Conquest: Rise of the Fifth Horseman (The Fifth Horseman Series Book 1) (16 page)

Chapter Twenty Nine: Genocide

And it came to pass
that Enoch didst instruct his people in the building of a great machine beneath
the city; insomuch that he didst also cause his people to erect great obelisks
in the lands about…

–
Methuselah 11:4 –

Several hours had
passed since Lily’s encounter with the dragon. Abner had found her body lying
in the clearing, and it had taken him nearly an hour to carry her limp body to
the hidden village of Udom.

“How doth she fare,
shaman?” he approached the small hut where she still lay unconscious in a cot.

The shaman’s face
betrayed defeat, “She doth not fare very well, my friend.”

“Oh?” Abner was
confused, “What dost thou mean?”

“The wounds are deep. I
fear the woman hath only a few hours left to live.” he spoke resolutely, “I
dare say, the average human hath not survived the infliction of dragon venom
beyond eventide.”

“I pray thee that thou
doubt not.” he pleaded, “I doth believe that she shall survive. I hath seen it
in vision.”

“I fear that thou art
merely hopeful, for the woman’s prognosis doth continue to decline.” the shaman
sighed regretfully, “Methinks she shall not survive the night.”

Abner’s shoulders
slumped. It wasn’t the first time he had seen a vision of the potential future,
only for that future to change drastically from a small decision. He worried
that he had changed the course of history by helping Lily escape.

“I pray thou sparest
not thine medical treatments. Her survival is of great importance for the prosperity
of these people!”

The shaman shook his
head as he felt her weak pulse, “The time hath passed. Her death shall come
swiftly now, for I fear the venom hath reached her heart.”

Abner was about to
respond, when the sound of fearful screams erupted from outside. A chill ran
down Abner’s spine when the warning bell from the watchtower began to sound.
Villagers were scurrying everywhere in panic, and several women screamed in
terror as they pointed up at the sky. Abner turned his gaze heavenward to see several
dragons descending upon them.

How didst they find me?

He ducked around the
corner of a building and began to hyperventilate as the dragons touched down.

“Come hither to greet
thy King!” he heard one of the Creed members bellow.

It would be only moments
now before he would be found. He had to get moving, but his legs felt like
molasses.

“I repeat,” the Creed
member bellowed again, “Show respect unto thy King!”

Abner crouched down,
paralyzed with fear.

“Your holiness,” one of
the Creed members piped up, “This village is unknown to us. I suspect Abner
traveled here to seek these insurgents as allies.”

“Do you mean to tell me
this is a village of rebels?!” Timur shrieked.

“It appears so, yes.”

“Kill them!” Timur
commanded menacingly, “Kill every last one of them! But if you find Abner,
bring him to me so I can kill him myself!”

No!

“As you wish, your
holiness.”

The Creed members
dismounted their beasts and unsheathed their swords.

I must act now!

“Wait!” Abner yelled as
he stepped around the corner, “Hurt my people not! I doth surrender!”

“Your people?” Timur
chided as he strode toward him menacingly, “Abner, my old friend. Why have you
betrayed me?”

“I feared mayhaps the
presence of the woman mightest become a threat to the health of my people.” he
explained, “I know now that my decision was rash, for during our travels the
woman ‘twas attacked by a dragon.”

Timur’s face betrayed a
look of shock, “She’s dead?!”

“Yea, verily the venom
hast reached her heart.” he explained remorsefully.

Timur shook his head angrily,
“It pains me to do this. You have been a loyal friend to me.”

A look of terror
crossed Abner’s face as Timur stepped forward and raised his right arm.

“A traitor has no place
inside my circle of influence, and I simply cannot allow even the slightest
transgression to fester among my men.”

Timur’s eyes glowed again.
With his fist clenched, a beam of light shot from his arm. Abner shielded his
face with a raised arm as the blast of light hit him. The heat was intense as
the light fully engulfed him.

Timur then did a double-take
as he realized Abner still stood there unfazed. He raised his right arm higher,
willing it to draw even more power from the sun. He fired multiple blasts of
incinerating heat. When the smoke cleared, Abner’s clothing appeared slightly
singed, however he remained fully intact.

“Ye cannot kill me…”
Abner attempted to explain.

With a shrill roar of
inhuman rage, Timur snatched a sword out of one of the three Creed member’s
hands and ran toward him. Abner sucked in a rasping gasp and his eyes went wide
as the sword plunged deep into his chest. He cried out in pain as Timur
extracted the sword and he crumpled to the ground.

