by B N Miles
Meta Gods War
BN Miles
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
About BN Miles
Copyright © 2020 by BN Miles
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1
Cam could taste the loam on the tip of his tongue as he crept alongside his father. The soft leather of his old, worn boots made no sound as he stepped softly over the forest floor, picking his way past decaying leaves, thin branches, and anything else that might give away his position.
His father glanced over, turning his gray eyes toward Cam. He held up a hand and they paused. Cam pressed a hand against a large, thick oak tree, its bark scarred through the ages. He felt the sunlight filter between the leaves, touching his skin, warming his body. He breathed deep and slow, the way he’d been taught. His bow was heavy in his other hand, strung and ready at a moment’s notice, the quiver a comforting weight at his hip. His father’s eyes narrowed at something ahead, and Cam strained to see what the old man had seen through the thick vegetation, but nothing jumped out at him.
That was his father’s gift again. Though Galerick the Great had grown old over the years, and in the past months had gone from his muscular and lively self to an emaciated shadow, the man still had power. Cam could feel the magic rolling from his father’s skin like water, washing down and drifting away into the misty morning air. He’d been taught that it was called the priori, and it was the power that sat outside of reality, and suffused the world with shape and light.
His father’s clothes hung off him like rags. His leather breeches used to be tight and form-fitting, but now they were baggy and had to be held up by a frayed rope belt. His simple dark gray woolen tunic with forest green accents was cinched at the waist, taken in by a woman back in their village. His arms, once muscular and powerful, were twigs with ropey veins pressing against the surface of his skin. His bearded face was gaunt and his hair hung in stringy and greasy locks, despite washing nearly every day. Cam wondered at how his father didn’t blow over in the face of a strong wind, and how quickly that transformation happened.
The thought made his flesh crawl with anger.
Father gestured for him to follow and they set off again. Cam walked just behind his father, his bow at the ready. He had an arrow in his off hand, but didn’t draw it, not yet. His father moved swiftly and silently, despite the sickness rolling through his body, the sickness that had taken so much from him already. It hadn’t taken his skill, hard-earned over a lifetime, and it hadn’t taken his magic, ingrained deep into his flesh.
Those would be the last things to go.
Father reached a small copse of close-knit bushes and stopped again. He gestured and Cam joined him, pressing his body close against the leafy green and leaning forward. Ahead, in a small clearing next to a tiny rolling stream, was their target. The buck was large, big enough to feed half their village. Cam grinned and brought the bow up, readying his arrow, but his father held out a hand to stop him.
There was a frown on his lips.
Cam didn’t understand. They’d gone hunting together a hundred times over his life. He’d taken down bucks larger and farther away than the one blissfully licking water from rocks barely thirty yards distant. But for some reason, his father was staying his hand, and it drove him mad.
“Wait,” his father hissed, breaking one of their cardinal rules: never make noise during a hunt. Always communicate with handspeak no matter what.
The sound sent a chill down Cam’s spine.
He stood still and forced the worry from his mind. He looked down at the grass and leaf-littered ground, at a root tangled over a small rock inches from his right boot, and forced his mind to still. He tried to call on all the lessons his father had given him over the years, tried to find that peace his father promised was inside of him, but he found only his own mind churning over itself like a plow. He clenched his jaw, cursed himself for being so stupid and weak-willed, and tried again. If he could reach that state of calm, centered readiness, he might be able to hear or taste or see whatever set his father on edge.
But it never came. Cam gave up, like he always did. There was a reason he excelled in the physical arts, in running, hunting, fighting. His father tried to train him in the Urspell, but Cam had never once touched the priori, never once tasted the power of it flowing through his body like cool water.
“Down,” his father whispered, tugging at Cam’s arm. Cam was taller than his old man by a few inches and much more muscular. At his father’s prime, the man had been a wonder to behold, a physical specimen that few could match, although Cam had come close. But now he was only skin and bones and sharp eyes.
Cam knelt beside his father, hidden behind the thick copse of bushes. He could feel the tension running through the man’s skin and Cam tried to ask him what was wrong in handspeak, but his father ignored it, holding up one palm to halt any more movement. Cam sat still. He wanted to get up and move, but he knew that if his father had stopped him from taking down a buck that large, something was truly wrong.
