by Greig Beck
Return of the Ancients
( The Valkeryn Chronicles - 1 )
Greig Beck
Arnold Singer is just like any other fifteen-year-old boy growing up in the suburbs — average height, average looks. The love of his life thinks he’s a geek… that is if she notices him at all. Pretty normal, and pretty boring, really.
But this normal life is about to change forever. On a school science trip to watch the test firing of a new particle accelerator, Arn is caught up in an accident that propels him into an extraordinary new world.
In this new land, Arn is the last human alive. It is populated with mysterious and bloodthirsty creatures, some of whom want him dead, while others see him as their only hope for survival.
Can Arn survive in a hostile world and save his new friends? Or has he arrived in time to witness the fall of a mighty empire?
An epic tale of love, betrayal and war in a world both familiar and terrifying.
Greig Beck
Return of the Ancients
Great is the sorrow in the land of the gods when Odin, the father of time, is swallowed by the great wolf, Fenrir.
Ragnarok — The final battle at the World’s End. Ancient Norse mythology
Prologue
And So, the Prophecy Begins
The king sat astride his armoured horse, drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly as he looked out across the bloody plain below him. Broken bodies and armour were strewn over the entire field, and the smell caused him to bare his teeth and growl deep in his broad chest. He turned to an approaching warrior, and nodded for him to speak.
‘No survivors, sire.’
The king turned back to the field with sad eyes. ‘I know; I could already sense it.’
He snorted as if to expel the sickening odour of death, and shook his head in disbelief. ‘But how? Two hundred of our mightiest warriors cut down. How does that happen? They wouldn’t dare to attack us in broad daylight — they’re nothing but assassins, cutters of throats in the dark.’ He turned to the warrior once again. ‘But if not them, then who — who would dare it… who could dare it?’
‘Sire!’
The king spurred the horse to where another figure crouched down looking intently at something in the mud. He pointed and moved his gauntleted hand over the shape, and then looked up to the king.
‘A print — a Slinker, I think… but the size. Impossible.’
The king stared at the shape in huge print with its knife-like claws, then looked away towards the horizon. ‘I have heard legends of the giants from the dark lands.’ He looked around at the carnage. ‘Whoever did this did not just want to win the day, but wanted to grind us to dust. This was nothing but bloody savagery.’
He looked up at the sky, noting the position of the sun — mid morning and the heat was rising. They needed to get their fallen below ground before the scavengers came. He felt exhaustion weighing heavily on his shoulders. It was not his age or his armour, but the feeling of impending danger that seemed to drag the strength from his frame. He had fought many wars, but none had caused the sense of disquiet that he now felt deep inside his chest.
Another warrior plodded through the mud and stopped to look up at the king, his mouth working, but no words came.
‘What is it?’
‘Sire, some…’
The king waited for a few more seconds. ‘Speak, Karnak. Fear nothing.’
The warrior drew in a breath. ‘Some of the bodies… have been… partially eaten.’
The king lowered his head and shut his eyes. He nodded slowly. ‘May Odin give us strength and wisdom, for I fear a war like no other comes to Valkeryn.’ He turned to the warrior. ‘See that the princess is brought in from the forest.’
Karnak tilted his head. ‘And if she won’t come? Last time she put an arrow into a warrior’s leg.’
The king spun around on him. ‘Tell her it’s the king’s order. That girl needs to start behaving more like a royal charge, and spend less time daydreaming or testing her arm in the forests.’
He dropped the horse’s reins and reached up to lift the silver helmet from his head. He ran one hand up through his hair, and looked around, scanning the ridge.
The breath caught in his throat — a silhouette on the rise. It could not be … He blinked and tried to speak, but no words came. All he could do was lift his arm to point. At last he found his voice. ‘Have I gone mad? Karnak, do you see?’
The tall warrior followed his gaze and then frowned in bewilderment. ‘Then I am also mad, sire. I see, but it is impossible — they are a myth.’
