The Adventures of Emily Tual Book Four: The Rising

Victor was kneeling before a stone altar. Above the altar was a dark cloud. The two of them were the only ones in the black pavilion. All of the other Black Hands and their soldiers were waiting for their orders but they knew that the Dark Lady must have wanted something of great importance if she had summoned Victor to her pavilion before the fighting was to begin.

“You wanted me Master?” Victor was asking. He dare not look up at the dark cloud. Even though he was the Dark Lady’s right hand, he knew it would be dangerous for him to look at her without permission.

“Seraphina’s forces are ready to attack us.” The Dark Lady said from within the dark cloud. “I want to know what preparations you have made for the upcoming battle.” The dark cloud grew darker.

Victor took out a rolled up map and unrolled it before laying it out before the dark cloud. “I’m having the Camazot lead a third of our forces to this narrow passage way but they have their orders not to go through it.” He said, pointing at the passageway on the map. “The front row will be firing their arrows through it to attack our enemies from the rear. Seraphina will be forced to choose where to have her shield soldiers at. If they stay in the front, we’ll march in and attack. If she has them go to the rear to protect from the Camazot, we’ll fire arrows from the front and have the Camazot lead his forces through the passage way. Either way, they’ll be trapped.”

Victor was confident that his plan would work. He had given it much thought and tried to make his decision based on what he knew of his little brother. Gabriel had usually decided to have his forces hide behind trees and ambush his enemies. With the Camazot and a third of the Black Hands claiming that passageway, there was no way that Gabriel would be able to use it to his advantage.

“Excellent.” The dark cloud said. With that, the dark cloud vanished to reveal a black robed figure. The figure had the hood up so Victor couldn’t see her face. The pavilion vanished. Every Black Hand and soldier that served the Dark Lady all stopped what they were doing and knelt before the Dark Lady. None of them had been this close before to see what the Dark Lady actually looked like and none of them wanted to look upon her face without permission.

“My loyal servants!” The Dark Lady shouted. “Today we end the only threat there is to me!” There was a loud cheer from the Dark Lady’s forces. “Today, the Chosen One shall fall and our empire shall expand to every corner of the Earth for all of time!”

From the edge of the King of Maltha’s army camp, Seraphina and Gabriel watched and listened as they saw and heard cheering come from the Black Hand’s army camp. “It sounds like the Dark Lady is getting ready to attack.” Seraphina said before she looked at Gabriel. “The war is coming soon my love.”

Gabriel nodded and looked at Seraphina. “We won’t be defeated.” He told Seraphina. “Everyone here is willing to fight under your leadership.” He then removed a book from his satchel. “And if all else fails, we can seal the majority of the Dark Lady’s powers within this.” He added, opening it to the last page.

Seraphina looked at the book and frowned. “What is this?” She asked.

“I call it the Codex.” Gabriel answered. “Within this book is the power to make the Darkness weak enough that you can seal it away until the time comes to destroy the Darkness for good.” He pointed at the last page. “I spent a lot of time looking up spells that can destroy darkness while I looked for you. I combined as much of the different spells that I could into one giant spell.” He explained. “If it works, we can buy ourselves time until you’re strong enough to defeat the Darkness for all eternity.”

Seraphina touched the page. “If I can destroy the Darkness with this spell, we won’t have to worry about it coming back in the future.” She said. She looked at Gabriel. “The Dark Lady won’t know what hit her.”

Gabriel closed the book and put it back in his satchel. “When the time comes, we’ll use the spell against the Dark Lady.” He told Seraphina. “From this distance, the spell wouldn’t be able to work. We have to be close to her unfortunately.” He knew that that would be hard. The Dark Lady had Victor by her side at nearly all times. Even if they were to get close to the Dark Lady, they would still need to deal with Victor and there was no way that Victor was going to let them cast the spell without a fight.

That night, Gabriel was on patrol with a few soldiers. The King of Maltha didn’t want to risk a surprise attack from the Black Hand in the middle of the night. There were a few more groups of soldiers patrolling around the large army camp. Even if the Black Hands did sneak up on a part of the camp, the alarm from that part would alert the rest of the soldiers to the attack.

Gabriel’s mind was on Seraphina and their future together once they had defeated the Dark Lady. It was the only thing that kept him believing that the fight was worth it all.

A large burst of flames in the distance snapped Gabriel out of his thoughts as an alarm went off. “We’re under attack!” A soldier with him shouted. “Get ready for any Black Hand!” The only thing that Gabriel had noticed was that the attack came from the area where Seraphina’s tent was. He drew his sword. He wasn’t sure if Victor was leading this attack but he couldn’t let Seraphina fight on her own. If Victor was there, it could have been a planned attack from the Dark Lady to remove their leader. Gabriel drew his sword.