He never heard or saw it coming. Cam had no idea how his father had sensed it, but as Cam strained to peer through the branches of the bush toward where the buck still blissfully lapped at the stream, he saw a blur move through the forest on the far side of the water. At first, he thought it was just a trick of the light, but then that blur took the form of a wolf, its white and gray mottled fur pressed back tight against its sleek, muscular body, its muzzle pulled back to reveal sharp teeth. It jumped the stream and slammed into the buck, knocking it back.
The buck screamed and raked his antlers at the wolf. Cam had never seen a wolf move so quietly before, or so fast. It dodged the antlers, growling, just as another wolf came tearing through the underbrush to slam into the buck from the other side. Another scream, another desperate slash of its antlers. Cam couldn’t bring himself to move, and he felt his father put a hand on his shoulder. The man’s grip was rough and firm, but Cam felt the tension in his father. It was unmistakable, like ice in the air.
“Come,” his father whispered. “We have to go.”
As Cam went to turn away, another wolf joined the fight. The wolves leaped on the buck together, their teeth ripping at the creature. It went down in a spray of blood and desperate screaming as the wolves tore at its flesh.
Cam backed off from the grisly scene. He slipped the arrow he’d been gripping back into his quiver and turned to follow his father.
But the man had stopped short, his body stiff and tall.
“Father, what—” Cam stopped as the whispered words fell off his tongue.
Another wolf stood twenty feet away, a snarl on its lips.
Cam drew and readied an arrow in the blink of an eye. He could loose twenty arrows in a minute, faster than anyone else in the village, and more accurate. He was good with a bow and a spear, though he’d left his copper-tipped, quarter-inch thick, smoothly carved oak spear with heavy bone wrapping on either end back beside his bedroll. He wished he had it now, though he knew a spear might not be much against a wolf.
His father held out a hand, steadying Cam, but he didn’t gesture for Cam to stand down. He kept the bow at ready, arrow partially drawn. The wolf snarled again but didn’t move as his father reached back for the weapon strapped to his back.
The old bronze sword came free of its scabbard without a sound. The weapon glinted in the sunlight, a strange brownish silver. Its edge was razor-sharp, honed nightly by his father, and its length shimmed with the oil his father applied every other day. The once-mighty warrior held the sword in his thin fingers and his skinny arms seemed to tremble with the weight of it.
“Run,” his father said.
“What?” Cam moved away from his father, shocked at the word.
“Camrus,” his father said, never taking his eyes off the wolf. “Run to the village. I’ll hold them off.”
“What are you—” Cam stopped himself. “They’re wolves. They won’t… they have a kill already.”
“These aren’t wolves,” his father said, his voice low and menacing.
Horror leapt into Cam’s chest as his eyes moved over to the wolf. Its lips were curled, revealing its sharp teeth.
It was a Were. He should’ve known it was a Meta. Wolves hunted these woods, it was true, but rarely would they get anywhere near a pair of Humans, let alone stand and challenge them. Wolves were dangerous when they were hungry and desperate, but Werewolves… they were dangerous all the time.
The Were seemed to grin bigger.
“Go,” his father barked.
“No,” Cam said.
His father tensed but didn’t take his eyes off the wolf. Cam looked over their shoulder at the pack still tearing chunks of flesh from the buck. He counted three of them, but… that wasn’t right. There were more before.
“What are you doing?” his father hissed as Cam whirled and drew his bow.
“They’re flanking us,” he said.
He felt his father’s tension through the space between them. “I told you to run.”
“I can’t leave you here.”
“I can handle a pack of Weres,” his father growled. Cam would have believed that three or four years ago, before his father had gotten sick and wasted away. Now, Cam didn’t think his father could handle a single Were, let alone a small pack. “You have to warn the village, Cam. You know what it means if a pack is this close.”
Cam clenched his jaw. His father had a point. Weres didn’t come this far south, not so deep into Lord Remorn’s land. The Lord’s protection extended from his mountain Mansion up through the forestlands where Cam’s people made their home. Between Lord Remorn’s protection and his father’s strength, they’d been safe despite the world breaking down all around them.
But there was no time for running. Two more wolves appeared in front of Cam, both of them snarling. The one on the right was larger than the other two, with a jagged scar down his side, and the wolf on the left had a lighter coloring. His father glanced back at them and let out a frustrated grunt. They were surrounded. The pack decided that they were a worthwhile prize.
His father tensed again and seemed to decide something. “Cam,” he said, his voice soft. “Whatever happens, you have to get back to the village.”
“Father—” he started, but didn’t finish what he was about to say.
The two wolves facing him leapt forward and tore across the leafy dirt, their faces torn back into horrifying, toothy grins, drool dripping down their matted fur.
