by Stone Thomas
HALCYON RISING:
Breaking Ground
by
Stone Thomas
Copyright © 2017 Stone Thomas.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication, including the cover, may be used, copied, or reproduced by any means, electronic or non-electronic, in any format or form whatsoever, without consent from the owner of the copyright in this material.
This is a writing of fiction. All characters, names, places, items, events, and unintentional likenesses are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious.
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“You have no power here, demon!” I yelled, slashing my legendary spear through the air.
Okay, it wasn’t a legendary spear. It was a broom handle with a knife tied to the end of it. And I wasn’t fighting a demon, so much as a middle-aged bat that thought it could take up residence in the temple’s belfry.
The black creature swooped at me, its teeth bared. It was an ugly little sucker, and one that I didn’t want to come anywhere near me. I swiped at it with my polearm, knocking it in the head.
I also, unfortunately, knocked into the enormous bronze bell that hung in the tower’s center. This bell was reserved for holidays, weddings, and the head priest’s fancy. He didn’t fancy for me to ring it today though, so it would only take a moment before –
“Arden!” beckoned Head Priest Cahn.
“Coming!” I yelled. Then I bent over the bat that lay dazed on the floor of the temple’s highest room. “Today you live, fiend. But I shall return!”
In all fairness, the bat shouldn’t have lived. I hit it squarely in the skull with the wooden pole of my makeshift spear. I had been killing rats, and roaches, and bats in the belfry for years now. If I had access to a proper skillmeister, I would have improved my Strength, maybe even chosen a class that specialized in combat skills.
As things stood though, I couldn’t afford the services of a skillmeister, so all of my experiences were accumulating, useless. As a head priest, Cahn could train me up, but he wouldn’t. Not without collecting his customary fee. And for an orphan like me, there was no one to foot the bill for my training if the priest wasn’t feeling generous.
Head Priest Cahn never felt generous.
“Arden!” he yelled again.
I sighed. The view from Meadowdale was beautiful and I was loathe to head back into the temple. It was stuffy in there, and my punishment for disrupting Cahn’s morning contemplation would likely be another round of roach-squishing in the catacombs beneath this old stone building.
Far to the north, the mountains blocked my view of the Savior’s Sea, an unseasonably warm body of salty water that provided yearlong fishing and pearl diving. The snow-capped peaks looked serene against the sunrise.
The southern view was just as beautiful, with a sprawling forest and rolling hills. I didn’t know what secrets those trees hid. I had never left Meadowdale, and most people that did escape this poor, cramped village never bothered to come back. Stories of the outside world remained just that. Outside.
I put my hand on the top rung of the ladder from the belfry when something else caught my eye. It was a series of small dark shapes a mile outside the city walls. It looked like people, and animals, marching two by two. It looked like an army.
There must be a procession from some foreign city, or kingdom even, that wanted to meet with Meadowdale’s mayor. I climbed down the ladder and then a spiral set of stone stairs that led toward the temple’s main hall.
“Arden, Arden, Arden,” Cahn said. Two people knelt by the front altar as he began admonishing me, a ritual I think he secretly enjoyed. “Clumsy hands offend the gods, but you know that.”
“Yes, Father Cahn,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”
“But it will, Arden, won’t it?” he said. His wrinkled face was set in a tight scowl. A strange growth, the size of a corn kernel, grew from his left nostril. In all my seventeen years here, I had never once allowed my gaze to stray to that hideous knob. I didn’t allow it now, maintaining eye contact with the priest. His eyes were bottomless pools of disappointment. At least I knew how to swim in them.
“I’m sorry, Father Cahn,” I said, “that bat was a difficult one. Perhaps if I were a little stronger, it wouldn’t take so many swipes to knock it out.”
“You received your charity,” Cahn said, “when I took you in from that orphanage and gave you a job here. Serving me is the same as serving Laranj, the goddess of harmonic sound. Though, creating that noisy disruption upstairs is hardly sure to please her. If you’d like to be stronger, stop spending your wage on sweet rolls and start spending it on training.”
