This can’t be good, I thought as I entered the living area. My sister turned to look at me, her face becoming even grimmer, she signaled for me to sit beside her with a subtle wave of her head.
“I heard you encountered some Falupians close to the safety zone on your hunt,” father said as I took a seat.
“Yes,” I replied simply, thinking to myself rumors sure do travel fast, I wonder how it even got to father’s ears.
“Was there anything else out of place that you noticed?” father asked, looking straight ahead into the flames as he spoke. I looked to my sister hoping to find clues from her as to what was going on, but I had no such luck. Father’s interest in my hunting trip made no sense to me.
“No, other than the Falupians, we didn’t have any other encounters,” I answered.
“Hmm. Perhaps it is unrelated, but it is better to confirm these things,” father said, but I wasn’t sure his words were meant for me, because I didn’t understand what they meant.
I reached over to pinch my sister’s sides, when she turned to face me, I mouthed the words, “What is going on?”
“The chief priest received a prophecy,” my sister answered.
“‘The children of chaos and their sympathizers have begun to move to bring about the descent of their god, the hands of time have begun to spin; it counts the days until they achieve their goal and chaos rises, on that day the world will enter one final sleep.’ Those were the words whispered to the chief priest,” father said, his voice sounding grim as he recited the prophecy to me.
My heart started to beat really fast, my palms became sweaty, my hands shaking ever so slightly. I opened my mouth to speak several times, but I couldn’t find my words. The meaning of that prophecy wasn’t ambiguous at all, it left no room for doubts. Father, me, and my sister sat there quietly for some time.
“Do we know who the ‘children of chaos and their sympathizers’ in the prophecy is referring to?” I asked, finally breaking the silence.
“I have my suspicions, but it is hard to tell if my reasoning is being clouded by emotions. For now, every worshipper of chaos falls in that category, and among them, the Lycans likely are the main instigators,” father answered.
“What could their aim be? The destruction of the world will gain them nothing,” I said.
We had many myths about gods descending upon our world, and even the most benevolent of gods caused many disasters upon their descent. It had little to do with their will, their very presence alone caused the very delicate balance between order and chaos to be broken. The level of destruction their presence caused led to them making a binding pact to never interfere in our affairs directly, they could neither descend upon our world nor could they directly exercise their powers on our world. Eventually, the gods found a way, they would bless mortals, they would sign contracts with us, and using us as mediums they could exercise their powers in our world.
“There are many theories being thrown around by the priests, but no one truly knows, however, I suspect we’ll find out soon enough,” father said. He then turned to look at me as he asked again, “Are you sure you didn’t notice anything else that was odd?” I thought about it a little, but there was nothing that seemed odd to me, and I told father as much.
“Father, do you think the other settlements got the same prophecy?” my sister who had been quiet until now asked.
“They most likely did. This prophecy sounds like a warning to all creatures of order, so it is nigh impossible the other settlements didn’t get it,” father answered my sister’s question. We fell silent again before my father said to me, “Silas, I hear you wanted permission to leave the settlement.”
“Yes, I was thinking of taking the recruits on a journey to the Bedszvie forest,” I answered.
“Good, the oracle lives in that forest, seek her out and try to convince her to join in on our fight, we’ll be needing her wisdom if we are to stand any chance,” father said, then standing up he added, “but first you must earn the right to leave the settlement. The full moon will be upon us soon, before that time you must take your men and wipe out the Lycan settlement close to ours, I shall provide mages to assist you.” After saying his piece, father left the living area and retreated into his room.
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My sister and I sat quietly in the living area for some time, nothing but the sound of wind blowing past the house and the wood crackling and popping as it burned in the fire pit filled my ears. The heat from the fire warmed my body so well my back and underarms started to get moist.
“Silas,” my sister called out. I turned to see her staring at the flames as if in a trance, “do you know when the next full moon is?” she asked.
“No,” I answered.
“The astrologers say it should be in about fourteen days,” she said. She turned to face me, a little robotically, “Can you train the recruits well enough to take on the Lycan settlement within that time frame?” she asked.
I paused to think about it. It was a difficult task to accomplish; while there were veteran warriors amongst the recruits, most of them were still rookies, and while they had managed to successfully learn mana channeling, visualization and mental focus were things they hadn’t learned yet—without learning these things the enchanted weapons meant nothing.
