Hunter of Legends (Fate of Legends Series Book 1)

by Clayton Wood

  “I went…somewhere today,” he said. “The Guild of Seekers,” he added.

  “Oh,” Trixie replied. She stared at him silently, looking radiant, as usual. She was wearing a gray shirt, low cut and baring her belly. He didn’t even bother to pretend he wasn’t looking.

  “I uh, met somewhere there,” he continued. “Someone who looked like you.”

  “Really?” she asked. “What was her name? Maybe I know her.”

  “I don’t remember,” he replied. “But she didn’t just look a little like you,” he continued. “She looked almost exactly like you.”

  “Okay...”

  “It kinda freaked me out,” he admitted. She smiled at him.

  “You don’t have to be freaked out,” she soothed, patting his knee. “A lot of people in Tykus look alike.”

  “I noticed,” Hunter muttered. She was right, of course. Seemed like everyone here was the picture of Aryan perfection: tall, blond, blue-eyed, and rather generically attractive. He’d seen twins who’d looked less alike.

  “Was that what was bothering you?” she pressed. Hunter nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  “Aww,” she murmured, leaning in and kissing him again. This time, he gave into it, feeling his body respond to her. She reached a hand behind his head, pulling him into a kiss, her tongue searching for his…and finding it.

  God damn, he thought. But this girl can kiss.

  She stood then, pushing him onto his back on the bed, then straddling his lap. She leaned over, kissing him again, her body pressing against his. He felt her hand sliding down his chest, felt her hips lift off of his, her palm sliding over his groin.

  His breath caught in his throat.

  She pulled her lips from his then, her hand stopping there, resting with gentle pressure. He grew against her, and she smiled at him.

  “I don’t have to take you to Ekrin today,” she said. “It’s his day off.”

  “Mmm.”

  “You’re very big,” she murmured. “I’ve never seen one as big as yours.”

  “You know just what to say,” he replied with a smirk.

  “It’s true,” she insisted.

  “I don’t doubt it,” he replied. Stereotypes weren’t always true, but in this one case, he’d been blessed.

  “I was nervous at first,” she confessed, sliding her hand up and down.

  “So was I,” he replied. “It was my first time.” She arched an eyebrow.

  “And your second, and your third, and…”

  He pulled her down onto him, kissing her. She allowed it, but pulled away soon after, smiling down at him.

  “Pace yourself,” she warned. “It’s going to be a long night.” She leaned in again, touching the tip of her nose to his. He grinned at her, staring into her lovely eyes.

  And froze.

  Her eyes were perfectly blue. Not a single speck of green in them. And the tan she’d had earlier was gone, her skin as white as snow.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, pulling back. “You tensed up.”

  “Nothing,” he blurted out. He stared at her, picturing the woman at the guild, the woman who’d looked – and sounded – exactly like her. Hell, she’d even moved like Trixie. In fact, Hunter had told the woman Trixie’s name. Which meant that the woman on top of him might not be Trixie at all…it could be the woman from the guild.

  A chill went through him.

  “Relax,” the woman murmured, leaning in and kissing him again. He didn’t respond, but his body did, and her hand continued to massage his groin, more urgently now. He moaned, his focus wavering, and he found himself kissing her back.

  This isn’t Trixie, he told himself, turning his head to the side, breaking their kiss. She kissed his neck, biting it a little, her breath hot on his skin. Then she slid her hand under his underwear, grabbing him gently but firmly, continuing to work on him. His breath caught in his throat.

  This isn’t Trixie!

  He grabbed her shoulders, gripping them tightly. She ignored him, going faster now. She pulled his head toward hers with her free hand, crushing her lips against his. Her tongue snaked into his mouth, and despite everything, he let it happen. She felt amazing on him, her hot skin pressed against his, her hand guiding him expertly toward inevitable bliss. All he had to do was let it happen. Do nothing.

  She looks exactly like Trixie, he told himself. You can say it was an honest mistake.

  Her hand continued its magic, and his hips bucked, pleasure rising within him. It was coming quickly now, the end in sight. There would be no turning back soon. He stiffened, his conscience stirring within him.

