The Awakened World Boxed Set

by William Stacey

  And sitting around the effigy, staring open-mouthed at the naked woman who had just appeared out of thin air, were hundreds of Feral tribesmen.

  Chapter 30

  For a single, heart-stopping moment, Angie remained frozen on hands and knees, staring at hundreds of Ferals. The Ferals, clearly as surprised as she was, stared back. This was a village, she saw, not a forest clearing. Dozens of huts and tents covered in hides sat amid the trees, all around the wooden effigy of Lodin. Wood smoke from dozens of campfires hung in the air, and she heard the soft gurgle of a stream. The Ferals, men, women, and even children, stared at her in wonder. They wore the same odd mixture of pre-Awakening garments and animal skins as every Feral she had ever seen. Dirt covered their faces. The men all wore long beards. The children looked like wild animals.

  Ferals were cannibals.

  Energized by fear, Angie rose and bolted, leaving Lodin’s heavy spear where it lay, leaving Nightfall in its burned sheath around her waist. There would be no fighting this many enemies.

  In a moment, they were on her, screaming as they came. A man reached for her, but she veered away, slipping past him. Another ran right at her, eyes wild. She struck him in the nose with her palm, putting her hips into the strike, and he fell to his back. She leaped over him, but others converged on her, dozens. Their cries chilled her blood. Better to have died jumping from the tower than to be captured by Ferals.

  TAKE—

  Before the Shade King could finish, they tackled her, bringing her down hard. Her breath exploded from her. Then fists pummeled her, smashing into her ribs, her arms and legs, her head. Light exploded in her skull as an elbow struck her nose.

  Her world went black.

  Angie dreamed, but even in her dream, she knew she needed to wake up, but she couldn’t. No, that wasn’t quite right; she didn’t want to wake up. This dream was too wonderful.

  She strolled on a sunlit beach, the sand hot on her bare feet, and she wore something she had never worn before, never had the need: a one-piece swimsuit, blue and white, like her wedding gown.

  Wedding gown? What wedding?

  Had she married Tec?

  She looked about, wondering where he was, and then she saw him, sitting in the sand with a small boy of no more than five or six. Both wore swimsuits. They saw her and waved with excitement. Joy filled her heart, and she waved back. The boy had his father's dark hair but her features.

  They were building something in the sand, a castle. No, she realized a moment later as a chill ran down her spine. It's a tower, a tall black tower. But the sand on the beach was golden. That doesn't make any sense.

  "I've found you again, my little bird," a male voice said softly from behind her.

  At the sound of that mocking tone, fear splintered her heart. She spun, her hands flying to her throat. Aernyx the lamia stood before her, a hungry grin on his effeminate features, exposing the tips of his fangs. "Where have you been?"

  She tried to cry out for help but couldn’t move. His magic had frozen her once more. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tec and her son, hand in hand, walking away down the beach. The boy looked over his shoulder and waved goodbye with his free hand, his face registering his confusion that she wasn’t coming with them.

  Aernyx slid closer, blocking her view. He caressed her cheek in a mockery of tenderness. "Where did you hide, little bird? I know that bitch Elenaril gave you something to protect you, but then you just disappeared." His dark eyes glistened with malice, and she shivered. "The Obsidian Butterfly fears you. Did you know that?" He shook his head in wonder, his all-black eyes shining. "Itzpapalotl has never feared anyone, not even me, but there's something about you that frightens even a dragon. What is that? Tell me."

  Shake King, she pleaded in her mind. Please, help me.

  There was no answer.

  "Tell me," he demanded, now gripping her chin between fingers and thumb and squeezing. The pain jolted through her jaw, and she feared the bones would snap.

  "I ... I'm not afraid of you," she finally managed, her voice more like a squeak.

  "Oh, you will be. I promise." He pushed her head to the side.

  Exposing her neck.

  "Please." She hated the weakness in her voice, the terror that held her fast.

  He embraced her, his thin but unbelievably strong arms pulling her tight against his body, so tight she could feel his erection. His tongue brushed the tender skin of her exposed throat like ice. "I told Ephix I’d find you again. Now where were we before she so rudely interrupted us?"

