The Deliverance Trilogy

Chapter 1

Malach Tresch ran through the dense underbrush swiftly and quietly; he was in his element. It was night, and even though these woods were not the woods he grew up in, he had an idea of where he was headed. He also knew it would be easy to get turned around and lost in this forest. His legs ached from running for so long, and he was pulling in ragged gasps of breath. Something was hard on his heels and he didn’t know who or what it was, but it was big. It scared him so much he didn’t have the courage to even look back. He just kept running.

Something hard and metal was in his hand, and it was heavy. He looked down to see what it was. The weapon had a peculiar appearance. A short staff with two curved blades protruding from either end, so he could use either side offensively. It felt good in his hand; balanced, normal, right, like he had used it all his life. It was an extension of his body. There was only one issue. He had never seen it before. He also had his bow slung over his chest, his side quiver, and a large hunting knife on his belt. Those he recognized. However, as he ran, he realized there were no arrows in the quiver, which was probably why he was carrying the staff weapon instead of his bow, his weapon of choice.

All of this only took him seconds to process and seconds more to realize he had, in fact, gotten lost. He couldn’t stop, though. He could hear the monster behind him, breathing as hard as he was and knew it would be on him at any moment. As scared as he was, he knew he would have to turn and face the creature soon. He hoped to outrun it, but that had been a mistake. Possibly a fatal one.

His mind reeled as it processed what had happened. The creature had dropped on his platoon and killed half a dozen of them in the span of a few minutes. Fully trained men. Men whom he knew and trusted. Men who had been trained from childhood lay dead, dying, or scattered like scared rabbits, all semblance of discipline lost. Malach was no exception. He had glanced back and gotten a glimpse of Daziar standing his ground with his spear and losing his head for it. Malach would never forget the sight of Daziar’s head hitting the ground as his body slumped onto its side, the lifeless eyes staring out at nothing.

That one pause would probably cost Malach his life. He had been spotted by the creature at that moment. They had locked eyes, and it was going to kill him. The creature stood well over ten feet tall, mostly black, with large, bat-like wings. It stood on two legs to fight and had large, razor-sharp, clawed hands and feet with spikes sticking out of its elbows and knees. When it spotted Malach, it dropped to all fours and gave a wicked, spiked-toothed grin that made Malach’s blood run cold. Malach mentally screamed at his legs to move, and after a moment that felt like an eternity, they finally responded.

Now it was almost on him. He must have run five miles, and Malach had a sinking feeling that it was playing with him. Staying just behind him to keep this sick game of cat and mouse going. But why? Whatever the reason, Malach was done with it. He wouldn’t play its game anymore. He mustered his strength and reached up, grabbing a low-hanging branch. Using his momentum, he swung up onto it, climbing nimbly up a few more feet and waited for the creature to run by. He would get behind this creature to become the hunter instead of the hunted and kill this thing once and for all.

He forced his breathing to slow while he waited. He couldn’t hear the creature anymore, and for a second, he thought he might have actually lost it. Then it came into view. As silent as the night. Slow, cautious, like it knew something was not right. Like it knew its quarry had changed tactics. It started toward the tree Malach was hiding in, and he held his breath. Readying his staff weapon, he prepared to leap down on top of the giant monster. He prepared for the end. Studying the creature, he realized this monster was a demon. The bat-like wings and horns visible from the back of the demon’s head were unmistakable. If the creature turned around, he would see its glowing red eyes staring back at him. His strength almost failed him at the realization. No one had seen a demon in over two thousand years. . . at least, no one he knew about. They were the stuff of legends. Something grandparents would tell their grandchildren to make them behave. Malach pulled his thoughts back to the present and the task at hand. He would be the first to kill a demon in over two thousand years, or he would die by its hand. The next few moments would decide that.

The demon was almost under him and he would have a clear path to drop onto its back and run the blade of his staff through the creature’s brain. All of a sudden the demon snapped its head to the side, or rather turned it almost all the way around without moving its body, as if it heard something Malach couldn’t and then took off at full speed in the way it had come with a flurry of wind from its wings. Malach didn’t dare relax until the sound of its retreat had faded into the night entirely. After a few more silent moments, he sat down heavily on the branch he had been crouching on and let out a sigh of relief. He had to tell someone what he had seen. He had to get out of here before that demon came back.

