A March of Woe

by Aaron Bunce

  A March of Woe

  Overthrown Volume 3

  by

  Aaron Bunce

  Autumn Arch Publishing

  Iowa

  www.AutumnArchPublishing.com

  Copyright © 2018 by Aaron Bunce

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or literary publication.

  Publisher’s note

  This is a work of fiction. All names, places, characters, and incidences are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, alive or dead, events or locations, is completely coincidental.

  A product of Autumn Arch Publishing

  Cover design: Christian Bentulan (www.coversbychristian.com)

  Interior design: Aaron Bunce

  Map Design: Alex Vialette

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978-0-9992026-2-3

  Amazon KINDLE: B079VSNJPT

  1st Edition –2018

  Table of Contents

  Bound Prologue

  Chapter One The Road Forward

  Chapter Two The Race

  Chapter Three Stronger Together

  Chapter Four Strange And Wonderful

  Chapter Five Old And Young

  Chapter Six Siege

  Chapter Seven Dire News

  Chapter Eight Nightbreaker

  Chapter Nine A Shrinking World

  Chapter Ten A Purpose

  Chapter Eleven Pulled Back

  Chapter Twelve Friend Or Foe

  Chapter Thirteen Eyes

  Chapter Fourteen Long Road Home

  Dusk wanes on an age.

  Chapter Fifteen Split Roads

  Chapter Sixteen A Stranger

  Chapter Seventeen Resurfacing

  Chapter Eighteen On The Run

  Chapter Nineteen Divided

  Chapter Twenty Rooted Out

  Chapter Twenty-One Not My Home

  Chapter Twenty-Two Finding Strength

  Chapter Twenty-Three The One Responsible

  Chapter Twenty-Four You Don’t Know Me

  Chapter Twenty-Five Breaking Point

  Chapter Twenty-Six Memories In Blood

  Chapter Twenty-Seven What Have You Become

  Life is our most precious commodity.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight Find Me

  Chapter Twenty-Nine Too Good to Be True

  Chapter Thirty Growing Out of Shadows

  Chapter Thirty-One Reunited

  Chapter Thirty-Two Flight

  Chapter Thirty-Three Fighting Back

  Chapter Thirty-Four Mending the Whole

  Chapter Thirty-Five A Thread of lineage

  Chapter Thirty-Six Finding Strength

  Chapter Thirty-Seven Sacrifice For All

  Epilogue Enjoy the following excerpt from

  About the Author

  (Untitled)

  Bound

  Manriel ‘al Unethra slumbers,

  And yet she does not sleep.

  She glides through the ethereal fog,

  Bringing her light where only shadows live.

  There are voices in the darkness.

  They call to her, curse her, and praise.

  She loves them, reaching out to hold them.

  She wants to bathe them in light.

  But she is bound. She is weak.

  The darkness presses in against her.

  It hates her light, her love.

  She resists, and yet cannot destroy it.

  Something stills her. Blinds her.

  Manriel reaches out to a clear voice.

  It is firmer to purpose than the others.

  She tears a thread from her silken body,

  And binds it to the distant voice.

  Pure.

  Manriel casts another thread into the void.

  Another voice is snared.

  Strong.

  She binds them. The pure and the strong.

  She waits.

  Unmarked Text found in seaside cave

  Bound verse, restored and illuminated by

  Senior Denil Brother Renius Bartholemew

  Chapter 1, verse 7-14.

  Prologue

  Despite the cold, stagnant air in the dark city, the atmosphere buzzed with a strange and undeniable energy. Shadowy figures passed by the open door to the building, huddled together in the cold like yearling sheep yet to grow into their wool.

  A hammer struck metal with a crash, filling the far corner with life. Those sparks quickly lost their heat, returning the space to the comforting darkness.

  The hunter waited. Not because it was particularly patient, but because it knew that it was supposed to. Deep inside, beneath the growing muscle and changing flesh beat a heart made to run, jump, and fight. It fought to stifle that nature and remain still.

  An emotion rose from deep inside. Something inexplicably engrained into its being that it simply could not deny. The hunter felt the draw to another, a lover perhaps? There was also anxiety for an item lost, and the urge to do a task with its hands. A trade?

  They aren’t real. They aren’t you! You are the hunter, a shadow made flesh, a new, stronger voice said. It poured into his body and washed the disembodied emotions back down below.

  The hammer struck metal again and again, the noise and light driving the hunter back against the wall as it tried to pull deeper into the shadows. Fabric ripped, the sound of individual breaking threads like rending metal in its ears. The hunter reached up and pulled the ruined garment from around its neck. Its body had grown, changed. It could no longer remember a time when it needed the garment. It shed that old skin.

  The skinsmith moved out of his dark workspace, a gleaming piece of red-hot metal clutched in long tongs. He approached the hunter, green gems pulsing dimly in the bracelet fused to his wrist. The hunter twitched, its first instinct to rip into the man and pull him apart, but the voice stilled it. Be still, be calm. Let the craftsman finish you. Let him make you perfect.

