Chapter One: The Crossing

The first thing he saw was the grass. It was damp, but Sabyn only knew that because of the glistening drops of dew on the blades. He couldn’t actually feel the wetness, nor was he uncomfortable or itchy, as one usually is when lying on grass, and yet every single nerve in his young body was going haywire, filled to the brim with a sensation that was…..

That was…

That waaaas…

Sabyn stopped trying. Truth be told, he doubted there actually was a word to describe the bizarre sensation. Scowling inwardly, Sabyn went to raise his head and-

He couldn’t move.

He was trapped, helpless. the spasms wracking his body were making it impossible for him to gain any coherency in his muscles as he shuddered uncontrollably on the wet grass. Trying to stay calm he shot furtive glances around the area. It seemed at least, that his eyes were still functioning.

No one was there. He was alone.

Sabyn made a hissing sound that would have been a sigh if his jaw wasn‘t chattering from the muscle spasms. At that point, struggling would just be a waste of his energy. Right then he needed to figure out just what the hell he was doing lying in some clearing in the middle of nowhere.

Okay… let’s see…

Piece by piece, Sabyn searched through his memory, trying to find something that would help him decipher the cause of his current predicament. He remembered running for his life with Exile. He remembered a swarm of Zarvox attacking them in a transportation bay. He remembered an explosion and then thi-

Wait!! Exile!

Sabyn started thrashing on the ground, trying to gain some coherence in his muscles through force of will alone. He focused all his strength into his right arm, desperately trying to stop it from thrashing uncontrollably. He forced his jaw shut, fighting off the spasms as he just managed to curl one finger, then his wrist. Slowly, straining with the effort, he managed to wrench his arm over his chest using the limb as leverage to raise his shoulder off the ground. Finally, with one last snarl of determination, Sabyn rolled over onto his hands and knees.

He crouched there for a minute, heavy gasps issuing from his throat as the last of the spasms slowly faded.

Slowly and carefully, Sabyn raised himself to his feet, taking care that his legs were sturdy enough to support his weight. When he was sure that he wasn’t immediately going to faceplant, he began looking around the clearing, searching for his best friend.

A small flicker of movement, a shape that didn’t belong.

There!

Exile was lying, twitching on the ground about fifteen meters away from Sabyn. It looked as if the sensation was affecting the other boy even more than it had Sabyn and the smaller youth was about to run over when he saw the irritated scowl on Exile’s face. Sighing slightly in relief, and unable to disguise a small smirk of amusement. Sabyn sat down on the grass and calmly waited for his friend to recover.

As his friend continued to thrash on the ground, Sabyn calmly looked around the area. As he had surmised before, they were in a small clearing in what he guessed was some kind of park. The bizarre looking trees around them were far too small and sparse for them to be a forest, which left park as the only viable alternative. That he could think of anyway.

Movement caught his eye, and he turned his head to see Exile slowly getting to his feet, shaking his head in order to clear out the bizarre sensation

“What kind of portal was that?” Exile grumbled

Sabyn was surprised.

“How do you know it was a portal?” he wandered

Exile rolled his eyes.

“We were in a transportation bay. There was an explosion and now we find ourselves in a clearing in the middle of nowhere, experiencing whatever the hell that was just then. What do you think happened?" Exile asked sardonically. "That the desperate fight for our lives turned out to be a game show, which we won and got a free holiday prize? But we got ridiculously drunk on tequila and we’re now too hung-over to remember what happened? Huh? Is that your brilliant theory?”

“Well, that option is possible.” Sabyn pointed out.

Exile just stared at him.

“You know, normally I’d wonder if going through that portal gave you brain damage, but when it comes to your IQ this is actually an improvement."

“Up yours!” Sabyn scowled, though he couldn’t quite manage to keep the grin off his face.

Exile turned away in order to get a good look at the area.

“Don’t even think about it,” he snapped.

“What?” Sabyn asked, puzzled.

“If you even think about asking a question as stupid as ‘Where are we?’ I will brutally murder you.”

“Actually,” Sabyn started mildly. “I was going to use a Resonance Spell to see if I can find any people around here.”

“Huh… Good idea.”

Sabyn walked out into the middle of the clearing as he loosely shook his fingers, The Resonance spell was one of the first tricks he had learnt at his old club. By generating a field of energy that reacted to the bioelectric signals of living creatures such as their brainwaves, heart rate ect. The Resonance spell gave the user supernatural awareness of all sentient life in the vicinity. At least, that was the idea.

Something was wrong.

He felt… normal. There was no other way to describe it, the tension, the strange buzzing of the flesh that charged his system whenever he used magic was inexplicably absent. He felt suddenly numb. Like a child trying to lift a rock with his mind. It wasn’t simply that the spell wasn’t working, that he would be able to deal with. No, the true horror that breathed helplessness into his veins was far more insidious.

There was no magic.

It was gone, absent, the very air was devoid of its presence, barren and empty.

“Exile!” Sabyn called out, panic briefly coating his voice. Exile jerked his head in Sabyn's direction, wordlessly asking, 'What?'."

“My magic’s not working!”

Exile froze. He stood there for a minute, his head tilting from side to side as he seemed to be considering something. Then he walked over to a nearby rock and punched it as hard as he could. The stone’s rough surface tore the skin from his knuckles.

Exile examined his bloody hand for a minute before turning back to Sabyn.

“My healing magic won’t work either.”

“Crap!” Sabyn swore, now truly scared. “Do you think going through that portal made us lose our magic?”

We clenched his fists, silently praying that he was wrong. Cold dread was creeping into his system, his magic was his one true weapon and the loss of it made him feel helpless and vulnerable. Exile immediately shook his head “Not possible. Our magic is an ingrained part of our minds. If we lost it, we’d go insane.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why we can’t use our magic,” he said.

