A/N: so I start on this early. I�m in the mood for it. Hope ya�ll liked my trailer, I stayed on the main computer for an entire day coloring in those pictures and then another three hours putting together the video.

Anyway, so my mom is a bitch and so is the home owners association that we haven�t even joined yet. They�re harassing us like crazy for stupid small shit.

Chapter One

�Wow!! This looks so old!!�

A small child, smaller than his peers, lifted himself out of a trapdoor passage way he had found while exploring the oldest parts of the tunnels where his people lived. His short cropped blue hair was darker in the darkness of the room he had found himself in, which looked like it should be a library. One part of his hair, in the back, was longer and pulled into a ponytail to keep it out of the way. His complexion was very pale and his eyes like the eyes of a demon, red with cat like pupils. He was a very handsome child, however; he was bright and smiled constantly and gained the attention of everyone around him with those eyes of his and that bright smile of his.

Setanta was no more than possibly five years old. He was small for his age, which caused his mother and his foster fathers and his foster mother to feel worried for him. Because he was so small people sometimes treated him as though he were much younger than five. They sometimes treated him like he was two or three, which irritated him. He wasn�t a baby! He was a big boy and could do big boy things!

His sandals scraped against the charred rock floor as he made his way to the charred book case, falling apart as he breathed. The books on the shelves looked as though they were going to fall apart if he so much as batted an eyelash at them, but they were still stacked neatly in the shelves as though nothing had happened to them.

He looked to the window and grinned when he didn�t see any light except the moon, his irises growing much larger and glowing faintly in the dark as he became more accustomed to the lack of light. This always made people nervous and made the children who wandered the tunnels to make fun of him and call him a beast. But, here, no one would make fun of him. He was exploring parts that even those kids who seemed so brave as to make fun of a kid much smaller than them wouldn�t go near.

He touched a book and slowly pulled it out with both hands. The black soot came off his hands and fell on his sandals and blackened the shorts and shirt he wore that his mother had made. The title was almost gone entirely, but he couldn�t read it anyway. He wiped sweat unconsciously off on his arm and continued to explore the room. He found all sorts of books around, but still couldn�t read a single on, for they practically fell apart in his hands. This made him frustrated for he wanted dearly to know what they had in them, since they were older than his home even. Once more, he wiped sweat from his brow and felt slightly dizzy. The room was starting to heat up, though he couldn�t remember why it should be doing so.

He looked to the window and frowned as he squinted at the window. Then, he saw it. The light was coming up fast, just as his mother told him time and again that the sun did. He blinked as though he were seeing an apparition. Why should the sun come up so fast again?

The floor under his feet felt hot as he watched the sun and realized with horror that the sun was exactly as his mother had told him. He made for the trap door, but the books burst into flame around him, shelves and other things doing the same. The floor was growing hotter and the air was stifling. He tumbled onto the searing heat of the floor and cried out in both surprise and pain. His arms and legs felt like they were on fire, his skin peeling from his arms as he pulled away and tried to crawl toward the exit that was in behind the trapdoor. He pulled himself up as hard as he could and screamed in pain as his flesh pulled from his arms and hands and his legs, the floor like standing on hot coals.

�Mama� mama,� he whined as he made his way toward the door as the smoke and heat made him dizzy and light headed, the pain of his arms increasing the effect. The sun rose higher above the horizon and the sky lit up more and more. He attempted to walk down the stairs, but they were just as hot as the floor was in the room. The further he walked down; however, the air grew cooler and the stairs cooler as well, though this wasn�t much since they were still very hot.

He lost his footing, tumbling over the steps and hitting the next landing hard. He didn�t cry, he didn�t scream in pain like he wanted to. He had fallen so far beyond pain that he simply moved to survive. As he got to his feet and made his way down again, he heard a faint crying coming up the stairs.

�Setanta!! Setanta, my little boy! Call to me! Are you up there?!� His mother�s voice was frantic as she climbed the hot stairs with a blanket over her head to shield her from the heat.

He smiled oddly as he finally lost consciousness and tumbled once more right into her waiting arms. She screamed in horror at his bloody arms and hands and his legs and ran down the steps with him in her arms, screaming for the wizards to come see to him. His foster fathers Conochbar, the king of Ulster, Fergus Mac Roich, the former king of Ulster, and the warrior and poet came running toward the screams of Setanta�s mother, Connochbar�s sister.

They took Setanta to the best wizard healers in the Ulster tunnel system and let them handle his broken bones, his burned flesh and the smoke inhalation he suffered. His mother sobbed uncontrollably into the arms of her husband, her brother on the other side of her patting her shoulder. The wizards used their potions to regrow skin and nerves, to heal his broken limbs and heal his little lungs, giving him extra blood to counter the loss of blood he had suffered from his arms, hands and legs.

When Setanta woke up next, it was several days later. His mother was singing to him and holding him in her arms like she was want to do. He gazed up at her and lifted a bandaged arm and hand to her face. He frowned when he felt nothing from his fingers. He panicked and put both hands on her face and realized he could feel nothing with either. She took his small hands gently and put them down. �Shhhhh, don�t panic, little Setanta,� she said softly, �Your hands are not yet healed completely. The wizards did a great many things to your body to save you.�

He remembered his adventure into the library and blushed faintly. �I�m sorry, mam. I�m sorry I went where you said I shouldn�t.�

His mother smiled faintly and kissed his forehead, holding him to her body. �You are safe and that is what matters to me, my little boy.�

He nuzzled against his mother�s breast and curled up in her lap like he did when he was a baby. She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead again before she took him to the kitchen that her house had and made him some supper to feed his aching stomach. When he had supped, he went back to bed where his mother sang to him until he fell asleep.

