this man. Could it be? This man could very well once have been a Warlock... reminds me of Heron, all that time ago.

Heron was my superior, both in the Elemental arts and in the art of the sword. Being the first man to be called a Warlord. I was honored to be his only student in those arts. Learning from the best will make you better than the rest, but sadly, that was not the case for me. Swordsmanship came easily to me, so I learned all of his complex skills quickly. I was almost instantly placed in the lowest ranks of the Royal Army. Now I needed to do his training all over again, despite the fact that I was referred into the army by the most skilled warrior in Oraklees. Emmanuel said that he did not want t make the other soldiers feel obsolete in comparison to me, so I had the honor to do better at the training than the rest. The time I spent with my commanding officer General Aselmo took time from my training as a Warlock. I learned how to control the elements by themselves, but not all at once. Heron did not have the life span to teach me that final skill. I took his place as the Warlord, ranked all the way up to the second in command of the Royal Army, and have my own seat on the Council of Magic.

I prayed that my enemy would not have the same prowess as Heron had in the Elemental arts, but I knew it could very well be possible. Revenants never lost energy, never grew weary as we humans did, so the energy he could put into using the Elements. My prayers, I knew, were unanswered as I watched my enemy’s hapless body close its eyes, open them, and drop the hammer on to the ground. Somehow the hilt of the hammer impaled the ground below it, leaving only the hammer’s metal head exposed.

I tried to stand up, but I had a lot of trouble. My left leg was obviously broken, but I had to survive this encounter. With haste, I shifted the weight to my right leg which was somewhat better, and unsteadily stood, facing my opponent. The silence of this battle was horrific. Everything was too serene. My enemy was too calm. For that matter, where had his allies gone? Why would they just suddenly disappear. One Revenant against this village would perish. After all, it was the amount of Revenants that made their ranks powerful.

I drew the sword once again, shivering at its metallic touch. Shaking, I held the sword outward. “You want a fight?” I asked. “Then I shall give you war!”

The hammer rose into the air by itself. It appeared nothing was on it that could have made it rise. Dumbfounded by the phenomenon before me, I kept my eyes on the hammer, rising slowly. The hammer stopped its ascension, and the hammer’s head slowly turned toward me. I lifted my shield and watched the hammer fly into me. The speed of the hammer’s movement increased tenfold, and the head of the hammer destructively ran into my shield, sending my spiraling into the air. It hit my hard enough to send me flying over the two story building behind me, and even further than that. Though I held the shield in front of me, my arm burnt in pain, as did my chest. Barely, I had the time to look behind me, to see the steeple of the church as I approached it.

Body met stone, and miraculously, the stone broke first. The steeple was broke, slowing the velocity of my ascension to allow me to land behind the church. “Photios!” Bardeleke called. I, of course, could barely move, and physically could not answer his call. “Men, kill that b*****d! I want his body!”

“What about the defense, sir?” A man asked.

“To Hell with that, we can’t just stand here and wait! Go kill that evil thing!” Bardeleke ordered. “I will join you momentarily.” The men let out their war cries and ran onward and I saw Bardeleke come around the corner to my aid. “What in God’s name has he done to you?” he hastily asked.

“He is a...” I tried to remember what my enemy was. “Warlock?” I questioned myself.

“God give us strength.” Bardeleke prayed as he sheathed his weapon. He picked me up, and the pain I felt was immense. I cringed and whimpered. “Do not worry, Warlord. Father Imran will help you soon enough.” Bardeleke ran around the corner, holding my crippled body in his arms.

As we ran, I heard the cries of dying soldiers struck by the hammer our enemy kept. They pleaded for help, shouted that the enemy was just too powerful in their pain. They had no chance against that brute, I knew. This could be my first loss. For that matter, it could be the death of me and all these innocent people. I couldn’t let my pessimism get in the way of my duties, but who wouldn’t after watching this massacre?

Bardeleke slammed in the door and began to run down the isle to Father Imran. “Imran, we have a wounded warrior! He needs healing!” After Bardeleke roughly ran me up the stairs to the alter, he placed me on the ground. The people in the room began to grow even more uneasy than they already were. Imran hovered above me, looking into my eyes, laughing. “He needs help now, Imran!”

Imran ceased in his laughter. “How can I heal a man who doesn’t believe in God?” Imran asked. “This man is a work of Lucifer! A pure example of violent sin! I will not heal him!”

Bardeleke crouched beside me holding my head. “Imran, heal him now! Do you want to die at the hand of that monster?” Bardeleke asked. He looked to the remaining townspeople, all sitting, motionless. “Do you all want to suffer for this man’s actions?”

A large man stood up, his arms flexed, his expression angry. “I’m not going to die today, damn it!” He ran past the people sitting by him, up the isle, and on to the altar. Imran took a step back as the man approached him. The man glared into Imran’s eyes. “You’re going to heal this man, or I’m going to put your head on a silver platter for the wolves to eat? Understand?” the man loudly asked.

Imran glared back. “Fine, I will heal the man. I will not be able to heal anyone else for twenty hours, so if he fails, we all die. Your lives are in his hands, now.” Imran walked away from the man and crouched low, beside me. He put his left hand on my chest and his right hand on my head. “Lord, give this man strength, for he is wounded. Heal his fractures, heal his gashes for us, Lord. We do not want to see this man who holds our lives in the palms of his hand pass on. Heavenly Father, thank you for listening to our prayers.” The audience stood up when he finished his prayer. Imran’s hands lit up, and I felt all the pain of the healing process in a short amount of time. After five seconds, my gashes were closed and my bones were reassembled. Bardeleke helped me up as Imran, in his arrogance, put his chin up and walked away. I tested my healed body by walking, and drawing my sword.

“Amazing.” I stated. “This is phenomenal.”

“Of course it is, simpleton! God healed your wounds, now go kill whatever monster is out there!” Imran ordered.

I looked over to Bardeleke. “Before we leave, I need to talk to you in the back room.” I explained. I looked over to Imran. “You as well.” With that, we walked into Imran’s office and shut the tall brown door behind us.