FORGOTTEN HALO

By D.W. Rucker

One creature chose the knowledge of good and evil and was called man. The other creature chose life and was called malakim. For thousands of years, the elder brother race has protected the fallen, younger race from the darkness released upon the world by his own choosing. ***** The angry wolf snarled, and the girl choked out an involuntary, terrified cry. Her back found the base of a tree, and she slid herself against it, trying to envelope herself in the strong wooden arms. The wolf pressed in as the child curled against the tree roots, one tiny foot raised to strike the beast again. The protector's chest heaved with pride as he witnessed the courage of the overmatched child. Her other foot lie twisted on the ground, slowly becoming saturated with fluid from her mangled flesh. The fight was almost over, and the wolf innately understood the way it would end. The protector's sword emerged. But he was still too far away. He would be too late. In the slow instants of time and space, he knew that this child was beyond his immense speed. The wolf was out of reach of the beautiful power of his upraised sword of lightfire. Then a brilliant flash shattered the darkness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644582435

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FORGOTTEN HALO

D.W. Rucker

Copyright © 2019 by D. W. Rucker

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

In memory of

Alyce R. Rucker

and

Robert C. Langenau

Special Thanks to

Kristin Rucker, Isaac Rucker, Aubrey Rucker, Levi Rucker,

Donald Rucker, Stephani Adkins, Bradley Rucker,

Janelle Purdy, Jennifer Nesbitt, Kathryn Rucker,

David Rucker, Cynthia Sayes, and Leslie Fox

Chapter 1

The Protectors

His sword pierced deeply into the soul of the beast. It was no ordinary sword of steel. Its length glowed brightly as it plunged into flesh and bone. But the creature was not harmed, for the sword did not attack the animal. There was a different enemy. A dark intruder within the body of the massive wolf felt the sting of the blade’s brilliance. The wolf’s body showed no sign of injury as the weapon flicked back and forth through the creature.

A subtle wisp of black cloud escaped the animal’s body as the blazing sword entered once more. The animal released its death grip on the throat of a limp human form lying in the dirt. The sword retracted from the confused animal and hid its gleam within a sheath of emerald. The wolf sniffed at the bleeding man in the dirt then craned its neck to gaze into the deep purple eyes of the man standing behind its shoulder. A massive blow from the man to the wolf’s hind quarters removed any confusion the wolf had about the next step to take. The wolf understood it was time to flee and not to fight.

The beast disappeared into the woods, and the man turned his unusual purple eyes back to the bleeding body on the ground. Some lingering life still ebbed from the wounds in the man’s throat, but only faintly. The hands of the protector went to the dying man’s neck. A glow emanated from the protector’s flesh, and the gray pallor of the dying man receded as the pink hue of life reclaimed ground across the surface of his body.

The man opened his eyes and stared up from the blood-soaked dirt into the dark eyes, shining with a penetrating purple radiance that he felt deep in his chest. Memory flooded back to the man, and he examined his bloody and torn clothing to find the flesh beneath healed. In shock, he stared at the fading glow of the protector’s flesh. His jaw fell open, but his words were lodged somewhere out of reach. The protector rose up, looking down with his fierce purple eyes, but a small curl of the lip betrayed a smile as he sensed the man’s unspoken gratitude. The purple eyes pierced the man’s mind, and a soft warmth spilled over his thoughts as he began to forget the horror of the attack.

As quickly as he arrived, the protector disappeared. In the distance, the once-dying man had found his voice and uttered a stuttering thanks into the night air for some act he could not quite recall. But the protector had already trained his ears upon sounds slipping through the forest from the nearest village.

The distant cries of young and old lightly coated the corners of the darkened woods with their terror. The protector moved with speed through the thick woods, until one voice stood out from the others. The high-pitched voice of a child in torment was closer than all the rest. He directed his feet toward the sound and scanned the nighttime blackness that registered in crisp shades of purple through his strange eyes. Closing in on the sound, he located movement of branches, an owl, a small rodent, a dislodged leaf that fluttered toward the ground. He discounted each item along with the other normal movements of the woodland nightlife.

Then he saw the girl. No more than five years old, she wore a light-colored dress, now ripped and ragged. The ribbon used for a bow had come untied as it dragged through the dirt. She pressed her small elbows into the dirt and dragged her body backward. One of her tiny legs shot into the air at the nose of a lunging wolf and made contact. The angry wolf snarled, and the girl choked out an involuntary, terrified cry. Her back found the base of a tree, and she slid herself against it, trying to envelope herself in the strong wooden arms.

But the tree was no more than a silent witness. The wolf pressed in as the child curled against the tree roots, one tiny foot raised to strike the beast again. The protector’s chest heaved with pride as he witnessed the courage of the overmatched child. Her other foot lie twisted on the ground slowly becoming saturated with fluid from the girl’s mangled flesh. The fight was almost over, and the wolf innately understood the way it would end.