Maybe if you fed me, I thought. No, better to change the subject.
“Are we expecting visitors from outside Meadowdale today? I saw—”
One of the men kneeling at the temple’s altar turned back. “Father Cahn,” he said, “where is she?”
The priest hurried away from me, much to my relief. He hadn’t even sent me to the catacombs yet. If I could sneak away now I might get the afternoon off.
“That clangor must have turned her away,” Cahn said, “but never fear. You’ve made a generous offering. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.” He cleared his throat loudly. “Isn’t that right, Laranj?”
As I skulked toward the temple’s side and a stairwell that would whisk me away from Cahn’s wrath, a bright light erupted behind the altar. The sound of angels yawning rose and fell before three notes of a harp plucked from nowhere. I turned back and watched a whirlpool of pink light swirl over the polished marble slab.
From that whirlpool rose a beautiful woman with soft pink skin. Her hair was mauve and her eyes were lilac. Her torso was wrapped in a loose-fitting fabric that exposed a hint of cleavage. She tugged at the cloth, pulling it further up her shoulder.
“What a bountiful gift,” she sang. “What has sent your heart adrift?”
“My son,” the man said, “he went out on his first official quest, and a witch stole his voice. He needs a new one now. Will you help?”
She nodded, sending a long tress of hair down her front. It nestled in the space between her breasts. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I had seen her before, but she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever witnessed. Her robe hugged her hips tightly and stopped mid-thigh. Her legs were smooth and pink like the rest of her. Like a carnation.
“He shall speak again with a voice like honey, because you have paid the appropriate m—”
“Homage,” Cahn said. “You have paid homage, and the goddess is grateful.”
She blushed, which was hard to pull off for someone already so pink. She reached her hand toward the kneeling boy. His body glowed for an instant, then he spoke with the deep, soothing voice of a man twice his size and age. “Thank you, your grace.”
If only I had the kind of money these folks did. I could be something. I could train up my Strength and fight more than bats. I could fight bears. Or gobbawogs. Or dragons! I would rake in the loot and keep building myself into a powerful warrior. The kind that kings called upon when their daughters were kidnapped by assassin lords.
Instead, I was a custodian and exterminator, armed with a spear made of a broken broom handle and a rusty knife.
Footsteps pounded against stone behind me. I turned away from the goddess and back toward the temple’s front doors. People yelled. Metal clanged. In the front of the temple, Cahn counted coins.
I walked toward him and tugged on his heavy black robe. It was soft, like silk, which meant he had spent some of Laranj’s funds on himself. Cahn said that all head priests dipped into the holy coffers sometimes, but he was particularly blatant about i
t. I bet he had silk underpants to match.
I shook that thought from my head and tugged on his robe again.
“Arden!” he yelled. “If you’re bored, go kill the crawlies that infest the catacombs. Earn your keep. The gods know you’re not good for anything else or your parents wouldn’t have left you on the orphanage steps.”
My lips tightened.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “that was unkind, even for me.”
Ignoring him, I said, “I think there’s a military procession outside, and it doesn’t sound like our ragtag guards. It sounds more… regimented.”
Just then, the doors to the temple flew open.
The two men at the altar stood and turned back, horrified. I followed their gaze to the door. A large man – no, creature – stood in the doorframe. It stood like a person, but its head was a solid sphere of pitch black metal that reflected a slight pink sheen from Laranj’s holy aura. A series of sharp glistening teeth lined a mouth that had broken into a sadistic smile.
The creature’s body was a hulking mass of utter blackness, with horns protruding from its shoulders, elbows, and wrists. An army of other creatures stood behind him. Those that stood on two feet held swords and spears, while others rested on all fours like evil, mangy canines.
If shadows could walk, they would run from these monsters.
