One winged angel
Velasca frowned as Deakon picked at his breakfast. He moved it around the bowl to make it look like he was eating. “Does my cooking displease you?” She asked archly when he laid down his sticks and sat back.
“No, Velasca,” Deakon protested, “the food is wonderful, I just have no appetite. I slept poorly.” He was scared of Velasca, and with good reason, she wore a long curved knife with a naginata on her hip at all times, and a specially sharpened comb in her hair. If Ekeade trusted her implicitly with her welfare then Deakon knew not to cross Velasca.
“Then is it my hospitality that displeases you?” She asked archly.
“No, no,” Deakon said waving his hands back and forth. “I was troubled with a bad dream, and when I woke up I couldn’t get back to sleep, and I was left with no appetite. I cannot fault the care that you have been taking of me, both you and Ekeade-sama have been wonderful.”
Velasca’s frown was terrifying as she played with the comb in her hair, “a dream is just that,” she said, “and growing boys need food, eat.”
Deakon cleared hi s plate, and drank the whole cup of fruit juice that she handed him. Ekeade ate only a few bites and ignored Velasca’s noises of displeasure as she read her correspondence. Draima ate voraciously.
“It seems that you are to have visitors, Deakon,” Ekeade said, laying down the letter on the low table, “two fine gentlemen from Dathyl were asking about you in Dramathen, and my brother has sent them here. I expect that they will not be far behind this letter.”
“Why would someone come from Dathyl just to see me?” Deakon asked.
Velasca answered before anyone else had the chance, “I imagine the Seraphim would travel a long way to see you if someone declared you a witch.”
“Velasca,” Ekeade snarled, “enough. Deakon’s mother was the Aatorian princess Aelis,” even Ekeade mispronounced the name, “it could be nothing more than emissaries of a Dathylian coalition looking for a figurehead to advance their schemes, or even a cousin and his companion come to meet his aunt and her son.”
Deakon visibly paled, “Mama,” he said jumping to his feet, “I have to check on Mama.” He left the room at a sprint, stopping only to slip on his shoes, but as he did he heard Velasca.
“He carries his mother on his shoulders,” she said, but if she said anything else he didn’t hear her as he ran around the house to the stone garden that led to the temple and Shiro beyond.
Kennichi stopped him at the rhododendrons, blocking his way and when Deakon stopped before him Kennichi pushed him to the ground. “The Seraphim have come for you, witch, they’re with your mother, I’m sure she’ll give them something to smile about before they cut off her head.”
Something snapped in Deakon, though he couldn’t have said what it was, there was a white flash in his brain and as Deakon rose to his feet in a single fluid motion Kennichi was thrown up into the air and landed in the pond several feet away.
Kennichi stood up, soaking wet and covered in pond weed, “You’re a witch, Taira Deakon, your father was a witch and your mother was a whore, and the Seraphim have come to cut off your freak head, and burn your black heart. My father was right, you’re a freak and a witch and when you burn,” Deakon left him ranting, the rage was a glowing red ball inside him, and beyond it he could hear the children chanting, “burn the witch, burn the witch.”
The Senshi Sakuya met him at the courtyard and held him firm, and as Deakon struggled in his grip the red ball was seething inside him, beating in time to his heart, and the children were chanting over and over and over as his vision ignited. “Deakon,” Sakuya said bowing down to look him in the eye, but even as such Deakon could barely see him, his hair was erect around him and flecks of dirt were rising off the ground. “Deakon, calm down,” Sakuya’s calm voice only served to enrage him more. “Calm down, or I can’t let you pass.”
Deakon’s rage was like liquid metal burning white within him as he raised his head, “out of my way,” Deakon said and his voice echoed, and like Kennichi before him an invisible fist knocked Sakya clear, this time across the courtyard where he landed in a pile of straw.
The Senshi around him were beginning to mobilise to raise against him, Hazuki stood on the veranda and her expression was smug. It made the rage hotter within him. Part of him was aware that he shouted but he didn’t know what. One of the Senshi raised a katana against him, and then watched in horror and awe as the metal turned black then shattered. “Get out of my way!” He screamed and the paper stretched across the screen doors to explode out of the castle. The Senshi were scattered like pins.
“Deakon, stop!” Draima screamed out behind him, but he was beyond stopping. He waved his hand and she too was flung away.
He caught sight of himself in the reflective chest plate of a Senshi and bright white glow surrounded him, the only thing unaffected by the glow was his eyes.
“Witch,” Hazuki screamed, “You’re a witch, like your father.” Her voice was shrill and her face red and swollen with either fear or rage. Her obebe was ripped open by a wind that ripped around the courtyard and she was forced to pull it closed as she screamed the word over and over, and screamed for the Senshi to kill him, to cut off his head.
