Also by Vaughn Heppner
Fenris series:
Alien Honor
Alien Shores
Doom Star series:
Star Soldier
Bio-Weapon
Battle Pod
Cyborg Assault
Planet Wrecker
Star Fortress
Planetary Assault (with BV Larson and David VanDyke)
Invasion America series:
Invasion: Alaska
Invasion: California
Invasion: Colorado
Invasion: New York
Ark Chronicles:
People of the Ark
People of the Flood
People of Babel
People of the Tower
Extinction Wars series:
Assault Troopers
Planet Strike
Lost Civilizations series:
Giants
Leviathan
Tree of Life
Gog
Behemoth
Lod the Warrior
Lod the Galley Slave
Other novels:
Accelerated
I, Weapon
Strontium-90
Death Knight
Assassin of the Damned
The Dragon Horn
Elves and Dragons
The Assassin of Carthage
The Great Pagan Army
The Sword of Carthage
The Rogue Knight
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Vaughn Heppner
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477823842
ISBN-10: 1477823840
Illustrated by Maciej Rebisz
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930970
To my beautiful wife, Cyndi Heppner
CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
1
Like a flea on a warrior’s leg, Klane scaled down a vast cliff face as he descended into the Valley of the Demons.
Klane panted as the air burned his lungs. His side ached, his hands were sore, and the big toe on his right foot had begun to bleed. Swallowing in a dry throat, he made the mistake of glancing down to see how far he had to go to the next ledge. His stomach tightened, and vertigo threatened. The next shelf was over three hundred feet below. Beyond it to the bottom, he could see wispy clouds drifting as a gat soared through thermals.
He closed his eyes and his fingers gripped harder against the rough granite. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken this route. Maybe he should have gone the long way to the Mountain that was a Machine. Even here, as the wind whistled past him, he could hear the thunderous churning of the demon-made mountain.
Opening his eyes, Klane gazed across the chasm to the other side. The great boxlike mountain stood there with vast funnels spewing white vapors into the air. Gigantic hoses attached to the mountain reached to the icebergs beside it. Rockets from space had brought the ice to the fantastic Machine Mountain, what the seeker had once called a terraforming convertor.
Klane swallowed again and looked up at the banded moon filling much of the sky. The seeker had told him before that he had come from there, from space. The seeker had informed him of the terrible reason why he was not like the others of Clan Tash-Toi.
The others in his clan were big and strong and possessed large lungs and tough skin not easily scratched or penetrated. Even after his long quest across the plains, Klane remained a pasty white color and became winded far too easily.
He was unlike them in other ways, too: he often brooded, and spent too much time alone, and he was curious about everything. As they neared adulthood, the other young men had refused to wrestle with the weakling or include him in the hunts. Besides, he practiced magic, using the power of his junction-stone and the wisdom of the seeker.
Don’t dwell on that now. Climb down to the ledge. Concentrate on the task at hand.
A bleak grimace twisted his features. He wore leather garments like a warrior and a pack on his back. In the pack rested his water bottle. He desperately wanted a drink, but not so badly that he would try to shrug off the pack and get the flask. He needed to reach the ledge first. Then he could slake his parched throat.
As the Mountain that was a Machine churned, as the wind whistled and his hands threatened to cramp, Klane continued the descent.
His precious junction-stone was also in the pack, wrapped in a gat oil–soaked rag. With the stone, he had slain demons. Doing so had been the greatest event of his life.
They had slid through the air in their sky vehicle, the demons with their vile jaws. The knife at his belt had been fashioned from the torn metal of the sky vehicle. The metal had powerful mojo and it gave him courage.
Desiring vengeance for the slain demons, other monsters had come. They had come to take away the demonslayer, arriving in more sky vehicles. The seeker, his great friend, had raced out to them, using magic to attack. The demons had captured the seeker in a net, lifting him into the belly of one of the cars, no doubt to conduct hideous tortures on his flesh in their dread valley.
Klane could not abide the thought. For fear of further demon attacks, the clan had relocated into the Jumbles, there to hide from new depredations. Klane could have remained with them as the clan seeker. Instead, he had told the hetman that he would go to the Valley of the Demons to rescue his friend. It seemed an impossible goal.
Who was he to think that he could perform such a bold and mighty feat?
I am the demonslayer.
As he clung to the cliff face, Klane concentrated on the thought, using it to supply him with resolve. A demonslayer ignores pain. He ignores tiredness. He continues on the death path . . .