Without hesitation, they charged down the center aisle of the temple and screamed in shrill voices, pointing their blades forward. Cahn stood, frozen by the frenzy that had broken out.
The lead creature held a spear for only a moment. Then he launched it at Laranj. Her pink skin erupted in red. The harps and sound of gentle angels came to an abrupt end. Whatever that thing’s weapon was made of, it had the power to slay a goddess.
The creatures lost no time turning their attention toward us, but instead of throwing weapons, a few creatures in the rear of the group sent tendrils of black magic through the air. Some landed like ribbons on the ground and extinguished, while others landed on the two worshippers and on Cahn.
I jumped back from the spell, avoiding the first volley of magic. The men that had been hit started to grow dark, magic covering their skin like soot. Their eyes became solid black. They turned on me.
I had no interest in being torn to shreds by Cahn. He had been tearing into me my whole worthless life. It was time that came to an end.
As the enchanted men and evil creatures chased after me, I rounded the altar and ran into the vestry. This was the room where Cahn kept all of his robes. I was forbidden to linger here, using the room only as a corridor to the warren of hallways and storage closets beyond. I locked the door behind me and kept running.
The crunch of wood let me know that keys were too delicate for the monsters stampeding this holy building. I turned down a hallway and tried a door, but it was locked. I kicked the door, but it didn’t come down. Again, my low Strength got the better of me. I moved onto the next door, and the next.
Then an army of black shapes emerged in the hallway. I sprinted to the corridor’s end and found an open door that led to a bathroom.
Great, I thought, I’m going to die in a bathroom. My legacy just keeps getting brighter.
This room had a window. A window that big strong men wouldn’t fit through, but a lowly temple worker with a Strength of 1 was slim enough to squeeze through. Maybe.
I pushed the window open and threw my weapon outside. This part of the building was halfway underground, so the weapon didn’t have far to drop. Then I struggled to pull myself toward it. My fingers clawed at dirt and grass just outside the window. The black army of murderous creatures bashed down the door.
I kept pulling, kicking, squirming. And then I was free. I scrambled to my feet and tore off across the temple grounds.
Smoke and screams. Those were my first two thoughts as I ran. Some of Meadowdale’s short, thatch-roofed buildings were on fire, and men and women ran through the streets in terror. Some of the men had the same black, glossy look in their eyes as Cahn had. Others tried desperately to escape the invading force.
I had no family here. Aside from the admiration I had for the goddess Laranj, there was no one in Meadowdale that I needed to check in on to be sure they were safe. Not that it mattered; no one was safe. I just had to get out of there, and fast. Before that thing spotted me.
In the center of the city, towering over the one-story shops that lined the main dirt road, was a broad-shouldered man made of the same black shadowy evil as the other creatures that had attacked. He held a sword in one hand, broader than my entire body, and his eyes crackled with red energy. Armor plated his body, and his black helmet had large curved horns.
He gestured with his sword and yelled at the inky warriors that terrorized the town, sending them after any of the local residents he spied hiding or running for cover. A group of women cowered in a covered doorway, but he didn’t take aim at them. It was the men he was after, and those that he hadn’t killed were slowly becoming dark and violent as these monsters’ strange magic took hold.
The temple wasn’t far from the southern wall surrounding the settlement. I ran that way, dodging past screaming townsfolk and black creatures that looked like dogs on steroids. When I reached the wall, I climbed up on an abandoned fruit cart and jumped outside the city’s limits.
Meadowdale was a free city, at least until this. There was no imperial power that protected it. For years, the people of the city were proud of that. It meant they didn’t pay taxes, and they weren’t beholden to an emperor’s whim.
It also meant no army would save them from today’s onslaught. There was no fighting force to guard the goddess that called this city home.
I ran south, as far as my legs and my lungs would take me. The city receded in the background, and with it the smells and sounds of war.
By the time my legs gave out, I was deep in the forest and I had lost my sense of direction. I lay on the grass, my weapon still clutched tightly in my hand.
