The Last Sun Sentinel: Part 2

After fifty years of hell, the war First War of the Old Ones finally came to an end. This is the story of that day, and how it changed the Continent and its peoples forever.

NOTE: This is a direct follow up to Part 1 of this story, so I suggest you read that first if you wish to understand the story. With that, let's be on our way!

“Don’t worry, boy. Chances are you’ll be back home in a month.”

Ignatius sat in the back of a carriage rumbling down a path away from his home. He could see the village lights in the distance, the only warmth in a sea of cold sand. Ignatius looked up at the man who had spoken to him, a whirlwind of emotions in his eyes. As with every child born in these hard times who had come into their magic or passed their eighth year, Ignatius was being taken to the temple in the Sun Fields where he would be tested for the presence of a Sentinel. Should he be worried? Excited? Scared? Dreading the experience?

It was like the guard said: the odds that he was not the host of a Sentinel were overwhelming. Chances were that he would be back among his family before the next full moon. But he couldn’t help but worry about the alternative.

What if he was a Sentinel?

What would happen then? Where would he go? What would they do to him? Would he be able to see his family again? Would they be able to come with him to wherever they took the Sentinels?

All these thoughts and more flashed through the young Ignatius’ mind.

Then the memory was consumed by flames.

 

“--much longer do we have to do this?”

Ignatius heard voices. The Sentinel panicked for a moment, unable to move his body. Where was he again? And why was everything dark?

“Stop your whinging,” came another, gruffer, voice. "We tend the fire until the Sentinel wakes.”

            That’s right. The war camp. The firepit.

            The voices didn’t seem aware of Ignatius’ stirring.

“Master,” the first voice--a young man, Ki’Lumin, definitely--said, “it has been a week since he went under. I know the Lord Sentinel is supposed to be impervious to fire, but with all due respect, how do you even know he will wake?”

Ignatius’ eyelids became heavy once more.

“I have faith.”

The voices turned muffled.

“As should you, boy. This man is to be our sal--”

Ignatius went back under.

 

The flames twisted themselves into a different scene this time. A well-groomed youth sat on the hump of a shaggy camel, a look of discontent and frustration marring his features. “We’ve been traveling for hours,” he complained.

The orange-robed man on the camel in front of him gave him a hard look. “An­­ hour, more like.” They continued in silence for a few minutes before the man spoke again. “How many times must we do this?”

The boy’s head snapped to his teacher, his long blond hair shaking about. “Whatever do you mean?” he said sarcastically.

The robed man pulled his camel to a stop in front of the boy’s. He looked at his young charge. “Ignatius, the other elders are getting fed up with your attempts to leave. And this time you got someone else hurt. This must stop.” He stared at the adolescent Ignatius for a moment more, before pulling the camels back along the sandy path and continuing on their way. “It must stop. You are to be the Sun Sentinel.”

Ignatius merely crossed his arms and looked to the ground. It wasn’t as if he’d asked for this.

The man sighed again. “And so, against my judgment, the others thought to show you our dilemma, in hopes that it will awaken you to our plight.”

The pair of camels pulled around a final dune into the most brutal scene the boy had seen up to this point. It was a town. Well, it was a town. Most of the buildings were in some form of structural disarray. Many were missing their roofs, doors, or walls, and large, blackened holes were bored into them where they still stood. As if bolts of fire had seared clean through the masonry. Stones littered the ground, from rocks the size of a man’s fist to boulders nearly as wide as the riders’ two camels abreast. But worst of all was the smell. And…the smell’s source. Piled in a ditch along the outskirts of the once-town were bodies. Men and women and children; old and young; farmers and merchants and soldiers--especially soldiers--lay broken and desiccated and burned. Not a single eye yet held the fire of life. Who--what--could have done a thing like this?

As Ignatius was left to ponder his horror and morbid sense of awe, the carriage rumbled over the broken sandstone underfoot. Ignatius began to see signs of life as they approached the town square. Small smatterings of poor and wealthy alike squatted in the remains of burnt out buildings. Children dashed between alleyways. There was even a baby crying somewhere nearby.

“Halt!”

Ignatius jerked back to attention. A man dressed in the same garb and colors as many of the dead soldiers was approaching them.

