DISCLAIMER: The following novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

***

The girl’s head was being forced to the grass. Like a pathetic, scrawny chicken, just waiting to be put down. Maybe this was karma: for all the things she had done, and for all the things she would do yet.

The one holding her head down did so with devastating strength. It wasn’t just because the girl was eleven, small and easily overpowered—this strength was downright inhuman. Perhaps, because he wasn’t a human at all. He had the body of a man, but the face of a bear. His sharp claws pinched at the back of the her neck, and she could feel warmth blooming from her skin. Maybe she was bleeding out. The slightest more pressure, and her neck would fracture, and she would die.

But she hadn’t come here tonight to die. She’d come here to be reborn.

The edge of a white lake glimmered inches from her nose.

A perfect circle that stretched from one end of the clearing to the other. The water within looked as though it were made of pure, dazzling light.

This lake, as the girl knew, was none other than the fabled Moon.

The girl could feel a second pair of eyes fixed upon her. Eyes as blinding as comets, bored through the dark night. The Queen of the Moon, risen from within the lake, was staring her down.

“Why have you come?” asked the Queen.

The girl felt the pressure from her neck release—and finally she could reply. She raised her head, coughing and spluttering, and her voice clawed out of her throat:

“Make use of me.”

This was her only chance. This was what she was destined to do, after all.

“Let me drink from your moon,” thus she promised. “Lend me your power, and I shall become your strongest warrior.”

If I can be nothing but a devil…

Then I’ll be the greatest devil of them all.

***

FOWLHUNTER

ACT ONE

(where it all begins)

*** 

For a long time, the world was cold.

Humanity, the beings that lived on it, shivered, starved, and suffered. A blight had ravaged the world, leaving it in varying shades of black and grey. The sky was only ever dark, except for the faint glimmer of the stars so far away. Looking up to the skies, the humans begged for help. For a long time, no one answered their call, and they continued to drown in their plight.

Until one day, someone arrived, descending from the inky heavens in a flash of brilliance. The sky filled with wondrous colour—everyone gasped in awe as the trees bristled into verdant green, the oceans flooded glittering blue, mountains and hills rolled in shades of red and orange and earth.

Heaved across his shoulders, a single man carried the source of this colourful new world—a massive, burning ball of fire.

“My name is Prometheus!” the man announced, thrusting his hands forth. “And I’ve come to save you all!”

He laid his great treasure carefully on top of the world’s tallest mountain, where its warmth could shine over the entire land and sea. This big ball of fire was named the Sun. And from the Sun, the angels were born. Humanlike in appearance, but with feathered wings for traversing the sky, and hands that could shape sunlight. Flying down from the mountain, they spread through the realm under the clouds, bringing light and hope wherever they went.

For as long as the sun was up, the angels spread peace.

When the sun went down, however… was a different story.

It is here, on a night-darkened mountainface—a frigid reminder of what the world once was—that our tale begins.

The tallest mountain in the world was named Mount Casca. The setting Sun scraped its summit, the great ball of fire casting the last of its amber hue over the clouds below. There, on the peak, a crowd was gathered on the steps. Angels, numbering in the several thousands, huddled closely, faces grim. Behind them, the infrastructure of the angel kingdom towered—while the rest of the mountain’s height loomed below at their feet, covered by rolling clouds.

An angel at the front flapped her wings and rose into the air to face the division. She wore a distinctive, robed dress. The black-coloured ribbon at her front designated her as a General.

She raised her hand. The anxious buzz of the crowd died away.

“Attention, soldiers,” said the General. “For those of you who are new, welcome to the Graveyard Division. Your mission tonight is the same as it has been for the past one thousand years: protect our kingdom through the night.”

As shivers ran through the crowd, the General drew her fingertips close together. In the centre of her palm, the air seemed to tighten, orange rays of the sunset screwed into a fiery beam of light. She splayed her fingers; the beam split into a firework of a thousand smaller beams, tiny comets of sunlight that rained down across the division.

This was Soleki: the magic of the sun, every angel’s gift. Every soldier present felt the tingle of the Soleki as it flamed over them warmly. Then, their heads pulsed.

