The Water Road
Page 41
He stopped when he heard the sound of galloping hooves behind him. He turned just quickly enough to get a good look at the Neldathi horseman that took his life.
Coming in 2016!
The Endless Hills – Book Two of The Water Road Trilogy
The Second Great Neldathi Uprising has begun, setting the world of the Water Road on fire.
United by Antrey Ranbren, the Neldathi clans have attacked across the great river, laying waste to the metropolis of Innisport. Now they hunt the Triumvirate army in the Endless Hills of Telebria. Antrey knows a crushing victory in pitched battle is what they need to win this war. The Neldathi have swept aside everything in their path, but time is not on their side. That’s why she’s sent Naath and Goshen on desperate missions to find help.
Trapped in Oberton by the negative reaction to her book exposing the Triumvirate’s treatment of the Neldathi, Strefer wonders how the Neldathi have been so successful on the battlefield. She leaves the safety of the city in the trees to find the truth. Along with Rurek, she traces the evidence back to the last place she ever expected.
A world torn apart by war and a dwindling sense of hope for the future - the next chapter in the epic saga of The Water Road.
The Bay of Sins – Book Three of The Water Road Trilogy
The explosive conclusion to the epic tale of justice and revenge changes the world of the Water Road forever.
About the Author
JD Byrne lives in West Virginia with his wife and one-eyed dog. He writes fantasy, science fiction, and other similar stuff when he’s not practicing law. Come say hi:
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Also by JD Byrne
The Last Ereph and Other Stories
Kol runs down the corridor, agents of His Eminence hot on his heels. He needs escape, a way out, but all he sees is a heavy wooden door. Does salvation or capture lie behind it? In “The Last Ereph,” he finds the answer and more than he could have ever expected.
That and nine other short stories make up this collection of science fiction and fantasy.
Ten exciting stories – ten new worlds.
Moore Hollow
Ben Potter’s life is a shambles. As a journalist he’s hit rock bottom, writing dreck about monsters and ghouls to make ends meet after a big story blew up in his face. As a son he’s a disappointment, unwilling to follow his father, grandfather, and great grandfather into the family business. As a father, he’s mostly just not there.
Now a new assignment could change all that. All he has to do is go from London to the hills of West Virginia to investigate the strangest of stories his great grandfather told. Did a sleazy politician really raise the dead to try and win an election? And if he did, what happened to the zombies? Could they still exist? Ben needs to find out, to solve the mystery and find a way to get his life back on track.
But finding the answer only presents Ben with a whole new batch of problems. Does he use what he learns to put his life back on track? Or will he be compelled to do the right thing, even if it leaves his life a mess?
The hardest part of a mystery is deciding what to do once you’ve solved it.
An Excerpt
From Moore Hollow, a novel of family grudges, corrupt politicians, and the undead, set in West Virginia:
The book said nothing on the outside, its brown leather binding just barely holding up against years of abuse and neglect. It was about the size of a trade paperback with an afterimage of rough cowhide on the cover that had been worn smooth with age. He flipped open the cover and found the title page. The word “Journal” was printed across the top in barely legible gothic script. Underneath were a few black lines, spaces for the owner to write his name and the dates covered. The dates, written in neat, plain handwriting, were “July, 1905” and “February, 1907.” In the space where the journal owner’s name was written, it said, “Reginald Benjamin Potter.”
“Bloody hell,” Ben said.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” Artith asked, leaning back in her chair and looking extremely pleased.
Ben stared at the journal. “It’s my name, all right. But it’s not me. I’m the fourth poor soul to be saddled with it.” He closed the book and rubbed the rugged outer covering again. “Is this my great-grandfather’s?”
“You’ll have to tell me,” she said. I flipped through it, but I wasn’t really interested in the stuff he said about England. Did your namesake go to America?”
Ben nodded. “For a couple of years just after he left school. He went to some backwoods mountain town, coal mining country.” Ben shot her a dull look. “Only someone in my family would travel halfway around the world to wind up in a place that was just like home.”