2
Cam notched and released two arrows quicker than he ever had in his life. His bow was built for hunting, not for speed, but his body had been trained for a moment like this. Cam heard his father roar behind him as his first arrow took the light-colored wolf square in the face.
The wolf screamed and slammed to the ground, its momentum carrying it forward. It came to a skidding halt and twitched with an arrow buried halfway through its skull.
The second arrow sliced along the flank of the scarred wolf, but only injured it. Cam didn’t have time to notch another arrow. He barely managed to draw one from his quiver and raise it up to the string when the scarred wolf slammed into his chest, knocking him to the ground.
Cam felt like a house hit him. The wolf knocked the breath out of him as its front claws dug into his soft cotton tunic. He growled in pain as the wolf snapped at his face. He thrust the arrow he’d grabbed from the quiver up, sinking the arrowhead into the wolf’s chest. The creature yelped and reared back, but didn’t allow Cam to find his footing.
As he tried to shuffle back, his chest bleeding from shallow wounds where the wolf had torn his shirt and raked his skin, twigs and roots cutting at his back and arms, he knew he couldn’t get away. The arrow had only hurt the wolf and pissed it off even more. The Were roared in anger and launched toward Cam, its jaw wide open, ready to rip Cam’s throat out. He held up his arms to protect himself, but he knew he was dead.
But instead of the wolf’s jaws snapping down over flesh and bone, a roar of heat washed over him and the wolf screamed in pain. Cam shuffled back and stared as fire, orange and blue and rolling in wild patterns, flowed over the wolf and burned thick black patches into its flesh. The wolf staggered away and fell to the ground, charred and smoking.
Cam scrambled to his feet and stared at his father. The man held out one hand, flames still dancing on his fingers. He was breathing hard, his jaw set, his eyes focused. Cam had seen his father use the Urspell before, but only in small ways: lighting candles, dancing tiny flames between his fingers. What his father had just done was incredible, and Cam hadn’t realized it was possible until that moment.
“Go,” his father said. “Run.”
Cam whirled and stared as more wolves began to appear. There were seven of them, snarling and circling their new prey. Cam knew he couldn’t run, not if he wanted to survive.
His father seemed to realize it too. His hand tightened on the grip of his sword as Cam raised his bow and readied an arrow. They moved together, back-to-back in a defensive formation, glaring out at the Weres.
“I’ll sweep them with fire,” his father said, his voice low and soft. “Fire as fast as you can. I’ll keep them at bay.”
Cam nodded once. His hands were sticky with blood and sweat. His chest burned from his wounds and he felt blood trickling down his stomach, soaking his pants and making its way into his boots. He’d need stitches to stop the bleeding, but that was the least of his worries.
His father let out an angry roar and hurled flames at the Weres. Cam marveled as the orange-blue column burst from the old, emaciated man’s palm and ripped across the space between them and the wolves. The Weres danced back and out of range, but Cam’s bow could still easily reach them. He notched and fired, taking one wolf in the flank as it twisted out of the way of the fire, another in the neck as it tried to dodge away. They circled faster, the wolves churning up the dirt and leaves, as Cam’s father screamed in agony and anger, throwing more flames.
Cam fired the arrows as quickly as he could. Another bit into a wolf, spraying blood across its wh
ite fur.
They came together. Cam managed to catch one more with an arrow as his father brought the flames to bear. He charred another wolf, the stench of burning meat sizzling into the air. Trees were on fire, bushes and roots smoldering, and the clearing was beginning to fill with thick smoke. His father screamed in rage and swung his sword at a wolf, forcing it back, as his flames consumed another.
Cam fired an arrow, fired another, then staggered back as a wolf launched at him. He barely avoided its jaws as his father whirled around, slicing the sword through the air.
But his father’s sword arm wasn’t what it used to be. The swing was clumsy and left him off balance. His father swept along the ground and the wolf leapt into the air, its jaws clamping down on his father’s sword arm, spraying blood into the air.
Cam screamed in rage as the sword dropped to the dirt and his father staggered back, his eyes wide.
Another wolf leapt on his father from behind. Flames rose up around them, whipping the air, crackling as loud as thunder, as a third wolf slammed into his side, knocking them all to the ground. They fell out of sight, lost in a growing miasma of flame that churned around the small ground. He heard his father shriek. Cam staggered back from the intense heat, barely able to breathe through the smoke. He heard snapping, growling, the screams constant and horrifying.