“All members have now been placed under the communication charm,” the clipped voice of the General came from inside their heads. “If you all follow orders and cooperate with one another, more of you may survive, so listen carefully-”

At this moment, three Wardens gusted past the crowd. Their faces were all pinched tightly; heads turned as soldiers stared after them, wondering what was going on. Reaching the General’s side, the Wardens hovered up to whisper something to her. Heads rang again as snatches of words pricked through the communication charm.

General, the Commander’s missing again.

The General’s face twisted.

She waved her hand, and the charm went mute, but it was too late; everyone in the division had already heard. Instantly, murmurs broke out amongst the crowd.

“The Commander? She couldn’t be talking about…”

“She is. She’s talking about her. The notorious leader of the Graveyard Division…”

…Ennanis Zoleil.

There were few who hadn’t heard the rumours. Commander Zoleil had joined the division eight years ago, making her the longest-surviving member of the deadly Graveyard Division.

However, she was also rumoured to be conceited, disobedient, reckless. Furthermore…

“I mean, she’s good at fighting, sure. But she doesn’t care about other people. I don’t think she even has emotions. How else would she have lived this long? That angel will throw anyone else to the wayside when it comes down to it.”

“I heard she was thrown in the Graveyard Division because she committed an unforgivable crime. She’s never admitted to what it was, either. I shudder to think what could be so awful that even someone like her couldn’t speak of it.”

“You know what they say about her… she was born without a heart.”

And now, she had gone missing. As she always did.

Everyone vouched for the commander’s competence in battle. But a strong, apathetic warrior was no different from a killing machine. There was doubt such a commander could truly be trusted—then again, it wasn't like the soldiers of the Graveyard had any choice but to trust.

“Well, never mind that. There's no time to waste,” announced the frustrated General. “Attention, soldiers! Everyone get into line and march down.”

When it was their turn, each platoon plunged over the cliff, and into the thick ocean of clouds…

