Army Of The Immortal // Sebastian Morganstern

Prologue

War. It surrounds her as she emerges through the portal. Her vision is dark from the sudden darkness encasing the sky. Turning around, she sees shadowhunters and those who have fallen fighting, hacking at each other with their weapons. The sight makes her sick and she drops to her knees, retching. Nothing surfaces except mucus and water, due to the lack of food in her stomach.
Footsteps approach her in the grass and she stumbles to her feet, swinging her weapon frantically at any opposition approaching her. A man lays at her feet, throat sliced open, blood pouring from the wound. His hands claw at the grass, embedding the nails on his fingers with mud. The man's eyes are wide and wild as they stare at her, begging her to help. Gasping for air, his chest heaves and convulses. Finally, he sputters up a bubble of blood that bursts, spraying the girl with the warm redness.
Turning away from the grotesque sight, she fights her way across the battlefield, searching for the familiar glint of her mother's blonde hair. Striking down enemy after enemy, she becomes slightly more confident and regains her wits. She had been told that in her first battle, once she became clear-minded, her natural shadowhunters instincts would take over.

High land. I need to get to higher land.

Her hands are already soaked in blood; she can't tell whether it is hers or the blood of the enemy. Begrudgingly, her feet move onwards, up the steep hill.
Her mother had brought her here before, when she was a child. They sat on the very hill that she treks up now. When she visited the first time, the grass was green and wildflowers grew in the meadow.
Now the ground was slick and wet, and the only thing left growing was the sickening wailing of the mangled bodies and the sounds of weapons piercing skin, followed by the shrieks of death and agony.
Reaching the top of the hill, she turns and looks out at the sea of deformed bodies littering the ground, shadowhunters and endarkened alike. Everywhere she looked, they were lying, sprawled in positions that look physically impossible to achieve. Visibly shuddering, she quickly moves her vision away from the sickening scene and scans the horizon for any sign of her mother. Seraph blades shine through the darkness created by the large collection of black clouds overhead.
"Catherine!" Someone shrieks her name and instantly she snaps to attention, eyes searching as she prays for the Angel Raziel's help while she tries to find her mother in the crowd.
Her eyes pass over a golden light from down below, and she instantly recognizes her mother's face and hair flowing in the light of her seraph blade. Catherine instantly begins running towards her mother, stumbling and tripping over bodies as she clambers down the hill.
"Mom!"
Drawing her weapon, she murmurs a prayer under her breath and raises the sword above her shoulder, leaping towards the Endarkened fighting her mother. The sound of bone crunching beneath her is so unpleasant, yet so satisfying. The body crumples to the ground, falling on top of Catherine's mother. Dropping her weapon and landing on her knees, Catherine rolls the body off of her mother's tiny, yet strong body. For a second, she allows a slight smile to pass over her lips as she looks into the eyes of her mother.
"Oh, Mom. I thought I'd lost—" Catherine's eyebrows furrow as she concentrates on her mother's face. She runs her fingers gingerly over her cheek. Her mother's eyes don't look at her, but almost seem as if they are looking through her.
"No, no, no, no..."
Catherine's hands fumble around the dagger on the inside of her jacket, and she slices through her mother's clothing, revealing a large wound underneath her left ribcage. Blood stains the fabric and coats Catherine's sleeves. Instantly, Catherine tries to stanch the wound, but it doesn't matter. Tears stream down her cheeks and she collapses on top of her mother, sobbing into her bloody chest. She doesn't care if one of the endarkened kills her; she's lost one of the only people she has ever loved. Death would be sweet release from the pain. Sitting back on her heels, she turns the dagger in her hands before standing and looming over the Endarkened laying dead next to her. Letting out a blood-curdling scream, she falls to the ground and repeatedly stabs the dagger into the chest of the tall, black-haired man that had killed her mother, her hysteria growing with every passing second.

Catherine's mother is gone, and she knows that there is only one person that could be responsible for this pain.

Sebastian Morgenstern.