Prologue - 1000 B.C.E.
The trio of Guardian, Omen, and Fury stepped through the new gateway portal for the first time. The portal was functional, but its stability was marginal; its current position wasn’t at one of the natural conjunction sites between worlds. The portal they stepped out of was a prototype that functioned by tearing open a hole between the two worlds to allow passage. Unlike the ones positioned at natural conjunction sites, this experimental portal required overwhelming energy to keep the pathway forced open.
As the trio emerged, rhith energy discharged chaotically from each of the intricate, rune-covered metal arches that, when combined, created the portal. The energy arced and danced around the metal arches, violently striking several people near the portal and knocking them to the ground.
“GODDESS DAM IT!” yelled an angry voice. “Who let that much power walk through the portal at once?! You almost destroyed it!” The voice's owner, a gruff mage dressed in light battle armor, stomped up to the trio. “Who the hell are you three?”
The mage, who really should have known better, looked at the trio, recognition dawning on his wizened face. He immediately dropped to his knees in supplication. Regardless of his noble heritage, a battle mage in the Mortal domain had no business being rude to Transcendent warriors. He knelt wordlessly, head hanging low. He didn’t speak, apologize, or beg for his life. He simply waited for judgment on whether he would survive the next 30 seconds.
Guardian didn’t acknowledge the mage’s words or presence, striding past him toward the raging battle less than two hundred meters away. Her off-siders wordlessly followed, Fury glaring menacingly at the mage with enough aural power that he recoiled in abject terror. The air was thick with the metallic tang of blood and stench of excrement. The clash of metal and the wailing of the dying provided a steady cacophony of background noise. Guardian surveyed the entirety of the battle with her slightly glowing jade-green eyes, taking in the carnage as it unfolded.
Plate-armored Aesidhe soldiers swung swords of pearlescent metal against leather-clad Men wielding crude bronze weapons. Most of the Aesidhe soldiers had progressed to the middle stages of the Mortal domain, whereas the Men felt as if they had barely moved into the Nascent or Initiate domains. If it weren’t for the shocking number of fighting Men and the absurd amount of Rhith energy covering their weapons, this wouldn’t be a pitched battle with the Men but a slaughter.
The Men frenetically clashed with the Aesidhe soldiers using swarm tactics, somewhat effectively. Teams of Men attacked individual soldiers as they were pushed, pulled, or maneuvered out of the Aesidhe formations. The Men would hurl crude blasts of raw ania at a single soldier and then rush in to attack at close range with their axes and spears reinforced with rhith.
Usually, a soldier could deflect the poorly aimed ania projectiles, but the raw power of the blasts was dangerous if one struck the body. Through this tactic, the Aesidhe army had already lost close to a fifth of their forces to the hoard of Men.
The Aesidhe soldiers were not used to fighting this new enemy, having trained to fight opponents with similar armor, weapons, and fighting styles with expert mastery of their ania using well-targeted and precise attacks. They also prepared to fight the occasional rampaging monster, often the only highlight of boring garrison duty.
A hoard of intelligent savages with deadly instruments hurling absurd amounts of raw ania through instinct alone was unsettlingly new.
That isn’t to say that the Aesidhe soldiers were fighting poorly, far from it. With their advancement to the Mortal domain came precise control of their ania and the ability to wield it as a deadly weapon accurately. Sword-wielding Aesidhe Infantry formed a protective barricade while the second rank launched lances of different elemental energy through the air into the poorly shielded bodies of Men. Some Men were pinned to the ground with earth-formed ania darts, some Men self-immolated after being pierced with fire ania, and numerous Men were dismembered by Aesidhe soldiers skillful enough to create impossibly sharp whips of water ania. Ten Men lay dead or dying for every single fallen Aesidhe.
Guardian nodded her head at her offsiders. “Go, General Nuada has requested our involvement, citing the potential for further loss of Aesidhe life.” With that, a grinning Frenzy drew her swords and sprang into action, leaping toward the defensive line of soldiers. Guardian considered that Frenzy’s attack style closely resembled a feral cù-sìth let off its leash, screaming with a gleam of joy in her eyes that Guardian always found to be… excessive. She was Frenzy, so it was her nature.
Omen briefly hesitated, looking at her leader with some reluctance before moving. Guardian understood her reluctance, all too well, to be involved with this atrocity of a battle campaign.
As experienced fighters, the Aesidhe adapted quickly, though. They closed ranks with the soldiers next to them, fighting shoulder-to-shoulder in seldom practiced phalanx formations. This allowed shields made of coalesced ambient rhith to overlap and prevented the concentration of Men onto one soldier, the excessive rhith of this world allowing for their unnaturally strong defenses.