He climbed down from the tree, but before sliding all the way to the ground, he peered around cautiously. Hearing and seeing nothing, he dropped soundlessly to the ground and stood upright. A roar defended him. At the same time, felt a searing pain in his chest and his feet were lifted off the ground. His eyes focused on a long black claw protruding from just under his ribcage, blood trickling from around it. The beast shook him off into the bushes like he was no more than something distasteful and stalked off into the night in search of something else to occupy its time, leaving Malach to bleed out in the unfamiliar woods.

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Malach woke with a start. His eyes flitted around the room he was in. It was his room in the little cottage that had belonged to his parents. It was a simple room made of rough cut timbers. There was a bed with a wooden chest at the foot of it where he kept his clothes, two pegs in the wall where his bow hung, a square container which had several fletched arrows protruding from the top. There were also two doors, one leading out to the rest of the cottage, one leading to the washroom. He studied his chest. No wound. He tore his shirt over his head to get a good look at his bare skin. No, nothing; not even a scratch. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Just the dream, he thought, but he still checked his chest again. It had felt so real.

The fear.

The pain.

Even now, he could remember every detail as if it had been a recent memory, not a nightmare. Malach again checked all over his six and a half foot, muscular body for any wounds. However, he could find nothing that hadn’t already been there the night before. Malach was taller than most in his village, standing a head above most men and head and shoulders above most women. With jet-black hair and a darker complexion, he stood out like a sore thumb against the fairer skin and lighter hair of most in the area.

He hated sticking out.

The kids growing up had made fun of him for being different. Until one took a swing at him. Malach had beaten the older bully and his two friends in an unfair fight. Malach didn’t mind the verbal attacks. Those could be ignored; however, if someone wanted to do bodily harm to him or someone he cared about, they would be met with an unyielding defense.

Malach, in many ways, had the same childhood as most kids in the area. He had been trained for war from infancy and taught to handle several weapons proficiently. At age twenty, his body was lean and fit and even though he had a taller, lankier build than the other boys, he could best them in strength, speed, and agility. Every child was required by law to be trained in the way of combat from five years old until they were eighteen. After that, they, or more often than not their parents, could choose what they wanted to learn, and many let their fighting skills lapse. This had been set up since the fall of man to sin in The Garden of Eden, when war had come to the earth. When Satan, the lord of the demons, brought his army to earth to cut the race of men, God’s creation, from the earth and the hosts of heaven had responded. Since then, demons, angels, and men have been locked in combat for thousands of years. At least, that’s what they had been taught. There had been peace for more the two thousand years now, and many questioned if the war was finally, truly over.

People had a choice to make once they came of age at twenty-one; side with the Demons or side with the Angels. They were required to live in a neutral zone, an area where war was not allowed, for a minimum of two years. After that, they could make their choice if they desired or stay in that zone. This had been set up shortly after Cain made his choice and killed Abel and man joined the ranks of the demons to kill the angels and march on Heaven’s Gates themselves, or so the story went. Once that choice was made, there were very few who changed their mind, and Malach wondered if the ones that did convert had ever actually chosen or if they simply said they did. They had all been taught these stories by their parents. However, for the last two thousand years, there had been no sightings of either angels or demons, and there had been relative peace, aside from the normal crimes of men.

This choice had been on Malach’s mind since he turned eighteen, and the dreams had started. He was still considered a kid, and he imagined rightly so, since the average person lived to be around seven hundred years old. He was a little more than a week from turning twenty-one, and his whole world was being turned upside down. . . again.

Malach sighed, dragged his tired limbs out of bed, and went to the washroom. It was a small room with a tub and an elevated basin for a sink. He splashed the tepid water on his face to clear his mind. He had lived in this cottage for most of his life. First with his parents until they had died when he was twelve. That was the first time his world was turned upside down, and then returning when he was eighteen to live here on his own.

His father and mother were excellent parents while they lived. They had moved here from a faraway place before he was born. He didn’t know where they came from, just that they had settled here to raise him. This town was all he knew. When he was younger, on his days off from training, his father would take him deep into the woods for days at a time, teaching him how to survive; hunting, trapping, herbs, shelter, and crude weaponry, you name it, and he knew it.