Klane paused. He was on the death path. Yes, he should have recognized that from the beginning. He was heading into the lair of the terrible enemy. He would wreak vengeance on them. Likely, he would fail in freeing the seeker, but he would make the streets of the demon abode run red with blood.
He knew they had red blood because he had seen their twisted, torn bodies in the wreckage of the sky vehicle that he had brought down through his power.
The grimace on his face turned into a fierce grin. It gave his
aching hands strength, and it eased the burning in his throat. Sweat slicked his body, and that made the climb many times more dangerous.
I am on the death path. I am the demonslayer.
He did not lose track of time or effort. Each second hurt. Each moment felt as if it could be his last. In places, the cliff face had jutting rocks that pushed against his chest as he tried to negotiate it. He panted, and his fingers become slippery. The grin faded and weariness threatened to dull his senses into fatal miscalculation.
At last, the final particles of strength fled his body. He panted against the rock face, and it was all he could to do to hang onto his position. With agonizing slowness, he twisted his head and looked down. Tufts of skeleton grass grew on the ledge fifty feet below. If he could reach the grand oasis, he would be able to lie down and sleep. Oh, that would be glorious indeed.
Lines deepened on his forehead. How could he reach the ledge? His biceps quivered with exhaustion. If he attempted to scale down, he would lose his grip and fall. He would likely strike the ledge hard enough to bounce off it to his death, or he might break a bone. Yet he couldn’t rest here. As he clung to the rock, he could feel the remaining strength drain out of his flesh.
With the weakness came a dulling of his mind and a lessening of his willpower. This was too much for the pale-skinned lad. The others had been right to exclude him from their wrestling matches and from the hunts. He was pitifully weak. Any Tash-Toi youth could have scaled this cliff . . .
No. You’re wrong. They would not have been mad enough to attempt such a thing. I’m descending into the Valley of the Demons. I am a fool.
Klane resolved in that second to end the game as a fool then. If he had the junction-stone in hand, he would have attempted a Levitating Spell. He did not hold the stone, but he would attempt to summon its magic and perform this final feat.
He took a last breath, and in that second, he realized how desperately he wanted to live. He loved life. He had to avenge his friend—the only friend he’d ever had, and his father figure.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said aloud.
Klane didn’t have an audience, but he decided to attempt the foolish feat with determination. He released his grip and slid his left foot from the precarious ledge, causing bits of gravel to fall. He concentrated as well as an exhausted fool could hope to do.
I am a feather. I will float to the ledge. I will levitate.
He dropped like a rock, fast. He cried out in dismay, and he scratched for a hold, tearing out a fingernail and cutting his hands. It slowed his descent minimally. He had the presence of mind to look down, saw the ledge rush up, and readied himself.
He hit with sickening force. His legs crumpled under him, but he managed to absorb some of his velocity. Still, he toppled, hit his left shoulder, and began to roll, to bounce toward the edge and over it.
“No!” he howled, and he rotated his body. Instead of flipping off the ledge, he landed on his back, one shoulder blade on the stony outcropping and the other hanging over empty space. He froze, and he felt himself balanced on a knife-edge of existence. With a muscular contortion, he heaved himself toward the cliff face. It was barely enough, but it proved successful. Both shoulder blades rested on hard rock.
Klane lay there, sobbing with relief and utter exhaustion. The shock of the fall robbed him of any other feelings.
I’m alive. I’m alive. I can’t believe I’m alive.
He didn’t do anything but rest and breathe. Finally, he felt throbbing pain in his fingers and hands. He tried to lift his arms, but that proved too difficult.
His muscles quivered and finally, exhaustion drove him to sleep. He awoke to dusk and cold and found himself shivering.
The stars had begun appearing in the heavens, and for once the moon did not stare down at him. The world felt empty without sight of the moon.
He forgot about it as he continued shivering: he was freezing. Slowly, with tight muscles complaining painfully, he sat up and eased toward the cliff. As he slid on his backside, he worked his shoulders, but realized it would be impossible for him to remove his pack now. He drew the demon-metal knife and cut one of the straps. The pack swung free and he let the other strap slide down his arm. Soon he leaned against the rock face and sat there panting.
Uncorking the flask, he sipped water. He wanted to gulp it all in a flash, but he restrained himself, sipped again, and corked it. It felt as if his body absorbed the liquid. He would need much more than that before he reached the bottom.
In fact, as he shivered in the gloom, he realized that he would never be able to scale all the way down into the valley. It was simply too far. He had hoped to come across a ledge or path that would let him walk the rest of the way. Now, he wasn’t so sanguine concerning his chances.
