The Wolf Watch

By Harley Firestone

After four centuries of being sealed away, a powerful family of warlocks rise from their prisons and seek to reclaim all that was taken from them. In their wake of destruction and malice, the warlocks have brought upon men of great power and skill who seek to stop them from their hunt of their old throne.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664145436

Harley Firestone

Harley brings a unique perspective to literature. He is an avid movie watcher, especially older movies. His inspiration doesn’t usually come from books but rather from the movies he watches, where he begins to pick apart the scenes, the bad and the good, and translates his own refined perspective onto the pages he writes. He tries to keep the dialogue real and the action fresh and, most importantly, create relatable characters with internal obstacles that they must face as well as the external problems forced upon them. Harley has a wife, Angel, and a son, Samuel, whom he enjoys spending time with. His hobbies outside of writing mostly consist of working with his hands and making things with leather, wood, and metal.

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Copyright © 2020 by Harley Firestone.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/28/2020

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Contents

Four hundred and thirty-four years ago …

Present Day, 1878 — Hawthorne, Sesimyth

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Four hundred and

thirty-four years ago …

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The continents of Primus and Trake were home to thousands of folk, all under the rule of the Craven clan, a clan of powerful warlocks capable of controlling the elements, creating life from other life, and even opening portals to travel from one point to another. Hannibal was the eldest brother and leader of the clan, a tall and lanky man with dark skin and dark gray hair. The second in line was Coral, the eldest sister, her hair as dark as a raven’s feathers. The third was Beliac, a large and brutish-looking man with eyes that were as green as Chrysoberyl. The youngest was Dax, short and oily but a very powerful warlock. The Craven clan had complete control over the continents, an empire they called Thornhelm. The Craven clan was feared all over the world; kingdoms from all around feared what they were capable of and knew it was just a matter of time before the clan pursued more territory and led an invasion on their neighbors.

Twelve kingdoms united under the flag and command of Emperor Ghalt, leader of the Ambrose Empire, to initiate an attack on Thornhelm. These twelve kingdoms were assisted by Primal Shamans, men who possessed the powers of sealing away evil spirits. With the combined forces and the aid of powerful magic users of their own, the kingdoms attacked. The twelve kingdoms were massive, and wave after wave, they struck. Striking down the forces they sent forth in their stead, men who have been commanded under the powers of magical persuasion by Hannibal himself. The wave of forces continued their approach, like a ocean wave crashing against rocks, slowly ripping apart the solidity and taking debris in its wake.

The Craven clan, of course, had power of their own and retaliated with powerful warlock magic. Coral’s magical prowess was a true force to be reckoned with. With her blood magic, she summoned stone golems to push the forces back. Golems made of stolen life force of the mortals she killed. As the advances continued to march through defense after defense, the golems met force with incredible force. Each golem took a beating, arrows from the strings of a thousand bows plunged and the metaphysical weaponry from the shamans slowed, trapped and drained each golem down to rubble. Coral had a limited number in her arsenal but sent them forth as they were as expendable as the mortal souls that fought in their stead before. The golems came, one after another, slowly but steadily stamping down the forces of the twelve armies. Portals began to open up around them, releasing barrels of fire oil and exploding them into hellish fires that licked the flesh of the warriors who opposed the warlocks lords. Hannibal stood at the top of the battlements, observing the massive army still advancing despite all of their attempts to halt their charge. His brother Beliac, the leader of their small army of followers, stood by his side.

We are running low on resources. Coral has not a golem to spare. Their forces are far too great, Beliac notified.

Hannibal inhaled a sharp breath. Like cockroaches. You stomp four out, and ten more surface. Notify Dax to get our portals ready. We will allow this victory but these mortal scum will not kill us, Hannibal said, and Beliac bowed and hurried off.

Dax prepared portals for their escape. Four individual portals spread across Primus and the Trake continents. The siblings would enter their portals and break off and reunite to reclaim their lost throne when the time was right, a failsafe Hannibal had created in case of such a drastic circumstance. The four stood before their respective portals. Each swirling with massive amounts of magical energy. The twelve armies broke through the walls and sought out their enemies, the shamans now leading the fight. They saw the four clansmen before their portals. The primal shamans had to act fast, they began to perform a sealing ritual to stop them where they were. The sealing rituals began to take hold of the clansmen but the warlocks stepped into their portals and the primal sealing magic of the shamans were being overpowered by the sucking force of the portals the siblings had halfway stepped into.