  Don’t do this.

  But she was too skilled, her hand never stopping, her technique perfect. He felt his pleasure peak, felt his whole body go tense, his mouth locking on hers. She guided him expertly to the point of no return, blasting past it, the ecstasy continuing to mount, more powerful than he’d ever felt before. More powerful than he could have imagined possible. The release came quickly and violently, aided by her ever-moving hand. She brought him through the finish and past it, until at last he was spent, with nothing more to give. She slowed, then stopped, holding him in her hand, releasing her lips from his. She pulled her face back then, smiling down at him, her blue eyes twinkling.

  “My goodness,” she murmured, gazing down at his belly and chest. “You had a lot in you.”

  He said nothing, staring at her, feeling an immediate shame come over him.

  You could’ve stopped her.

  He watched as she sat up straight, pulling her shirt off, exposing her perfect breasts. She threw her shirt to the floor, lowering herself back onto him, and turned his head to the side gently, kissing his neck. Then her lips brushed up against his ear.

  “Did that feel good baby?” she murmured, biting her earlobe gently. He swallowed in a dry throat, staring up at the ceiling, feeling suddenly empty.

  “It did,” he answered. And it was the truth, as much as he hated to admit it. It had felt good, while it was happening. Hell, it’d felt amazing.

  But not anymore.

  Chapter 8

  Alasar stood at the edge of the King’s Road, gazing across the vast emptiness of the Deadlands, at the innumerable tiny yellow lights beyond the great wall in the distance. It was Tykus, of course, its streets lit by countless lanterns, their light growing more and more visible in the steadily darkening sky. Sundown was coming…and with it, the end of his shift.

  He sighed, lifting his giant hammer from where it rested on the road beside him, securing it on his back.

  “I’m headed home,” he called out. A few of the overnight shift soldiers nodded at him, saying goodnight. Half of the evening shift had left for the military base southwest of Tykus, at the far edge of the Deadlands. The other half had to stay with Alasar until the overnight commanding officer arrived to take Alasar’s place. Barek had arrived late once again, the lazy bastard. Making a fuss about it wouldn’t accomplish anything, either. Sergeants working the overnight shift were expected to have a warm body and a pulse…and that was about it.

  “Night,” Barek muttered, nodding at Alasar, who nodded back, heading south down the King’s Road, his soldiers in tow.

  “Prick,” he muttered under his breath.

  He strode quickly down the road, passing lit torches on either side. There were torches spaced every two hundred meters down the length of the road, as far as the eye could see. The night shift lit them on their way to the Gate, every night without fail. Just in case the Ironclad attacked, and they needed to escape back to the base. Which never happened, of course.

  He sighed, his boots clunking on the stone below in a hypnotic cadence. His soldiers didn’t bother trying to talk to him, knowing how moody he got when he was tired.

  Five years working this shift, and he’d only had one run-in with the Ironclad, when that boy had arrived at the Gate. The dark boy. The Original. It was, of course, why Alasar had applied for the job in the first place. Sure it was
boring, but working the Gate had a benefit that was hard to resist: not getting his ass killed. He’d seen enough action during his previous deployments to last two lifetimes, after all. And he’d been damn lucky not to get killed a dozen times over.

  No, the Ironclad usually kept to themselves, there but not approaching. Just standing there in the Deadlands, patrolling the Gate. What for, he had no idea. Probably to stop the kingdom from getting access to the Originals’ strange technology. Like that…thing the boy had used. The gun, or whatever he’d called it.

  If we could produce more of those…

  It would turn the tide, that was for sure. The damn Ironclad were aptly named, covered from head to toe in a black carapace so thick and strong that it was like steel plate mail. Vicious creatures, living in caves, eating anything they could find. Just one of nature’s many abominations…and like so many of nature’s creations, the Ironclad hated humanity with a passion. It was a peculiar quality of the forest, the vast untamed wilderness of this forsaken world, that hatred. A twisted darkness that corrupted everything it touched.

  Alasar passed another set of torches, seeing a split in the road ahead. One path went right, the other left. He chose the rightward path, heading southwest to the military base. To home.