The monk signaled Ignatius to do as the soldier said as he himself slowly dismounted and strode to meet the guard. The two men spoke in hushed tones, too quiet for Ignatius to hear even the short distance away.

As Ignatius’s teacher remounted, the guard gave a last hard look at both Ignatius and the monk before finally waving them through.

Ignatius spurred his camel back in line with that of his teacher and the two followed the guard into the center of town.

 

It was loud as they dismounted. There were moans of relief and wails of agony, men and women in white clothing, or clothing that was once white, shouting to each other as wounded soldiers were carried in on stretchers into canvas tents or, in many instances, directly onto a long, covered tarp spread across the ground. It was a triage. And quite a busy one at that.

“Come, Sentinel.” The monk only looked forward, whether in weakness or in strength, Ignatius could not tell.

            Ignatius followed him through the camp. As they passed tent after tent, Ignatius caught brief glimpses of what was happening within. Some contained people laid on cots, some silent and others very vocal, others had tables surrounded by people performing what he could only assume was some sort of surgery, while still others carried the soft hum of Life magic. That last set of tents filled Ignatius with both the most hope and the most dread. How could a man be injured that nothing but magic could be used to heal him?

            Finally, after passing innumerable tents, the monk and his Sentinel stood before the one they wanted. It was large. Larger than any that they had already passed, and soldiers--a Ki’Lumin man dwarfed by the a Kentaran of the Cloven tribe beside him--stood to either side of the tent’s entrance, weapons crossed in front of it as to bar entrance to anyone without proper clearance or reason to enter.

            The monk nudged the young Sentinel’s shoulder. “Put on your cloak,” he whispered.

            “What? Why?”

            “You will find out in a moment.”

            Ignatius shrugged and with a brief flash of flame, was wearing his cloak.

            As the pair approached, the Ki’Lumin man’s eyes lit with recognition. He nudged the Kentaran’s equine side, mumbling something to him. The horse-man’s eyes lit up shortly thereafter. The pair of guards uncrossed their weapons and took to one knee--or, in the Kentaran’s case, did his best--allowing the pair of visitors free entry and thoroughly confusing Ignatius, while themselves averting their eyes.

            Ignatius was taken aback. He assumed that soldiers were supposed to be rock solid in their duties. What would possess them to allow two perfect strangers into the largest, presumably most important tent in the camp?

            The monk paused as he reached for the tent flap. There was yelling coming from within. The sort of yelling of a desperate man who doesn’t really mean what he says, but just needs to vent his frustrations to something, to anything. This went on for a minute longer before an armored man shoved his way out of the tent, eyes downcast, shuffling away at a brisk pace.

            The monk opened the tent flap and half-dragged a somewhat worried Ignatius into the spacious tent.

            The tent was not unlike many of the others they had passed in getting here. It was larger, but sparsely decorated and made of the same plain white canvas, thaumic runes stitched here and there to better protect it from the elements. To one side of the tent was a large board with a similarly large sheet of parchment pinned to it, with what appeared to be a rudimentary map of the Ki’Lumin territory drawn on it. Many locations, Ignatius noticed, were marked with bright red “X”s. On the right side of the tent was a small bed with a chest at its foot, presumably where the yelling man slept and kept his belongings, respectively. In the center of the tent was a large firepit, roughly three feet long on every side, expelling smoke through a large hole in the center of the tent’s ceiling. The fire was piled high with burning logs, the coals beneath red-hot. On the near side of the pit, across from a dark wooden table, was a small altar. A rectangle of dark red wood draped with white cloth, both with thaumic markings to prevent them from burning, was placed just at the edge of the billowing flames. A bald, fair-skinned man plucked a coal from a tin on top of the altar with a pair of tongs and held it over an ash lotus in a pot to the left of the altar, muttering a prayer to himself, eyes closed, before placing the now-burning coal on a small silver tray on the altar.

            The orange-robed monk cleared his throat.

            “I said no interruptions,” the praying man said through clenched teeth.

            “Pardon me, Colonel,” the monk replied. “But I do think that you’ll make an exception for us.”