The protector’s acute vision saw this all from a distance, and his feet and legs strained to reach the girl in time. The wolf lunged. The protector’s sword emerged. But he was still too far away. In desperation, a low, powerful sound emanated from his body. The sound coursed through trees and ripped the wind. The hairs on the beast bristled, and the little girl’s terror magnified. The deep, booming sound of the protector’s cry radiated in a wave throughout the woods and carried on past the girl and her tormentor. The wolf paused for an instant, but the distance to the child was too great despite the wolf’s momentary delay.

He would be too late. In the slow instants of time and space, he knew that this child was beyond his immense speed. The wolf was out of reach of the beautiful power of his upraised sword of lightfire. The fangs were nearly at her throat. He could see the hot breath of the animal cause the girl’s lips to curl in disgust as her tiny leg shot out with all the force of a twig as she bravely fought in her last seconds. A lump of emotion welled up in the protector’s throat. Her valiance would go unrewarded. Let me reach the little child, he breathed in despair.

Then the brilliant flash of blond hair shattered the darkness. The mighty wolf was lifted into the night air as if it were a kitten held above the flowing blond hair. A lithe, feminine arm kept the wolf suspended. Another such arm withdrew a sword that exploded with light in the deep darkness and pierced the wolf from abdomen to snout.

A cloud of black drifted from the wolf’s body and lost itself in the night. The wolf stopped snarling and frantically sought escape. The woman released the mighty wolf, and it fled into the dark in confusion, but unharmed. Sheathing her sword, her free hand went to the girl’s damaged leg, and a glow traveled down her arm to the girl’s leg. The mangled flesh began to smooth itself into the normal creamy contours of a young child.

Above the kneeling woman, the protector now stood frozen with blazing sword still raised overhead. The woman’s purple eyes turned upon him, with a taunting grin escaping from beneath. Too slow, Nathanael! she said, with a soft laugh that followed.

Well . . . I, he began to respond. But the woman was gone with the child, and Nathanael was left standing alone with his sword awkwardly held over his head. Glancing each way to see if any others witnessed his awkward moment, he veiled his sword of lightfire and laughed. Ariel would always be faster and stronger than he. He raced toward the village, contemplating how he might find a way to return the taunt of beautiful Ariel.

For a thousand years, many times over, she had battled with him against dark forces at work against men, women, and children. Rarely in those millennia had he ever come close to outmatching Ariel’s prowess on the attack. Even in those few instances, it was not his speed or strength that had allowed him to keep up with her. She was just so much more physically powerful than any other of the protectors. Yet her lithe arms, trim legs, and graceful movements, accompanied often by a soft smile, betrayed none of the steel-like strength lingering beneath the surface. She was an utter weapon, and it made others of his kind seem almost as weak as the humans they protected.

The small village was seething with anguish. Overturned carts and makeshift weapons littered the street. The evidence of the villagers’ losing struggle was everywhere. From a dark corner protruded the legs of a man whose weakened grunts indicated that he no longer had strength to fight for his life. A wolf hovered over him, alternately tearing at his abdomen and limbs.

The shadow receded from the corner as Nathanael’s bright sword entered the space, and the wolf looked up from the ragged flesh of the man. The wolf sprang toward Nathanael with the confidence of fresh meat in its throat. Nathanael’s sword struck through the animal’s chest as his other hand grasped its throat like a vice. The wolf yelped, and its hind legs scratched at Nathanael’s body to find some release for its throat.

The light of the sword did its work, and a black cloud separated from the wolf, which immediately fell limp. Nathanael released his hold, and the wolf took two hesitant steps back. A stern command sent the wolf toward the darkness of the forest. Within seconds, the injured man watched in disbelief the healing glow of Nathanael’s hands.

As quickly as he rescued the man, Nathanael was gone, searching for another voice crying out from a dark corner, a lonely ditch, or the recesses of some defenseless shelter. Throughout the village, clouds of black escaped from beasts of all types as Nathanael and the other protectors wielded their swords. A coyote fought viciously against a young woman, but Zophiel sent the attacker scurrying into the woods. The black hair and ivory skin of Belial moved with amazing agility to avoid the thunderous blows of a giant bear. Her sword released the brute from the hold of the black cloud within him. He dropped down to his forepaws and wandered lazily back to the woods in search of a simpler meal. Nathanael saw powerful Lahash rush through an open space between two structures. He could hear the cries of pain in the direction of Lahash’s advance and knew that another black cloud would be lifted soon.