  “You going out for drinks later, Sergeant?” one of the soldiers asked. A relatively new recruit, too new to know any better. Or maybe his fellows hadn’t warned him on purpose, hoping for a good show. While it was certainly tempting bait, Alasar wasn’t about to give them what they wanted.

  “I got a new kid, son,” he replied. “So no.”

  “Aw, why not?” the soldier pressed. Alasar turned to glare at him.

  “So I don’t kill the damn kid,” he answered. “You ever wake up to a newborn screaming his brains out?” He smirked. “Try it with a hangover.”

  “Ain’t you too old to be making babies?” another soldier asked, grinning at him. Alasar sighed. Now they really were testing his patience.

  “If you had a wife that looked like mine,” he replied, “…you wouldn’t be able to help yourself.”

  The soldiers laughed, then mercifully left him alone. He continued down the King’s Road, quickening his pace. The sun was setting quickly, the sky steadily darkening. He wanted to get home before the Ironclad would be too difficult to spot in the darkness. The beasts were more nocturnal than not, their black carapaces blending in seamlessly with the night.

  Except for that weird one, he thought. The tall one with the glowing mane the Original had helped kill. After Alasar had dropped the kid off at Tykus, he’d returned to take care of the corpses. The glowing one’s body had been missing…which meant there must’ve been another Ironclad hiding somewhere nearby. The things usually didn’t bother retrieving their dead, though. That glowing one must’ve been special.

  He sighed, gazing across the Deadlands as he walked. It was getting steadily darker now. The Ironclad wouldn’t dare attempt to attack humans on the King’s Road, but there was a good half-kilometer from the road to the outer wall of the military base. Better to make the trek when visibility was still fair. They were making decent time…he spotted the telltale glow of torchlight a half-kilometer away, from the torches lining the wall surrounding the base. Beyond that, he could see the black line of the forest in the distance. The end of the Deadlands, the edge of the forest.

  The Fringe.

  The military base was a kilometer from the Fringe, far enough away to avoid the danger of the forest, but close enough for the kingdom to keep an eye on it. If there was any threat to Tykus, it would come from the Fringe. No one dared enter the forest, not for long. No one except for the Seekers, the crazy bastards.

  He gazed at that dark tree line, knowing that somewhere, deep in the forest, the Ironclad lurked. And horrors far worse, no doubt. He’d read stories of the world of the Originals, of a benign world. Forests a man could walk through without fear. Without the constant threat of corruption, of a man’s soul being twisted into something vile and monstrous.

  “Hey sergeant,” one of the soldiers asked. The new one. He turned to the guy, then spotted something moving in his peripheral vision. A dark shape within the shadows seven meters below the King’s Road. He stopped abruptly, holding up one hand. The soldiers stopped with him.

  Alasar peered over the edge of the road, seeing nothing but darkness.

  Then he spotted more movement, another shadow moving quickly across the ground, in the same direction they were going.

  Shit.

  He put a finger to his lips, seeing another shadowy figure, then another. All of them moving southwest, toward the military base in the distance. Gliding through the darkness like inky ghosts, moving across the barren terrain with unnerving speed.

  Shit!

  The ghostly figures moved ever forward, and in the distance Alasar saw a few of them emerge from the shadows, into the light cast by the torches lining the wall of the base. Huge, black creatures with two pairs of arms bounding toward that wall, spilling out of the darkness. Dozens of them. No…hundreds of them. All converging toward the base.

  “Run,” Alasar ordered, turning around and breaking out into a sprint back the way they’d come. The other soldiers hesitated.

  “But we have…”

  “I said run, damn it!” Alasar barked.

  The soldiers obeyed, sprinting behind him, their boots clunking loudly on the King’s Road. He glanced back, seeing the Ironclad swarming toward the military base, blanketing the earth with their unholy bodies. They reached the wall, climbing on top of each other, scaling the seven-meter sheer stone wall with terrifying ease. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, dropping into the base from the top of the wall.

  “We have to go back!” a soldier protested.