Frenzy bounded over the defensive lines in a single leap, allowing her aura to pour out. This had the effect of invigorating nearby exhausted Soldiers and filling their minds with a controlled bloodlust. She landed amongst a grouping of Men and screamed a piercing ania-filled wail that killed the Men directly in front of her.
She swung her swords, her face filled with the ecstasy of battle. She spared none of her ania to form rhith defensive structures on or near her body, pouring it into augmenting her blades. A translucent layer of rhith formed over each blade, jagged thorns of fire and lightning growing from the edges.
Omen pulsed her ania through her entire body, shifting herself into her crow form, and flew skyward towards the line of Men unseen. Her aura poured out and began to cloud their minds. Refined thought and coordination became difficult, critical decisions were slower to come from leaders. Shouted commands often went unheeded as the groups of Men devolved into individual fighters.
Omen preferred to remain in her crow form, making no effort to land and fight. The pitched battle observed upon their arrival was now veering into a bloody grind for the Aesidhe soldiers, their presence turning the tide of battle. The Aesidhe soldiers marched forward in formation over the fallen corpses of Men and Aesidhe.
Guardian stood her ground and observed the Aesidhe fighters as they waged slaughter on Men.
She stood radiant in her silver battle armor, hand resting atop the pommel of her sword, flaming red hair tightly bound in a long single braid down her back, jade green eyes slightly glowing. She took in the scene before her, focusing on her kin. She saw a soldier hit with two raw ania blasts stumble out of position as the absurdly powerful energy penetrated his shield and burned his body. He landed hard and rolled onto his back. He was disoriented and injured; blue flames clung to his arms and chest.
Sensing the soldier’s incapacitation, he was set upon by a group of five Men desperate for some small victory over the invaders. This is the reason why Guardian was here and drew her sword. She cycled ania into her legs and leaped forward, her speed great enough to break the air before her.
She had targeted the closest of the Men to the injured soldier, the savage’s crude axe coming down in a chopping motion. Guardian’s movement was so quick that the savage’s axe almost seemed to stop. Instead of swinging her sword at the savage, Guardian quickly coalesced a circular rhith shield on her left forearm. The shimmering translucent shield struck the savage mid-torso, and Guardian channeled her ania into a field around her body that transferred her kinetic energy into the savage. Guardian’s ania-reinforced body was able to withstand the sudden deceleration. The savage’s body had no such reinforcement, the Man’s torso disintegrating into small wet fleshy chunks that sprayed onto his comrades behind him. The savage’s head and limbs remained intact, pinwheeling away.
The spray of gore and her abrupt appearance had surprised the remaining four charging Men. Only two were an immediate threat to her and the injured soldier. She swung her long sword in a simple horizontal arc, removing the head of the first savage. The second savage seemed to consider her too challenging a target because he dived at the injured soldier, attempting to bash the soldier’s face with their crude sword.
Without hesitation, Guardian expertly swung her long sword down into the back of the leaping savage, her sword passing cleanly through but abruptly stopping before burying itself in the ground, flecks of blood dripping onto the grass. The savage’s upper and lower halves roughly separated, his sword burying itself into the ground centimeters from the soldier’s head.
Guardian could see the look of absolute hatred in the eyes of the savage, glaring at the soldier until the life in their eyes drained away.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Before the final two savages could become a threat, Guardian drew in rhith to expand her shield into a small wall in front of her, driving it into the ground. The two savages struck the wall with their weapons with no significant effect. She could have just as easily killed them with her sword or an ania discharge, but she had no stomach for this fight. She was a Transcendent warrior killing Nascent and Initiate savages. The difference in power was so absurd that she felt as if she were killing small, defenseless children.
She grabbed the collar of the soldier’s armor and started pulling. Front line soldiers made way for her as she dragged the injured soldier through the lines, the rhith wall dissolving behind her as the Aesidhe soldiers moved back into formation. Guardian brought the wounded soldier to a medical collection point and half-heartedly yelled for a healer. She then leaped back to an elevated mound in the rear of the formation. She had no desire to wade into this battle further, for she was, at her core, a guardian, and this battle made her viscerally ill.
Her kindred weren’t defending their lands and homes from savage monsters or the scheming Fomorians but claiming territory in a new land, the Earth-World. The Aesidhe were the invaders, the oppressors, the dominators, the tyrants, the cruel monsters in the nightmares of the children of Men.
Aesidhe magical researchers had long theorized that there were unique places where the fabric of reality containing their world intersected and merged with the fabric of another. They experimented for many years without success until crucial research was acquired from a foreign land that allowed their preeminent researcher, Ecne, to discover the conjunction sites and create the first set of portal archways to the new world, the Earth-world.