The four escaped into their portals, each emerging in different parts of Primus. Hannibal found himself in the deadly cold of the northern tundra of Primus. Freezing winds cut across his eyes and cheeks, stinging him with pain. He trekked through the frozen lands, his soles sliding across the permafrost. He began to feel his body become numb, his fingers started then the numbing coursed to his wrists and arms. He could barely move and rested against a massive glacier and in a matter of seconds, his body began to feel as if it were being consumed by the icy mountain. He tried to remove his hand from the icy wall but it was being absorbed into glacier.

"What sorcery—" he roared as he tried to pry himself loose.

He raised his hand, readying a spell that could break the ice and free his arm, but it was too late. The numbing took to the entirety of his body and he seized up completely. His body began to slowly merge with the glacier until it was completely encased within the icy coffin. The powerful shamans’ sealing magic had worked.

Beliac faced the same perplexity. He was teleported into the swamplands. The portal spat him out and the warlock landed atop a moss-covered boulder. He glanced around to catch his bearings and take in his surroundings. The numbing took effect from his toes up. He looked down and saw that the boulder he stood atop began to pull him into the rock. Beliac let out a concussive spell that sent a large chunk of the boulder away, freeing one of his legs, but the sealing magic was too powerful. It gripped his legs yet and began to drag him into slab and the boulder claimed its prize, sealing the warlock away in a coffin of rock.

Dax wandered the jungle where he had been sent by the portal. The youngest Craven had advanced deeper into the jungles before he had begun to get anesthetized by the shaman’s magic. The tree he approached began to claim him. His arm began to sink into the thick wood of the tree. The shamans’ magic was too much for him. Dax let out a yell to the winds before the tree swallowed him into its thick trunk, making the warlock a part of the forest. Coral was on her hands and knees on the warm sands of the beach. The portal swirled just behind her, she just barely made it from her portal before the sealing magic took effect. She crawled through the sand, trying to fight the magic that crippled her, but it was too powerful for her to resist. She began to sink into the sand as quickly as if it were quicksand. She sank slowly until she was completely submerged in it.

The twelve armies scoured Primus and Trake for months, searching for the clan but never to find them. The shamans precluded the fact that their magic had worked and sealed them away; for how long, however, was a mystery since they were powerful magic users as well. The seals cast upon them could be broken in time. After waiting and searching for close to two years, Emperor Ghalt renamed Thornhelm, Sesimyth and bestowed his younger brother Mattis Ghalt, ushering a new era of human history.

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Present Day, 1878 —

Hawthorne, Sesimyth

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The grand Bard estate stood erect and stout. This ten-bedroom mansion belonged to the great metal trader and shipwright Samuel Bard II, who influenced Hawthorne with his many acts of shrewd business ventures and stories from the war. Samuel Bard II made a fortune with trading mineral rights for gold, a wealthy enough venture that allowed him to retire at the early age of twenty-nine and raise his only child, Samuel Bard III. His wife passed away a year before he could retire; a case of fever had attacked her brain, and she was pronounced brain-dead. Fortunately enough, Samuel Bard Sr. allotted enough wealth, enough for twenty men to retire for three lifetimes in a row, that he could provide for his son but at the hands of a nanny, a woman named Hersha.

Samuel Sr. went out for months, sailing around the world on his schooner that he had named the Patron of the Salt. He sailed the Patron all over the world, leaving his son home to be mothered by Hersha, a kind and loving woman. As Samuel Bard III grew into adulthood, the amount he saw of his father lessened when he was stricken with an unknown disease that paralyzed him. His sailing days were over, and even now, when he was home, he focused his time on his own hobbies rather than his son.

Hersha was an old woman by now and died when Samuel III turned twenty-three. The funeral consisted of her small family of two sons and, of course, Samuel, and that was it. Samuel was torn over the loss of the only parental figure he had left. Samuel eventually moved from the large mansion, leaving his father a note that he would go and join the Ambree National Army (ANA). Samuel enlisted as a member of the Bulwark Unit, tasked with stationary security of the gates of the major cities.