About to face their adversaries.

~~~

Meanwhile…

A certain missing commander flew down the mountain’s height.

She was wearing the standard uniform of the angel soldiers: a cerulean attire with gold accents, and heavy braces made of luminarial gold that hugged her forearms. She had slitted eyes, like all angels did; hers were a fiery gold that was stark against her bronze skin. A cold draft snatched through her hair: long, very long pink hair, sending it into tangled disarray, but the commander did not seem to care.

Her name was Ennanis Zoleil. Once again, she had left all her troops behind… and she flew alone.

At some point, the flapping slowed, and Ennanis landed on a jutted ridge of the mountain, folding her wings behind her. She began to walk toward a towering cliff, her boots crunching over gravel and pine needles. Piercing gold eyes swept the jagged expanse, combing the knee-deep grass, peering through the thin alpine canopy.

A ring burned brightly on her finger, shining a path of golden light in front of her footfalls.

She was looking for something.

She stopped in front of the cliff-face, where she extinguished the ring, sending it dark again. The full force of the earth’s cold hit her at once, but she kept steady footing, using her wings to shield her body from the freezing winds. Reaching about blindly for the rock in front of her, Ennanis found and grasped a handhold tight. Moving sideways, she felt her way around half this peak’s circumference, her gold armbraces scraping against rock, before she came to a stop in front of a boulder. Here, the air felt colder than in other areas, somehow.

She muttered something, and the ring started to glow again. Golden light effused from her palms, and with incredible strength, she pushed the massive boulder aside and found what she was looking for: the opening of a tunnel. Crouching down, she crawled into the passageway.

It was very narrow. The walls of the passageway were made of moist dirt, which smeared her shoulders and knees as she crawled. They were also rough and crumbly, as if it had only been recently dug.

No human nor normal creature would've dared desecrate Mount Casca so. This could only be the work of something else.

The tunnel ended soon enough, dropping away into a cavern.

Spreading her wings, Ennanis glided gracefully to the cavern floor.

“I know you’re there,” she said.

Her ring flamed like a torch, illuminating the cavern. Jagged clefts of packed dirt and thickets of stalagmites threw their shadows onto the floor. The only reply was her own voice, echoing back to her from the walls.

A beetle scuttled past her boot.

In a quick movement, Ennanis stamped it below her foot. When she lifted it away, six legs twitched from a flattened, gleaming carapace. She snapped her fingers.

With a squeak, the beetle exploded into sparks, and then was no more than ash.

“So cruel,” tutted a voice from the shadows.

At the voice, Ennanis whirled around. With a FLASH!, the ring was no longer a ring but a flaming gold spear in Ennanis’ hand, five curved prongs pointing at the figure lounging at the far end of the cavern. Yet, the spear’s light didn’t quite manage to penetrate the darkness enshrouding them like a veil.

“You’re one to preach about cruelty,” bit out Ennanis.

“Ah, but the poor beetle was defenseless, y’know.”

“I’d be a fool to let even an ant run free when it comes to you Beasts,” Ennanis countered darkly.

The edge of the spear’s radius of light allowed a glimpse of the lazy smile on the figure’s face. “And yet a fool you are anyway. All alone again today, Commander? I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you… or thankful.”

POW!

A gold blast rocketed past where the figure laid, burrowing a crater into the wall. Part of the wall went crumbling, forcing the figure to roll to their feet, leaping out of the way of the raining pebbles and into the light.

Straightening herself at the back of the cavern was a woman, with pale skin and long waves of fair hair. She was most peculiarly dressed. Her face was obscured by an iridescent, black beaked mask. Her upper half was covered by a scaly chestplate of reptilian green, a jagged metal circlet below each shoulder, and hands gloved up to the elbows in the purple of nightshades. Below the chestplate, the outfit turned into an elegant, black tiered dress. But the strangest accessories, to this crude mashup of battlewear-and-ballgown, were the red and green feathers that arced from the bustle. It resembled a rooster’s tail. Similarly, a proud red feather struck up from the woman’s mask.

If one didn’t know better, one would’ve guessed this was a lady who had gotten lost on a way to a masked ball. But Ennanis knew better.

This woman was a Beast. And the most dangerous Beast of them all—the Cockatrice.

The second the Cockatrice revealed herself, Ennanis wasted no time in pointing her spear, firing at her again. POW! The Cockatrice dodged the beam, which slammed into the wall, sending more chunks of rock falling from the ceiling. Clouds of dust lifted into the air, mingling with the smoke rising from the blast points.

“Now, I’m no chicken,” crooned the Cockatrice as she twirled out of the way of successive fire volleys, “but how about we take this outside? You’re going to collapse this mountain all by yourself if you go on like this.”

Slit-gold eyes flashed. “Quit the crap. Tell me what you’re planning.”

“What do you mean, planning?” the Cockatrice tilted her head. Her garish tail of feathers flicked behind her. “Aren’t I here for the same reason I always am?”

“You disappeared for six months.” Another blast.

“Huh?”

“You weren’t on the mountains. Six months of battles. You were nowhere to be found,” Ennanis accused.

“Really? Has it been that long? Hmmm… maybe I was getting bored,” said the Cockatrice nonchalantly. With a kick of her legs, she was suddenly upside-down, clinging to the underside of a ledge of rock by her palms and boots like a lizard. The blast impaled the wall below; her rooster tail bobbed from the impact. “Eight years of fighting someone like you gets terribly dry, sunshine. I could’ve gone on vacation.” She giggled to herself.

“Play the fool if you like,” Ennanis said as she flew up, closing the gap between them. “But whatever you’re planning, I recommend you give it up.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Every trick you could pull,” said the angel, “every deception you could weave—I know it all like the back of my hand. There is nothing that you can do to get to the summit of Mount Casca, not while the Graveyard Division has me as Commander. Tonight, you will lose, just like you have lost every other night for the past eight years, and I’ll make sure that I’m the cause of it.”

At that, the Cockatrice stopped laughing. She unpeeled her hands from the ceiling, swinging her body down until she was hanging just from her heels, bat-like. Through the mask, dark eyes beheld light ones for a moment.

“Oh, really, now?” Finally, her lips cracked wide open. “Your first mistake, Angel… was thinking that you know me.”