  He bit into her throat, the pain shuddering through her, making her gasp, yet exciting her at the same time. She felt her blood, hot, dribble down her throat. Then he began to drink, sucking the blood from her. She moaned, unable to do anything but make fists of her hands. More hot blood spilled over her shoulder, and he paused to lap it up with his tongue, clearly not wanting to waste a drop.

  Then his body stiffened. He staggered back, releasing her, pain filling his black eyes.

  She fell away, landing on her rump in the sand, staring at him in confusion, her hand going to her bloody throat. He moaned, his hand still over his mouth, glaring at her as if she had just done something to him. "It burns," he gasped, his words distorted. Agony twisted his features, and when he moved his hand, she saw his lips were melted away, leaving open sores.

  Aernyx screamed and vanished, blinking out of existence.

  Angie held her palm against the punctures in her throat. A part of her wanted to run away before Aernyx could return, but the soldier in her admonished her to remain calm, to apply pressure and keep the wound elevated. The blood wasn’t spurting, so Aernyx hadn’t severed a vein, but it did dribble down her shoulder and chest. She knelt upright, dizziness coursing through her, causing her to sway, her vision dimming.

  She closed her eyes for a moment.

  When she opened them again, she was in complete darkness, kneeling on hard stone. Silence embraced her. She patted around herself but froze when her fingers brushed over a long object with rounded ends—a bone, she realized in horror, snatching her hand back. Bones surrounded her, and she remembered a dark place filled with the bones of dead animals: she was back at the Black Pool beneath Mount Laguna. Then she realized the darkness wasn’t complete after all: a golden light came from beneath the dark waters. She leaned forward, squinting.

  Something sang to her soul.

  The dragon-mark on her left palm flared with occult energy, and she cried out, clutching it to her chest—

  —And then she woke, her shoulders filled with agony.

  She was kneeling, naked, her arms bound behind her to a pole so that they were extended above her head, forcing her to lean forward. Her ankles were tied around the same pole. Pain throbbed through her shoulder blades, and she moaned, but there was a cloth gag in her mouth. She was in a tent, she realized, a teepee, the walls made of animal hides. It was dark, but a single candle burned on a stump of wood. Fresh blood continued to dribble from the small punctures in her throat—she saw the drips roll over her breast and fall onto the dirt—removing any doubt she could have had that Aernyx had only been a nightmare. But what had happened to the lamia? She should be dead.

  Starlight shone through the opening of the tent as a young man slipped inside, glancing furtively over his shoulder. He knelt before her, considering her, staring in confusion at the blood on her throat. He had long, dark hair and a forked beard adorned with ornaments. Recognition flashed through her. He wore the same sleeveless green vest and worn-out blue jeans he had when he and the other Ferals had ambushed her and the Seagraves in the woods. On his belt hung the same hexed hand-ax he had used to fight her. He was a Feral mage.

  Ferals. Cannibals. Human monsters.

  She almost wished she was back with the lamia.

  The mage cocked his head to the side as he regarded her and then reached out and touched the side of her neck, pulling back fingers wet with her blood. He stared at his fingertips, rubbing them
together.

  "Do not scream," he said softly in English. "If you do, others will come."

  She nodded.

  He untied the gag and then sat back, his hands on his knees, watching her. "I am Sandman. The leader of the Good Old Boys Sept of the We Clan. I have been looking for you for a very long time."

  "Ang—Angie Ritter," she said, her throat raw.

  "I know. The Horned God told us your name." He smiled with his eyes, not unkindly for a cannibal, and then leaned forward. Tied the way she was, she couldn’t move, but he didn’t hurt her. Instead, he gently lifted her head and placed the mouth of a water skin in her lips and then tilted her head back so she could drink. Beautiful, fresh, clean water poured down her parched throat. When she coughed and began to gag, he pulled the water skin away, waiting for her. When she met his eyes again, he raised his eyebrows, and she nodded. He let her drink several more mouthfuls. Nothing in her entire life had ever tasted this good. He let go of her, sitting back once more. "Can you speak?"

