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Hell Train Snippet 2

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Snippet 2 of Hell Train:

“That shouldn’t have happened,” Hector Chavez growled as the group walked forward along the train cars. They were all more than a little deaf from the noise and the rushing of the wind, but with Hector’s prior hearing loss, Jack was pretty sure anyone in the general vicinity could overhear him. “I checked the lid on their latrine, it was latched open. Someone left it open!”

“I know,” Jack shouted back. The train had picked up speed again and he focused a lot more on his balance as the train cars swayed and the wind buffeted them. He ran a hand across his shaven scalp, still wet from being hosed down. He and his team had stood in the car while the cleanup guys had hosed it out. He wasn’t remotely clean, but at least his clothes were just wet, and not soaked in blood. Jack’s lean face went grim, “Odds are, whoever did it is dead too.”

“Stupid,” Hector snapped. “Not just stupid, lazy! It’s one of the first things we tell people, check to make sure the cover is latched down. Anyone who left it up doesn’t deserve to live!”

Jack couldn’t really argue with the man. Over the past six months, he’d seen all kinds of stupidity and death, often as a shared experience. He’d seen people try to reason with the undead and seen people fail to take even simple precautions that got them killed… He’d seen death on a scale that his mind shied away from.

This wasn’t a plague, it wasn’t a pestilence. It was death that led to more death, it was magic, it was supernatural… and Jack suspected that many of the “stupid” people just wanted to die, to be free of this living nightmare.

He didn’t say that, though, as he came off car one and dropped onto the back deck of Engine Two. It and Engine One provided the main propulsion for the train. They also had Engine Three hooked onto the back end of the train, but that one they only used when they had no other choice, most often to back out of a really bad situation like back in Cincinnati. He shuddered a bit as he remembered that. “Put everyone down to alert status,” Jack shouted up to Josh Wachope.

He stepped into the whisper cab and it was as if he’d stepped into another world. The crew compartment wasn’t big and he suspected he would have thought of it as loud before, but the sound-proofing reduced the constant roar of the engines to a distant rumble.

“How are we looking?” Robert Brockman looked up from the maps spread across the narrow table. He and Tim Kennedy shared the tight space and with the addition of Jack and his armor and weapons, it was suddenly much tighter.

“We lost fifteen adults, two kids,” Jack said as he took off his helmet. The latter number was the only part that really mattered to any of them. People came and went. Jack had seen men and women fall between the railroad cars, dragged down by possessed, and quite a few suicides. Death was a matter of life in their world. Kids though… Kids shouldn’t have to pay for the mistakes of adults.

“Shit, man, sorry,” Tim said. His face was serious, but Jack saw relief there, too. Tim and Robert’s families were both in car one. And if Jack had any family left, they’d be there, too. It was the best defended car besides the hospital car, which was car number two. There were perks to having essential skills to the survival of their group. Car three held the orphans, many of them babies, children found along the way who had no family to care for them. In dangerous times, Jack stationed his best people to protect those three train cars and the engines.

“How about our route?” Jack changed the subject. 

Tim, a former logistician, shifted the map around so Jack could see it, “We heard back from Team Three and Four,” Tim said. He pointed out red x-marks on the map. Jack recognized the two towns that they’d hoped to find crossings at. “The bridge at Hannibal is just gone, explosives or flood, no idea but the tracks just end in open air, they said.” He pointed at the town of Louisiana, Missouri, “The bridge there is some kind of turnstile thing, to allow barge traffic. But somebody left it swinging open. There’s no way across.”

“Power?” Jack asked.

Robert shook his head, “Um, no. There’s no lights on as far as they can see. All of Missouri is dark. Richard Cartwright volunteered to swim across, but Tom told him not to try it.”

Jack nodded at that. Rivers were dangerous. It wasn’t just that the undead didn’t need to breathe, so they’d drag swimmers down. No, there was other stuff in the rivers, too. That was how they’d lost so many people in Cincinnati. They’d moved some across in boats since they hadn’t trusted their makeshift repairs to the bridge.