“Now,” Timur instructed
the Creed, “kill the insurgents!”

“No!” Abner cried from
the ground.

Abner could feel the
warm sensation as the gaping wound healed itself. Once the pain fully subsided,
he raised himself back onto his feet.

“As I hath said, ye
cannot kill me.” Abner explained while Timur’s eyes went wide in shock, “Yea,
thou art a Seraph, and I am thine Oracle. I shall not die until my successor
hath Awakened.”

“Take him and bind him.”
Timur commanded, “We will deal with this abomination later.”

Abner cried in dismay
as Timur raised an arm and incinerated his next victim, a young woman who had
peered around the corner of a building.

“This village is ripe
for destruction.” Timur smiled at Abner as the Creed members bound him in thick
cords, “I must thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

My grandchildren!

“Please!” Abner
pleaded, “You doth not understand! I hath family here!”

“Excellent.” Timur
smiled broadly at the revelation, “Then they shall suffer your death penalty
instead.”

“NO!”

It was the last word he
could get out before one of the Creed members gagged him.

“Your penance will be
to observe patiently as I destroy this despicable village.” he seethed.

Abner watched in horror
as Timur took a dry torch from the side of a door and lit it in a nearby
campfire that had been abandoned. He lit several more torches and passed them
out to the three Creed Members. As the buildings ignited, screams of terror
could be heard all around him.

Tears ran down his
cheeks as he saw a Creed member extract his sword from a man’s chest. The bell
stopped ringing as another Creed member clung to the edge of the watchtower and
lunged his sword inside. Children and babies cried as their parents were
slaughtered in front of them. Chaos was everywhere as several villagers armed
themselves in an attempt to fight back.

In the distance Abner
could see a wild dragon rising into the air with Lily’s body dangling from its
talons.

Chapter Thirty: Call to Action

And God spoke unto
Enoch, saying: the Watchers who have left the High Heaven, and have corrupted
themselves with women, shall not have place on Earth, neither peace, nor
forgiveness of sin, and will not find joy in their posterity…

–
Methuselah 11:5 –

“Okay, okay.” Allan
stammered as they continued to travel up the mountainside that evening, “Let’s
pretend for a minute that I believe your alternate version of history. How do I
fit into the scheme of all of this?”

“I’m glad you asked.”
John turned and smiled, “After Enoch transported this land from Earth, God
visited Enoch in this world and gave him explicit instructions to send his own
first-born son Methuselah back to Earth as a protector. Upon fusing his blood
with an ancient race from a distant galaxy called the Malakhim, God blessed
Methuselah and sent him back to Earth as the first Seraph. Like you, he became
the first of the Guardians.”

“Let me get this
straight.” Allan scoffed as he trampled over the foliage that had grown over
the not-too-obvious trail, “You want me to believe that I’m one of these so-called
Guardians
? You’ve seriously got the wrong man.”

“I
don’t choose who the next Seraph is, I just train them.”

“Train
them to do what?”

“Transport,
protect the Earth, and wield weaponry.”

“
Weaponry
?”
Allan stammered, “What for?”

John
stopped and stared at him incredulously, “To fight for the lives of your people,
of course.”

“Whoa,
Hang on!” Allan stopped short, “I didn’t sign up for any such thing!”

“You
wanted to rescue Lily, did you not?”

“Yes,
but that’s a job for the police. I’m a lawyer. My salary and the high taxes I
pay entitle me to certain protection rights.”

“Maybe
on Earth, but here in Zion you don’t have that luxury.” John stressed, “If you
don’t rescue her, nobody will. And if you don’t take action quickly, Timur will
likely kill her.”

Allan
seemed to stare up the mountainside for quite some time. After several long
minutes, he finally found his voice.

“If
what you say is true,” he pointed behind them with his thumb, “then why are we
running away from that city? Didn’t you say that’s where she is?”

“Despite
its charred appearance, the city is heavily fortified. Not only do we need
weapons, but we need a small army to get past the walls of the city.”

“And
where might we be getting such an army?”

For
the first time since they had arrived John smiled widely, “I have many friends.”

“I
see…”

“Don’t
worry.” he commenced on the path again and beckoned Allan to follow, “They aren’t
too far from here.”

Allan
followed deep in thought. He was having a difficult time wrapping his head
around the events of the past several days. Three days ago he was shot in the
chest, only to have the wound miraculously heal in a matter of seconds. Now he’s
on a quest to save a damsel in distress in a foreign land with dragons flying
in the sky. The entire scenario felt as though he had been plucked out of
reality and thrown into a fairytale.

