CHAPTER 1 - DREAMS - Part 1

CHAPTER ONE
DREAMS

Whenever Cullen dreamed, he dreamed he was a wolf. He was large, as big as his brothers, larger than a common wolf, and all silver and black with a starburst marking on his face. He ran with his pack, massive muscles pumping, furred feet flying, as they raced through the forest and across mountains.
But this dream was different. In this dream he was in the forest, standing at a crossroad. Four paths separated from where he stood and he couldn’t see down any of them. They were shadowed by the forest.
He chose the path in front of him and trotted down a way, following its twisted curves. He came out of the forest and saw the land of Holdfast before him. In the castle his father sat on his throne, head in his hands. At his feet was a broken crown.
Cullen turned back, racing to the crossroads again. This time he chose the opposite path and it carried him to the foot of the Everwinter Mountains. He followed the track, crossing over the cliff, through the heavy snow until it crystallized between the pads on his paws.
He came over the mountains and saw just bright sun. He squinted his eyes and kept walking forward but he could barely see anything. He walked for what seemed like miles until he saw a shadow in the distance. Ahead of him was a massive wall that stretched from horizon to horizon, off to either side of him.
He crossed under the wall, through an archway and he entered a strange land of hills the color of sand. He ran past a castle and city that was covered in dark clouds and shadows. Everything was black there and the people, strange looking people, looked defeated and worn.
He ran past the castle and crossed the land until he came to another castle, and this one too was covered in shadows and smoke, blocking out the bright sun. Cullen could feel the evil from the black cities and he wondered at the cause.
The path continued and he ran on. Finally he came to a huge waterfall, that ran down a massive mountain that had smoke coming out of the top. Cullen tired to approach the mountain but something huge and dark and evil came rushing forward. It had giant red eyes and a mouth full of teeth and it came on wings of all black that shadowed the sun and the sky. It roared as it came and Cullen cringed at the sound.
And then he woke, panting and sweating. He sat straight up in bed, worried at the images he saw. And upon awakening he knew what he had seen. The Host had gathered on the other side of the Everwinter Mountains and made a home there. Their Dark Master that the Asrai heard rumors of was there, at that mountain with the waterfall.
And the first part of the dream, about his father, he thought it must mean that he would lose his crown if Cullen didn’t face the Host soon. They would grow in strength and return to attack again. And their Dark Master would come as well and then what a fight they would have.
Cullen decided, in the early morning hours of that day, that he must cross the mountains and face the Host where they lived. He must go and confront the Master and stop him before he had the chance to come here to Holdfast and attack them again.
He climbed out of bed and dressed in his lightest clothing. He entered his small kitchen and got some water out of the pot where it stayed cool. He drank from his cup and then gathered up his Sword and Shield and stepped outside.
He started going through his forms, practicing his fighting as he did every morning since he had taken responsibility for the Creations. He had four in total, a Sword, a Shield, a Bow and a Horn.
The Sword, named Protector, had many powers, some he had mastered and others he still struggled with. With it he had strength beyond that of a normal man. The Blade released fire and lightening and wind attacks, as well as manipulating earth around him. It was made of steel with an ivory handle.
The Shield, known as the Wall, could either defend an area around him, its defensive capabilities working for about ten feet on either side of the Shield or he could use it to repel metal as an opponent’s weapon. It was created from steel and was circular with crenulations all around the outside edge.
The Bow, called Seeker, was silver with a delicate string that never broke. To use it, one just pulled back on the string and an arrow of purple light would appear to be fired. The arrows exploded on contact in a bright flash of sound and light.
The Horn, known as the Call, was also silver and hung from a small leather thong around Cullen’s neck when he carried it. Its magic inspired allies to fight and threatened opponents with doom. Once sounded, allies would feel energized and ready for battle, while enemies would cringe and cower at its music.
Cullen left the Bow and the Horn inside and he shadow fought in a small space in front of his home. The house was small, all one story, built of stone a wood beams. It had a thatch roof that he replaced often and cement mortar between the stones. The stones had come from the mountain and were slightly blue in color.
There was a garden in the back, where Sonia, Cullen love, grew small items for consumption and joy. She grew some food and plenty of flowers that always decorated the inside of the house.
Cullen thought about the last three years as he worked his forms. Kingfisher’s Strike was a high point thrust, from above to below and Cullen executed it with natural grace.
From there he went into Snake’s Thrust, bringing the Sword from low near the ground up into a long slashing motion to cut across an opponent’s guard. He immediately brought the weapon back in the Bear’s Claw which was another devastating attack to the front and side.
As he let himself fall into the patterns of attacks and defense, he remembered the War with the Host he had fought three years earlier. They had come, returned from wherever they had been since the First War, when they split from the Daoine Sidhe.
They had once been a part of the clans of elves that lived in the Danann Forest, but they had decided human’s should be used like slaves, that they were born to serve elven kind. The rest of the Daoine Sidhe opposed such thinking, choosing to leave humans to their own devices and stay out of their development.
That argument led to the First War. The Host was defeated and banished from the land. They traveled far and went underground, deeper than the Goblins and Duergar dig, and they found a new master that taught them dark magic. Just as the Dwarves mastered bears, and the Asrai mastered wolves, the Host mastered serpents and other underground creatures, changing their own bodies to suit that environment.
