Four Horsemen Book 5 - Old Histories: Chapter 25

A woman's voice, desperate and faint, whispered through Valter's mind. "Protect me Valter."

The vision crystallized. A woman astride a mud-splattered horse galloped through dense forest, her face gaunt and drawn. Three riders flanked her, their expressions and movements that of grim veterans with a lifetime in the saddle. Their mounts' hooves thundered against the earth, sending clods of dirt flying.

"Can't move where I'm looking, just locked to what she's looking at," Valter muttered, trying to understand where he was and what he was seeing.

"Not much further now to the rendezvous," the woman called over her shoulder to her companions, her voice hoarse from exertion.

She withdrew something from under her riding cloak - a piece of enchanted metal. The mere sight of it sent stabbing pain through Valter's temples, the markings seeming to shift and blur before his eyes.

The air cracked with the sound of weapons discharge. 

"Shit!" The woman's head whipped around, revealing their pursuers.

"Fucking Eternus bastards." One of the other rides said as they all increased their pace.

Valter studied the squad chasing the woman and her group. "Wear the armor of the god emperor's champions. War mounts, veteran riders. Why would a champion try to put the god emperor back together, he enslaved all of our souls."

Enchantments flared with power along the champion's armor, unleashing bolts of magical power.

"Sacrophyte weapons," Valter cursed as the champions fired as one.

A bolt struck true, catching one of her companions' mount in the flank. Horse and rider went down in a tangle of limbs. Another caught a second rider in the back, though they managed to stay mounted, hissing in pain. The woman herself ducked as a bolt whizzed past her head. The final rider, another woman, took a hit that left her slumped in the saddle, making the choking noises of one not long for the world as her mount wheeled off to the side with the change in weight.

“Go Cassie! Keep going!” the only one to remain mounted yells as he raised his bracer, covered in enchantments and fired a bolt back at the enemy wheeling to face them.

Cassie grit her teeth.

"Ride with Valor," Valter intoned. The rider's skill was limited, but he might use his life to gain her but a few more moments.

Cassie's saddle glowed with power resonating with her mount-pushing it harder. 

"Horse is already tired, she pushes it much more and it'll die," Valter grimaced. "Damn these enchantments. Built to consume the user for greater power."

The sounds of combat ended suddenly behind her.

"May Valter protect your soul, Ishmael," she whispered, her voice thick with grief. Her mount's flanks heaved with exertion, foam flecking its neck as she urged it forward across the ruined field she and her companions had been crossing, heading for the road along a thick forest.

"Come on, not far now, we're nearly at the rendezvous." She leaned low over the horse's neck. A quick glance behind revealed her pursuers cresting the rise, their armored forms silhouetted against the darkening sky. 

Enchanted weapons flared as they opened fire, bolts of energy cutting through the gloom.

Cassie's hands moved to the clasp at her throat. Her riding cloak fell away, revealing intricately carved armor plates underneath. The metal seemed to drink in the ambient light as activation runes blazed to life across its surface. The enchantments thrummed with barely contained power.

“This—" Valter was struck as his scalp went cold seeing the enchantments that he had come up with—the patterns that held his presence as  much as his signature.

Her helmet wrapped around her head as a barrier formed behind her.

"Fucking bolts!" Cassie grunts as the impacts—diminished by the barrier transmit through her and into the mount she rides upon. It stumbles but keeps on going.

“That’s it girl!” Cassie yelled as her mount recovered and kept going. She reaches the edge of the forest—her horse in full gallop, reaching forward with each stride.

She comes around the forest as Eternus fire at her, attacks hit her.

“these aren’t rookie fighters, they’ve been trained in the saddle and with scrophyte gear.” Valter surmises ass they come around the other side of the forest.

“The  red fields of Allakam,” she comes around the forest revealing the grounds beyond—they are scarred from battle. Craters dug out of the ground—revealing the clay soil underneath.

There is another group amongst the craters. They’re dismounted and looking over the old battlefield.

They turn and look towards the woman.

“There you are Devin,” The woman lets out a laugh that’s filled with only relief—humor has been stripped from it as she gallops towards them.

The group turns into motion—moving with the rapidity of soldiers as they mount up on their horses, cloaks are torn away and a half dozen wearing Valter’s version of armor don their helmets, their horses moving at the moment that they fall into the saddles.

They charge down the hill as the others follow them, forming up into arrow head formations, four soldiers to every knight.

“Devin,” Valter says as he looks at the lead knight. He has the same build as him.

Cassie runs through the formation with Devin at the lead.

“Keep going Cassie!” Devin yells as he goes past. She continues up the hill.

“Look back,” Valter asks her. “Just a quick look! Come on!”

She turns her head to look back as Devin and his people clash with those wearing champion’s armor. They unleash their enchantments powers at one another, Devin’s spear, hits an enemy knight and the enchantments flair-the spear head going through the knight’s armor. Devin already releasing it as he draws a hammer, bending under a blow that illuminates the barrier that wraps around him.

He strikes a second knight in the chest, the hammer breaking barrier and knocking the knight from his mount.

Then Cassie looks back, slowing her mount as they go over the rise of the battlefield and down the other side.