  "I ... yes. Can you untie me? The pain..."

  "I cannot. I'm sorry. The Horned God told us you were the Spirit-Taker. I'd rather you didn't devour my life. Not until we had a chance to speak first."

  The Horned God? Lodin. It had to be because of his helmet with the deer antlers. He would look like a god to them with his shining plate armor, helmet, and glowing spear. What had he said to her when he showed her the Stones of Nevernight? "Your world is filled with weak-minded souls, eager to betray their own for power. I gave them a taste of this power, even taught some to wield magic."

  Lodin had taught this man magic, even bonded him with a shade.

  What now? "Are you ... are you going to kill me?" She meant rape, murder, and eat her but couldn't bring herself to say the words.

  "No," he said quickly, shaking his head. "Never."

  TAKE AT LEAST SOME OF HIS LIFE FORCE, the Shade King urged, communicating with her once more. So, she couldn’t talk to the Shade King when asleep. Good to know.

  "I can't," she said, her fingers numb from the ropes. Even if she were free, she wasn't sure she could do anything with her fingers like this, let alone take his life.

  "Can't what?" the man—Sandman—asked her. At the sound of approaching footsteps, his head snapped to the opening in the tent. Someone was coming. "We're out of time, Angie," he whispered hurriedly. "Can you bond a ghost to a shaman? Answer quickly, before it’s too late."

  She had been about to say, no of course not, when the Shade King urged, YES.

  "I ... yes," she lied.

  He inhaled deeply and then jumped to his feet as two other Ferals entered the tent. The first was a tall, gaunt man with long straggly gray hair and beard and a hooked nose and ears so large they stood out on either side of his head. Twin scars sat on his cheeks, inch-long crisscrossing cuts forming a starburst. He was older, middle-aged, she guessed, but it was hard to tell because of all the dirt. His eyes tightened when he saw Sandman, and his lip curled into a snarl, exposing teeth filed into points. He wore fur clothing and carried a wickedly hooked metal club on his belt, an ice ax, she realized, having seen one in the Home Guard storehouse. The bottom of its half-foot-long, curved pick head was edged like a saw blade, and it sported an inch-long spike at the end of the two-foot-long red metal handle. One blow from a weapon like that would shatter bones.

  The other Feral was a woman, a mountain of a woman. Easily three hundred pounds of fat, gristle, and muscle, she looked like she could go a few rounds with Erin … maybe even Casey. She towered over both men. Her short, straggly brown hair looked as though it had been cut with a rock and then combed with another. Her shiny face was fleshy, and her large brown eyes protruded too far, with one drifting away on its own. Her other eye considered Angie and Sandman. She wore army boots, ragged blue jeans, and a muscle shirt that exposed arms as thick as Angie's thighs. In a loop on her belt, she wore a thick wooden cudgel bound entirely in dark leather. Even from where she knelt, Angie recognized the dried bloodstains on the leather, but it was what she gripped in her hand that attracted Angie's attention: Nightfall, still in its sheath, now blackened by fire, the belt straps wound about the weapon.

  "What is this?" the heavy woman asked. "Why are you here, Sandman?"

  The young mage stood tall. "I wanted to see her. To see the Horned God’s shy bride."

  "She is not for such things," the woman said in a voice like tempered steel, her good eye tightening with anger. "We do not abuse prisoners in my camp."

  Sandman scowled at her, his face reddening. "I do not force myself on the helpless. I am no Savage Son flesh eater." He glared at the tall, gaunt man.

  The other man bristled with anger, and Angie was certain they were moments from attacking one another, but then the gaunt man grinned, looking like a cadaver. A shiver ran down her spine. This one would rape, murder, and eat her, she knew, and maybe not in that order, maybe even all at the same time.

  "The Grim Strangler and the Savage Sons take what they wish, fool. Take care I do not strangle you as well. If I were to eat you, your magic—weak though it is—would flow into me. The Horned God would approve. He knows you for the weakling you are."

  He's a mage as well, Angie realized, her gaze darting to the ice pick he wore. They all are. Her situation, as dire as it was, had just become that much worse.