Then something poked me in the back. I rolled over so I could look up at it. It was a gi-ant, and it looked hungry.
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The gi-ant looked at me with large, waxy eyes. Its mandibles were two sharp fangs that jutted from its lower jaw. It poked me again with one of its six legs as I pushed back with my feet and yelled. I had never been that close to a giant insect’s mouth before; I never wanted to be again.
The monster reared on its hind legs and twitched its antennae. I realized then that two other gi-ants were behind me. They were communicating with each other somehow. This guy looks tasty, I imagined them saying, and he’s already salted himself with sweat. Yum!
I brought my weapon up and knocked the gi-ant over. It landed on its back and twitched its legs as it tried to right itself. The other two creatures came toward me at impressive speed, convincing me that running away was not an option.
“Come and get me!” I yelled. I was pretty sure they were going to do that anyway, but watching them follow my command made me feel powerful, if only for a second.
The first ant neared and I stabbed it in the face with my spear. It let out a high-pitched sound that must have been a scream. I yanked my weapon away and stabbed toward the second one. It dodged my attack, then leapt at me.
It landed on my chest, pinning me against the ground under its weight. It sank its mouth into my shoulder, digging into my muscle. I slid my spear under its body and thrust up with both hands, forcing the monster off of me. It flew into the other gi-ant and was slowed for a moment in a tangle of gi-ant legs.
I took that opportunity to stab my spear through both creatures at once. They bucked and writhed against each other and against my pole, but soon their struggle ended. I had killed them both.
The first ant that had poked me in the back was skittering away now. It must have gotten back on its feet and realized what a terrifying warrior I was! Or it was going to ask its older brother to come beat me up, which seemed more likely. I decided to put a stop to that.
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nbsp; I chased after the insect as it sprinted through the forest, dodging trees and thorny bushes. It leapt over a fallen log, then used its hind legs to kick the log backward at me.
The rotten wood exploded in a cloud of moldy wood chips and termites. I brushed the creepers off of me as I ran, keeping the gi-ant in my sights.
I chased the insect down a flat path with the slopes of a hill rising on either side, as if someone had leveled this stretch of the land and left the surrounding hill intact. Ahead there was a dead end with a wall of exposed rock.
Before long, it was clear that the monster had chosen this dead end on purpose. It was, indeed, going for help. Not just from one older brother, but from a whole team of them. A series of six gi-ants carried a large white cocoon on their skulls from an archway in the rock that led to a cave. They dropped it when I arrived.
“Combined,” I said, “the seven of you have thirty-eight more limbs than I do, so you should at least let me strike first.”
No dice. All seven insects charged at once. I waited for them to get closer, then dropped to a crouch and swung my spear across the ground.
All seven gi-ants tripped and tumbled as my masterful sweeping arc toppled them over simultaneously.
That’s what happened in my mind’s eye. In real life, the pole smacked into the first one’s leg, then stopped moving. I wasn’t strong enough to trip them.
I let go of my weapon and jumped forward. I landed on one’s back, then another as I ran across their hard carapaces like stepping stones. They squealed underneath me, but didn’t seem injured. I was about to run past the white cocoon and into the cave for shelter, but something about the enormous white structure caught my eye and slowed me down.
The cocoon wasn’t the milky white silk of a monster bug. Its surface was a series of flat, semitransparent panels that tapered to a point at each end. And there was a woman inside, trapped in crystal.
In my distraction, a gi-ant caught up with me and grabbed my leg. Then another one. I punched and kicked, but I couldn’t break free.
Their teeth are caught on the clothing. I wasn’t sure where that thought came from, but it had a point. I had ant creatures all over my body, but they hadn’t sunk their fangs into my skin yet. I pulled off my blue cotton shirt and threw it on the ground. The gi-ants couldn’t get themselves free of it. Their sharp fangs were too entangled!