Darkness wraps up Valter’s vision as his eyes open to the interior of the warehouse as he sits up in a rush, reaching out to either side as the hammock he’s in rocks dangerously.

The glimmers of morning can be seen lightening the sky through the holes in the warehouse’s walls.

“What was that?” Valter held his head, it felt full to bursting but was now settling down.

He got out of his hammock and moved through the warehouse, passing Desari who was in her own cot.

He moved towards the fire they’d set up the day before—where he could hear Petor preparing tea and the sound of quill on papers that were being moved around.

“You’re up early,” Petor said as he rounded the corner. Petor pouring him out a cup and holding it out.

“Yeah,” Valter said, taking the cup with a nod of thanks.

“You good?” Petor asked, reading something from him.

“I uhh,” Valter took a sip of his tea trying to bring all he’d seen into focus. “Mya is it possible to scry something without a scrying ritual?”

“Scry without a scrying ritual?” Mya lowered her papers and frowned. “There are some that are known to be really powerful scryers that can do it without a ritual but there  are very few of them and a ritual just makes it more reliable and precise. It doesn’t make sense to do it without a ritual.”

“How clear would a scrying without a ritual be?”

“Probably very hazy—again the ritual allows you to be more precise and bring things into focus.”

“Okay, then it probably wasn’t scrying,” Valter shook his head.

“Why are you asking?” Mya asked.

“I had this dream-though it didn’t feel like a dream, it fel like I was in somme place. I also knew I was there, but I couldn’t move around on my own or change the dream. I was just in it.”

“Okay,” Mya frowned, Petor listening as he finished up his tea and began drinking as well. “What happened in it.”

Vatler relayed everything that happened to them.

“Then we went over the hill and I didn’t see anything,” Valter said.

“And you’re sure that they said your name when you first started to see all of this?” Desari asked, yawning at the end of the statement as Petor started preparing her tea.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you,” Valter said.

“Have to get up at some time. But they said your name first?” She accepted the tea from Petor with a nod of thanks.

“Yeah she said my name before this all started,” Valter said.

“What you thinking now?” Mya asked.

“There are stories on this sort of thing. People trying to summon another—was there a magical circle ritual or something?” Desari asked.

“No, just a knight on a horse holding a shard of the god emperor,” Valter said. “Are you saying that its real?”

“To me it sounds like it is. There are also stories of people who are really strong being called upon by the people that believe in them. They’ll offer up a prayer to them and then those that they called upon will be able to catch a glimmer of what is happening,” Desari said. “And we’ve rising in power to the point that we can face down and defeat weak gods.”

“My son was riding int battle against knights wearing champions armor,” Valter’s worries all rose to the surface.

“Well there is one way that we can verify what’s going on,” Mya rose up. “We’ll go to the scrying ritual chamber.” She stored away everything that she had been working on and stated running deeper into Osola.

***

The guards closed the door to the scrying chamber, leaving just the horsemen within as the last of the scones around the room lit up with soul fire.

The ritual filled with soul fire running through.

“Valter, stand in that circle over there. Petor, Desari there,” Mya said, pointing to different spots

Valter stepped into the circle as Mya took out items from a nearby chest and threw them out, they landed at different points as she shed her skin of the living and showed her undead side with soul fire filling her eyes.

The offerings were consumed in different ways, filling the chamber with smoke that hung in the ack of one’s throat.

The ritual reagents ran through the ritual circle into the middle of the chamber, creating a familiar black pool.

“Hold your son’s details in your mind,” Mya said.

Valter closed his eyes, seeing him upon his horse, pulling on his helmet and drawing his spear.

Power flowed into the room and the ritual, the black pool evaporated into a cloud of color, several times larger than what they had used on Mesurial.

Flashes of different places flared and then switched within the cloud.

Mya’s features scrunched up. “Looks like someone doesn’t want to be found. He’s using anti-scrying magic. Do you have anything else?”

Devin was kneeling on the ground searching through a dead champion’s gear, tossing it to the side.

“He’s on the fields of Allakam,” Valter said. “That’s where I saw him in my vision.”

“Hold it in your mind.”

Valter gritted his teeth-remembering the bloody battle he had waged there.

They looked upon the battlefield.

There was a group dismounted checking on dead that were spread across the ground.

“There,” Valter said.

Mya moved their view closer. The men were checking dead champions.

“I can’t see the features of this one,” Mya rotated around one knight kneeling on the ground searching through a dead champion’s gear, tossing it to the side.

A group of knights and their retainers galloped up to them. “Hold,” Valter said. The view stopped moving and the obscured person-their profile flickering through a dozen different forms rose to greet them, around him others continued searching the champions.

“That one is Cassie she called my name,” Valter pointed at the woman.

“Down in the muck again Devin?” She chuckled as they slowed down. “They Eternus’ dogs?”

“Yes.”

“Did you find it?” Devin asked.

“Yes,” Cassie pulled out a piece of metal from her armor and turned it around.

Mya let out a growl of pain as the scrying shimmered and the whole cloud of smoke burned up. “The fuck was that?” Mya asked.

“A shard of the god emperor’s soul,” Valter said.