For just a moment, Jack wasn’t in the engine cab. He was perched on top of a stopped train car, covered in blood and listening to the screams of the children in the car below him as he hacked possessed down. Behind him, men screamed as something dragged them over the sides and into the cold black water below.

The moment passed and Jack wiped a hand across his shaved head. “Okay, so that’s not an option, further north?” That was the problem, Jack knew. He’d looked their maps over just as much as Tim and Robert. The junctions that went through Hannibal and Louisiana didn’t join up with any northern tracks after they crossed the Illinois River, not until after they crossed the Mississippi.

Tim shook his head, “Team Five couldn’t find a way across the Illinois River, not south of Chicago.”

Jack rubbed his face tiredly as he considered that. No one in their right mind wanted to go near any big city. The more people who’d died there, the more undead there would be. Worse, cities seemed to be focal points of whatever weird shit had happened. Things that shouldn’t have happened, like stories of monsters and blood raining from the sky.

Cincinnati, had a population of a few hundred thousand and it had been a nightmare. Chicago had a population in the millions. Jack was in charge, he knew that if he told them to go to Chicago, that his people would do it. And they’d all die if he gave that order… and then whoever survived would still have to cross the Mississippi.

“Okay,” Jack said after a long moment. “Alton or St Louis proper, then?”

“Yeah,” Tim cleared his throat. “Look, I know it’s the least bad of our options, but I can’t say I’m crazy about us going there.”

Jack gave him a level look, “You’re the one who pretty much told me we had no other options.

“Yeah,” Tim nodded. He looked down at the charts. “Yeah, I know. I just wonder if…”

He didn’t need to go on. There were plenty of people on the train who had, at one point or another, expressed a desire to stop, to settle down, fortify, maybe to start anew.

Jack didn’t look at Tim, he looked at Brockman, “How many people in St Louis, Robert?”

The former architect didn’t have to boot up his laptop, they’d already gone over it. “Around three million in the city proper.” They’d pulled every bit of census data, every bit of information they could get their hands on. His laptop and the other backups held that data, five terabytes of maps, encyclopedias, and detailed manuals on everything from sewing to blacksmithing.

“And in Chicago?” Jack asked.

“About ten million,” Robert said.

Jack gave Tim a nod, “There’s a few hundred thousand back in Springfield, I’d guess. We just went through a town, I dunno, twenty thousand I’d guess. That’s how many used to be alive, of course. There’s also the ones crawling out of the graves.”

That was something of an exaggeration. Most of those bodies were too decomposed to rise. But Tim blanched anyway as he thought about it. The undead were drawn to sound and light. Any place they holed up would have to be a fortress… and more and more of the undead would gather every day. They would pile themselves in to fill a moat, they’d pile bodies on top of one another until they scaled a wall. They’d beat on doors and windows until their bones shattered or the barriers did… and then they would kill every living thing they came across.

“We can’t stop here, Tim,” Jack said softly. “There’s too many of them. We’re headed to the only safety we’ll be able to find.”

“That’s assuming the Free States transmission isn’t a hoax or some nut,” Tim growled.

“Yeah,” Jack nodded, “But they’ve had a few other people on, so if they are nuts, there’s at least a few of them together.” The shortwave transmission came on in the evening, and the Free Western States claimed to be survivors who had banded together, a number of enclaves across Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho. They said that they held out, that any who came in peace were welcome.

Almost everyone had heard those transmissions and they were how Jack had been able to make the train work. Most survivors they’d come across were only too eager to join them on their journey. Not all, Jack thought as he remembered more than a few holdouts who’d sneered at the very idea. But the ones who had stayed in touch after the train had left, their transmissions had been ones of dwindling supplies, of growing desperation, reports of increasing numbers of undead… and most ended in silence.

Short-wave transmissions from across the east had been going quiet. A big enclave up in Maine had been holding out for months, but they’d gone silent only a few days ago. Jack pointed up at the map of the United States taped to the back wall of the cab. “We hear anything from Chattanooga?”