“It will be difficult, truthfully right now it seems impossible, but I must still try. Training begins again early tomorrow morning, I’ll have to try my best to drill visualization into their heads, perhaps…” I said, trailing off at the end as I got lost in thought.
Maybe visualization will be as easy for them as it was for me. If I make the end goal of wiping out the Lycans known, maybe they’ll be extra motivated and work that much harder. Yes, perhaps I can use their strong hatred and appetite for revenge to push them.
“Perhaps what?” my sister asked, I turned to face her only to see she was staring at me intently.
“Perhaps it’ll be easier than we think. Every single one of them has an intense hatred for the Lycans and has lost loved ones during the Lycan raids. If I make raiding the Lycan settlement a kind of reward for those that successfully complete their training within the specified time period, don’t you think we might have a chance?” I said to my sister.
Smiling, my sister said to me, “Using your brain I see. It’s not a bad idea, let’s try it, I’ll try to come up with simple tasks that can help them grasp image formation and mental focus quick.”
“Minerva, who do you think ‘the children of chaos’ in the prophecy refers to?” I asked my sister the same question I’d asked father.
“Like father, I believe the Lycans to be the main instigator, but every worshipper of chaos probably is working with them. So perhaps that is referring to every being that doesn’t worship order,” she said.
Her answer gave me goosebumps, I felt oddly apprehensive and it took me a while to finally understand why. What she said meant we were fighting a force composed of many factions all working towards one goal, no matter how hard we tried we were likely to fail to stop them, not unless all of us who worshipped order could unite and work towards a common goal like they were.
Maybe that is why the gods gave us the prophecy, maybe it was to give order a fighting chance, to unite us against a common enemy, and giving us a common goal I thought to myself.
“Silas, stop thinking depressing things and get some rest, no matter what the world isn’t ending today. I can smell alcohol on your breath, don’t bother going back to the barracks, I’ve been keeping your room clean so you can sleep there today. Let’s take it each day at a time, since the gods gave us this prophecy it means they’ll be getting involved, so don’t worry too much, what we must do will become known to us as we do what we can do,” my sister said, she then got up and left. I sat alone for a while before turning in for the night.
The next morning we both left early for the training ground, on our way there we never spoke. We got there to find some recruits already present, their enthusiasm lifted my spirit a bit. Not long after we arrived Aurel did too, and it wasn’t long after that all the recruits were present. Aurel was unaware of what father had discussed with me the previous night and I didn’t want to blindside him with the information, so I pulled him aside to let him know while my sister began the next step of training for the recruits.
“So, finally we get to wipe those vermin out,” Aurel said through gritted teeth.
“We need to first train the recruits. I do not want to lose any of them,” I said.
I was also eager to attack the Lycan settlement, but I worried for the recruits that would be coming with me. So strong was their hatred that I didn’t doubt that if I asked them to march with me right now to attack the Lycans they wouldn’t hesitate, but the risk to their lives was one I was keenly aware of.
“Don’t worry, if I have to drill a hole in their skull to feed the knowledge through, I will,” Aurel said, his eyes burning with passion.
We returned to the group to find my sister explaining visualization to the recruits. This time there weren’t too many questions, and there certainly weren’t any that were as silly as “what is mana?” Overall, I was encouraged by the discussion. Once the theoretical part of the training was over, we moved on to sparring. I was going to get the enchanted weapons from the smithy after training today, once I got the weapons proper training would begin.
Once the sparring session was over, I assembled the recruits to have one last word with them before letting them leave, “Your weapons are finally ready, starting tomorrow we will begin proper training with them,” I began, my words causing murmurs to spread like wildfire within the crowd. “Our first mission begins in less than two weeks; we’ll be attacking the Lycan settlement closest to us, and only the recruits that have successfully completed their training will be allowed on that mission, so I hope you work hard.”
By the time I dismissed the recruits they looked properly motivated, and it gave me a bit of hope. I didn’t know how many would succeed in learning visualization and mental focus, but I had hope that their enthusiasm and effort would produce miraculous results. The gods surely were watching and they wouldn’t ignore our predicament. I was hopeful.