The Orb of Darkness Harbinger Prologue + Chapter 1

Prologue:


An ashen wind of capricious intent howls across a land that screams with pain and bloodshed. The dour crimson stains color the land in an effigy of madness and cruelty. A great beast; born from a certifiable god lashes against its chains. The air thunders with its roars.

Arlay swats his black hair from his eyes and walks through a gallery of the dead. He feels like he's walking through a butchery in the Underworld where men are cut up into bits instead of pigs.

Dustin, a young soldier following under the umbrage of his father; Vortigern, is coming up to his side. His face is white. His gun shaking in his fingers. His own nerves scattering his control.

Then the peace is over like holding one's breath that must be released.
And so the chaos resumes.
Men and women scramble down the reddened hillsides, blazing, furious energy behind them. Hated beasts; only a few are left; follow with them. Heaving bursts of embellishing flames of glittery blue, gold or silver burn the flesh of the land. Arlay runs into the heat of it, swinging up his gun and firing as fast as the bullets can reload back in the chamber.

When that is not enough he rips into their hides with his misericorde that pines for vital organs. The blade is so fine that it can slip through plated armour and strike the fatal components of his enemies.

Warm blood explodes on his face from a man he has just killed. Barely being able to see, he strikes his next target. Then another. He feels no regret. No emotion. Perhaps he has truly become a machine like all of Elijah's children.

The drahons; the ancient ancestors of dragons, wyverns and all manner of reptiles, fall out of the sky like birds as they are pelted with cannon fire. Some choose to land but are still targeted and raped by gunfire, arrows and swords. Blasts of reformer technology are winning this war.
Still, despite their small victories, his comrades are dying. He refuses to care. To him they are like white clouds in the sky. Unreachable and only there for the pleasure of seeing.

Someone comes up behind him. Like a viper, Arlay changes his direction and thrashes his arm upwards. His crimson misericorde has buried itself in Dustin's throat. Shock does not engulf him as he sees Dustin standing there; in complete revelation as fresh blood seeps from the penetration. Instead, Arlay only muses of what Vortigern should think once he hears of his son's plight.
The dagger is drawn free. Dustin reaches up to stop the blood flow, even though it is obviously futile.
The carnage of his own actions fulfils him, as if violence can somehow escape his own sadism that has bitten into his life and will never let go.
So he leaves the boy and resumes his fight.
Barbarity is something he will never see the end of now.





Chapter 1: Disappointment


There is little to be said about taverns where their only consistency and purpose in life is to provide selfish men to indulge ever further into their sordid hobbies and foul divulges. Pipe and cigar smoke of every type and poisonous odour encased the air into a misted quality that choked the life out of anyone not stout enough to endure the issuing pollution. Then again, only the stupid or those with souls of depravity stumbled within the tavern's dirty bowels.

Here was Oaken Lodge, a pub in the middle of Inkden Coss that seemed to entice muggers, rapists and murderers into its cesspool of dark scum and vile scorn as if the very place had an open sign saying: 'take what you please and do so violently.'

Thad knew little of Inkden. In fact this was his first time coming here and wanted to leave as soon as he had entered its bustling streets and crammed packed sidewalks. Business seemed to be thriving here. Rich, upper class people mingled with those in rags. Children stood at doorways holding out bowls while begging passersby for food or coin. Stray dogs, mostly violent or having been savaged themselves, barked or throttled metal bins in the hopes of a meal.
Most people were hurrying by with wagons or wheelbarrows carting coal or salt.
The streets were grimy, black and sweaty with damp, squalid heat. Everywhere reeked of either alcohol, sweat or grease from the machines humming down the road or working in street markets.