The town in Tennessee had been a bastion. The combination of mountains and good organization had kept the town in a good state. Many survivors on the eastern coast had headed there and Jack had originally planned to head his train that way… but too many train tracks were out in the Appalachian Mountains. Their scouts hadn’t been able to find a route south through Kentucky, not short of backtracking all the way to Virginia at the least… which had meant he’d had to turn the train north and go through Cincinnati.

Tim looked away, “Nothing.”

“They said they were having some issues with their generator…” Robert started to say.

“That was a week ago. If they haven’t got a replacement and checked in by now…” Jack shrugged. “It doesn’t look good, does it?”

Their policy with their own scouts was that they gave them three days to check in. Anything after a week and they just assumed that they were dead. It didn’t pay to send people to search for them. The scouts had rail cars or trucks with rail wheels that could transit quickly, that should be able to outrun anything that they couldn’t fight.

A city didn’t have that.

“We keep moving,” Jack said. He pointed at the map, “So, tell me about St Louis.”

“Alton is north of the city,” Tim spoke. “Team Two said the bridge is still up, but it’s not a rail bridge, so we’d have to unload the train, move across, and try to find alternate transportation.”

Jack nodded. It wasn’t the best option, it would either leave them entirely on foot in close proximity to millions of undead, or if they got lucky they could put together some kind of convoy on the other side of the river.

“What else?”

“Merchant’s Bridge is up and so is MacArthur,” Robert said, pointing at the two railroad bridges they’d circled on the map. Both of them were at the center of town. “But Team One didn’t get close enough to look at them, not before…”

“Before they died,” Jack finished for him. Sam Robb had led Team One. He’d volunteered to lead his team into St Louis. He and his team had reported clear tracks and seeing both rail bridges still standing. They’d also reported growing numbers of undead… and then a last, panicked call from Sam had ended in screaming.

The train could bull through a few hundred bodies, but Jack didn’t know if it could push through thousands or tens of thousands. If enough bodies clogged the tracks, could they derail the train?

Three million undead, he thought to himself. Yet those three million possessed would come at the sound of the train, anyway. If they had to stop, to move the survivors on foot across the Alton Bridge…

“We need more information,” Jack said. He glanced at Tim, “Call Team Three and Four, have them head back this way. Is Team Two headed back?”

“Yeah,” Robert nodded.

“Have them see if they can get a better picture of things down there. We’re not going to push in, not yet, but we’re going to have to send someone back into St Louis.” Jack frowned and pointed at an antenna symbol drawn on the south side of St Louis, “There’s some survivors there?” He didn’t remember any transmissions from St Louis.

“Some nutjob,” Tim snorted, “Nadal Malik; he calls himself the Lord Regent. He claims he has an army of hundreds and he’ll protect anyone who recognizes his divine stature.”

“Raider?” Jack asked.

“I don’t think so,” Tim frowned. “Sounds more like the strictly delusional type. We’ve never heard anyone else on his radio and he’s pretty sporadic.”

“Doesn’t take much more than a high powered rifle to take someone down. Team One didn’t have time to tell us what went wrong…” Jack thought out loud. “He transmit anything around the time we lost Sam?”

“No,” Tim shook his head.

“Well, keep an ear out. If it was normal survivors, I’d be willing to see if we could get people over there, but…” Jack shrugged. He wasn’t about to risk fighting people they’d need to try to get to someone who sounded crazy and might be dangerous.

Though if I could get him to make some kind of disturbance on the right part of town, Jack thought to himself, and that would sure be convenient… At this point, it didn’t bother him to think of using someone else as a diversion for the undead, especially not when that person was probably already unhinged.

“Okay,” Jack nodded at the others, “I’ve got to go spread the news.” He turned to step out of the cab, but then froze as he saw the small chalk board on the door. The numbers 953 were written on it. He smudged out the last two numbers and corrected it: 936.

As he stepped outside, he told himself that the tears were from the wind stinging his eyes.