Artith flashed him a confused look.
“Yorkshire,” Ben said, remembering that they had never really talked about his family before. “My family’s from just outside of Leeds. Been there for centuries. So leave it to my ancestor to go from English coal country to American coal country.”
“West Virginia,” she said.
Ben chuckled. “Where the bloody hell is that?”
“Somewhere west of Virginia, I suspect,” she fired back. “You know anything about what he did while he was over there?”
Ben shook his head. “Something with railroads, I think. The ones they used to haul coal out of the mines and to wherever it went before it got shipped off. He only spent a couple of years there before he came home and started the family business.”
“Which is not paranormal investigation or journalism, let me guess?” Artith said, chuckling.
“Much to my father’s chagrin,” Ben said, remaining stoic. “Civil engineering, actually.”
“How come you’re not an engineer then, Ben?” Artith asked, enjoying this little bit of torment. “Bad at maths?”
“No,” Ben said, more defensively than intended, “although that didn’t help. It just never did anything for me. To be a good engineer you have to be curious about how things work and why they sometimes don’t.”
“And you don’t care?” Artith continued.
Ben shook his head. “So long as whatever the damned thing is actually works, I’ve got no interest in the details.”
Artith thought for a moment like she had another prickly question ready but apparently passed on asking it. Instead, she shifted topics. “Did you know your great-grandfather then?”
“No, no,” Ben said, shaking his head. “He died before the Second World War. Granddad told me a lot about him, though.”
“He was an engineer too?” she asked.
Ben turned his head to one side, looked at the wall in thought, then said, “After a fashion.” Looking back to Artith’s confused face, he added, “He was a bit eccentric.”
She let that pass by unremarked. “Did your Granddad tell you anything about what his dad did in America then?”
“A little bit,” Ben answered without thinking. Then something tickled the back of his memory, something he hadn’t thought about for years. “Why?”
Artith leaned forward in her chair as if she might pounce. “I told you I skimmed that over the weekend,” she said, pointing to the book in Ben’s hands. “Your namesake tells quite a tale in there. As he lays it out, one of the local politicians was in a very tight race for his seat on whatever their little local council was called.”
Ben whistled. “A hundred-year-old political squabble is the kind of thing that gets you excited these days, Artith? Better find a job at Sky.”
She waved the joke away. “No, no, no. What’s interesting is what this desperate pol did about it. Or rather tried to do about it. According to your great-grandfather at least.”
“Which wa
s?” Ben asked. The memory was coming into better focus now. He had some idea where this was going.
“This guy,”—she paused for a moment—“the name escapes me, but this guy, according to your forefather, actually raised the dead so that they could vote for him.”
Something clicked in his head. “Ah, yes,” he said. “The zombie voters.”
“You knew about this?” Artith asked, obviously hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not as if I was holding out on you, Artith,” Ben said. “Granddad told me a few stories. They were fun, but I never thought they were real. Seriously, why should I?”
“And nothing about working for the Journal made you think, perhaps, in a moment of reflection, that the time was ripe to revisit these stories?” she asked. It was clearly a rhetorical question.
Ben answered anyway. “I don’t work for the Journal, Artith, or for you unless some checks have gone missing in the post.”
She put up her hands in mock concession.
“Look, I loved my Granddad,” Ben explained. “But he was a little, what’s the word? Off, you know? When he’d talk about things his father saw in America I just took them for what they were—fun stories. Besides, Artith, you know me at least a bit. Do you think that working for places like the Journal have made me a believer in all this shit?” He gestured around the room, taking in all the paranormal exotica on display.
She shook her head. “Of course not,” she said, not altogether convinced. “That’s not why I showed you that, anyway.”
“It’s not?” Ben asked. “Then why? It’s kind of neat, I guess, but—”
“I want you to check it out,” she said, cutting him off with a devious look.
Get the rest of Moore Hollow here!