Now the Dark Fae were covered in small black scales and they used natural colored lights to communicate in the dark like deep water fish or lightening bugs. They had lost their beauty and become something dark and evil. But they were powerful too, Cullen didn’t forget that.
They had convinced one of the Daoine Sidhe to join them. He was called Mabon the Creator and he had made the four Creations that Cullen now possessed. He had made new weapons for the Host, that were also magical but cursed. Cullen had won three of those weapons in battle, but lost the other three.
Cullen had gathered the other Faery races; the Dwarves, the elves, the Selkies and Merrows and a few other creatures under one banner. He had convinced the great Kings and Queen of Faery to fight alongside humans when the Host had tried to pit them against each other.
Cullen had confronted the Host on the fields outside the city of Castle Holdfast. For three days they fought, against creatures of the Underdark, Goblins and Duergar and hordes of Dark Fae. Cullen had fought six champions and a man who had been brought back to life through dark means.
In the end, Cullen had driven them off, but there were still unanswered dilemmas. Mabon was never killed or captured, so he was still out there with his new Host masters, capable of creating powerful magical weapons.
The young soldier Dragos was never found either, after he had betrayed Cullen and his friends and run off in the Great Swamp after Cullen killed the renegade High Priest, Connon.
In the three years that followed, Cullen helped rebuild villages that had been destroyed by the rampaging Host. He had learned at his father’s side, the High King of the whole human Kingdom, how to organize and rule the Kingdom.
He had also spent his time with his mother, Queen Gwyddneu of the Asrai, learning about his Faery heritage and powers of transformation. When the Daoine Sidhe had split and become the Unseelie Court and the Seelie Court, the Asrai, a small clan of the Daoine Side went to the Dwarves for help.
The Daoine Sidhe were not a warlike race, but the Dwarves knew how to fight and were willing to teach. They also had the power to transform themselves into massive bears. The Asrai learned how to fight, how to make war as well as learning how to transform into something else. They chose the wolves that ran through the wood.
It gave them great power and they were quintessential in beating back the Host the first time. Cullen was born of the union between the Queen of the Asrai and the human High King. He was a prince in both worlds and he took that responsibility very seriously.
And now he had this dreamed that seemed to foretell something bad happening to his father if he didn’t face the Host again before they returned. Cullen was sweating when he finally stopped moving. It was a spring day and a little cool but pleasant out.
He saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and he moved to see Sonia coming out of the house after him.
“Good morning my love,” Cullen said gently. Sonia walked slowly to him, stretching. She was shorter than him, and thin but muscular. She wore her hair short with some curls near her ears and she had beautiful slate gray eyes with flecks of gold in them. She smiled at him and reached up to give him a kiss.
“Are you done?” she asked.
“I am just finished now,” he answered, knowing she wanted to eat breakfast with him before she left for the city. It had been another quiet weekend at home for them, enjoying each other’s company, but now the work week started again and she would be due back at the Orphanage where she worked with the left children of the army or accidents.
Sonia loved children and wanted her own someday, but Cullen had so far felt lucky that they hadn’t had any children yet. He supposed he would like to raise a child someday, but not yet. She seemed to be patient enough too, choosing to spend most of her energy with the needy children in the city.
The couple went back inside and Cullen changed his shirt, putting on a linen shirt that was dark gray. He wore brown breeches that were tucked into his black boots. When he removed his shirt, Sonia got another look at the tattoos Cullen had gotten since spending time with the Asrai.
The whole clan was covered in designs, some of a magical nature. Cullen had three half brothers from his mother that visited often, and Cullen was starting to look more like them because of the tattoos. Sonia thought they were beautiful. He had stars running up and down both arms, with different animals drawn in dark blue ink, almost purple. There were crows and frogs, wolves and boars, trees and just swirling designs that twisted along his body. And on his back was one massive piece that covered him from shoulder to shoulder that was the crest of his wolf family. Sonia liked that one most of all.
Cullen sat down and she served him some warm bread and butter, fresh fruits and bacon, even though she didn’t eat meat and she hated the smell of cooked pork. He smiled at her, knowing she hated it and did it anyway.
She sat down with her food and they ate quietly. “Will you be coming with me back to the city today?” she asked.
“No, my love, I must go talk to Cernunnous today,” he told her.
“You haven’t gone to see him in some time,” she observed, “Why now?”
“I had a dream, a strange dream and I want to know what he thinks. I think it was a warning of some kind.”
Sonia’s smile disappeared. “A warning?”
“Let me talk to the Forest God and then I’ll tell you what he thinks. Don’t worry so much love, I’m sure its nothing,” Cullen lied. She calmed a bit but he could see the tension in her shoulders.
Being an Asrai warrior, he had better senses that humans and he could smell certain things that warned him of how people were feeling. Fear was easy to smell, excitement was another, but this, what Sonia was feeling, was like a dread, a sinking feeling in her stomach. Cullen couldn’t sense that but he knew her mind and knew she was worried.
“Really, I will talk to the Old Man and then I’ll tell you all about it. Don’t worry.”