***

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Hell Train Snippet One

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Chapter One

The possessed didn’t move out of the way as two thousand, nine hundred and fifty tons of steel rolled into them. The train didn’t lurch, it didn’t shudder, it didn’t even really slow as it crushed dozens of the rotting corpses and rolled right on through. The train snow plow on the front mostly sent the mindless undead tumbling out of the way, shattering their bones and leaving those it struck limp and motionless. Jack couldn’t even hear the sound of crunching bone and tearing flesh over the sound of the train’s wheels on the tracks and the grumble of the diesel-electric locomotives.

A few would sometimes find their way under the wheels or would catch a grip on one of the sides of the cars in passing. That was why the train riders went to full defensive status as they passed through towns. In towns, the train had to slow down for curves and track switches. As Jack watched, hundreds more possessed shambled out of the otherwise dark and deserted town, drawn by the noise of the train. Most of them were too slow to reach the train in time, but a handful were either fresher or simply more energetic, and those managed a stumbling run.

Most of those grasped blindly for the train and many of them lacked the dexterity necessary to accomplish anything beyond falling beneath the wheels and being ground into a red paste. Survivors fended off the handful that caught hold, using improvised spears. This situation wasn’t severe enough to warrant the use of ammunition.

“Watch for clingers,” Jack shouted over his radio. “Report your status by car!” Captain Jack Zamora waited patiently, his body armor, weapons, and helmet a familiar weight. The gray-eyed former Army officer kept a confident expression on his lean face, even as he felt worry eat at his gut.

“Car forty-nine, all clear,” Chris Peck reported. The former construction project manager from Cincinnati had a proper attention to detail, which was why Jack had chosen him for the trail car. “No clingers and we’re clear of the town.”

The other cars reported in, one by one, and as the train began to pick up speed again, Jack gave a silent prayer of thanks. It looked like they’d made it.

“This is car twelve!” A panicked voice shouted over the radio, “Taylor is down, there’s a possessed, oh god, they’re killing us!”

Jack didn’t take the time to swear. He waved at the response team and started running back along the line of cars. Twelve cars, he did the math as he ran, trying not to think about how many women and children were in the car twelve, fifty-five and a half feet per car, that’s six hundred and sixty-six feet.

Jack didn’t even notice the gaps between cars as he jumped them, shotgun clutched in his hands. A single possessed wasn’t too bad of a hazard, not by itself, not normally. They’ll be alright, he tried to tell himself. Yet he knew just how close they were to Indianapolis. He knew that bodies rose quicker the closer they were to the dead cities. One possessed would kill one person and the corpse would rise. Two would kill two more…

As he rushed forward, he saw car twelve. Children clustered on the top, center part of the car, passed up by their parents to safety. As he watched, a screaming woman tried to pull herself up on the side, clutching at the ropes that the survivors had run across the top for just that purpose.

Reaching arms caught her and pulled her back. She let out a shrill scream as they dragged her down and Jack knew the look on her face, he’d seen it far too often over the past six months. It was terror, but it was also disbelief. She didn’t understand — couldn’t understand — why this was happening to her. Before Jack could raise his shotgun, he felt that scream cut off with brutal finality and even over the noise of the train he heard the grinding crunch as she fell beneath the rail wheels.

Jack knew that there probably weren’t any other survivors in the car, but he didn’t hesitate. He ran forward, caught a side rope, and swung into the open car door feet first.

His boots slammed into a cluster of undead and the possessed tumbled back from the impact. Jack found his footing and brought up his shotgun. He recognized Taylor’s gray and bloodless face, the former Marine’s throat ripped out. He fired the Remington 870 Express and blood and bits of brain matter splattered his face and eye protection. As the headless possessed stumbled back, Jack pivoted, racked the slide, and picked his next target.

This was an older possessed, its flesh gray and its face sunken. It came at Jack with a jagged shard of bone sticking out of its arm where its hand should have been. Jack fired into the thing’s center of mass. As the possessed stumbled back, Jack moved forward, clearing the area.