Thad bumped into a woman in a shawl and a plain dress that had been stained up to the waist in what was probably her own urine. "'Scuse me," he mumbled half-heartedly as he tried to get across the street thick with sellers, buyers and possible thieves.
"Watch where ya going, you stupid lil' shit!"
Thad was both bemused and partly threatened by her quick, volatile anger as if someone had just ripped out her hair. Hurrying on and hopefully losing her in the crowd in doing so, Thad asked anyone who looked friendly enough where Oaken Lodge was. He doubted the person he was trying to find would be here of all places. The town was the embodiment of drunken fools and gambling sex maniacs. On every corner of every street he saw prostitutes, men drinking, or men drinking while having sex out in the open with prostitutes.

He alleged that he had been fooled. No man of dire qualities and celibate innocence would even come here for directions. But still - Thaddeus had to check, otherwise he'd be at square one once more. Back to skimming the lonely countryside and meandering throughout the towns and cities like a bumbling vagrant.

Much to his distress, Oaken Lodge seemed to be in the very heart of this violent, scummy cesspool of maddening feral behaviour. The tavern itself looked like it had been built out of cocktail sticks rather than real brick and mortar. The walls looked fresh from the strokes of an angry fire and the stringy path leading up to it was littered with beer bottles, nut wrappers and drunken men.

A young, fair haired man at the door eyed him up and down while smoking thickly from a fat cigar. "You looking fer some love?" The man asked. When he smiled, his lips revealed black teeth that hadn't seen a brush for decades. "Goin' cheap if you want me!"
"No, but thank you," Thad answered as politely as one could manage, nodding at the man before swiftly turning into the tavern itself.
Coughing from all the smoke, Thad wound his way precariously inside like a zookeeper entering a den full of angry lions. Big men with muscular arms and mean eyes looked up at him while dribbling down mugs of frothy beer. More demonic still sat men in darkly clad clothes in the corners of the big open chamber like outcasts who saw themselves too deadly to mingle with 'normal' people. Their faces were shrouded in shadow and Thad dared not to linger his eyes on them for too long.

At the bar there were women who looked as mean and as strong as the men drinking heavy glasses of ale. A group of men were playing a card game in the centre with a pile of cash set aside. Two men were arguing near the back door. One wore a cape with an insignia on the black velvet that read 'A.'

Another two guys sat by the far wall round a small table loaded with bottles and ashtrays.
Thad approached them, feeling sorely out of place and very vulnerable. He felt all eyes on him. The people here obviously weeded out the strangers on instinct like dogs do when new puppies are thrown into the jaws of a well established pack.
One he recognised. But only just. His eyes were the same. Open. A little drawn, but dark hazel with a playful smile riding his thin lips. Time had almost changed this man far beyond recognition - unless he had a brother with the same chin, face and slouching disposition.

Nervous all of a sudden as if faced by a classroom of pupils while about to deliver a presentation, Thad came up to them and cleared his throat. Both men looked up immediately. Before he lost his nerve, Thad started quickly, "hullo, gentlemen! Sorry to interrupt you, but I think you are Arlay Verden, vanguard to the Emperor and servant to Elijah the Great! Am I correct?"

His confidence cracked like soft ice under the scolding sun. The two men who had looked up at the first whiff of his presence bubbled into deep laughter. The chuckles weren't dark but rather heartfelt, as if Thad had just imparted an invaluable joke.
"Arlay!" Said the one he had been looking for, a man who looked insurmountably tired and unwell, yet seemed to uphold an unearthly residence of empty joy, "Charming! Bow, do you know this young lad?"

The guy in question nodded his eyes at Thad in dirty repulsion, "nah. Not him. Never seen 'em in my life. He ain't a lost son o' yours, is he?"

Thad took a chair and sat down amongst them. Bow was taken aback and even snarled at this stranger openly invading their privacy. "Arlay," Thad insisted, looking up at the man whom he had known and loved so well now looked as drunk as the men heaving their guts up outside, "it's me! Don't you remember me at all? You had darker hair back then! It must have been twenty years ago! You served under the Emperor for as long as I can remember! I was your favourite..."