            “Oh?” The captain stood up, eyes open now, hard and cold before the pair of intruders. Then recognition lit in his eyes. And, upon noticing the younger, adolescent boy with the brighter robe, reverence, as well as just a little fear. “Oh.” The captain hurried around the table to stand before them, quickly falling to one knee and averting his gaze. “I apologize my Lord Sentinel. I did not know it was you. Please, forgive me.”

            It took Ignatius a moment to realize that the man was addressing him. That he had been praying to him. When recognition came, he was fully taken aback. This grown man, this grizzled veteran of a soldier, was bowing before him, as if he were some sort of deity. Which, in a way, he thought, he was. Or, at least, a part of him was. The Sun Sentinel had chosen him to be its host, after all. Ignatius glanced, wide-eyed, up at the monk, who only gazed back at him, eyebrows raised, as if to say, “Do what you will.”

            Ignatius contemplated what to do. After a few moments he put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Stand, my friend,” he told the colonel in the most reverent tone he could manage. “We bear you no ill will.”

            The colonel stood, many years of military servitude instinctively straightening his back, hands clasped behind his waist. “Of course, my lord.” He looked relieved to not be in the ill graces of his god. “Though, if I may ask, what might bring you here? Surely, one such as yourself has a great many more important things to do than to grace us with his presence.”

            Ignatius wanted to glance at the monk once more but stopped himself. Doing so would lessen his illusion of grandeur. A god need not rely on others. “Yes, Colonel, you are right. I do, in fact, have much to do. But, to be truthful, I really just needed a break from it all. Or, well, this mortal form did, anyway. The monastery can do without me for the moment. And I have been wanting to see how the war effort is going for a long while now. But, as I’m sure you have noticed, this body--” Ignatius gestured to himself, finding that he quite liked playing the Lord Sentinel. “--is still quite young. This is the first real chance I have had to leave the monastery this lifetime. But you are also wrong, Colonel.”

            “Wrong, my lord?”

            “When you said that I must have more important things to do than visiting my subjects.” Ignatius pointedly held the man’s stare now. Ignatius reached up to clasp the man’s shoulder once more. “Believe me when I say, Colonel, that there is no one I would rather stand among, nothing and no one I would rather protect, nowhere I would rather be, than with my people.” And Ignatius found that he meant every word.

Once again, the flames consumed Ignatius’ memories as he was brought back to the present.

 

Ignatius still couldn’t see the speakers. Only red-tinged darkness filled his vision. Ignatius could hear them arguing and recognized the gruff voice of the one, likely a Lupin, but the other was different than the one he had heard before.

“Come, Master,” said the new voice. Its owner sounded young. Human, probably. “For three weeks he has been under. Surely, we must be accomplishing nothing more than baking a dead man to ash.”

            “I understand that you do not follow his Way as I do, pup.” The Lupin sounded annoyed. “Yet, surely, you must understand what sets him apart from us, yes?” The wolfman waited several seconds. When his companion didn’t answer, he continued. “The Sun Sentinel cannot burn. Where fire would feed off of us, he would feed off of it. Where we would feel agony, he feels only comfort. Do you understand, pup?” The Lupin snarled the last word.

The other voice said nothing, but its owner must have done something to the effect of nodding, because the Lupin carried on.

“Then we will continue with our task. We will continue until the Sentinel wakes.” Then, under his breath, “Until he saves us all.”

 

Before the flames had even finished forming the third memory, Ignatius could tell where he was. It was the warm desert breeze, the smell of the sand and stone. But mostly, it was the feeling of exertion. This was his final trial before he could claim his last relic. The Blood Sentinel, she who held dominion over life, had created a horde of blood constructs for him to fight. Although they took the appearance of people, flesh and bone and all, they were, in actuality, little more than fragments of the Blood Sentinel’s will given physical form.

As the flames coalesced, there was a clash of steel and a flash of orange, followed by the thud of a body hitting the ground.

            Nine left.

            Ignatius was a young man this time, newly out of adolescence. He had earned his ruddy, rune-covered helm and gleaming, curved sword over the past six years.

            Two more approaching.

            It would be a lie to say that his visit to the war camp all those years ago had changed his entire mindset.

            More blades clashing and a roar of fire. Seven left.

            But it was certainly the first step in putting Ignatius on the right path. Since then, he had taken his duties as a Sentinel much more seriously. He had stopped trying to escape.

            The hot sting of a fresh cut. Metal snapping. The smell of singed flesh.