In the army camp where the fire was, there was fighting. Black Hands and the soldiers that served the King of Maltha were fighting each other. The Black Hands had snuck into the camp and had killed a few soldiers before the alarm had gone off alerting everyone else. Now there was chaos that was made bright by the tents that were burning brightly. The Black Hands that were attacking were ruthless and were clearly on a mission.

Victor smiled as he walked through the fighting, cutting down anyone who got in the way. He didn’t care if they were Black Hand or an enemy soldier. If they got in the way, he cut them down. He had his orders from the Dark Lady and he wasn’t about to fail her. He smiled when he saw Seraphina’s tent.

Gabriel was running through the chaos, dodging swords and injuring any Black Hand that he came across. He had to get to Seraphina. The way that the fighting was getting more intense as he was running towards Seraphina’s tent told him that Seraphina was the target of this attack. There were more bursts of fires ahead of him followed by the screaming of men. Gabriel ran around a tent and stopped. His eyes widened.

Victor was on a horse. Behind Victor, laying on the horse, was Seraphina. She was tied and a sack was covering her head. Seraphina’s tent was burning brightly, lighting them up. Victor smiled wickedly when he saw his younger brother. “Hello Gabriel.” He said. “I would love to stick around but I need to take my prize back to the Dark Lady.”

Gabriel raised his sword up. “Fight me Victor!” He shouted before charging his older brother. Before he could get close, Victor slashed his sword, sending dark energy out, hitting Gabriel in the chest, sending him flying back. Gabriel flew against a beam holding a tent up, breaking the beam. Both Gabriel and the tent fell to the ground.

Victor laughed before riding off with his prize, leaving his men behind to defend themselves against the King of Maltha’s men.

Gabriel groaned as he woke up. It was bright. He realized that it was daytime already. He got up off of his feet and looked around. Soldiers and physicians were rushing around, taking wounded soldiers away. The sound of the injured was in the air. The ground was littered with dead bodies. The majority of the dead bodies were Black Hands.

Gabriel looked at Seraphina’s burnt tent. The memories of what happened came rushing back to him. He had to alert the other leaders if they didn’t know yet. He ran to the pavilion, seeing more destruction and dead bodies. He nearly tripped over the dead as he ran, his boots slipping every once in a while in the blood that was still wet on the ground. He soon reached the war pavilion. There, the King of Maltha, Jasper and a few generals were talking.

“Seraphina was captured.” Gabriel told them. “We have to save her as soon as possible.”

They all looked at him. “We know that she was captured Gabriel.” The King of Maltha said. “Be assured that we’re mounting an attack to save her and to defeat the Dark Lady.”

Gabriel looked at the battle map. It looked different from what he had remembered. There were new positions that he didn’t remember seeing. There were catapults in the rear with crossbowmen symbols behind them. “We’re going to launch an aerial attack when they march towards us.” The King of Maltha continued. “Our plan is to use the catapults as a shield for our crossbow men and our rear guard in case the Camazot still leads an attack through the passage way.”

Gabriel was impressed with the plan. “We still have Victor and the Dark Lady to deal with.” He reminded them. “How are we going to defeat them?”

Jasper looked at Gabriel. “You’ll be rescuing Seraphina during the fighting.” He told Gabriel. “Once you have her, she is to cast the spell from the Codex to defeat the Dark Lady.”

So they all knew of the Codex and were willing to let Seraphina use the spell. That was good. It meant it would be easier for Seraphina and him. “Once Victor loses the Dark Lady, it will be an easy victory.” Gabriel said.

“We’re hoping that it is.” The King of Maltha said. “We can’t afford to lose our Chosen One before the Dark Lady is defeated.”

Victor was kneeling before the Dark Lady. The Dark Lady was sitting on an altar. “We have Seraphina, Master.” Victor was saying. “Our enemies will be helpless without her to lead them.”

The Dark Lady got off of the altar. “As long as she can’t cast the spell to defeat me.” She told Victor. “Apparently your younger brother has created a spell out of every sealing spell for Seraphina to use.”

Victor looked up at the Dark Lady. “I’ll get the book and destroy it before Gabriel can use the spell himself.” He said. He refused to let his little brother win the fight, to once again have everything and to leave him with nothing. “I’ll kill Gabriel if I have to.”

“Good.” The Dark Lady said. “Your brother and Seraphina have become too dangerous. As soon as this war is over, kill Seraphina.” The Dark Lady went up to Victor. “Kill both of them and the world will belong to you and me.” She began laughing wickedly.