by J. E. Keep
War-Torn
J.E. & M. Keep
© 2015 Pathforgers Publishing.
All Rights Reserved. If you downloaded an illegal copy of this book and enjoyed it, please buy a legal copy. Either way you get to keep the eBook forever, but you’ll be encouraging us to continue writing and producing high quality fiction for you. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imaginations. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Michelle Keep. All cover art makes use of stock photography and all persons depicted are models.
This book is intended for sale to Adult Audiences only.
All sexually active characters in this work are over 18 and between non blood-related, consenting individuals.
More information is available at Pathforgers Publishing
If you require content warnings: this particular story contains violence, disfigurement, PTSD, war, gore, non-consent, MFM romance, and dark themes of a dystopian and war-torn world.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – The Front
Chapter 2 – The Soldiers
Chapter 3 – The Nobles
Chapter 4 – The Rebels
Chapter 5 – The Matron
Chapter 6 – The Soldiers
Chapter 7 – The Rebels
Chapter 8 – The Nobles
Chapter 9 – The Front
Chapter 10 – The Matron
Chapter 11 – The Soldiers
Chapter 12 – The Nobles
Chapter 14 – The Matron
Chapter 15 – The Front
Chapter 16 – The Soldiers
Chapter 17 – The Rebels
Chapter 18 – The Nobles
Chapter 19 – The Matron
Chapter 20 – The Rebels
Chapter 21 – The Nobles
Chapter 22 – The Front
Chapter 23 – The Front
Chapter 24 – The Matron
Chapter 25 – The Front
Chapter 26 – The Rebels
Chapter 27 – The Nobles
Chapter 28 – The Soldiers
Chapter 29 – The Rebels
Chapter 30 – The Front
Chapter 31 – The Matron
Chapter 32 – The Nobles
Chapter 33 – The Soldiers
Chapter 34 – The Rebels
Chapter 35 – The Soldiers
Chapter 36 – The Nobles
Chapter 37 – The Front
Chapter 38 – The Matron
Chapter 39 – The Rebels
Chapter 40 – The Nobles
Chapter 41 – The Front
Chapter 42 – The Matron
Chapter 43 – The Nobles
Chapter 44 – The Rebels
Chapter 45 – The Matron
Chapter 46 – The Nobles
Chapter 47 – The Matron
Chapter 48 – The Nobles
Chapter 49 – The Rebels
Note From The Authors
More By The Authors
Biography
Chapter 1 – The Front
The rattle of machine-gun fire along the endless trenches of the Eternal War’s frontier was constant. If it wasn’t happening nearby, Sergeant Levek heard it coming from further up or down the line instead. Soldiers grew used to it, along with the countless other nuisances and plagues that came with life at the front.
Ticks and fleas, the hacking cough of illness that spread so fast through the ranks, the various flesh-rot diseases which got a plethora of colourful names from the men. Just a taste of the miseries they endured day after day, until one day it ended.
And that day was always their last.
Sure, Levek knew men who had escaped. The man had served long enough at the front to have witnessed deserters running off. Most of those were shot before they ever got out of sight of the great barrier of trenches and pillbox bunkers. Most of the rest starved in the barren, cratered wastes beyond. Those who made it to the forests past that... they mostly starved too. Though a few—a lucky few—he knew...
It didn’t matter. Levek was a man of commitment. He didn’t believe in the war, but he valued the lives of his men. He was better than most enlisted officers; that wasn’t ego speaking. The tall, swarthy man had just survived longer than most any other, and it was because he was cautious. Both with his life and the lives of those he was in charge of. He’d learned the ins and outs, not only of combat, but of trench politics, and that last part was most important of all.
As dreary as life was for him at the front, however, one day that usually brightened the moods of the men was the arrival of the new conscripts. They got little to no training, but their arrival meant forces were shored up and duties were alleviated, if only a little, for a brief amount of time. And since news from home was rare, the bright young faces of new fodder tended to perk up the men.
For Levek, though, it was a bit of a bittersweet moment. For he knew what awaited those young fools.
The horse-drawn carts arrived over what was once railroad track. The old rails long deteriorated from lack of use. They were too expensive to maintain, machine parts far too rare, and with the war being a slow slog that never shifted lines more than a couple of miles in either direction, a steady rather than fast flow of goods was important.
Watching the young faces disembark from the carts, though, Sergeant Levek couldn’t help but notice one in particular.
She certainly didn’t blend in with the others. Her body was too tiny, her face too youthful, her eyes far too hopeful for being in such a horrid place. With her flaxen hair held up in a bun she stretched as her feet touched solid ground.
Her clothes were ill fitted, the simple brown colour blending against her tan skin, and she looked around her with such wonderment. Her wide, hazel eyes found him staring at her, and it was the warmest, gentlest smile he had ever seen. It was innocent and pure unlike anything else he’d known as she drank him in.
