Chapter 2
The Echo of Ages
He stood on the edge of the plateau, eyes on the morning star searing through the velvet dark, its singular light piercing the dawn skyline.
A brutal wind tore across the high grass at the foot of the cliffs, slicing and flattening the hills in rolling, violent swells.
The land heaved between mountain and sea, feral and wild.
Bluffs and precipices jutted under the surf like broken teeth, blackened and slick with spray, while gulls screamed themselves hoarse into the salted air.
Farther inland, ridge lines whetted into pointed blue spines, each peak carved by wild storms, every hollow a trap where water turned into ice overnight.
Autumn held the rugged coastline in a hard, freezing grip.
The waters beyond the beach stretched out as a shattered crystal world, a vast ice mosaic where the sea ice had splintered into panes of teal and translucent white, stacking against the shore like the ruins of a fallen winter cathedral.
Far beyond to the north, the ocean hammered the bedrock in a relentless cadence, each strike detonating into white plumes that rose along the cliff face before tearing apart.
The wind blew with relentless force; the cold burned, lips went numb, and cheeks stung raw beneath it.
This was a terrain that took payment in small wounds, from salt on the tongue, to gales scraping skin.
It forged strength without ceremony.
You either braced against it and survived, or you bent and broke.
His lone figure moved through the gale, a dark, sinewed silhouette slipping over the landscape like a wraith between gusts as if the wind parted for him.
Long, black hair streamed loose to his waist, the strands stiff, matching his beard, threaded with frost.
Leather necklaces creaked at his throat and wrapped his veined wrists.
Slow-moving gold glyphs ghosted over his shoulders beneath a heavy ash-gray cloak, darkened by ocean spray.
The staff in his hand rested there in his grip, his expression serene though nothing about him was careless; each step and every pause made with intention.
His boots sank into the sod with the steady confidence of a man who had once traversed marble palace floors and raced over battlefields yet chose to leave both sets of chains behind.
He moved with the ease of someone who preferred mud underfoot, wool on his skin, and honest labor over gilded lies and acuminated swords.
Molten glowing eyes surveyed the harsh sprawl, counting his flock, his eyes resting on all the individual creatures scattered across the plains.
They knew his voice, the gravel-deep rasp that called them home, and they answered it with soft, trusting bleats.
For he fed, guarded, and tended them with unceasing devotion.
They grazed along the narrow ridges with instinctive ease, their muted calls rising and falling beneath the constant thunder of the sea.
He caught the sound of a weak wail from a hapless young ‘un that wandered too close to a dense, sprawling scrub of coastal gorse.
Moving towards the bleats, he spotted the tiny creature with horned branches caught tight in its thick, insulating wool coat.
The lamb kicked its hind leg once in a brief, useless protest, then stilled, whimpering for help.
The man pursed his lips and stepped toward the immobilized animal.
He crouched beside it and reached for the tangled burrs.
His sizable, sinewed hand swept aside the needle-like thorns of the bush.
He began working methodically through the knotted fibers, removing each twist of bramble. At the same time, he sent a calming psionic touch over the animal’s flank so it wouldn’t jerk in panic.
Halfway through the intricate task, he froze, his head tilted a fraction.
His eyes narrowed to slits of concentration.
Muscles coiled beneath his skin as a new sound bounced off the cliffs, one so imperceptible the wind’s howls almost swallowed it.
The unnatural, muffled, and strained thrum drew his attention to the roiling firmament. The sight that met him at first glance appeared empty of life.
Only the slate-colored clouds churned in heavy, layered slabs, as lightning threaded through them in radiant arcs.
He ignited his Ssignakht vision, and his perception slipped beyond the veil of the stormy firmament.
A golden radiance washed into his irises, burning brighter until his pupils glowed in a molten gleam.
The illusion dissolved.
A form emerged against the sky, a metallic silhouette suspended in unnatural stillness, cloaked in a distortion field.
A soft grunt escaped him as he eased loose the final tangle and kept the small creature beneath his palm, lending it heat and comfort.
His senses expanded, flooding outward across grass, stone, wind, and the heavens, as a score of figures masked in optical stealth dropped from the hidden ship in precise synchrony.
They descended through the churn of the towering, dense cumulonimbus surging with hail and wind.
Moments later, their boots touched down.
They formed into a perfect, lethal ring, encircling him in a radius of fifty feet.