The sun dropped a little lower and the silhouette disappeared. The king dropped his hand, and nodded. ‘All things are possible in these darkening days.’
‘Shall we go after it, sire?’
‘No. Events will unfold as they are meant to.’ He turned to the warrior. ‘And so, the prophecy begins.’
Chapter 1
Becky and the Boob Monsters
Arn ran out to the waiting bus. His large dog bounded beside him, trying to leap up and catch the loose cords of his backpack that flapped as he ran. He turned to the dog. ‘No Jess, stay here — sit.’
The big black shepherd sat down hard, struggling to obey the command. ‘Go home, girl. See you soon.’
He leapt up onto the bus — hopefully for one of the last times, considering his dad had agreed to match him dollar for dollar when he went new car shopping this weekend. Visions of girls fighting to be the one to sit next to him in his new SUV were quickly replaced by the smiling face of just one. Who was he kidding? There’d only ever be one girl for him.
The doors groaned shut behind him, and the bus lumbered away from the kerb. He flopped into a seat and turned to the boy next to him. ‘Wazzup?’
Arnold Singer, Arn to his friends, and the only Native American at Naperville High, had dropped down next to his best friend, Edward Lin, who had his head buried in a comic book. Arn looked over Edward’s shoulder at the coloured panels, catching sight of a superhero lifting a car in one square and then bringing it down on his foe’s head in another.
‘At your age, don’t you ever get bored with that stuff? I mean, how smart is that guy anyway? Every single time, he solves his problems by braining someone — why can’t he outsmart them for once? I mean, how intelligent is he?’
Edward spoke without taking his eyes off the comic. ‘HunterMan outsmart them? Sure, maybe he should give them a good talking to… or maybe he could hand out pamphlets about anger management or how we should eat more fibre — that’d be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?’
He turned to peer at Arn over the top of his glasses. ‘You know, Arn, I’m the smartest kid in our class — straight A’s all the way, and you know what I get for that? Every week, I get smashed by the meatheads, and laughed at by your make-believe girlfriend and her gang of mutant boob monsters. Oh yeah, did I tell you that I suck at gym and track? So comics like this are for people like me, who would just once like to be able to solve their own problems like this dude does.’
‘Sure, violence is always the answer… dude.’ Arn laughed, but understood his friend’s feelings of alienation. Arn was the only Shawnee to have ever won a scholarship to the school — and some acted like they resented him for it. For a start, he looked different — with his straight, sharp nose, shoulder-length black hair and eyes so dark, his mother sometimes called him Shadow for their being so deep and mysterious. Average height, smart, okay at gym and track, and sort of good looking — different, but unremarkable.
He looked at his friend and smiled sympathetically. He could get straight A’s if he wished, simply because he was a Native American; there were plenty of teachers and administrators at the school
determined to try and give him a leg-up — he’d refused every one of them. If he couldn’t make it simply by being himself, then he didn’t want to make it at all.
He nudged Edward, who was trying to go back to his reading. ‘And hey, who doesn’t like boob monsters?’ Arn chuckled and stole a quick glance over his shoulder to the rear of the bus. Rebecca Matthews was in her usual seat, chatting animatedly with two of her friends. Make-believe girlfriend Becky and the Boob Monsters — Arn smiled at Edward’s insightful name for the group.
While Arn sat smiling, Becky caught him looking, and for the split second their eyes locked, Arn felt the usual electric tingle travel from his toes to his scalp. He knew he blushed as his face suddenly felt hot and tight. For her part, Becky’s mouth turned down in one corner, and she looked away.
So beautiful, he thought… and so unattainable.
* * *
The bus slowed to pick up more students. Arn sighed and tried to make himself more comfortable for the long trip ahead. Today was science excursion day — an entire day devoted to visiting the Fermilab particle collider at Batavia. Apparently there was to be a test firing of the new acceleration technology the company had developed — atom smashing day, Edward had called it. Their class was chosen to attend because of its grade point average prominence in the state.