After Ecne opened conjunctions to the Earth-World, Aesidhe scouts were quickly sent through, and they reported on a new land thick with rhith and populated by unusual creatures, somewhat like the Aesidhe in appearance but smooth of ear and possessing strange eyes. They were relatively new to sapient thought as they only had the barest trappings of civilization, living in nomadic tribal communities.
Their knowledge of Rhith cycling was shockingly poor. Most of the savages were Primals and hadn’t ignited their heart cores and gained the ability to cycle rhith into ania. Some Nascent domain savages, usually tribal chiefs or shamans, were identified.
Their metalworking was primitive, with the strange natives producing mostly copper and bronze. A rare few instances of iron were forged in the scattered permanent settlements. They created all their metal by hand as they did not know how to wield the rhith surrounding them properly.
A new and wondrous land for exploration… and exploitation.
Guardian watched Frenzy dance among the Men in what appeared to be a carefree disregard for her life; Guardian knew better and was not worried for her safety. She watched with sadness as Frenzy’s swords flashed with precision, cleaving, dismembering, and dismantling the Flesh of those around her.
Across the battlefield, another figure moved alone among the raging Men, not as boisterously as Frenzy but even more deadly. He twirled and thrust his spear, casually disemboweling Men with a small smirk on his face. He stopped his killing spree when Guardian’s eyes fell upon him. He smiled and leaped over to her in one mighty jump, landing with a heavy impact and rising into a powerful stance.
The figure standing before her was Transcednet, tall and well-muscled, with thick but handsome facial features. He did not appear ethereally beautiful as all of her kind usually were, appearing more farmhand than Lord. He wore a simple cloth tunic, leather armor, and sandals. He would have appeared as if he were out for a daily stroll, except that he was drenched in the alien bright red blood of the Men. He held his spear upright and loosely at his side; the spear tip was hard to look at, glowing with a slowly undulating shimmer that seemed to somehow shine light and darkness. The nature of the spear always intrigued Guardian as it was a strange fusion of ania and rhith energy, the two forces working together into a seamless whole that only he, Hero, had ever mastered.
“Hello, wife. I thought I heard your thunderclap.”
“Hello, husband. You appear to be enjoying yourself as you battle these terrifying invaders.”
“Sarcasm from you, my perpetual snow blossom? How original…”
The Guardian stifled the urge to roll her eyes at her “husband. " He knew she disliked being called his wife, a symbolic position bestowed by the Goddess Danu, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Her gaze remained fixed on the battle, attempting to ensure no more of her kind fell to the blades of Men.
“What do you want?” she eventually asked.
“Can’t a loving husband just want to catch up with his precious wife?”
Guardian rolled her eyes at his comment and returned to observing the battle.
“Mostly, I want to know why you are up here sitting on your ass when you should be by my side, cleaving through these savages.”
She refused to look at him. “I am doing my duty, if any of ours is in extreme danger, I shall protect them. It is not in my nature to revel in the slaughter of the weak and innocent.”
“Innocent! I am sure that you are aware that they attacked us after refusing our peaceful overtures, and now they die by the thousands.” Hero looked upon the battle, the gleam of triumph in his eyes.
“How did they amass such a large force? Scout reports stated they lived in small tribal communities,” Guardian inquired. She had no desire to speak with this monster, but she needed information, and the one thing Guardian could count on was her ‘husband’s’ love of his voice.
“It seems one of them managed to crawl their way into the Mortal domain and is unusually skilled at ania projection and rhith formations. He probably murdered his way into dominating whole tribes of the savages. His name is Sreng something or other that I don’t care, and he led this ambush. He even managed to corner our valiant Nuada early in the fighting and, with a surprisingly clever ambush, managed to cut off his right hand. I would have rendered aid, but I was a bit distracted… laughing. Apparently, a cheering Sreng grabbed Nuada’s hand and ran off with it proudly displayed to bolster his savage’s fighting spirit. You should have seen the look on Nuada’s face! Priceless!”
“Is he hurt?” Guardian said, feeling concerned for the General.
“Oh, not to worry, my winter rose petal, it’s nothing that Dian Cecht can’t eventually fix. I offered Nuada to go and cut off Sreng’s hand to make it a fair fight, which made Nuada even more enraged. His pallid face turned a most delicious shade of crimson from the embarrassment. He cauterized the bleeding in his arm with some fire-infused ania, picked up his sword in his left hand, and chased down that Sreng guy and hacked him into some tiny meaty bits. I believe he will be teased about his “behanding” by a Mortal Man at council meetings for at least the next 100 years. It’s wonderful!”