The ball of rage stretched out beyond Deakon, powerful and primal and the light spread out across the courtyard, “please,” Draima shouted, “please, Deakon, please for me.” She may as well have not bothered for all the effect it had on his rage. He was beyond her.
“Freak,” Kennichi shouted out behind him, and that broke through the bubble of rage and the white light grew hot, “the Seraphim killed your father as a witch.” Deakon levitated several inches off the floor and he spun without moving and Kennichi obviously didn’t fear him. “And your mother’s a whore.” Deakon’s rage lifted Kennichi off the ground as a Senshi tried to run, to intervene, but the air turned to sludge about him. “And the Seraphim will rape your mother, and cut off your head, and they’ll keep your golden eyes as trinkets.” The air was crackling with Deakon’s rage. “You’re a freak, and a witch, and your mother’s a slut.” Kennichi rose higher and higher.
“Draimae can’t kill.” Draima shouted above the roar of a fire that didn’t burn. “Draima magic can’t kill.” She was shouting for Deakon’s benefit, but Kennichi only smiled.
“You only protect her because she’s your whore.” Deakon screamed, it was an animal sound like a wounded creature howling at the moon. The world around him changed, across the sky was a giant silver tapestry and each and every person here had a single thread that made up the tapestry. The treads in some places were thin filaments, in others wide cords. Deakon also knew that no one else could see them. Behind Kennichi was a strange figure that was shadowed against the sun, and as she neared, silhouetted, he realised that the shape behind her was a single wing. When she neared him Deakon knew things that only she could have shown him, things he could see only in the white liquid rage. He moved the silver line from Kennichi’s back and wrapped it around his neck, then pulled the line taut. The line snapped and suddenly Kennichi was silent and the rage was gone.
The two fine gentlemen of Dathyl were frozen in thought. They were not frightened. Both were tall, the one at the front was pale with black hair and the other looked as if he was made of gold. They were Seraphim, he thought, even if they hadn’t hurt his mother they had no reason not to seize him now. He had done this, he had killed Kennichi.
Deakon did the only think he could think of, he ran. He turned and he ran. He ran out of the courtyard by the main gate, down to the main road. Part of him wanted to go back to get his mother, and Draima, to take them from Shiro but he couldn’t get the terrible image of the silver thread snapping out of his head. He had killed Kennichi and he had used magic to do it. He was not draimae, he was something else, something worse. He couldn’t see for tears, but he ran, knowing that the terrible ball of rage within him was driving him on. His body didn’t carry him as he sprinted, the golden light that had brought him into the courtyard carried him away. His blood was like burning quicksilver in his veins. His feet raised and drove him on like he was flying as the scenery he knew whizzed past him so fast he could barely see it. The power was like a coil within him, self perpetuating, and all he could see was the terrible snaking snap as the silver thread broke and before Deakon could catch it was gone, and the girl with the single wing smiled.
He ran away from Kennichi, he ran from Shiro, but mostly he ran from what he had done. He ran away from what he had seen, and the beautiful girl with the single golden wing. But it meant that he ran away from Velasca’s gentle chides, Ekeade’s cold and unsteady comfort, Draima’s mercurial warmth and wisdom, and the ball of white light seethed hot again, his mother.
Would Ekeade protect her like she needed to be protected, would Deakon’s absence aid her, would she return to Dathyl? Would the Seraphim take her in? The questions quenched the fire within him somewhat allowing him to slow, but he still ran. He was in no way short of breath, and his muscles were seething with the power. He didn’t know how, but he ran and he knew that the girl with the one wing was responsible for what he had done, but Deakon was to scared to do anything but run.
He ran east because he didn’t know where else to run.
He heard the horses as he neared the large dark forest that he hadn’t realised was so close to Shiro. He wanted to run into the dark wings of the forest as he stepped unto the wide and uneven field. All the other fields around him were flat and calm and there were crops growing on them, but not on this one. Deakon could see that through his tears. “Stop him!” One of the fine gentlemen from Dathyl shouted to his back, “Don’t let him reach the Forest.” The horses were implausibly fast. The field was uneven and pitted with pocks, small hillocks and ditches out of which branches stood unevenly, the few trees on the land from the forest were twisted and black, like rosebushes. They were bare despite the autumn being rich and verdant, but they were old and dead.
He ran unto the field without knowing what it was, though later he carried a carefully marked map once he knew it wasn’t a fluke. So he wouldn’t drown in the power, the way he did on the pocked field of Samrath.