Four left.

            And now, with this, the final relic--the ring that had been calling him for so long, sometimes quite literally--would be his.

            The soft warmth of a wave of roiling flames.

            “Enough!” called the voice.

            Ignatius looked up at the speaker, breathing heavily.

            A stout old lady in flowing crimson robes stood some fifty paces before him, head held high. She looked almost comical, how she held her gnarled, taller-than-her, wood and metal staff. “Approach.”

            With a flash of orange, Ignatius dematerialized his sword and helm and did as the woman commanded.

            “Kneel.”

            Ignatius did, attempting to hide the small smile playing at his lips. This was it. After fourteen years of training, this would be the day the Blood Sentinel finally judged him ready.

            “Ignatius.” The old woman nearly spat his name. He knew there was no malicious intent behind it. It was just how she was. “When you came to us, you were impulsive. Emotional. Stubborn. For years you plagued us with your incessant attempts to flee the monastery.” He tone softened slightly. “Though, one cannot deny, you have made great strides in these last few years. For you to continue along this path may very well lead you to become the kind of Sentinel to go down in legend.” The surface of her blood-red robe almost seemed to ripple as she reached within it.

            Ignatius could no longer keep the smile from his face as the old woman produced a band of ruddy orange metal etched all the way around with a runic inscription, not dissimilar to that along the blunt edge of his sword.

            “To that end,” the Blood Sentinel continued, “We see fit to present you with the Sun Sentinel’s ring. Your final relic.”

            Ignatius’s hand trembled with anticipation as she held the ring out to him.

            “But,” she declared as she yanked the ring back towards her. “Ignatius,” she intoned more quietly. “Ignatius, you must look at me.”

            Ignatius raised his eyes from the ring--his ring--to meet to old woman’s liquid green gaze.

            “I know you are eager to return to the world, but you must remember, Ignatius, that these objects will not make you the Sentinel that you could be. They are merely tools, the same as any sword or shovel. It is true, no Sentinel is complete without its relics, but in order to claim your title, your actions must reflect what the Sentinels represent. Similarly, your learning does not end when you leave here today, nor will it ever. Every day of your life you will meet new people, visit new places, learn new skills, and expand on old ones. As a Sentinel, you must seek to master them all and teach others to do the same. Do you understand?”

            Ignatius nodded vigorously. “I do.”

            The Blood Sentinel looked him over one final time.

            “Rise then, Sun Sentinel.” She surrendered the band of metal to him. “Claim your final relic--your ring. Leave this place. Join your brethren. Become the Sun Sentinel that this world needs.”

 

“Where do you think you are going?” the gruff voice was angry this time.

            “I am leaving, Master,” came the younger voice. “As should you.”

            “Leaving?” the older of the pair spat. Ignatius could sense the guttural tones of an angry Lupin coming. “Leaving?”

            The younger man didn’t give the wolfman the chance to begin his tirade. “I am tired!” The voice spoke with the quiet anger of a man pushed past his limits. “The moon has come and gone and come again. For this time, I have tended the fire alongside you. All the while, the wounded and dying cry out around us, all praying for the hope that you say this man will provide us. Well guess what, Master? He hasn’t. The Sun Sentinel hasn’t awoken from his slumber to save us all from the dire threat looming just over the horizon.”

            His voice turned calmer, as if his anger had run out. “So yes, Master. Yes, I am leaving. And I beg of you, please, come with me.”

            Both voices were silent for a time.

            “M-maybe…” the Lupin croaked, ever so slowly. “Maybe you’re--”

            An intense wave of heat radiated from the firepit. Canvas tents near the epicenter were singed at their edges, stitched as they were with thaumic runes meant to avoid just such a scenario.

The fire was out, the coals turned cool. The man in the pit sat up, his eyes appearing as if consumed by flame.

            The Sun Sentinel had awoken.

Author's Note

So. I know I said in the last installment of this story that I was going to break it down into smaller pieces, but apparently the smallest piece I could break this into was roughly about eight pages. Bodes well for me as a writer, but I apologize to anyone just looking for a quick read. But regardless, and as always, reviews, comments, concerns, constructive criticism, etc. are all greatly encouraged and appreciated. And most of all, thank you for reading!