The rest of his response team came through the open door behind him. There was no finesse to what they did. As they joined him, Jack dropped his shotgun, letting the friction strap swing it back against his chest, even as he drew his crash ax. The short, ax-like blade was designed purely for chopping and Jack swung it as the next possessed came forward. His heavy blade split the possessed’s skull and as the undead child stumbled, Jack tried not to think, tried not to see, tried to turn off his mind as he split skulls, separated shoulders, and kicked moaning undead out the open side of the train-car.

Clearing the car took less than thirty seconds. He’d become so disconnected that it took a panicked shout “No, no, stop!” for him to halt, mid swing, about to brain a survivor who stood behind a makeshift barricade.

Jack lowered the ax, the blade covered in blood and hair, with bits of skin stuck to it. He tried not to think about the crusty, sticky nature of his stained uniform. The man that he’d nearly killed stared at him with a mixture of fear and shock, but with a level of hero worship that made Jack want to vomit. He turned away. “Status?” Jack barked. He answered his own question in the same way he had drilled his team. “One up.”

“Two up,” Joshua Wachope reported. The tall, bearded, lanky Special Forces man gave him a thumbs up. Josh was solid and there wasn’t anyone that Jack trusted more than him in a fight. I wish he was in charge of this shit, Jack thought, not for the first time.

“Three up,” Johnny Woodard said as he wiped down his ax. The tall, dark, former combat medic looked care-free, as if dismembering people was an everyday occurrence. Come to think of it, Jack thought, it very nearly is…

“Four up,” Hector Chavez snapped. The stocky, perpetually angry man glowered at the survivors of the train car. “How the hell did this happen?!”

“A possessed came in through the latrine hole,” a woman said, her voice distant. “It crawled up and it stabbed Taylor with its arm. Just like that and then he attacked Sophie and…” Her voice trailed off into a confused babble.

“How many survivors?” Jack asked as he turned back to face the men clustered behind the barricade. They’d flipped up a couple of the bunk beds and chairs, he saw. Quick thinking, Jack thought. Though he wished they’d been quicker. One man with a weapon could have stopped all this before it got out of hand.

“Uh…” the two men looked around, both of them clearly shell-shocked.

Jack restrained a sigh. “All of you, come out. We need to check you for injuries and infection.” He shouldn’t blame them, it wasn’t their fault that they didn’t know what to do, how to function. The cars at the center of the train were for those survivors who didn’t understand, who couldn’t defend themselves. They’re weak… a voice spoke in the back of his mind, but he squashed that voice. His people would train them, they would become useful members of his group… one way or another.

“Are they…” a woman gasped, “… are they contagious? I saw Frank, he got bit!” She pointed an accusatory finger at one of the men on the barricade.

The group surged away from the man and Jack just shook his head. “No. No they’re not contagious.” Well, he admitted to himself, only in the sense that they’re dead and they can make you dead, too. “But if you’re injured, then your wounds could turn septic and you could die.” And then you’d rise from the dead and try to kill us all. “We’ve got a medic, he’ll check you out.”

In theory, all the people on the train should know that… but they’d just picked up a few dozen survivors two days ago. Train car twelve was one of the places they put those survivors.

The latrines have covers that should have been latched until we got the all clear, Jack thought to himself. It wouldn’t surprise him if one of the newbies had left that cover open. That meant someone in the car had effectively killed Taylor and all the others. Jack just hoped that whoever it was had paid with their life.

If not, he thought grimly, I’ll kill whoever was responsible.

***

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Wrath of the Usurper Snippet One

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Here’s the first snippet from Wrath of the Usurper, coming on 30 May!

Tarjak Rusk

Seige of Boirton

15th of Pargan, Cycle 1000 Post Sundering

Tarjak pushed the slave girl to the side and snarled, “Food, drink, now!”

As the young woman crawled away, Tarjak smiled. She was a soft, southern thing, one of their nobles that his men had captured or so she had claimed. He, of course, had claimed her and it had not taken long to break her to his will. It had given him a unique feeling of power to take a proud and arrogant woman and make her into an abject slave. It was something he rather enjoyed.