In his service, he learned he had one true talent: the talent of a marksman, which would race him up the ranks. His skill with a rifle was quickly recognized, and he was promoted to colonel of the musketeers division. This new role consisted of him leading men out to be detached in a conflict. Samuel, who went by his last name now because of the customary nature of the Ambree military, had seen many days and nights of combat and had honed his skills as a marksman. In fact, he had become one of the best in the army, where he advanced and made a living training soldiers how to shoot.

Ten years, he spent in the national army until he received a letter stating that his father had died, succumbing to the disease that had paralyzed him. His lawyer needed to discuss with him his father’s will and wishes. Bard traveled back to Hawthorne, where he was awarded all of his father’s belongings: the estate, the old schooner (the Patron of the Salt), and his fortune, which amounted to several millions of dollars, an amount he wouldn’t be able to spend even in eleven lifetimes.

Bard retired from the military and found himself living the life of a wealthy man but had no ambitions of staying home all day. He began to go out on hunting expeditions, keeping his eyes sharp against the sights of iron on rifles, hunting big game in the most dangerous continents in the world. His favored game was the invasive amherrot, a large predatory beast with the fangs of a tiger and the body of a bear. They were also burrowers, digging large holes in the earth. This wasn’t why they were considered invasive; however, these beasts hunted for sport, similar to man, but they hunted all year round, killing anything they wished. This included man and cattle alike, and they could be found nearly anywhere where trees grew and streams flowed. Many farmers hired hunters to drive these beasts away to save their cattle from being slaughtered.

When Bard was not on an expedition, he enjoyed the theater, watching the works of Jarrome Dublaire, his favorite actor. He seemed to have a style that most critics would call a fresh perspective on the real world, a perspective Bard related to. He would also go and watch the opera, a pastime that his father also enjoyed; he had brought him along as a kid. As rare as it was, Bard remembered it fondly and enjoyed it very much.

Today was a cold day, no snow to be seen, but it was cold enough to get a fire going. Bard’s butler, Jerry Dawson, a man who had been in the employ of Bard’s father a few years before he passed, had gotten the fire ready, poking at the logs to get them going. Bard came from downstairs, and Jerry greeted him.

Master Bard, the coffee is hot and ready, and you received a letter today. He handed him the letter.

The letter was from the explorer’s club here in Hawthorne. The letter detailed a hunting expedition into the northern tundra of the continent in search of saber tusks and meat. The club’s executive, Frond Williamson, was an old friend of Bard’s, and he had went out on many an expedition with the club.

Bard thanked Jerry and went to his study to write him back. Above his mahogany desk were the ashes of his father, and next to them were the ashes of his mother, both resting and secured within patina-ed brass and copper urns. He inked a pen and began to write back, stating how happy he would be to accompany such a trek. Bard hadn’t been on expedition in several months and missed the thrill and needed a reason to leave the mansion. He inked his signature at the bottom of the page, sealed the yellow envelope, and handed it to Master Dawson to send off.

Master Jerry, I am heading into town. Off to see the alchemist, Bard stated.

Shall I fetch the wagon, sir? Jerry asked.

Tend to the mansion in my absence. I won’t be too long, Bard replied.

Of course, sir, Jerry bowed and continued to tend to the fire.

Bard got onto the back of one of the nags in the stable, a brown-and-white mare by the name of Shape. He gave the strong stallion a pat and he in return bowed his head to accept it. Bard boarded the beast and was off. He reached town within the hour. He cantered Shape toward a small holistics shop. The sign stuck out from the building face, wooden and carved into it were a pair of dragon wings and the name of the shop, Creed’s Remedies.

Bard hitched Shape and entered the shop. The smell of oils and boiling tideflower petals in a round beaker filled his senses, a smell combination he liked, for it was much better than the smog of the outside air of the city. The alchemist who ran the store, Medrona Creed, was in the back and emerged, an older man in his fifties. His black hair was combed to the side, and he had a thick beard with a long line of white hairs running straight down the center of it similar to a honey badger’s back.

Master Bard. Good day, I hope? he greeted Bard.

Damned cold, but it beats the deserts of Roan, Bard replied.

Indeed, Creed replied.

Bard reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a carved brass cylinder bottle with a brass and wooden cap. I’m running low on my pills, Bard said.

Creed nodded, grabbed the container, and headed to the back. He refilled the bottle with olive-green pills of his own making. They were pain suppressors made from concentrated prodactis powders. Bard, however, had been using them to combat his trauma from the war. It helped soothe his body, easing his mind of most of the images that rotted his psyche.