He had no sooner set his left foot on the field when it happened. The field, which had been an expanse of grass suddenly became a churned mass of muck that seethed as men riding horses sprung from it. The two fine gentlemen of Dathyl were gone and in their place was a charging army of Ashigaru Senshi. He could hear their battle-cries and the thunder of their hooves. To the Southeast was a knotted mass of men in glossy black armour, and to the Southwest the soldiers wore white under a banner of outstretched golden wings. The Senshi wore a crest of a crystal bell, but their standard said shi ne. The men in black had long pikes atopped with curving blades and the men in white had blades under their forearms.
They screamed obscenities at the Senshi who wore lacquered wooden armour, which struck Deakon as odd because the Senshi in Shiro wore steel. They pulled scarves, called kamen, from around their necks to cover their mouths with a murmur of eta, unclean. The other armies charged in an it was chaos, limbs flew and heads rolled and blood spattered him.
There was a woman on the field. He could see now, in an ancient obebe, like the ones in woodcuts, with layers upon layers of white roves fixed at her waist with a silver chain from which hung a crystal bell with a glass clapper. It was the symbol the Senshi were wearing. The Senshi had come here to protect her, this beautiful lady with chestnut hair, so like Deakon’s own, who should not have been on this field on this day.
What he saw next altered everything, later he would say it was a pivotal moment, because as the three armies clattered together, amongst the blood and gobbets, mud and heat of battle, she stood surrounded by those that fell. She was giving them comfort as she rewove their silver threads into the loom above. The dead of all the armies gathered around her as she appeased their terrible loss.
None of those living on this field could see what she could see, what he could see. Deakon understood that now. Then she looked directly at him, at Deakon, and bowed her head as if to an equal. She deliberately acknowledged him. The white army attacked her from behind. The knot of Senshi around her were cut down like blades of wheat. They grabbed her, one placing a broken black sword to her throat. Her face was calm as another calm forward, and Deakon was transfixed. The man pulled a steel helmet from his head and threw it back into the mud. His hair was as black as Draima’s, but his eyes were bright, and he followed the woman’s gaze to Deakon, but Deakon knew that he couldn’t see him, not in the way that the lady could. He just wanted to see what she did.
He forced her unto the ground and put his knees on her hips, she was strangely quiescent. He placed the tip of the curved knife under his right forearm to her solar plexus, and then pushed in and up, splitting her open like a melon. As she lay dying, held down by his knees, she smiled at Deakon as the man with no helmet put his hand in side her chest and ripped out her beating heart with a dreadful wrench.
Deakon fell to his knees where he was noisily sick. The armies were not done, even when the woman in white fell, they hacked and they slashed around him, but a second woman took the field. She wore shimmering white that seemed to throw light about her. She was younger than the lady, no older than Deakon maybe, and her hair was the colour of chestnuts shining in the sun, and amongst her short curls she wore a golden circlet, but stuck through it were two feathers, one black one white. Her eyes were fixed directly on his as she stepped through the battle. They couldn’t see her. But it wasn’t her eyes that held him, though they were eerily similar to his own. Raised behind her, golden in the golden light, was a single feathered wing. It was outstretched like the banner of the man with no helmet. He fell forward and rolled unto his side whilst he dry retched, because he had no more to come, and his knees were pulled into his chest as he sobbed and the girl with the one wing came closer and closer. “Deakon,” she said and she squeezed his eyes shut and wished it all away.
“Deakon,” he opened his eyes and the war was gone. The field was green again. He looked around, wide eyed and incredulous and saw a pair of golden wings in front of him. The two fine gentlemen of Dathyl had caught him up and one of them had the golden wings symbol on his boots. Deakon scrambled to his feet, though his legs were shaky underneath him, and ran.
He was stopped by a chain as it wrapped itself around his ankles. He fell heavily forward, barely catching himself on his hand and grazing his chin, away from the battlefield. “If I untie you, will you stop running away?” The man said and he looked like the man n the field, the one that killed the lady, “you’re a long way from home.”
“Leave him, Tobin,” the other man said, he was tall and golden, “he’s had a nasty scare, he saw us and ran so fast that he threw up.”
“Josian, are you sure that he’s the one?” The man called Tobin asked, he had black hair and poison green eyes, and there was scar on his face, across his nose and under his eye. It was a pretty line. “He’s the right age and he knew enough to run when he saw us.”
“I didn’t.” Deakon sobbed as the blonde man wiped his grazed chin clean, “I,” he sobbed, “I,” he couldn’t say it, surely they had seen what happened at Shiro. “I didn’t mean to, I just wanted him to stop, they were lies, my mother isn’t like that.”
Both men looked at each other with a wordless o passing between them. “What’s your name, lad?” The blonde one, Josian, asked him, he was kind, but the other man looked like the man who killed the lady.
“Deakon,” he answered, “my name is Taira Deakon.”