Women were so rare at the front, especially ones like her. Usually when a family was forced to offer up a daughter for service because they had no or too few sons, they offered up the biggest or homeliest of daughters they had. The ones least likely to make a life for themselves behind the front. But her?
He swallowed, suddenly feeling oafish in his big brown military trench coat, having not shaved in a few days. He was over six feet tall, with a handsome, rugged look to him. Black hair and brown eyes, he would’ve been a handsome man back home if not for the grime of the front and the harshness it’d put to his face. He was in his thirties, though even he’d lost count of where exactly, and the beautiful young woman looked too good to be true.
His heart wept for her then and there. She should not be here, he thought. It was a crime.
He’d found himself approaching her without even realizing it. He wanted to turn away, for he knew it’d be painful to talk with her, to know what her fate was here. But it was too late.
“Ya lost, miss?” he asked in his dark voice, a bit scratchy from the smoke, fumes, and worse of the front.
That bright smile never faded and she glanced around the area once more. “Uhm, yep.” She paused, her hands knitted behind her back as she looked up at him. “The medic station? That’s where they told me to report.”
Figures, he thought. She was too small, too delicate for even the callous commissioned officers to assign to combat duty. Not that it’d save her. It was only a slower death sentence at best.
He raised a hand and pointed towards a large wood-and-tarp structure. “That’s the place ya lookin’ for, lil’ miss.” He caught himself.
“I mean, Private.” He cracked a light, wry smile. He was her superior of course, the pips on his collar marking him as a Sergeant, but still, it wasn’t appropriate from his perspective. Even if he was near alone on that mark.
The joy that bubbled forth was surreal. It simply wasn’t possible for one person to radiate such feelings of warmth and tenderness just because they smiled. Just because of the way she looked at him. It was as if she’d given him something so remarkably special with simply her facial expression.
One of her hands came from behind her back, the tanned flesh looking so soft and supple despite the fact that she must have spent a lot of time in the sun. “I’m Caslian.”
“Levek,” he managed, though his voice nearly trembled saying it as he held her soft, delicate hand. “Here’s hopin’ I don’t need to see you again,” he said with a wry, good-natured smile, “but here’s hopin’ I do all the same.”
So long at the front being hard and formal, yet this one woman managed to lure out the man within just like that. Got him talking like he was a real, honest-to-goodness person once more, and not the grimy trench rat he’d become.
She squeezed his hand, and for a moment it was just the two of them, smiling and bonding on death’s stoop. They were both goners, sooner or later, but the moment seemed to stretch out for eternity until she finally retracted her hand. “Well, maybe a little boo-boo, then,” she offered with a musical giggle. “A little scrape and I’ll patch it up real good.”
He found himself grinning toothily almost immediately. “You’ll be the one I ask for.” Not that they allowed such things, of course. “You’ll be under Corporal Dren,” he said to her, “watch out. He’s not bad as they go, but he’ll work you to the point of passing out if you don’t fight back.”
That was the least of her worries, he thought. But how could he tell her that?
“Don’t worry, sir! I can look out for myself.” Her voice was so teasing, that sparkle in her eyes infectious as she took a step back, glancing towards her little neck of the woods. “I hope to see you again, Levek.”
He nodded to her sharply then gave her a crisp salute. A more precise one than he’d given a superior officer in years. “Carry on, Private. Look after yourself. Can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself first.”
“You worry a lot, don’t you?” she teased. “I’m as healthy as an ox!”
She took another step backwards, then another, her hands once more entwined behind her bottom. “You just make sure you come see me for something minor, that’s all.”
“Guaranteed,” he said with a soft smile.
There was so much more he wanted to say as she walked away, but how could he? Warning her didn’t change anything. It never did. She could arm herself, be on guard, but what would it do? At best it’d delay the inevitable and make the men who finally came for her more foul tempered.
Chapter 2 – The Soldiers
The crunch of rocks and gravel beneath the wagon’s wheels was monotonous and grating. The roads were so badly kept through the whole of the land that the ride had been an exceptionally bumpy one, jostling Major Hendrik Kelifron and his aide, Lieutenant Liena’sa, back and forth the entire way.
“How I long for a motorized carriage,” the short, half-elven officer in black uniform said with annoyance.
“I haven’t seen a motorized carriage that actually runs in years, Lieutenant.” It was no exaggeration. Not that the tall, severe-looking man was prone to such things. He was all business, and did little that wasn’t purposeful. If those hard, steel-blue eyes fell upon something, it was for a reason.
It wasn’t considered wise to talk at length about such things. The Eternal War that had dragged on between the realms of man and elf against the monstrous hordes of the east had demanded great sacrifice from all. Machine parts were at an exceptionally high premium, and were all relegated to the remaining factories in the capital city that still churned out Gatling guns, mortars, and the few artillery pieces they could still manage.
The other two guards that were with them were non-commissioned grunts of the army who only understood that they were on some routine requisition mission to harass the local peasant farmers for new recruits and to tally the upcoming year’s harvest for taxation. The two remaining tasks that the government ever managed to reach beyond the frontline or the capital for. Well, that or hunting down rebels.