  Approaching slowly, the skinsmith dropped the hinged piece of hot metal onto the hunter’s shoulder, letting it drape down its back. Flesh popped and hissed, joining as one with the armored covering.

  The hunter dug its claws into the earth, a rumble forming from deep inside. The pain, mixing with the sensation and smell of dirt between its fingers jarred some of the old emotions loose once again.

  The skinsmith approached and clamped cuffs onto its shoulders, the gleaming metal ridged in multiple layers of sharp rings.

  Dirt. Work the dirt, feed it, water it. Nurture. It will provide. The words rose up inside the hunter so quickly it caught it off guard. It let its gaze drop to the ground. Its hands were shaping the dark earth, rending holes, and packing it in mounds.

  The skinsmith walked back from the darkness, a domed piece of metal held out before him, this piece shaped like the top half of a skull. Several long, barbed horns protruded into the air. Green runes glowed on the underside of the dark metal, pulsing in time with the Evermother’s dark heart. It knew that it was her essence, her poison, which birthed it. Before then, the hunter had no recollections. The poisonous essence in its blood was her body, while the runes were her voice. Together they were one.

  The voice jabbed into its mind, overriding every other thought and desire. The hunter felt pain and smelled hair burning, but it did not care. It relished the Evermother’s embrace, and savored every bit of her attention. By the time her hold on it loosened and fell away, the metal surrounding its head had cooled. The skinsmith jerked the hunter’s head aside as he tested the hold, before quickly retreating to a safe distance.

  Green sh
apes flitted in and out of the hunter’s vision as it opened its eyes. The darkness didn’t engulf it anymore. Instead, the darkened corners were now bright and full of life. Twitching, huddled forms sat against the walls, their hands and legs bound with chain. It wouldn’t kill these creatures. Soon, they would be taken. Some would be lucky enough to be chosen, and then they would share the Evermother’s embrace, and be just like the hunter. They too would help the hunter cleanse paradise for the Evermother’s children to inherent.

  The skinsmith returned one last time, dragging heavy lengths of chain behind him. The hunter heard the gems in the man’s bracelet ringing with the Evermother’s voice. It could feel her love guiding the skinsmith’s hand.

  Pain flared as the smith drove the rivets into the hunter’s flesh, fastening the claw-like gauntlets onto its hands. It drove its knuckles into the ground, rending the dirt. Like a plow. Work the soil, feed it. Nurture. Grow.

  “Home,” it croaked, softly. The distant longing for its old self was strong and threatened to tear the hunter in two. An image of a small house and tilled field flashed into the hunter’s mind, just for a heartbeat, before the Evermother’s love cascaded back in.

  You are perfect. All that came before me was vapor, lies in the mist. Purpose is all that matters to you. Go now. Follow the lost voices. They will lead you to the strongest of them. Tame paradise for me,” the Evermother pleaded.

  The hunter felt her need, her desperation, and wanted only to please her, to see her desires fulfilled. It bolted out through the open doorway, past the idle skinsmith, and into the cold.

  The hunter surged up onto a roof, clawed its way down the side of a building, and crashed through a wooden fence that used to store animals. It slid to a halt in a courtyard, two sizable gates looming above. They were closed. The city was shut tight, but only for the weak. It leapt high, driving the metal gauntlets into the wood gate, and climbed onto the stone wall, stopping only when it reached the top of the massive wall.

  The hunter climbed atop the smooth stone and turned back, taking in the massive, dark city. The structures were changing, shifting, and finding their new purpose. Its eyes were drawn to the black tower at its center, the beating heart of the city, the beating heart of the Evermother.

  As if beckoned, a black mist filled the air before the hunter. It swirled around it, denying the buffeting winds, before finally solidifying a few paces away. The hunter dropped its head, a gut-wrenching mixture of emotions nearly unseating it completely. Love, embrace, pain, unworthiness.

  A finger curled under the hunter’s helm and lifted the twisted creature’s head. The Evermother stood straight, her skin as pure and white as the moon’s cool light, a wispy gown trailing off into inky shadow. Her jet-black hair flowed around two graceful, curving horns, and framed a surprisingly youthful and gentle face. Her eyes burned like sparkling emeralds.

  The hunter keened a single time, howling into the wind with its twisted voice, before turning to take in the dark landscape with its goddess.

  “Feel them. Hear them,” the Evermother whispered.

  In response, several soft voices echoed in the distance, burning in the hunter’s vision like distant stars. Two…no, three. Curious. The first felt strong, just like the Evermother, but angrier…twisted.

  “Rebellious…profane defiler,” whispered the Evermother. She hated that one, so the hunter despised it as well.

  The second voice was strong too, but rang with a different life, as if split between light and shadow. Curious. The Evermother was highly intrigued, but the hunter couldn’t tell why. She was holding something back.

  “In time,” she cooed.

  The third captured its attention, however. It burned brighter than either, a strange and intoxicating blend of life it couldn’t discern. It was both spirit and flesh at the same time. Impossible. No being could walk both planes. There was no denying the power. The hunter felt the Evermother tasting its curiosity, feeding on it and compelling it forward. Yes. Find. Collect.