He parsed their murderous intent with an arched brow.
A kill team, ay?
He turned back to the stricken animal with a huff and checked it over one last time.
There was no blood, nor injury, only the lamb’s bleated indignity.
He released it with a quirk of his mouth, and the creature sprang toward the its mother, where wool, milk, and safety waited.
He glanced to the right and left, still crouched, his eyes pulsing as he made out the veiled shapes taking silent, unseen, calculated steps towards him.
With a huff, he let his Ssignakht flare.
A high-pitched resonance swept the air, and in sync, the assailants let out screams of agony as their stealth suits faltered.
The pitch bounced around in their helmets.
Tearing the visors off, they clutched their ears as they halted their advance and bent over, gasping, sweating, and howling.
Their camouflage armor malfunctioned and was wiped out by a subsequent sonic blast.
‘Make it stop,’ one of the cried out. ‘Mercy.’
The resonant scream ended, replaced by a neural whisper that spoke into their minds.
Once, the man began. His timbre was clear, steady, and sonorous as it reverberated into their cognition. When I roamed these cliffs, I crossed paths with Shuaqagec, the most monstrous basilisk bull ever seen in this region.
The lead assailant straightened, still panting, and grasping for his weapon.
‘End this freakin’ nonsense, Idan, or whateverthefokk else they call you, mountain man!
Turn over this land and quit playing god and savior of Lattaya.
Lord Si’Rhix demands immediate compliance.
You’re interfering with his mining operations.
Fokk, you tore through thirty giant excavators and destroyed an entire quarry, and he demands you pay for it. Right fokkin’ now!’
Idan continued his neural speech as though the command had been little more than a rush of wind brushing past his ear.
I fought that beast across day and night for two full weeks.
Its claws tore into my flesh, even as I battled him, till our blood stained half the mountainside.
Its breath froze my veins until a sheen of ice formed beneath my skin.
Yet I struggled on until finally I wounded him with a shattering of his cannon bone.
This put an end to his campaign, and I endured, mind you, after gaining his respect.
A muffled oath cut through the ring of soldiers, followed by a frustrated, grinding growl from their commander.
‘For the love of all of Rhesia. Enough! Why the fokkin’ sermon, hobo?’
The man they called Idan rose to his full height with the patience and certainty of a bedrock soul that had long weathered storms, wars, and insults for centuries.
A smirk curved the corner of his mouth, defining the strong contours of his jaw.
Consider it sustenance for whatever passes as thought among you. If I can break the knee of a raging basilisk twice my size with only my hands, imagine what I will do to a group of poorly-trained enforcers.
The golden glow in his eyes intensified, and an ancient and immense potency appeared behind it, as if a power older than Pegasi itself stirred awake.
He glanced up at the skies, into the heart of the hovering ship.
I sense your gaze, Lord Tiberius Si’Rhix. Even now, as you sit hidden inside that vessel, seething with rage at me. This is your last chance to fokkin’ get out of this land, your mining concession be damned.
A pause, then a pulse flickered from the ship overhead, subtle yet unmistakable, a silent signal.
The fighters, now revived, stepped toward Idan with menacing, mechanized unity, closing in without a second of hesitation.
Their weapons shimmered as laser blades ignited and their augmented systems spiked to full power.
Idan’s heightened awareness picked up on every tiny movement as their footfalls vibrated through the ground.
Their hearts slammed against their ribs.
He even scented their maggot breaths and the sour undertone of their sweat, curling his lips in distaste.
The first soldier rushed forward.
Idan surged to meet him, tracking so fast he was a blur of golden energy.
He seized a wrist and spine in one fluid, devastating motion and brought the attacker down over his knee with a brutal, shattering twist.
Bone gave way with an audible crack.
Followed by a strangled breath, a scream from the downed warrior, and then by silence as they slipped into death’s embrace.
The second swung a blade charged with raw electric current.
Idan shifted aside, caught the man’s throat in his palm, and drove him against the cliff face hard enough to make the rock itself shudder.
The fighter sagged, vanishing under the subsequent rockfall.
Three more advanced, their disciplined, calculated formation long forgotten, as they fought for their lives with wild screams and howls of indignation.
Idan smashed through them with absolute, terrifying certainty.
His elbow shattered one jaw with a sickening crunch. His heel crushed a sternum.