Lord of No Country

Part 1: The Storm Chapter 1:

"The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it." —Ernest Hemingway

Above a small city somewhere in Midwest United States, a storm brewed. It rolled across the sky and darkened the world beneath it. The sun had already disappeared beyond the western sky and the cloak of night and swelling dark clouds spread across the horizon.

Small rumbles of thunder could be heard in the distance, and only now did the first drops of rain begin to fall.

The small town of barely a thousand people slowly went to bed, just as the moon peaked through the tumultuous clouds.

The rain would come and drench the cornfields that flanked the city on all sides. The ditches would fill and the edges of the gravel roads would slip down into the pits. But barely half a mile beyond, at the top of a hill, overlooking the surrounding fields, stood a house filled with as much turmoil as the growing storm.

In the city, on an abandoned block, a manhole cover was all but thrown off from beneath. A gasping, bleeding figure emerged from beneath.

His skin was darkened from the sun, his pressed clothes were wet, rank, and torn. His chest was heaving just beneath the cuts zig-zagging across his torso. In his left hand he held a blade crafted in a concave x pattern. The blade was inscribed with enchantments written in a language far too convoluted for human tongue to comprehend. One could liken it to pictograms with nearly innumerable connotations, varying only by context. The words glowed with magic and vibrated a warning: danger.

The wielder looked behind him and ran down the gravel road as he was hit with the first chilling drops of rain. Behind him, he heard his pursuers clamoring one after another in the small channel of the sewer-ways.

A half a dozen men, clad in royal blue uniforms, brandishing glittering kheribs emerged from the manhole.

They spoke no words and moved soundlessly across the gravel, barely yards behind their prey.

The fleeing figure was a relic. He was thousands of years old, born of ether and amber and songs, yet he looked like a human in his mid twenties. But he was a predecessor to humans, crafted out of only the imagination and expertise of a force beyond human comprehension.

His name had changed since his birth. Numerous languages he'd heard and spoken. Each one mangled his name worst than the last, but it was something understandably human. Development and progress was something he relished in, including the new names he earned. In he past thousand or so years, he'd grown accustomed to "As".

It suit his bright, challenging, copper-colored eyes and his sharp, humorous smile.

Beneath his torn shirt, two feathered appendages slipped through the back sleeves. A set of chrome yellow wings, matching his hair, sprung forth and desperately flapped.

Not enough air, As thought. Above him, a flash of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by an ear-splitting roar. He passed under the overhang of a freeway bridge and made a sharp turn up the steep, slickening slope. His foes still hadn't managed the close the distance, and with the aid of his wings, his launched himself over the concrete wall.

He took a minute and surveyed his position. Down the slope, six private security goons advanced after him. He faced the north, nothing but winding road ahead. The city spanned to the west and the east, and to the the south was only more highway. Not a single car sped by, nor did a single life form stir in the town below. Even the lights of the gas station were dimmed.

Good.

He didn't need humans around.

The sound of metal scratching the concrete on his side, accompanied by another crack of thunder shocked him into defensive position. The lightning illuminated the sweat-stained face of the lead officer. He hadn't wings, an unfortunate modification, but that would be his, and his comrades, downfall.

As took his old nurrik and swiped it across the guard's hands, severing his fingers. He fell down with an anguished cry, knocking several of his allies down with him. They grabbed for what hold they could gain, but the rain came down harder now. It rolled down the muddy slope slowed their ascent.

As looked to his southwest—where it should be—and squinted to the blackened horizon. There! On the top of a hill in the distance stood a lone house. A second wind hit him, and the rain washed his sweat down into his wounds, which stung with salt and grime. His wings were hot and ready. He backed up to the side, against where the blood and lacerated fingers lay, spread his wings high, crouched low to the ground, and got up to the highest speed the 30 feet in front of him allowed.

He leaped to the wall and dove off the side. His wings filled with air and they got enough to propel him to flight.

He flew, leaving his would-be captors frustrated on the overpass. He grinned and holstered his blade, angling himself into the most streamlined position. Though, years of fights, captures, and escapes tested and refined his skills, one thing had become damaged.

Unlike many of his kin, he no longer had a tail. While he grew accustomed to this over the years, it made balance in fights and turns in flight more difficult.

His wounds ached, but just beyond, at the top of that hill, was salvation. All he had to do was fly, a much easier mode of transportation. After all, angels were built for it.

He supposed he hadn't been considered one of those for six thousands years, but never the less, he was angel stock.

He wasn't built for speed or warfare. He was built for singing and worshipping and obeying. He evolved into a soldier, and was once again, on the run from his adversaries.

Even if he didn't make it out alive, he needed to deliver a message.