Setanta was not content with waiting like his mother wanted him to. He wanted to be with the older boys and learn to fight. It was a longing inside him older than he could ever know. He heard his mother swear at the old fresher they kept to keep their food safely stored. He walked over to where his mother kicked the old contraption and hit it with the side of her fist. �Damned old rust bucket!� she said. �Look at this thing, it barely keeps anything cold!�

�Why don�t you ask Uncle Connochbar to get you a new one?� asked Setanta.

�Because it takes time to make one, my little son. The mechanic wizards have to make them anew from diagrams they have kept since the days of the ancients,� she said. �It�s simply easier to keep one running.�

Setanta frowned faintly, not certain how it would be easier to keep one running than buy a new one, but he didn�t press the issue. He looked out the door of the house and rubbed his arm again. His mother looked to him and stroked his hair gently. �Setanta� you still think about the boy corps, don�t you?� she said softly. �I already told you that you�re too young and it�s far too daunting and dangerous for a boy so much younger the lads going.�

�I�ll be a soldier, the greatest in all Ulster,� he said. He looked up and smiled at his mother. �One day I�ll be a hero, mam. One day I�ll be known all over Ireland, all over the world as the greatest hero of all time.�

His mother chuckled and moved away from him, an uneasy feeling in her stomach. Her son was already feeling the yearning from his special blood. She had never told him the truth of their punishment from the God of Light, that the God of Darkness was his father and that he alone protected humanity from certain death. She, infact, had heard his voice once more in so very long urging her to go up the forbidden stairwell to the castle library where Setanta had been so carelessly exploring. He looked to Setanta�s hands and arms and legs, the ruined flesh so carefully regrown as well as the mages had been able to mage. His nerves were the hardest thing to regrow, but they regrew them as well as they could. They mostly concentrated on his hands, so that he could be the warrior they knew he would one day be without a problem.

Setanta frowned at his mother and ran off to pack his clothes for the journey to the boy corps camp. If she wouldn�t allow him to go because she didn�t feel it was safe for him, then he would do it by himself! And so he ran off and did just that, his mother wondering where he had gone off to with worry making her feel sick. He ran off through the tunnels, running past Fergus and his fellow soldiers on the way. Fergus turned and blinked as he watched Setanta run as fast as the wind. �What is that lad thinking?�

When he had at last made it to the boy corps camp, the boys were practicing what they had learned during the day. They looked up at him as he jogged to a stop in front of them and smiled brightly at them. �Hello!� he said in a very friendly tone.

�Oi, look at that one. Who does �e think �e is? Running in here without so much as a word except �hello�!� said one blonde haired boy.

�He�s rude! Teach him a lesson!� called another.

The boys ganged up on little Setanta and he felt strange, afraid of what they were going to do to him for an insult he didn�t know anything about. His irises grew large and glowed faintly as his ears elongated slightly, his teeth sharpening. They attempted to grab a hold of him, but he slapped them away. They tried to manhandle him, calling him rude and presumptuous; he tossed them around as though they were nothing.

Finally, a man came out and pulled him off a boy who had a broken nose and jaw from his fists hitting him. He put Setanta away from the boys and put a hand on his head to steady him. �Oi! Lad! What in the world are you doing?!�

�That boy didn�t ask us to protect him, he just walked in like he was already one of us and acted so smug!� called one of the boys.

Was that what his insult was? He had not heard of such a custom at all! He moved out from under the man�s hand and walked up to the boys. �I will ask for your protection if you�ll ask for mine!� he said, seriousness all over his young handsome face.

The boys looked perplexed, as though they weren�t certain they knew what to make of this kid who wished to join them and what he was asking of them. �No! You were rude and then attacked us! We won�t ask for your protection!�

Setanta launched himself at the boy who spoke and knocked him across the group of boys. �I ask again! If I ask for your protection, you must ask for mine!�

Another boy looked him over and snorted derisively at him. �Ask for your protection? You�re as small as a flea, why should we!?�

Once more, Setanta launched himself at the boy and knocked him across the gathering. The boys then stopped sneering at him and looked at him seriously. �If we protect you, then you will protect us?�

�Aye!� said Setanta, trying to get back to himself slowly.

The boys nodded to one another and moved toward Setanta. �We ask for you to protect us. In turn, we�ll protect you,� said the same boy. The other boys nodded in agreement and moved around Setanta, grinning brightly and ruffling Setanta�s hair.

�Oi! You�re so small!� said one affectionately. �My name�s Gunther,� he said.

�I�m Setanta!� said Setanta happily, glad that whatever mess had cropped up had gone down fairly quickly.

Soon, Setanta was learning how to fight and be a soldier with the other boys. He soon outstripped them in ways they never thought possible. He was so small, however. He was so very small that they feared he might break if any one of them tackled him, and yet he had the strength of a man in those small arms of his. Soon enough, that strength would be tested in the ultimate sense, for his very life.