"Come now and stop with such a palaver. My name is Arden. Arden Octavian." He said, cramming another quick drink to his lips before jabbing a pipe into his mouth. "I thin' you have me confused with someun' else." His words were slurred substantially with too much alcohol.

Thad's disappointment floated upward until it swelled and consumed him entirely. The other guy who looked a little bit older than Arden with greying black hair and droopy blue eyes, shook his hand in a surprisingly friendly manner that excelled Thad's expectations. "I'm Serle Rain, but you can call be Bow. All my friends do."
Thad nodded, even if he was still too full of loss to dutifully register his regard.
"So, why are you looking for this Arlay, hmmm?" Arden shoved a bottle of beer towards him, his lucid eyes staring right into him intelligently despite the way he swayed in his chair.

"I don't really know." Thaddeus took the drink but didn't sip from it right away, "I guess it was just a silly dream. Some goal with no ground to it, like trying to catch a balloon I guess. I'm sorry I troubled you." He went to leave, too sunken and visibly upset to continue talking with the man who openly denied being Arlay when he just had to be.

Arden grabbed his hand and gently forced him back down. "You're young," he said, licking his lips, one hand cupping his pipe, "you don't belong here. You must have come a great distance. Your clothes don't match the fashion anywhere in the sector, yet you seem so familiar."
"Maybe if you weren't so drunk." Bow added quietly.
"Who sent you?"
"Me?" Thad asked, suddenly feeling defensive, "nobody! It was my own request! A simple motive to help me get away from my home! Is that not enough for you?"

Arden however didn't seem interested any more. He was back to nursing his dark teal bottle of beer with tired eyes. Lines of age were etched into his face, giving him a hollowed, grievous look. The stubble on his chin suggested that he hadn't shaved in a while and wasn't intending to. Bow on the other hand looked positively alert and healthy. He was drinking what appeared to be orange juice, which made Thad slightly suspicious. Were they friends? If they were, why was Bow not drinking while Arden looked as though he was determined to drink himself to death without a single bit of restraint?
"So you came all this way fer someone called Arlay? And you came from where, kid?" Bow asked, brows furrowed. He was dressed in a waistcoat and drawers while his friend was in a white shirt that was wet from either sweat or the spillage of beer. Arden's attached collar was encrusted in either food or possibly worse - old bile that had yellowed the once white edge like pungent mould.

Before Thad could answer, the barkeeper came up to them with a silk cloth hanging across his left arm. "I propose that you leave soon, lads." He digressed, "we'll be closing up shortly."
"But it's still noon," Bow said, rubbing his eyes and downing the last of his juice, "you don't normally close until past midnight."
"Well, I'm not really supposed to say," began the bartender agitatedly, "but seeing as you're part of the guild, I guess it doesn't really matter. Artemis wishes to use this place for the remainder of the day. They do after all own this tavern."
"Ah," Bow nodded understandably, "right you are."

Arden however looked far from amused. Cradling his pipe he tried to get up, only succeeding for all his efforts into spilling onto the hard oaken floor like a writhing eel fresh out of water. Thad quickly rose to help even if he felt like running away from the embarrassment of it all. He had travelled legions to find this man, only to find him changed into all the worst ways conceivable. And with Arden seemingly with amnesia, it was the last brick to add to Thad's ample tolerance.

A woman with wild yet alluring velvet black hair saw the sudden chaos at the bar. She had a bright red A tattooed on her exposed upper arm like it was a gang sign.
Bow got in the way of his sight and pulled Arden upright, muttering apologies to the on looking bartender and furious insults to Arden like a ruffled parent. Yet once his hands were on Octavian his touch suddenly became obtusely rough and unkind. Thad could not understand either one of them at all.

With the attractive woman with midnight hair still watching derisively from the bar while sipping a small wine glass filled with crushed fruit, Thad followed the two men out into the shoddy streets of Inkden Coss that conjured only mayhem and chaos.
Mysteriously, Bow, who was half holding Arden up to him, said to Thad testily, "You aren't a spy, are you?"