In the thousands of years of defending creatures of the earth, the protectors, known in ancient days as the malakim, had become an efficient force. In the early generations, those beasts that became infected by the blackness did not fare well. The protectors had believed it necessary to destroy the animals, and many died. That was until Ariel, in her great strength, held back the powerful attack of a lioness while systematically probing the creature’s body for the black intruder. When she successfully separated the blackness from the lioness, the animal lost its inclination to fight. The protectors understood for the first time that the animals were simply tools used to inflict suffering upon humans. After that time, Nathanael, Ariel, Zophiel, and others had prevailed upon the entire community of the malakim to begin sparing the innocent animals.

Not everyone agreed. Injuries were much more common. In the early days, it was a simple thing to put down a bear, a lion, a crocodile, a charging elephant, or any other beast that had been overcome by the blackness. It was quite a bit more complicated to root out the black invader that at once used its host creature as a weapon and a living shield. Many of the protectors were gored, trampled, and torn open in ghastly ways. The race of man was largely consumed by evil and unworthy of protection, but the protectors endured and found techniques successful in overcoming all manner of entranced creatures.

In the present days, some of the most difficult battles are the most unlikely. For instance, a swarm of bees is much more difficult for the protectors than a charging rhinoceros. The rhino presents a single, identifiable target that can be neutralized by a few protectors with strategically wielded swords of lightfire. On the other hand, a cloud of bees can harbor the blackness by changing its shape endlessly. The blackness drifts through the cloud of bees in a manner that puts distance between itself and any protector while still allowing it to guide the swarm as a whole toward some maleficent purpose. Other greatly annoying battles involved sewer rats, red ants, African rain spiders, and, believe it or not, neighborhood squirrels. Fortunately, the creatures that were most difficult to overcome with speed were also, generally, least able to inflict significant injury upon their human targets.

The problem with the small creatures is that it is always difficult to identify the problem. A hoard of spiders silently moving from one home to the next in the night does not raise a cry like a pack of wolves. As to small rodents and insects, people have come to trust the presence of such creatures, so bites and attacks are disregarded until the victims become aware of the scale of the attack. In these moments of panic and desperation, humans naturally alert one another of their fear and the present danger. In whatever form this alert takes, whether it is repeated calls to the authorities for medical or protective service, or whether it is more basic wailing and screaming, the malakim remain vigilant.

The blackness does not seem to be an overly sophisticated enemy, yet it has persisted in its chaos since as long as any could recall. The blackness certainly has intelligence and an intense hunger for destruction. It is selective and strategic in its efforts to injure humans. At times it will select hosts that it can use to effectively target small children who do not recognize the attack until it is too late for them to be saved. Often the protectors are alerted by sobs from groups of despondent adults, confused by the sudden and unexpected loss of their children. By such methods, the blackness attacks both body and soul of humans, stealing hope, killing love, and destroying faith in anything good or pure.

Sometimes the blackness uses more brutal tactics, such as large numbers of normally solitary predators, like tigers, attacking as a unit. Another tragic battle involved a herd of hippopotamuses that traveled far upriver to descend upon a sleepy village in the early morning. Such displays betray the intelligence of the blackness. Yet the cloud of evil seems to be content to simply drift away to a new area when its current host is eliminated or brought under control by a protector.

The protectors first encountered the blackness in the time of man’s infancy as a species. The blackness was found by one whom they had called the prince of the world. The prince was like Nathanael and the others of his kind, but the prince was terribly beautiful and powerful. When the blackness began appearing, the prince of the world had faded from view until he was no longer seen by anyone. When they had searched for the prince, Nathanael and the malakim found only the blackness, and so they came to learn of its evil deeds.

The horrible suffering inflicted by the blackness led Nathanael and others to convene and commit to protecting the humans. Humanity simply did not have a chance to oppose an enemy whose existence the human senses could only minutely register. Like the blackness, the protectors shared the world with humans but were rarely recognized. Even in battle, where humans physically encountered the defensive and healing work of the protectors, the knowledge of the event quickly subsided. This is because the healing power of the protectors extends to both the body and mind of the humans. As the ripped and torn flesh of a human is smoothed back to its former state, so the mind is caused to gradually rid itself of the fear and pain of the attack from the blackness. Within hours, or even minutes, of a protector’s healing touch, the human mind is free from the terror of the blackness or the awareness of the protector’s intervention.

But not all the malakim wished to go undetected. Some, such as Lahash, relished the days of brutal counterstrikes against the blackness. The battlefields would be littered with the bodies of creatures the blackness had commandeered. In such times, the human spectators were left with an awesome fear of both the creatures and the forces that brought them down. Myths and legends sprang up in tribal cultures that had little connection to the truth. The stories were simply the local population’s attempt to explain something the human faculties could neither detect nor interpret without assistance.

Long since the protectors had given up the brutality of the early days, some protectors still felt the urge to make their deeds, or at least their presence, known to humans. Lahash, for example, specialized in what could best be described as practical jokes. In one savage battle involving stampeding elephants, Lahash used ash to draw a large smile on the