He loved science, but had an idea what to expect from the lab visit — a robotic voice would count down to some sort of initiation event, lights flashed on monitor boards and screens, ignition would be called, everyone’s breath would be held… and then a technician would say, test run complete, and that’d be it. Everyone would be invited to look at rows of numbers scrolling down a computer screen. Riveting!
It was going to be a far cry from what science fiction writers had described in countless novels he had read in the past. The reality was always uneventful — and mind-numbingly boring.
More students filed past seeking seats, and as Edward flipped another page in his comic, as if by magic, it disappeared from his hands. He and Arn stared up into the comically brutish face of Steve Barkin.
Naperville High was ranked in the top five per cent of colleges nationally, but looking up into the face of Barkin made Arn wonder whether every now and then someone bubbled up through the academic cracks — just to ensure that life didn’t become too comfortable for the normal people.
‘Whatta you, six years old?’ Barkin sneered, baring his teeth.
Arn looked at Edward, who sat staring up, not saying a word. Barkin leafed quickly through the comic.
‘Are there pages stuck together in here? You know, from where you been drooling over the muscle man in his tight superhomo clothes?’ He brayed at his joke, and then started to read some of the comic’s panels. His lips moved and his eyes narrowed in concentration.
Arn shifted and tried to look out the window, but he felt the hot waves of humiliation coming off his friend. In his mind he could hear a little voice repeating over and over: Stay out of it, he hates you even more, just stay out of it… As usual he ignored it.
‘Take it slowly, Steve — a few big words in there.’
Two piggishly small eyes lifted from the page. They blinked as if their owner was taking a few seconds to register, in some deeply buried memory centre of his brain, that they were meant to be insulting.
‘You got somethin’ you want to say, Singer?’
‘Just that you should try ’em, before you rag ’em, Barkin.’ Arn kept his face serious.
‘Kiddie comics? They’re for nerds and dweebs — like you two min-or-ity creeps.’
Arn ignored the jibe, but pressed his attack anyway. ‘Not comics, Einstein; I meant reading in general.’
‘What did you say, Chief?’ Barkin’s eyes narrowed to two angry slits.
C’mon Arn, pull back before you cop it. As usual, Arn’s mouth and brain never agreed on a strategy.
‘I think you heard, redneck.’
The slits widened and Barkin’s mouth opened a little, as if about to deliver another insult or a stream of unintelligible cursing, just as the deep voice of Mr. Beescomb, their physics teacher, rolled down the aisle of the bus.
‘Seats… now.’
Barkin’s mouth snapped shut and instead returned to its familiar sneer. He ripped the comic in two and threw the halves back at Arn and Edward, hitting neither.
‘You pair of jerk-offs.’ He leaned over Arn and whispered, ‘Beats me why they ever let you in here — quotas, I reckon.’ He straightened. ‘I’ll see you later, Singer.’ He lumbered away, first towards the front of the bus, and then changed his mind and bullocked his way down the back, where he stopped in front of Becky and her friends.
Arn watched for a second, and then sighed, turning back to the front of the bus, where he noticed the eyes of Mr. Jefferson the driver momentarily fixed on him in the small overhead mirror.
Edward held up the two halves of his comic. ‘Thank you Arn; that went well.’
Arn shook his head slowly with his mouth turned down in distaste. ‘He doesn’t scare me.’
‘Does me.’ Edward stuffed the comic fragments into his bag.
Chapter 2
Fire in the Hole!
Arn was jolted from his dozing by the bus driving over speed humps. They were passing a roadblock on a side road outside of North Aurora. He yawned and craned his neck to get a better look at a group of squat, grey, fortified buildings in the distance.