Which was Major Kelifron’s true mission.
In their low-grade, dusty black uniforms, the two soldiers began to talk amongst themselves as they walked behind the wagon, which gave the pair of officers an opening.
“There was something not quite right about that last house, sir,” came the half-elf’s voice.
“You think I don’t realize that?” He shook his head and spared her only a passing glance to show his disapproval at her underestimating him. “They weren’t the ones we were after, however. Simply incestuous peasant folk. He was the father of his daughter’s child.” He spit on the side of the road, though his aide was clearly impressed with his investigative prowess.
Her nose crinkled as she slumped back, her fair hair tied in a ponytail beneath her officer’s hat. “Well, at least that’s one more soldier for us in a few years.”
Her ears were pointier than a human’s, her jaw a bit more angular and her eyes just slightly wider, but she could pass for either race if she had to. Not that she cared to, most of the time. The bumps in the road were getting to her and she rubbed her temple for a brief second before she caught her display of weakness and fell her hands to her side once more.
“Right,” he intoned in response.
The tall, slender man was usually so rigid when in uniform, but the long road was taking its tolls and he held the reins in hand, hunched over. “It’s against the law, technically, but inbred or not, the front needs more bodies. They’ll die before long either way.”
They both knew that to be true. The Eternal War chewed up bodies so fast, and hardly any got any reasonable amount of training before being sacrificed to the grinder of the frontline. The state couldn’t afford such luxuries when it barely held on in what minor capacities it still kept.
They were amongst the fortunate ones, for outside the capital city there was no order, no safety. And only the most fortunate of soldiers got a posting like theirs where they weren’t guaranteed a gruesome death, just a dismal one.
Behind them one of the soldiers spoke a little too loudly. “Y’hear of the attempt on the Queen’s life? They say it’s what prompted her to make that alliance with the dogbreaths.”
Major Kelifron arched a brow and peered back at the soldiers before looking ahead again. Lieutenant Liena’sa followed the man wherever he went as his aide, but she hadn’t yet been informed of their exact purpose for this particular mission.
“Dogbreaths,” she said under her breath. “Cute.” She was a severe-looking woman in her sharp, black suit, though Kelifron was likely the only person alive that knew of her softer side. She certainly didn’t show it often.
“Naw,” she said more loudly for the grunt to hear, “I never heard that. I guess news travels low first then high.” Her Major could see the smile on her lips, but the guard couldn’t, and that only made it sweeter.
The Major cracked a smirk so slight that only she could make it out and appreciate it for the approval it was. The soldiers behind her didn’t quite grasp the humour though. One of them spoke up and asked, “Is it true, sirs? Will the wolfkin be joinin’ the war?”
The two black-uniformed officers, of course, knew the truth of the matter: those monster-bred demi-humans were long engaged in the war. The treaty was just a formal acknowledgement of what was already a reality but was too repugnant to acknowledge for the state and its shell of a leadership in front of the few civil families of the capital.
“True and then some,” came his response. Though promptly he spoke in a firm, commanding tone, “Go scout to the sides. This is bandit country.” Though truth be
told, everything outside the capital was bandit country. They just weren’t likely to be foolish enough to try anything against state soldiers. They showed up so rarely outside of battle or the capital city it was just best not to risk government involvement in their raiding of peasants and caravans.
As the two soldiers trotted off into the woodlands at either side, it left the two of them in isolation again, and Lieutenant Liena’sa knew it for what it was: a rare opportunity to speak frankly with the severe Major.
She relaxed back for the first time, though she never really lost her rigid posture. “So what do we know that they don’t?” she asked, her honeyed voice so soft, as if they still might be able to hear. She was a cautious, cunning woman, but she knew not to ask questions that she didn’t want to know the answer to.
This time she did.
“Where should I start?” he retorted, and she thought that was all she’d get out of him, except the glance he paid to each side told her no. “The assassination attempt exposed weakness in the monarchy. Though,” he laughed derisively, “as you and I know, they’re nothing but a weakness. The bureaucrats run things, truthfully.”
It was one of the refreshing parts of her assignment and situation with him. He held so much over her he felt free with such statements of truth in private that no others dared. “The alliance had to be announced to show the monarchy has all that power and authority and security it doesn’t really have.”
She stared ahead for what felt like several minutes before she finally nodded in response. It made sense to her, and she turned to face him again.
“Well, with so many dead men and women we’re going to need a lot more allies than just that. There’s barely anyone of breeding age anymore.” It was an exaggeration, but not by a lot.
“They plan to clamp down on the family laws. Enforce mandatory child counts and marriage deadline.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They say that all the time though, but it’s just another thing they can rarely ever enforce.”
He went quiet, and his mind obviously drifted off elsewhere.
Hers wandered as well, and she found a small tendril of fear begin to creep into her mind before she brushed it away.