Creed handed him the bottle back, now filled. I can always try and find something else to help with your trauma, Bard. Something with less of a violent addictive aftereffect, Creed said.

Don’t need to seek a solution for a broken wheel if the wheel is still turning. They help me, and that’s all that matters, Bard said, and he gulped one down with some water.

How is Master Jerry? asked Creed.

He’s swell. Hasn’t aged a bit. Lucky genes, I suppose, Bard said.

Bard reached into his pocket and fished out a bag of solid gold coins, a payment he liked to make directly to Creed. Bard was the only person Creed would make these unnamed pills for. This being said, Bard paid him very handsomely. The gold was not why Creed made him the pills. Bard would visit the shop as a boy every so often and would inquire about the wares Creed had displayed, and his favorite of all was the hand-dipped incense. He had watched Bard grow into a man and sensed great pain from within his soul and wanted nothing more than to help him. When Bard was a boy, Creed saw him as a kid with a good head atop his shoulders, and as a grown man, Bard had always shown great character, something an old man like Creed appreciated in people, for it was greatly lacking in this day and age. Bard’s father was a well-known figure around Hawthorne and Creed knew Bard rarely had a father figure so the alchemist had always provided what he could in ways of support emotionally and elsewise.

Bard thanked the alchemist and headed off. Creed headed to the back of his shop to continue to meditate, a ritual he did every day. It was his cure for all that ailed him. He performed meditation nearly every other hour. His meditation had actually begun during his time as a monk among his brethren in the Living Lands, an order of monks who focused on self-reliance and appreciating the earth and all she had to offer on a natural scale. Creed had been doing alchemy for decades, but in the middle of his professional career, he took a break and joined the followers of the Living Lands. Medrona had been a monk with the Living Lands for over five years and had learned many of their ways. He trained extensively on the calm methods of self-assurance and being content with one’s self and decisions. It was a way for him to recover from the loss of his wife, Tamara, who had died six years before.

Even to this day, Creed mourned her greatly. If ever a woman was shaped by the gods specifically for another being, it would have been Tamara for Creed. She was a woman who knew what was on his mind before he did—a perfect match, like a lock and a key or a bowl and water. Creed had mastered his ways of remaining calm and worry free, but it seemed that all his efforts fell short of reprieve the second he thought of his late wife. The very precious memories of her were what caused his mind to sink. He spent hours sometimes trying to reflect on all his accomplishments and how she would be proud of him. He also reminded himself of his work and how it helped those who needed it.

Shortly after Bard’s visit, a man entered with his dog, who had been bitten by a snake. The poor beast’s ankle was swelling, and he was looking faint and exhausted. Creed helped the dog onto a table, and he began to observe the wound. He used a shaving razor to cut around the affected area. As he worked, he asked the man if he could recall what kind of snake it was.

I’m not sure, the dog’s owner replied.

Describe it to me then, Creed said calmly as he observed the wound.

About twelve or so inches long. Black spots and like a tan skin color, the dog’s owner began, but Creed needed no more.

Where was he when he was bit? Creed asked.

I think by the river. He’s my retrieving hound. We were hunting fowl. I shot one down, and he rushed in to grab it. Came back yelping, the owner replied.

The river maw was a deadly snake that usually kept to the colder, damper areas near riverbanks. They struck when threatened. From the dog owner’s description, it had to be the river maw. Creed tied off a small string around the dog’s ankle. The dog snapped at Creed from the pain, but Creed jerked back, anticipating such a reaction.

Hold him still, Creed said.

He entered the back of his shop and fetched a jar of smashed brown leaves. He pulled out a chunk and rolled it into a ball. He forced the dog’s mouth open and made the hound swallow it whole. He then began to pull some fluid from a jar with a syringe. He felt for a vein in the dog’s leg where he had tied it off, slowly penetrated the vein with the syringe, and injected the dog with the fluid. The dog’s breathing slowed, causing worry for his owner.

He’s barely breathing! he barked.

It’s the anthrazine. The bundle of leaves I made him eat. It’s meant to slow the heart down to prevent large amounts of the venom to pass through his heart, Creed replied. He slowly pulled the syringe from the vein and patched it up with a bandage cloth. "The anthrazine will be active for at least a day. Make sure he drinks plenty of fluids.