  “Find it. Bring it to me…”

  The hunter dove off the wall, landing in a plume of snow, and disappeared into the storm.

  Chapter One

  The Road Forward

  The carriage lulled him, the gentle creaks and groans blending with the muffled thump of horse hooves in snow. Kida drifted in and out of sleep, his dreams merging with his waking life until he really couldn’t distinguish the two apart.

  He saw his master, Senior Denil monk Hobart Dalman, materialize out of the darkness, the wizened man’s gray eyes like sharp crystals in the light. The man had served as his mentor, father, and guide since he was but five winter thaws old.

  Ban Turin howled and wailed around him, the wind screaming against the building. Brother Dalman moved towards him, first disappearing in a pool of shadow, before appearing again in the flickering light of a solitary candle.

  “Kida, the city is not a safe place for you anymore,” the old monk said.

  Kida rocked unsteadily on his feet. It felt like the entire building shifted beneath him.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, finding it difficult to form the words.

  “A darkness rots the city. It will spread. It will corrupt the realm until no one is safe. It may already be too late,” Brother Dalman said. The candle flame flickered, splashing the old monk in a dizzying display of shadow and light.

  Darkness rots the city. Decay from time, or evil? His thoughts hung over those words, troubling over them sluggishly. The monk disappeared into the darkness, but he didn’t notice right away. He was too preoccupied on the old monk’s words. They unsettled him, just like when he was a child, sitting around his pa’s fireplace. Sometimes they told stories of family, but usually they were dark tales, built in folk lore from his mother’s Fanorian low country lineage. There was something there. Something the old man wasn’t telling him.

  The room rocked from side to side, and then tipped forward. Kida fell into the darkness, his body tumbling awkwardly. Something collided with his face and he snorted, drawing in a quick breath. He smelled old leather, paraffin wax, and horse.

  Kida untangled his robes and pulled himself up and into the bench. He rubbed his face, favoring the sore spot on his forehead. He kicked the case at his feet irritably, not only chiding himself for drifting off to sleep so easily, but falling out of his seat.

  “Like a baby,” he grumbled, but cocked his head to the side. The carriage didn’t rock anymore, and he couldn’t hear the muffled clomping of horse hooves, or the jingling of the tack and gear. They had stopped. That was why he fell.

  Hesitating for a moment, Kida finally pushed the small carriage door open. He shimmied his frame through, leaving the relative warmth of the carriage’s interior, and instantly regretted it. The air was dark and cold, colder than any winter’s day he could remember. The wind whipped against him, stabbing through his traveling cloak and the robes beneath it as if he weren’t wearing any clothes at all.

  Kida jumped clear and landed knee-deep in cold, fluffy snow. He bunched up the traveling cloak and robes, lifting them clear of his boots. Disembodied voices swirled on the winds around him, punctuated by the whinnying and snorting of horses.

  He stumbled forward several times, tripping over logs and rocks buried in the snow, until the team of horses came into view. The carriage driver stood atop the bench above him, his arms flailing as he screamed into the wind.

  “Grab ‘em both by the bridle and pull ‘em sideways like! The other way!” the man screamed.

  Kida watched as a much smaller figure bobbed in and out of view, fussing with the horses and their gear. The horses fought him, tossing their heads and tramping the snow.

  “What happened?” Kida asked, hollering into the wind.

  The younger man continued to corral the horses, jumping up until he managed to get both of the animal’s gear in hand at the same time. Neither he, nor the man on the carriage, seemed to notice him.

  “Why have we stopped?�
� Kida yelled, trudging forward and taking care to stay clear of the fidgeting horses.

  This time the wind died down just as he yelled and the man on top of the carriage turned.

  “Ah, young Master,” the carriage driver said, leaping off the high bench and landing gracefully in the snow. “You should really stay in the carriage. You will freeze to death in this wind.”

  “Why have we stopped?”

  “Please, return to the carriage, young Master,” the driver said loudly, trying to turn Kida back towards the carriage.

  “No…wait, we have come so far. I need to get to Silma. Why are you turning around?”

  “Trees are blocking the road. We cannot move them, and we cannot go around. We must turn around. It’s alright, young Master. We will come back after the storm has cleared,” the driver said.

  “I can’t…a message. I have an urgent…must…see Lord Thatcher,” Kida sputtered, his arms twitching up before him.

  The carriage hand managed to get the horses to heel, and the wheels turned. Kida’s desperation grew as he watched the carriage rumble through the snow, turning in a wide arc until it was facing north again.

  “Take ease, young Master. We will keep you safe and warm in the carriage. There is a roadside inn just a bit back, sits on a little hill with a great view of Lake Mynus. Sadinea runs the place. She keeps a clean inn, wonderful food, and she is not too hard on such young eyes, heh?” the driver said, hooking his right arm over Kida’s shoulders. He tried to pull him back to where the carriage hand waited by the horses.