Read The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1) for Free Online

of this land upon your utmost brink.”
    And a voice like an earthquake stirred the ground underfoot, and he heard the words trembling through his bones: “Young fool, I feel the hoofbeat on my broad back of the knight who comes to slay you. Beware! He is upon you!”
    At that word, the clarion peals of a thousand light-voiced bells rose up strongly from the city down in the valley before him, and there was a moment of red twilight thrown across the sky. Suddenly, golden and enormous, the newborn sun filled the sky beyond the eastern towers.
    The great orb passed within a few hundred feet of the taller towers, and Galen saw their stones were burnt pale by the passage of that gigantic sphere, and the golden beams swept the morning streets as if with streams of purest fire.
    The forest around him, he now, in the blinding light, saw, was not made of pine trees at all. It was a graveyard of pillars, thin obelisks, and standing stones, only a few of which had been bare. The rest were braided and woven with many sticks and strands of incense, which, in the gloom, Galen had mistaken for pine needles. Arms of fire from the sun swept across the mountainside and ignited all this sacramental fume, so that the great sun rose in the midst of a forest fire of sacred smoke. Galen remembered only now that these were solar obelisks, which drew down the might of the sun.
    Tears streaming across the ashy blackness of his face, Galen, coughing, stumbled down the road, blinded, running without plan or purpose. Curling flame writhed and smoked, roaring on every side.
    Ahead of him on the road, coming suddenly into view amidst the smoke and smolder of the graveyard, appeared an armored knight upon a roan steed, flashing with dazzling reflections of the blinding dawn light. Smoke and steam came from him and from his ornaments, and a terrible heat like a furnace, and when he drew his sword, it burst into flame. This knight was dressed all in red, with designs of copper and red gold chased through the shining steel of his breastplate, and a proud plume of blood red flying from a ruby in his helm. His face was hidden; there may have been anything beneath that helm. On his blazing shield burned the image of a lark.
    The apparition called out in a loud voice: “Stand! I am the warrior of the dawn. This place is forbidden to mortal men, who live their lives blindto the great war all around them, and to servants of Darkness. All these buried here are those who tried to pass by me.”
    And he gestured with his sword far left and right. As far as the eye could see, the gravestones and monuments bore the legend SLAIN AT DAWN.
    “We serve one cause,” cried out Galen. “For I am loyal to Celebradon, the citadel of Light, and have spent all my life in its service.”
    “Loyal? Those who are loyal obey. Go back. You shall not pass.”
    “My world is in danger, and only Azrael might know the cause of it. I charge you stand aside and let me pass!”
    “Do you know any name or words so to command me? If not, then you have no authority to pass by me, no matter what need you pretend. Go back, or I will strike you!”
    Galen’s grandfather would have known the words, but Galen had not yet been taught them. Galen was alone.
    “Ha! Strike me? Me! I am one of the watchmen of Everness! I have powers you have not guessed, small spirit! I have defeated worse dreams than you!” Galen felt anger and pride blushing in his face, making his limbs tremble with strength.
    Without any further parley, the Red Knight clapped spurs to his roan horse, and, whirling his smoking sword in a great circle over his head, came rushing down upon Galen as if to trample him.
    But Galen pointed his spear at the charger, and shouted, “By the name which Adam gave the eldest sire of your race—Wynrohim, Rohir, Equus, Hippos! I compel you be still!”
    And the horse stopped, stumbling as if it had struck an unseen wall. The Red Knight was thrown from his saddle headlong, and fell in a