You can’t rely on luck. You must think. You must scheme. You are the demonslayer.
He added the last thought to bolster his morale. What a stupid way to die: stuck on a ledge with dwindling strength.
While eating dried jerky, he decided that if he was going to die, he might as well feel satisfied one last time. He took out his flask and drained it. Ah, now that felt good.
He grew sleepy, but shivered himself to greater alertness.
If you fall asleep now, you’ll likely freeze to death. It will only get colder as true night comes. You have to do something soon if you’re going to do anything at all.
Yet what could he do?
Drowsiness threatened again. He had eaten and drunk enough that his body wanted to shut down and repair itself. He was young. Give him a day and he would start again.
I don’t have a day. I have to do something tonight. No, make that right now. Whatever I’m going to do, it has to be now.
Easing onto his stomach, he crawled to the edge. He poked his head over and scanned as far as he could. Would it be possible, now that he could clutch the junction-stone, to levitate all the way to the bottom?
Klane didn’t think so. The spell was not meant for such a use. That would almost be flying. Levitation was for soft landings. So where did that leave him?
Sliding back to the cliff, Klane rummaged in his pack. He untied the knots around his gat oil–soaked rag. Unfolding the cloth, he dumped the smooth junction-stone into his palm. He had oiled it for countless hours in the seeker’s tent. He had spent many days filling it with his power and polishing it until it glowed with a sheen.
As he sat there, Klane recalled the first time he’d known real power. It had been near here; in fact, on the other side of the chasm. The seeker had taken him to a cave system. There had been metal tubes with strange etchings on them. He had listened to the singing gods, and they had filled him with magical potency. That day, he had cast a Teleport Spell. It had—
Klane sat up and his eyes widened. That was his way to life. He must teleport again.
He laughed bleakly. There was a problem. He didn’t know how to teleport. He had listened to the singing gods and they had filled him with the vital force. The seeker had tricked him that day into attempting the teleportation.
The singing gods are near. They lie under the terraforming convertor, under the Mountain that was a Machine. All I must do is travel with my mind to the cave. I must listen to them again.
With the inspiration came a surge of hope. He might survive his foolish decision to scale down to the Valley of the Demons. He might gain a second chance.
With trembling fingers, he clutched the junction-stone, wincing as it pressed against a raw blister. He breathed in and out. Composing himself, he searched with his magical power. Nothing happened, so he almost opened his eyes and gave up.
Try this until you die, because unless you succeed, you are dead.
He had slain demons by destroying the mechanisms in their sky vehicles. He had reached out with his mind. Now he must reach out again. Then, immediate peril had made him desperat
e. He—
It happened then as he sat on the ledge. His mind roved outward. Like a soaring gat, it flew to the other side of the chasm. It reached the Mountain that was a Machine. Part of him wanted to go inside. He had always wanted to see what occurred within. He resisted the temptation to check. He had more important business this pregnant night. Instead, his thoughts descended the real mountain. He sought for landmarks, things he had seen the last time he’d been here with the seeker.
Ah. He spied a boulder formation, hurried there, and found a faint trail. With his mind, he sought . . . there! He spied a greater darkness. It was the entrance to the cave. He raced there in his thoughts, and a feeling of danger threatened his concentration.
High up on the other side of the chasm, on the ledge, Klane gripped his junction-stone with fierce strength. It made the muscles on his forearms leap up like cables.
His thoughts hovered before the cave entrance. The danger caused fear to quicken his heartbeat. He plunged in because he had no other choice. In the darkness he retraced the old route with accuracy. Soon his consciousness hovered before giant pipes embedded on the top and bottom into rock. Strange symbols were etched into the metal.
Klane didn’t need to think about reaching out to the singing gods. His consciousness plunged into what seemed like cold water. He heard odd sounds, almost like voices, and he bobbed along like a cork in a raging mountain torrent.
An instinctive part of him realized that he could die here. He needed to act.
Power—I need power and more power.
Something heard, or his mind flipped onto the right channel or stream. Power filled him. It felt as if some other being shoved a funnel into his mouth and poured liquid into him. His belly swelled, and if the process would have continued long enough, it might have caused him to burst.
Klane felt as if he shook his head, and he gasped, spewing some of the liquid.
I want to stand by the etchings. I want to be near the singing gods.
His mind twisted. The power of the singing gods motivated an unused portion of his thoughts. He didn’t see how, but his mind or his magic warped reality.
Alien Shores (A Fenris Novel, Book 2) Page 1