A week before his thirteenth birthday, he had gone to Daziar’s house for the night. Daziar was his best friend and, in many ways, the brother he never had. Daziar’s birthday was only a couple of days away, and they were going to celebrate their birthdays together. A large storm hit that night, and they had to take shelter with the rest of the town in the underground bunkers dug for just that purpose. He had never worried about his parents because he knew they would have done the same, but when his parents hadn’t come for him, doubt crept in, which lead to fear. By the third day, Daziar’s parents, Daniel and Jennari Wervine, had decided to take him back to his cottage a few miles out of town. When they arrived, the outside of the cottage was almost untouched, but the inside was a wreck. It was as if the storm had hit the inside of the house, not the outside. His parents were nowhere to be found.

He didn’t understand then that something other than the storm had driven his parents from the house, though there was no evidence as to what. He had stayed the next few days with Daziar while the villagers had searched the area. They had never found his parents’ bodies, assuming wild animals had taken them. They held a vigil shortly after since there was nothing to burn at the funeral pyre. The next few years were the hardest of his life. Daziar’s parents took him in and treated him as their second son. Daziar had two sisters who were much younger than them. Emmeline, who was now twelve, and Marletta, who was now ten. They had become like Malach’s sisters, and he watched over them.

Now Malach lived alone in his cottage, though there were few nights he slept there. Most nights he spent out in the wilderness, even in the winter, finding that more comfortable than any bed. Some of the villagers talked about how odd he was and spread wild rumors about him being part wolf, or at least was raised by them. The only basis of truth in those rumors was that his closest companion was a wolf.

Her name was Skie. He had met her the winter of his fourteenth year. She had sprung one of his traps set for a wild dog who had been taking a farmer’s sheep. When he had seen her, he knew she wasn’t who had been hunting in the From Men and Angels area. She was a ragged, bloody mess. It was hard to tell she was even a wolf under all the gore coating her pelt. Malach pulled her out of the trap and took her back to his cottage. He would go up to the cottage daily, feed her by hand, and change her bandages. She nearly died.

When she was awake, he would talk with her about hunting and whatever else came to mind. She seemed to listen with some manner of interest, although he didn’t know how much she understood.

He felt they bonded over that time, which was why he was a little heartbroken when he found one morning she had left in the middle of the night. Two years passed before he saw her again. He was out one evening at dusk, tracking a doe who had one of his arrows in her. He had made an excellent shot. Despite that, this doe fought on through the underbrush, staying just ahead of him. He heard a wolf howl to his right, then his left, and a third directly behind him; a hunting pattern. Either Malach or the deer were the prey. He moved then, leaving the trail of the deer, hoping they were hunting the wounded animal for an easy kill. He ran out into a clearing and into the main hunting pack. There were five of them, hackles raised, growling and snarling menacingly. He recognized the scars on the face and side of one of them and he knew it was the wolf he had saved. He had saved her just to be killed and eaten by her, hopefully in that order.

He notched an arrow. He wouldn’t go down without a fight. Drawing the arrow back, he took aim at the scarred wolf. However, before he let his arrow fly, she leaped. . . onto the wolf closest to her, tearing at its jugular. The other wolves were caught off guard, and Malach loosed his arrow into a second wolf’s chest as it turned to attack Skie. The arrow dropped it immediately and Malach notched a second with practiced ease. He never got the chance to fire it as the other two wolves disappeared into the brush, not wanting to end up like their companions. Malach burned the wolves’ bodies, as he would have any humans, with reverence and silence while Skie watched.

Since then, she had stayed with him but was by no means his wolf. She was her own creature and would do as she pleased. He tried several names before she chose Skie. She was a large wolf with her head coming up past his waist. The name Skie fit her. She had almost a blue tint to her fur with silver mixed in. Three long scars, where no hair grew, started small at her snout and grew wider as they ran down her left side, finally stopping at her flank. She looked fierce and rugged, and Malach didn’t blame people for being afraid of her. She was, however, quite gentle and, in fact, good with children.