Men in green fatigues stood out front in pairs — military for sure. He could just make out one of the buildings, built like a concrete-and-steel blister with a flat iron door — not a roller door, but more like a solid heavy plate and marked with a lightning bolt held in a gauntleted fist.
He nudged Edward. ‘Fire in the hole!’
Edward looked up and blinked several times like a mole coming to the surface of its burrow, and then focused on what Arn was nodding his head at. He snorted. ‘It’s an armoury. Rumour even has it they have experimental mini-nukes down there — shoulder mounted — like an RPG, but could flatten a mountain range. That structure is just a cap; it’s supposed to drop down twenty storeys below the ground to a command centre. If the big one drops, the brass can keep belting out the orders from down there.’ He sat back again.
Arn scoffed. ‘You’re making that up.’
Edward shook his head without looking up from his comic, and did his best Yoda voice: ‘Internet a wonderful place is. Try you must, travelling there some day, young Master Singer.’
Arn laughed, looked back one last time, then relaxed back into his seat. Mini-nukes, he thought. Cool.
* * *
About an hour later, and now late morning, the school bus turned into Pine Road and motored towards an enormous three-legged iron sculpture that reminded Arn of one of the Martian ships from War of the Worlds.
‘Quick, look up.’ Edward pushed Arn’s head closer to the window so he could watch as they passed below the weird sculpture. He then said, ‘It’s called Broken Symmetry; it’s sort of an illusion. From below, all three legs look exactly the same, but…’ He held up his finger as they continued under, and then past the sculpture. They looked back at it. ‘… But when you see it from the side, you can see that all three legs are different sizes.’
‘Hey yeah, you’re right — spooky.’ Arn watched the sculpture recede for a moment and then sat back.
Edward also sat back and reopened his comic book. ‘It’s actually made of the deck plates from the USS Princeton.’
‘Well, you’re a mine of information, aren’t you?’ Arn didn’t doubt for a minute that it was true.
‘I don’t always read comic books, you know.’ Edward raised his middle finger.
Arn laughed and looked forward through the window towards their destination. Mr. Beescomb had told them in their briefing that it was Fermilab’s main auditorium, and Arn could see a tall building looming up in front of them that looked a little like two bits of sagging white bread stacked together. He grunted and nudged E
dward. ‘And what’s the story with the weird building?’
Edward looked up at the structure for a second or two, then shrugged. ‘Dunno — wino architect maybe.’
They passed various personnel on the ground, walking large dogs. Some looked to be security personnel, but others wore white smock laboratory uniforms, and carried electronic notepads as though they were testing the animals. Arn counted at least two dozen huge beasts before the bus pulled away from them. One of the wolf-like creatures paused to stare, its eyes creepily intelligent as it watched the vehicle pass by.
* * *
The old wheezing bus squealed to a halt, and no sooner had it stopped than the entire group of students erupted from their seats.
‘Okay everyone, we have landed. Thank you for flying with us today.’ It was Jefferson the driver. His eyes in the rear view mirror stared back at them.
Edward went to stand up, but Arn stopped him. ‘Let’s give it a minute, okay?’
His friend looked at him for another second, and then over his shoulder, his eyes going from Steve Barkin to Becky and her friends. He shook his head. ‘Please don’t try and say anything to her — at least not while Barkin is with her.’
Arn shrugged. ‘Don’t worry.’
Arn had turned in his seat to watch her begin to come down the centre aisle, while Steve Barkin, still seated, kept up a constant stream of bad jokes and Neanderthal babble from behind. He saw Arn looking towards her, and he leaned forward in his chair to stage whisper something to her, causing her eyes to flick towards Arn for a moment.
Arn fumbled in his bag as she drew near. She slowed and smiled, raising her eyebrows. Arn gave her some folded pages, and she quickly looked at them, smiled again and winked, before turning away to the front of the bus.
Arn quickly added, ‘I’ll see you on the field trip. I can do up the other notes as we go.’ She might have sort of half nodded — at least his ego hoped she did.
