Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Part One
(Left) Unexpected chaos and change.
(Right) Confusion, manipulation and trickery.
Chapter
1
In the distance, dark clouds gathered over the sea in an angry roiling boil. The wind slammed hard into the surface, creating rough, hazardous waves that rushed toward shore like angry stallions. There was little beach between the sea and the vast forest that stretched almost to the shoreline. The canopy swayed and rocked, rustling tree branches and sending leaves and needles swirling through the air like weapons of destruction.
Darkness brought out the creatures of the night. Bats wheeled and dipped as they feasted on insects. Great round yellow eyes blinked from some of the higher tree limbs as the owls surveyed the forest floor, and the voles and mice rushed through rotting vegetation to get home. The merciless wind swept in from the sea, slamming into the stoic trees, bending them, causing creaks of protest, but the trees held, as they had for hundreds of years.
The village of Nachtbloem rested on the outskirts of the forest, so close that the wilderness crept forward as if to recover the site that had been carved from the woods. Night flowers grew wild in every meadow, tipping their faces toward the moon. The village was situated near the river and close to the ocean, where many of the inhabitants made their living fishing or sending their wares to neighboring countries via the sea route.
Often fierce storms brewed over the ocean and crashed over their homes, pouring water into the river so that it reacted like a snake. The river would swell up, a thrashing, roaring serpent, spewing the frothing, maddened water from its banks to flood the roads. With the roads impassable, the people were trapped in the village until the abundance of water soaked into the ground or they managed to fix it. It had happened often enough in the last two years that it no longer fazed them.
Silke Vriese Reinders knew storms like the ones Nachtbloem experienced were different. Everyone in the village was aware the weather wasn’t normal even though the storms came consistently in the usual months. It rained often in Holland, but in comparison to other countries, the weather was rather mild across the land. Living on the coast, they shouldn’t experience such violent storms.
With one arm, Silke encircled a tree trunk while she watched the ferocity of the waves pounding the shore. In the distance, waterspouts leapt across the choppy surface of the water, but the towering columns were ominous as they spun wildly, forming more and more geysers as they hurtled toward shore.
“Doesn’t look good,” Tora Kros said, standing on the other side of the tree. She was tall and willowy, with shining dark hair and gorgeous emerald green eyes.
“I think of these storms as tests,” Silke said. “Look into the clouds, Tora. You can make out the faces of our enemies.”
Tora followed her gaze to the dark clouds laced with lightning. As each cloud rolled and boiled as if in a cauldron, eyes glowed from the jagged lightning, demonic faces staring malevolently at the shore, forest and village. The faces distorted eerily as the clouds roiled and churned. Each face twisted and turned with the rolling cloud, but it was clear the glowing, malevolent eyes were marking the village and forest, attempting to see everything they could.
“A war is coming,” she whispered aloud to her best friend. “I read it again in the cards this evening, just as they have warned me for the last two years.”
The tree she held on to was solid, although slenderer than quite a few of the others. She needed the grounding when she was all too aware of the land shifting under her feet. In days long past, mythical creatures and demon slayers were considered part of everyday life. Now they existed only in video games. Movies were made about vampires and evil demons. Television shows depicted supernatural beings. No one believed in these things in modern times; at least it seemed that way. Those living in Nachtbloem knew better.
Three hundred people, give or take a few when elders died and babies were born, resided in the village of Nachtbloem. Although many people in Germany, the Netherlands and even Belgium claimed to be fully Frisii, the people living in that remote village were direct descendants of those from Germania times. The story of the battle between the Frisii and Roman invaders was always kept fresh in their minds, handed down from generation to generation during storytelling time.
In AD 28, the Frisii were the only people able to defeat the Roman army when their land had been invaded. At first, the Frisians lived alongside the Romans without rancor. When new leadership of the Romans demanded taxes to be paid in forms the Frisians didn’t have, wives and daughters were sold into slavery in order to satisfy the leader of the Romans. The Frisians rebelled and decided, with a small force, to attack the fortress where the leader was hiding. The Romans fought back and even managed to get reinforcements.