“The boy would be D’Cevni,” Tobin said to Josian, “I don’t think that he’s the right boy.” He stood up, “please excuse me one moment, Deakon, I just have to attend to something.” He walked a few paces away and began to swear, loudly and without repeating himself for several minutes.
“It’s all right,” Josian said, “he gets like this sometimes.” He began to undo the tight chain from around Deakon’s ankles.
“Did you do that?” Deakon asked, “the thing with the field, was that you? And the ghost in Shiro, did you do those things? Kennichi said that the Seraphim were going to come and test me because my father was a witch. Are you Seraphim, was that the test?” He didn’t know why he trusted the blonde man, but apart from the fact there as no one else here, he knew he could trust them.
Josian laughed, “Did you hear that, Tobin?” Josian called to the other man, he thinks we’re Seraphim sent to test him.” That amused them both, “no, lad,” he said checking the grazes on Deakon’s palms, “we’re not Seraphim, now what happened on the field?” For a moment Deakon wasn’t sure what to tell him, but decided on the truth. He told him about the three armies, the woman in white which interested the one called Tobin more than it did Josian. About the girl that looked like him with the single wing he said nothing.
“Bark and Bole,” Tobin swore, “the lady of Meirin,” he sat back on his heels and laughed, “you may not be the right lad, but from what you said there the Seraphim wouldn’t hesitate to cut out your heart.”
“That symbol,” Deakon said pointing to the wings on Tobin’s boots, “what is it?”
“Its the symbol of the Seraphim,” Tobin answered, Deakon moved backwards. “I bought them at the Academy of Saint Baatori where the Seraphim are based. Its hard to find a good pair of boots in a hurry. Now we have to decide what to do with you, lad. I don’t like the idea of camping this close to the Termigent, and you obviously can’t camp on Samrath.”
“Samrath?” Deakon asked.
“There was a battle here,” Tobin said looking out over the field, “a terrible battle in which the last lady of Meirin died, they called the field Samrath.”
“The man who killed her, he looked like you.” Deakon accused.
“Yes,” Tobin answered, sadly almost, “he would. His name was Danan, and he was Seraphim, he was one of the most zealous of the Seraphim that there ever was.” He was sad but also angry.
“Was Samrath famous?” Deakon asked, “that you know so much about it.”
“Once,” Josian answered, lifting Deakon unto his horse, “now hush, lad, Samrath is a hard place, and you’ve come a long way from Shiro, we’ll take you back in the morning.”
“No,” Deakon shocked himself with his vehemence. “I can’t go back.”
“Aeris will be worried,” Josian argued, “she already fears for you so much.” Deakon started at that, they hadn’t come to see him, they’d come to see her.
“you didn’t see what happened, if I go back they’ll hang me.” Deakon protested.
“it was an accident, that’s all, they won’t hang you for that, you’re Taira.” Tobin argued.
“they will, they killed my uncle and he was the Taira lord, and Kennichi was to be lord and I killed him. If I go back and they don’t hang me, then my aunt will kill me, and they were going to summon the Seraphim to test me. I can’t go back, I can’t.” Tobin looked at Josian.
“He’s not the right boy,” Josian told him, “we can’t take him with us.”
“WE can take him as far as Muchine, we’re going there anyway.” Tobin replied, “He can stay with Saaraphine of Melc. She owes me a big favour anyway, he can be it.” He looked at Deakon, “I could have sworn,” he said, “but never mind.” He shook his head. “So Taira Deakon,” he frowned thinking, “unusual name for a Taira, but hark at me my name is Tobin D’Cevni and this is Josian, he has no house to claim. We’ll take you to Muchine, but you have to behave until then, any mistakes and we’ll send you to the Forest…” He left it open. Deakon had never even heard of the Forest, but the way Tobin said it it was supposed to be a threat. “Ay, what did Aeris tell you? The Termigent Forest is haunted, people who go in don’t come out. It tears them up. Monsters live in the Termigent, as does Vivika, the witch of the Forest who will grind your bones to make her bread.”
Deakon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Ignore him,” Josian said, “Now you’re Darin, is there a town near here.”
“I’ve never been this far from Shiro before,” that was true, he had never even seen the mountains that loomed to the east in front of him now.
“Meirin,” Tobin answered abruptly, “the nearest town of any size is Meirin.”
“You’ve been here before?” Deakon asked. Tobin deliberately blanked the question, and Josian put his hand on Deakon’s shoulder indicating that enough had been said. “We can impose on them for a few night’s lodging, and decide what to do in the morning.”
“It’s out of our way.” Josian protested.
“It’s getting dark now, and the alternative is camping here.” Deakon shivered at the thought of the terrible charge of the armies and the look of peace on the lady in white’s face when she saw him, as if she had been waiting a very long time to see him.
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