  "Enough," the woman said in a tone accustomed to command. "We will bring her before the people, not bicker among ourselves like heels."

  "Yes, Sergeant Thump," Sandman said, acknowledging her authority. "You are first among the We Clan."

  "For now," whispered the Grim Strangler.

  The woman, Sergeant Thump, stared at him for long moments, her fingers trailing over the leather-bound head of her club. "Do you challenge, Grim Strangler?"

  The gaunt man looked away. "I do not," he said so softly she almost missed it.

  "Then shut your flapping tongue. The people await."

  Chapter 31

  The three mages moved out of the tent, letting other Ferals, men and women, enter to cut Angie free. As relieved as she was when blood flowed through her fingers once more, she was helpless to stop them as they bound her arms to a four-foot wooden pole across her shoulders. They were very careful that she didn’t have an opportunity to touch any of them with her hands—they know what I am, she realized. Then they led her out into the night.

  She jerked in surprise as hundreds of voices cried out in triumph. Torches and bonfires burned throughout the village, highlighting the Ferals. The three mages—shamans, they called themselves—led her through the village. People cheered, and children ran alongside her. When the children tried to touch her, the adults cuffed them away, warning that the Spirit-Taker would steal their lives.

  Spirit-Taker? First the Nortenos called her the Angel of Death, and now even Ferals had a nickname for her. Angie was growing tired of being vilified.

  The village was even larger than she had first thought, containing hundreds of tents, as well as herds of goats, sheep, and pigs. There must have been thousands of people living here, she saw in dawning wonder, maybe tens of thousands, a community as large as any of the walled cities. This was impossible. The Ferals lived and moved in small groups of less than a hundred to avoid drawing the attention of the Home Guard and its Shrike helicopters or the Norteno military with its Brujas Fantasmas mages. Both nation-states attacked Ferals on sight. But there were no more helicopters, and the Norteno nation was in turmoil, its military shattered by the Aztalan attack. Clearly, the Ferals were far more numerous than anyone had ever imagined.

  What was even more interesting was the dark shape of Mount Laguna that rose in the background, its bulk recognizable even at night. The village was near Tec’s bunker, where Erin and her brothers had gone. But they must be long gone by now.

  A scattered few carried old hunting rifles, but most carried homemade bows, clubs, and spears. These people survived as well as they could, she realized, with a mixture of modern weapons and c
lothing and whatever they could make with their own hands. And so many of them were children. She had never seen Feral children before. In the past, she had only ever seen war parties or the aftermath of war parties. Whenever they had found a camp, the SOPs were to attack with helicopters and destroy them with missiles or machine gun fire and scatter the survivors into the wilderness. Now these children stared at her as if she were the devil.

  And to them, maybe she was.

  When the protected zones and walled settlements had first gone up, anyone caught outside had been abandoned, but obviously many of those poor souls had survived, thrived even. She smelled fish cooking, saw communal ovens tended by scores of women. Deer carcasses, butchered and splayed, hung near smoking fires. She saw an abundance of smaller game as well: fish, fowl, even squirrel. They're a hunter society, she realized. The opposite of our agrarian walled communities. But they're also cannibals.

  Aren't they?

  She wasn’t so certain anymore, not after overhearing the conversation between the three shamans.

  Angie began to suspect everything she had ever believed about Ferals might be wrong. Women tended fires and watched babes, suckling the smallest to their breasts. Others tended to chores, patching clothing or sewing hides. Men and boys walked among the herds, staring wide-eyed at Angie. All races, colors, and ethnicities seemed to be present, all working as equals, but some seemed … different, most notably, at least a third wore the same scarred starburst design on their cheeks as the Grim Strangler.

  And what the hell kind of names were Grim Strangler, Sandman, and Sergeant Thump?

  They led her to a large wooden platform, a stand, near the effigy of Lodin in the center of the clearing. A crowd of hundreds gathered about the stand, cheering and chanting. In place of the wooden spear that had been attached to the effigy last night was Lodin’s actual spear, the metal spearhead gleaming in the firelight. The Ferals had traded up.