“Tarjak,” a soft voice spoke nearby, “Hard at work, I see.”

Tarjak whipped to his feet with the speed and grace which had made him his clan’s chieftain. His sword in hand, he confronted the shadowy figure who stood at the end of his fur bedrolls. His blade lowered, though, as he recognized the hooded figure who clutched at a staff. “Oh,” Tarjak grunted, “It’s you… my Lord.” It grated on him to say the last, but he knew better than to deny the wizard his due. Tarjak knew well that he owed much of his own position and power to the other man.

Xavien gave Tarjak a smile, “If you are busy, I could always come back.” The softness of his voice didn’t fool Tarjak. It was as much a rebuke as if he had slapped Tarjak in the face.

Tarjak knelt, “My apologies, I am fully at your command, my Lord.” He felt sweat break out on his forehead and his back tingled in anticipation of pain. Xavien’s favorite tools were fear and pain, Tarjak knew. It was part of why he was so effective at gaining the loyalty of his fellow Semat Armen… those were some of the only techniques they respected.

“Good,” Xavien’s dark eyes went to the slave girl, “I don’t mind that you find ways to pass the time here in the south… but the time has come to end this siege, before it costs you too much.”

“What?” Tarjak asked. “But, we’ve taken so much loot, so many slaves, and many stockpiles of food. Why withdraw now?” Even as he said it, he realized his mistake.

Green energy lanced out and Tarjak dropped to the ground, his teeth clenched on a scream. As an Armen warrior, he knew pain, both how to give it and how to take it. As the chieftain of his clan, he knew that his survival required he not show any sign of weakness… and shrieking like a girl as the green energy seared his flesh was not something that would make him appear strong.

“Tarjak…” Xavien shook his head and ceased his torment. “My main complaint about your people is how you don’t have any tact… I fear I will have to break you to get you to show courtesy… and then you would be of no more use than the girl there.” Xavien chuckled a bit, “Though I’ll admit, I’d find you more attractive than her. At least you’ve some muscle on you.”

Tarjak tasted blood from where his teeth had torn the inside of his lips. He also smelled scorched hair and had little doubt that his skin would show the effects of Xavien’s attack in broad scorches and pain that would last for weeks. He rose to his knees again, though, and waited silently, either for more punishment or for his master to speak. To do otherwise would just bring worse.

“However, since you clearly didn’t understand me and no doubt you’ll have to argue down your tribesmen, I’ll tell you why.” Xavien leaned on his staff and Tarken could see that the wizard actually looked tired. Which means something wore him down, Tarjak realized with shock. Over the years that he had known Xavien, Tarjak had seen at least a dozen shamans challenge the wizard only to die, often in painful or embarrassing fashions. None of them, to include the most powerful shamans of the Semat, had been able to give him pause. If something had worn him, tired him… it must be a terrible foe indeed. Tarjak wasn’t quite certain whether to hope the foe had defeated his master or been defeated. While my fate is tied to his… I hate him enough to hope for his death, he thought, and I would go to the spirits a happy man to know he had been brought low.

“The Duchy of Boir has begun to re-consolidate,” Xavien said. “Though no one force is strong enough to face your entire army, as yet, it is only a matter of time. Also, your blow here has embarrassed them and shamed their military. Better for you to withdraw before they have some opportunity to gain even a minor victory against your men to give them hope.” Xavien paused and Tarjak nodded slightly to show that he understood. “Then, too, I’ve another task for my Noric allies and a very important task for some of your warriors when you reach the Lonely Isle… that is Nasar Ind as your people call it.”

“War with Hall Prakka?” Tarjak asked eagerly. While fighting the soldiers of Boir was enjoyable enough, the mercenaries and soldiers of Hall Prakka were more likely to fight in close combat and less reliant upon magic and deception. It felt more pure, somehow, to engage in that manner of war. Plus, he liked the mixed blooded women of Nasar Ind. They had spine and stubbornness. He had once captured a powerful priestess there… and he still remembered with pleasure how long it had taken his shamans to break her… and how he had used her body in that time.

