An Angel Called Eternity

The Field Rat's Banquet - Seventh II: Blood and Mist

Seventh II: Blood and Mist

The Fourteenth Day of the Eleventh Moon, 872 AD.
Haestinghen, Eastern Teleytaios, Klironomea.

Something was happening here.
Granted, they were in the middle of a kingdom in the midst of a civil war, so something was always happening, but this was different. For quite some time now they'd been kept under house arrest in Haestinghen, for their own protection of course, unable to leave their chambers unless under armed guard and they were certainly not allowed beyond the walls of the small keep they were in.
There was a feeling of trepidation in the air. A sense that something, something, was going to happen soon, but no-one could quite tell what. The guards were getting more and more on edge as the days went by and rumours of the mystic powers Seventh possessed made their way to more and more people in the population of the town. It was only a matter of time before some pious fool or populist aristocrat tried to rile up a crowd and storm the keep.
After all, the pagan magics under their possession were an affront to the Angels and the Saints, surely?
They let out a deep sigh. Some of the guards were speaking of moving them further north, back towards Aenirhen. Ser Aethel had suggested an impoverished village called Suthenfordeinar near the site of Harran's Folly, seeing as the more rural population would be more accepting of mystic abilities and unexplainable phenomena.
Seventh didn't buy that one bit. Rural types were just as closed off as their urban counterparts when they found something that didn't fit their worldview. That was just a fact of life for someone like them.

There were twenty-one men set to guard them in Haestinghen, all working in shifts. Ser Aethel himself and nine other knights of his Order made up the original guards, and the ten Armsmen the blind bodyguard had picked out formed the rest of the group. There were always two knights and two armsmen standing guard at the door, they presumed to prevent any arguments between the rival military groups. Ser Aenethar was there as well, but it was rare for him to take guard duties as the others did. Sometimes Seventh would feel his presence lingering outside the doorway to their temporary chambers, but not often. Not that the others wanted to stand guard with him; his silence seemed to creep them out, as did the absence of that spark in his eyes that made him seem... different to most people. In any other circumstance Seventh may have attributed it to him being a soldier who had seen too much, and who lived life with a vacant expression and hollow mind, but they knew it was not that.
They'd seen too many people like that not to know what it looked like.
Aenethar was an enigma to them.
They shrugged to themselves, and sighed again. Their dreams had taken on shades of prophecy again recently, but they were unable to focus on the meanings behind the dreams from the inside of this grey room. They needed to hear wind blowing through the trees, to hear birdsong in the air, to hear all the sounds of nature at its most tranquil. It was hard enough to concentrate on such things in Anaria where they could freely roam the gardens of the palace or even go to the forests just outside the Anarian Marches, but stuck within the grey stone walls of the keep in Haestinghen?
They felt like they were going mad with the need for nature and all things wild.
They smirked. That was another reason the capital had not been as bad as expected on their more mystical senses; Rhema held more than a spark of the wild in his spirit. Much more than a spark. They shook their heads again. It would do no good to think on Rhema now, not when the prince was in so precarious a situation. They would only drive themselves to worry more.

Their dreams had been... odd, recently. There was... there was a great serpent made of seawater and fog, rising from a sea of grey waves. Then... then...
They furrowed their brow in concentration. They'd never struggled with dreams this vague before, so why was it so difficult now?
They sighed again. Things were changing in the world, even if it didn't seem like it. The unearthing of their old kinsman was proof enough of that.
At that thought the dream seemed to snap back into their memory, like the drawstring on a crossbow as the trigger was pulled.
There was a great serpent made of seawater and fog, rising from a sea of grey waves. A lone figure stood on a rock before him as waves crashed and roiled around them, a crown of stone upon their brow and one of gold in their hands.
The serpent bowed its head in submission or respect, Seventh couldn't tell which, then descended back into the depths.
Six wings unfolded from the back of the lone figure, made of the nothingness that lay between the stars, and antlers of multi-hued starlight tore through the figures head.
The figure turned to look at Seventh, and smiled despite the blood flowing down his face.