  “It’s gone,” Alasar retorted, picking up speed, his hammer bouncing painfully on his back. There was no way the base would be able to fight off that many Ironclad. Just one of the damn things could kill a dozen men. An army of them could threaten the kingdom itself. He had to get back to Tykus to warn them. They’d only ever seen a few dozen Ironclad at a time, never imagined that there could be so goddamn many of them. The kingdom had to know.

  He glanced back again, spotting an endless stream of Ironclad scaling the walls, dropping into the base. Like beetles swarming over a corpse.

  And he knew in that moment that his wife and newborn son were about to die.

  Take them in their sleep, he prayed, feeling grief well up inside of him.

  He pushed the thought away, focusing on the road ahead of him. He saw it converging with another path ahead, knew he was halfway to the Gate. He ran faster, his breath coming in short gasps now, his lungs burning. Sweat poured down his sides.

  Come on…

  He heard a shout behind him, and turned, looking past his soldiers, spotting black arms reaching over the side of the road. Saw a massive Ironclad pulling itself over the ledge. His blood went cold.

  They can climb the King’s Road!

  The Ironclad rose to its feet, now only thirty meters from the last soldier. Another climbed up one of the wooden pillars, using its four arms to scale it easily. It pulled itself up onto the King’s Road, followed by yet another.

  Shit!

  “Go go go!” Alasar cried, feeling a burst of adrenaline course through him. He picked up speed, his lungs on fire now. Sweat poured into his eyes, making them sting. He turned, seeing a pair of torches on either side of the road ahead, and the silhouettes of the overnight Gate patrol. “Hey!” he screamed, waving his arms wildly at them. “Hey!”

  He heard a thump behind him, and then a shrill scream.

  Alasar resisted the urge to look back, pumping his legs as fast as he could. He reached behind himself, grabbing his giant hammer and tossing it over the side of the road. He ran even faster then, unburdened by its formidable weight. He was only a couple hundred meters from the Gate patrol now.

  “The Ironclad!” he shouted at them. “They’re here!”
/>
  But the soldiers didn’t move, their inky black silhouettes facing him silently.

  “Hey!” he shouted.

  And then he realized that the soldiers were far too tall…and that they had two pairs of arms silhouetted by the torches beyond them.

  “Aw shit,” he swore, skidding to a halt. He felt his fellow soldiers slam into him from behind, catapulting him forward. He landed flat on his belly, his breath blasting from his lungs. He gasped for air, pushing himself onto his hands and knees, seeing his men rushing past him. A few turned around to look at him, one turning around to help him to his feet. He gestured ahead, trying desperately to take a breath in.

  “Not…” he gasped, “…ours.”

  He saw the soldiers who’d passed him reach the Ironclad ahead, saw them skid to a stop. Heard frantic shouting. One of the Ironclad grabbed a soldier, tossing him through the air like a rag doll, right over the edge of the road.

  Alasar scrambled to his feet, taking a deep breath in at last, his head swimming sickeningly. He watched helplessly as another one of his men swung his hammer at an Ironclad, only to have it torn out of his hands. As the soldier was thrown bodily off of the King’s Road, falling seven meters to the ground below.

  Then Alasar felt powerful hands grip the backs of his arms, felt himself being pulled backward. He looked down, seeing huge black fingers curling around his biceps, squeezing him with bone-crushing strength. They jerked backward, and pain ripped through his shoulders as they dislocated. He screamed, feeling himself rise up from the road, his feet dangling in mid-air.

  He knew then that he was going to die.

  Alasar watched, suspended in the air, as his men fought the Ironclad. Watched as the beasts tore his men’s arms from their sockets, flinging their bodies over the edge of the road. Watched as his men were slaughtered, until there was no one left but him.

  I’m coming for you baby, he thought, picturing his lovely wife, their tiny son cradled in her arms.

  One of the Ironclad strode toward him, its four hands dripping with blood. It stopped before him, staring down at him with its unholy black eyes. It was taller than the others, with a thick, gel-filled membrane forming a glowing blue mane from the top of its head down its spine, to a broad tail that hung between its legs.