“That is coming, yes. For now, I just want some of your more eager and disposable warriors,” Xavien said. “Men who will throw themselves at the enemy because they think themselves invincible,

Tarjak smiled, “You want fodder.” He thought of the young, eager warriors who always caused him problems and were most likely to challenge his authority. “I can give you those, my Lord.”

“Good,” Xavien said. “They will act as your rear guard… and I suspect they’ll take the highest of your casualties. I want you to take your finest warriors with you in the first movements. Leave the Norics to me… and make certain that your most reckless and bloodthirsty warriors are at the back.”

Tarjak nodded, even as he thought of how that would affect his people. They had always sent the most reckless warriors into combat first, to thin their numbers and to give the survivors combat experience. It also let more experienced warriors survive to face the enemy feeling well-rested and ready. This would be no different, save that his best and most loyal tribes would be the first to leave. They would be able to take most of the supplies from the raid camps at Nasar Ind. The other tribes, when they reached there, would have to forage or raid for supplies to make the final voyage to their homeland in the north. Also, as summer departed, the northern seas would grow more and more dangerous. Whatever forces trailed the furthest back would not only lose more warriors to the enemy… they’d lose many men to the seas.

Probably lose the iron ships, too, he thought darkly. He had been forced to leave those ships in the hands of the tribes who had seized them… for now. He had one as well, but the southerners had recaptured it. It embarrassed him that his sloop, once the largest among the Semat Armen was now tiny in comparison to the three iron ships that some of the other chieftains held. Still, they had taken terrible casualties in capturing those ships. Still, if those tribes lost the iron ships on the rough seas, at least the southerners wouldn’t have them. “I’ll see to it all, my Lord.”

Xavien gave him a final nod, “Good.” The wizard turned away, headed for the tent door. Over his shoulder, he spoke, his voice soft, “Soon the time will come when your people will claim these lands.”

Tarjak nodded, though in reality he didn’t want his tribe to live in these soft lands. The had already become sluggish and soft in the siege. He looked over as the slave girl brought him a tray with a glass of southern wine and slices of meat. Tarjak gave her a friendly smile as he took the tray. He reached out a hand and brought her to her feet.

Tarjak could feel the rapid, nervous beats of her heart, as fear worked through her veins. Tarjak’s smile turned ugly as he brought his sword up, under her ribs. The woman let out a gurgling shriek and Tarjak felt hot blood gush over his arms. He smiled as she sagged, a look of shock and terror on her face. “Why…” she gasped.

“You were a good slave,” Tarjak said. “But you saw too much. Besides, you are to soft to bear my seed… and I know you are pregnant and I’ll not see my blood diluted with the weaklings of the south.” He wiped his blade on part of her ruined silks and let her fall to the floor. He watched as she crawled away, leaving a vast trail of blood across the furs and carpets of his tent. Tarjak might enjoy the softness of the south, but he did not need it. Harshness and hardness had shaped him and his people… at the command of Hall Armath, the Dark Warrior.

Whatever the wizard thought, they would follow the Dark Warrior’s commands. They would be his people: savage, vicious, and harder than the stone of the mountains.

***

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Echo of the High Kings Book Bomb!

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Echo of the High Kings, Book I of the Eoriel Saga
Echo of the High Kings, Book I of the Eoriel Saga

 

As a final reminder, the Echo of the High Kings Book Bomb is going on now! Drop by on Amazon and get your copy now!

In Eoriel, the High Kings are legend: rulers who once stood against the darkness and ruled the world for two thousand turns of peace and prosperity. In the long turns since their fall during the Sundering, Eoriel’s civilization has faded. Dark men and darker beings have torn down and destroyed the old works. While some have held out against the grind of history, other places have been reduced to primitive tribes of savages, worshiping dark spirits and demons as their gods. Yet, a spark of hope remains: some still believe in the old legends, some still fight to restore the old ways, and some will stand against the darkness, in an echo of the High Kings.