Guardian reflected on her failed efforts to achieve peace. She had opposed the decision to colonize the Earth-world with force. She championed the idea that the natives were no serious threat to the Aesidhe and could peacefully coexist with them as the Aesidhe did with the other sapient races of their homeland.
Her ‘husband’ claimed that the natives were too savage to learn to live amongst them and that the Aesidhe must, in his own words, domesticate them. He had a majority opinion, the reality being that the spoils of a rhith rich land were too tempting to the others for them to care about the natives.
A concession had been given by her husband in that they would send a messenger of peace to the Men to test their ability to be peaceful. They, of course, sent the fool Bres, a bigoted half-Fomorian of minor nobility who claimed to be a mighty king of the powerful Aesidhe. The pompous fool demanded the Men cede the Aesidhe half of their lands, the unsubtle implication being that they would die on them if they didn’t leave their lands. The Men didn’t react well to this demand.
At her ‘husband’s’ command, General Nuada marched a force of 4000 Aesidhe soldiers single-file through a newly established gateway, established a camp at the outlet of a nearby mountain pass, and waited.
The Men, these Fir Bolg as they called themselves, apparently had gathered all their fighting forces and attempted to ambush the Aesidhe encampment with overwhelming numbers, not realizing it was a trap as they were funneled into the pass.
Guardian felt tremendous shame over being manipulated by her husband. This situation was exactly what he wanted. He would make her and her peace efforts appear naïve and foolish, while manipulating all the tribes of Men into attacking the Aesidhe at once, thus preventing a protracted and taxing campaign chasing guerilla bandit tribes through the new lands.
She imagined her husband holding the moral high ground, weaving his narrative that their peaceful camp of heavily armed invading soldiers had been mercilessly attacked while they championed peace. Given the potential riches of the new land, it was sure to work, any action her ‘husband’ took against the tribes of Men would be seen as righteous retribution or part of his ‘domestication’ effort. Guardian continued her shame-filled introspection as she absently gazed at her ‘husband’s’ plans come to fruition.
After a short pause, her ‘husband’ broke the silence. “You distract me with your words, again why do you not join in battle? Our God Danu commanded us to rule and protect our charges, why do you forsake the commandments of our God?”
Anger flared from Guardian as she drew her sword, silver-white steel flashing to her ‘husband’s’ neck, flames of powerful elemental fire ania bursting forth from it. She did not need to look down to feel his spear tip press into her abdomen, easily passing through the rhith-reinforced plate metal. It burned her skin, but she barely felt it as rage seethed inside her.
“Watch your words before I cut your tongue out! My wards fight below us, and I protect our soldiers as the great mother Goddess Dana commands. Your blatant cù-shit isn’t even remotely fooling me. This is a war of invasion that you orchestrated, and I want no part in it! Invasion and slaughter of our lessers IS NOT what our Goddess Danu charged us to do when she commanded that we nurture her children! If anything, I feel I should be protecting those poor brutes from YOUR machinations!”
He simply tilted his chin up, inviting a strike into his throat. “Watch your treasonous words. We may rule the counsel together as equals that does not mean we ARE equals. I would enjoy crossing blades with you, your sword against my spear. It would be unfortunate if you fell in battle today to these Men. While shocking, it wouldn’t be impossible. Nuada has already been maimed by them and I have a feeling everyone will be too busy harvesting rhith to question the circumstances of your demise or mourn you for long. Might even help me, a widowed husband seeking vengeance for his slain wife, foolish in her support of the Men...”
“You wouldn’t dare, Nemain and Badb are loyal to me, as are others. You would be branded a murderous traitor to our Goddess Danu and hunted down like filth.”
They glared at each other; the air thick with potential violence.
He spoke up. “Perhaps today is not the day to test your resolve. I spoke rashly, wife. Please lower your sword and I shall lower my spear.”
Guardian grimaced inwardly at her display of emotion and lowered her sword, flames extinguishing. She had almost given him cause to murder her in the guise of self-defense. She glanced behind her at the battle, noting the retreating forms in the distance.
“It appears that the ranks of Men are broken and you have won the day. You may keep Nemain and Badb for your cruel little campaign, as General Nuada requested but I want no more part in this slaughter. I am returning to Tír na nóg where I will assist in defense against any hostile overtures the Fomorians may try while the army is busy here. You may only call on me if our forces are in extreme danger and for nothing else! Goodbye Dagda”. With those words, Guardian made a sweeping departure and marched off toward the gateway in the distance, without looking behind her.
“Goodbye Anann of the Morrígan and safe journey”. Dagada laughed at her departing figure. The Tuath Dé Dannan were on Earth to stay, just as he planned.