Maybe
I’m in a coma from the bullet wound and I’m dreaming all of this. Or maybe I’m
dead.

“I
can assure you that neither of those possibilities are the case.” John turned
briefly and smiled at him.

“Okay,
then…” Allan challenged, “If all of this is real, then where do the mythical
fire-breathing dragons fit in?”

“First
off, let me clear up some confusion. Dragons are not mythical creatures as you
suppose. They have merely been hunted down and killed to the point that they
are all now extinct on Earth. The exaggerated tales made about the beautiful
creatures however
are
truly mythical. Dragons don’t breathe fire. They
may have breath so terrible it could knock you unconscious, but the idea that
fire and brimstone spew from their mouths is a pure stretch of imagination.”

“Fine.”
Allan shook his head in frustration, “Then explain this to me. If these so
called Seraphs…”

“Seraphim.”
he corrected, “Plural form.”

“…Seraphim.”
Allan twisted his face at the word, “If they truly have always existed on the
earth as you suggest, how come I have never heard of them?”

“Oh,
I’m sure you have actually.”

“Try
me.”

“Noah
with his Ark, Abram whose name later changed to Abraham, Isaac the boy who was
almost made a human sacrifice, Jacob whose name later changed to Israel, and
Moses in Egypt to name a few.” he explained, “You may not know their title as
Seraphim, but you may know them as Prophets, Seers and Revelators.”

“Wait,”
Allan stammered, “are you trying to tell me that I’m supposed to be some kind
of
prophet
?”

“Not
necessarily,” he paused, “each Seraph is given a unique set of gifts. The gifts
of prophesy, interpretation and revelation are but a few of the possible gifts
you might be entitled to receive.”

“Just
for kicks and giggles, let’s say I
am
this
Final Seraph
as you
claim.” he sighed heavily, “You still haven’t explained how I fit into all of
this.”

“Your
purpose is to overthrow Timur and his Creed, take over the Kingdom of Atlantis,
and prepare the people for the Greatest Seraph’s return.”

“What
do you mean, prepare the people?” Allan stammered, “For what?”

John
stopped and locked eyes with Allan, “For the end of both worlds, and the
Judgment Day thereof.”

“Wait…
WHAT
?” he choked.

“As
prophesied in the book of Malachi, ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn
the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to
their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.’ This is your
ultimate purpose, to repair the ancient machine and transport this people back
to Mother Earth.”

“Hang
on,” Allan backpedaled, “First off, I’m not any prophet. Second, I know for a
fact that I’m not the ancient prophet Elijah. You’ve definitely got the wrong
man.”

“On
the contrary, Elijah isn’t just a name, but a title. It means Forerunner, or
Preparer. You hold the powers necessary to bring these lands back to Earth, you
just need to learn how to harness them.”

“How
are you so sure I’m this so-called
Forerunner
anyway?”

“There
is yet another prophecy in the book of Revelation which identifies he who shall
complete these tasks. It is found in the seventeenth verse of the second
chapter. It states, ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden
manna, and I will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written,
which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.’” John paused, “Allan, you
overcame death in the face of it. The hidden manna is eternal life, which
prevents you from being killed. The white stone you held earlier this morning
which focused your powers and transported us to this world is your Amulet.”

He
took the seer stone out of his pocket and tried to hand it to Allan, “Look into
the stone and tell me what you see.”

Allan
hesitated, remembering the searing pain he had felt in his hand the last time
he had held it.

“Relax.”
he insisted, “Your anxiety will trigger a transport. If you remain calm
however, you can carry your amulet with you. You must learn to control your
powers.”

Reluctantly,
Allan took a deep breath and accepted the stone. Nervously, he opened his eyes.
As he stared at it, he felt a warm sensation as his eyes were drawn deeper into
the milky surface. Slowly a single word formed. In shock, Allan dropped it.

“What
did it say?”

Allan
stared incredulously at the stone laying in the foliage beneath their feet. It
truly had formed a word. More specifically it had formed a name.

Elijah.

“Can
you see clearer now?”

Allan
nodded, his eyes wide in fear. Slowly he mustered the courage to speak again.

“How…”
he stuttered, “How could you possibly know all of this?”

“I
told you I have many names. I have been known by the names Beloved, Revelator,
and Divine.” his glowing white eyes bore deeply into Allan’s, “I am the first
horseman. I am he who was commissioned by God to write the Book of Revelations.
I am John.”