Exile snorted. “You just answered your own question.”

A smile of relief quickly spread across Sabyn’s face as he realised what his friend meant. “So, we still have access to our magic, we just can't use it?"

Exile nodded.

“Right.”

“But how? An anti-magic field?”

“A portal that leads to an anti-magic field?” Exile asked, a heavy sense of irony in his voice.

“Not all portals rely on magic these days. Some use technology,” Sabyn replied evenly.

“Good point.”

Sabyn looked around, groaning slightly as the pain from their fight in the transportation bay slowly replaced the spasms from before.

Still, he knew he was lucky to be alive.

We must have been teleported out of range before the explosion could do any serious damage. He surmised.

“So now what?” Sabyn asked.

Now that was a good question. Without the use of a resonance spell to help them scout the area, they still had no idea where they were. Still, standing in the clearing certainly wouldn’t get them any answers. So, checking to see if there were any people hiding in the bushes, they left the small area.

They established a sweep pattern immediately, Sabyn flanked right, while Exile took the left, both of them keeping low and staying in cover. Sabyn was on edge as they moved across the land. Although the large amounts of hills, trees and bushes provided excellent cover, they also made the hills perfect for an ambush. Not only that, but without any long range weapons they would be forced to engage the target in melee, and while he was confident in his own melee combat skills (and more than confident in Exile’s), getting into melee without being riddled with bullets could prove to be problematic.

Still, eventually the steady rhythm of moving to cover, checking the area in front, then moving to the next cover began to relax Sabyn’s paranoid mind as he allowed his thoughts to wander.

Their biggest problem would be trying to fit in. They had absolutely no idea about the laws or cultures of the people in the area, if such things even existed. They had spotted a river flowing south awhile ago, and had decided to follow it, going by the old wisdom of settlements being built near sources of running water.

Eventually their gambit paid off. Reaching the top of a particularly large hill, Sabyn and Exile looked down to see an enormous city sprawling across the landscape. With a quick glance at Exile, who was eyeing the city carefully, Sabyn took off down the hill.

One of the traits of our kind is that we do not show our true age or our hardships.

A normal human of around thirty years of age, who has survived even a small number of battles, carries the scars of old wounds to serve to remind others that this is not one to be taken lightly and even a labourer or farmer would carry the marks of a life of toil.

By sixty, a normal human is visibly an elder of the family; respected by the younger members and treated, on sight, as an equal by other elders.

We, on the other hand, do not merely heal; we heal completely, leaving no scars at all, and even the oldest of us looks no older than somewhere in the mid-twenties.

The man who sat across the table from me was a hero, a legend – Tacitus had even mentioned him by name in his Annales – a veteran of many hundreds of battles and over seven hundred years old, but he appeared as unsullied as any young man who had never once known the hardships of war.

Amongst experienced mortal warriors, his apparent youth and completely unscathed appearance marked him as different – respected, and sometimes feared, by those who recognised what he was; underestimated and thought an inexperienced youngster by those who did not.

But despite his misleading appearance, he was obviously a warrior – his skin, where visible, was tanned from spending most of his time outdoors, his build and bearing were those of a seasoned fighter and his clear blue eyes were alert and watchful.

In the old tradition of his tribe, he wore his naturally pale hair long, bleached with lime wash and swept back from his brow and his thick moustache hung down both sides of his mouth to below his jaw.

His tunic and trews were made of linen cloth woven from different-coloured threads and his shoes were supple brown leather – all in good condition and only lightly soiled from the day’s travels. About his neck was a gold torc – not even as elaborate as mine, just three coils twisted together and capped at the ends with plain balls.

His long-bladed sword, worn on his right hip in the traditional manner of our people, had an old-fashioned hilt in the form of a stylised human figure, its head and curved arms forming the pommel, the torso forming the grip and the curved legs forming short quillons. It was obviously his original sword from when he first took up arms, centuries before. No doubt the blade had been replaced a number of times and perhaps even the hilt, worn down from years of handling, had needed to be replaced, but it was the same sword.

He signalled for a couple of beers.

The innkeeper, a Mercian, scurried to bring them then left quickly, obviously eager to distance himself from us – and well he might, for the ancient wolf warrior's description and reputation were well known and feared even here.

I was not well known, but my clothing, long hair and distinctive style of beard marked me as “westwealu” – and even this far from the border, that fact alone was enough of a reputation. The added fact that I was in the company of a notorious wolf warrior would lead people to make assumptions about me, not all of which would be inaccurate.

The innkeeper continued to watch us warily from the safety of the bar, as if worried that we might make trouble.

I was certainly not looking for trouble and I was hoping that the ancient warrior opposite me was not planning on any but I wasn't sure of his intentions or plans.

In truth, I had spent the entire journey justifiably concerned about why he had sent for me, as the recent rumours were disturbing. I had heard tales that he had tired of slaying Saxons, trolls, orcs and other mortals and had taken to killing other wolf warriors.

I hoped that the rumours were unfounded or, if based in part on truth, that there were reasons for any killings – such as matters of honour or personal conflict.

Despite the rumours, I came when summoned – no one could accuse me of cowardice – and was hopeful that he had no quarrel with me, the grandson of one of his friends.

He took a mouthful of beer to wet his throat and settled back against the wall.

“I was twenty years old, only just learning to control the change, when Claudius began his invasion,” he began. He spoke in British, confident that the innkeeper and the inn’s only other customers at the time, a troll and a dwarf, would not be able to understand.

As he had the air of a man about to embark on telling his life’s tale, I took up my tobacco pouch and pipe and began filling the pipe’s bowl as he spoke.