by F. C. Reed
ASCENDANT
Chronicles of the Red Lion
F. C. Reed
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by F. C. Reed
Custom cover at miblart.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, feel free to contact me at: [email protected].
First edition November 2020
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
“My father tells me not to talk about the light beams,” the boy said. He was short for his age. Scrawny and knobby, he had too much legs under not enough torso. A field of light brown freckles peppered the olive skin of his cheeks and nose. His long loose curls, black at the roots, and blond along the ends, shifted in time with the wind.
A man, advanced in his age, sat atop the hill, surrounded by long, supple golden blades of grass. They rippled around him like waves folding over an active sea. With legs crossed and eyes closed, the man pushed out a slow breath. “And why not?”
The boy shrugged. “He said nobody else can see them, so I shouldn’t talk about it. Or they’ll call me crazy.” His voice trailed off. “And they’ll take me away.”
“Your father sounds like a wise man, although he’s wrong about this,” the old man replied. His voice came out harsh and grating. The wet, gravelly sound of accumulated phlegm scraped across his pronunciation in choppy bursts until he cleared his throat. “Because others cannot see a thing does not mean that thing does not exist. It just means they cannot see it.”
The sudden strength in his voice enclosed around his words like an iron casing. There was a vigor to his presence that belied his sparse white hair and weathered skin, cracked and creased as old boot leather. The man pushed his hands out of the sleeves of his robe and clasped them in his lap. “Besides, it’s good for me he gave you that advice.”
“Why?”
“Because had he told you not to talk to strangers, it certainly would have made my job a whole lot more difficult.”
The boy hesitated with a frown. Moments later, his curiosity gave him the courage to explore. “Are you making that light beam?” he asked, gesturing to the anomaly before them.
“Ah, so you can see it.” The old man said with delight. “And if you can see it, you can no doubt feel it. That’s a start. More than I expected.”
The boy regarded him with a mixture of wonder and distrust. After a few moments, he moved to leave but struggled against the overwhelming urge to sit down. To stay. To make himself comfortable, or available, or even vulnerable. He couldn’t explain the desire to stay any more than he could explain why he was there.
“It pulls at you, doesn’t it?” the old man said over a smile, his eyes still closed. “I also think, little one, that this,” he said, nodding at the shaft of light, “is the reason you are here. The reason you have defied your father and risk being called crazy and hauled off to who knows where.”
He motioned for the boy to sit, pointing to a spot in the yellow grass next to him. He waited for the boy to approach, who only squatted next to him, perhaps so he could dash away at the first signs of trouble. “To answer your question, I am indeed making that light beam. It is a gateway to another existence.”
“Why are you making it?”
“Because I need to get home,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at the boy with an appraising eye.
“Your home is through there?” The boy pointed at the shaft of light that seemed to split the horizon in two.
“Yes. I must go back to my home. Of all the places in the aetherverse, this is the most damnable of the bunch, despite its serene beauty.” He inhaled deeply and grimaced, recoiling from the scentless, fresh air. “This place is poison to those of us who enjoy poison. I don’t know what to make of air that is so clean it has no smell. How do you find your way around?”
The boy giggled. “You need to smell to see?”
The old man nodded. “My plane of existence operates very differently from this one.” He squinted into the daylight, thoughts caressing the forefront of his mind. “There are nine streams of consciousness, but only one can be accessed at any given time. Did you know that?”
The boy stared at him as though he spoke a foreign language.
“Of course you didn’t. Something perhaps your father planned to keep to himself. Well, besides all that, I have found you,” the man said with a nod and a smile. “The boy who sees what others do not.”
“I’ve seen the light beams before,” the boy said. “The gateways, I mean.” He sat straighter, proud of his experiences with the beams of light, and prouder still to share. He did not understand if his revelations to the old man would help or hurt, put him in danger, or protect him. The boy was just glad that the old man didn’t cuff him across the ear for speaking about any of it aloud, much like his father would have.
“I’ve no doubts you have seen them. You can thank your mother for that ability.” The old man smirked under his bushy white eyebrows.
The boy’s gaze dropped to his lap. He snatched up a small white flower. “My father told me my mother died when I was just a baby. I don’t remember her.” He began tearing the petals off, one by one, thumping them into the wind.
“I see. A shame.” The old man sighed. “In that case, would you like me to tell you about her?”
The boy’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with surprise. “You knew my mother?”
“I did,” the old man nodded. He paused. “What is your name, little one?”
“Rendan,” the boy said.
“Ah. Rendan,” the old man intoned with an approving nod. “Verellen for ‘courage.’ You speak Verellen, son?”
Rendan shook his head. “My father said it’s a dead language and nobody uses it anymore.”
The old man smiled again, casting a furtive glance up at the fluffy white clouds drifting through the sky. “Call me Aturos.” The old man extended his hand to Rendan.
The boy stiffened upon seeing the mangled hand which was missing the tips of the ring and pinkie fingers. His eyes grew wide and a sliver of terror crept up the length of his spine like a cold, ru
sted nail across a sheet of metal. He wanted nothing more than to shrink himself into a tiny speck of dirt, to flit away on a gust of wind. His father warned him. How could he have been so easily fooled?
To fear is to run, Rendan thought, his father’s tone and seriousness ringing in his head.
“Not one for shaking hands,” Aturos nodded, studying Rendan carefully. “I don’t blame you,” he chuckled. “I don’t know where my hand’s been either, and it’s been securely attached to my arm all day today. Now. About your mother. Where should I begin?” Aturos turned toward the horizon. “I believe it was about the time that —
Rendan hopped to his feet when the will to flee filled his body with adrenaline, shocking him into a quick sprint. However, the hand that flashed up and grabbed his wrist set him in place.
“Why so eager to leave? You just got here, and you have heard none of my tales about your mother. You want to hear them, don’t you?” Aturos said, scanning Rendan’s face. He smiled at the frightened, panting boy. “You still have the fear,” he said, moreso to himself. “No point in trying to run. I’m much, much faster than you are. You wouldn’t believe how fast I am.”
Rendan’s breaths heaved out in panicked skips now, the old man still holding him. “I have to get back home. My father wants me home for an early dinner. I have to go. Please let me go.”
“Nonsense. We’ll wait for this sourceway to open, little one. It seems to take a while, doesn’t it?” Aturos stared into the boy’s wild, frantic eyes. “While we wait, I will tell you about your mother. That will no doubt calm your nerves. Perhaps I’ll tell you a little about your father too, although I don’t know near as much about him. And when this sourceway formulates, you’ll be going through it with me.”
Rendan felt the desire and the urge to escape drain out of him as the old Aturos talked. His posture slackened and a worried frown cascaded over his features as his hopelessness overtook his desperation. “Please,” he squeaked in a quiet whisper. “Please.”
Aturos smiled into the sun as it set, his hand still closed around Rendan’s wrist. He closed his eyes, the golden rays bathing him in warmth. “Might as well sit, son. It’s kind of a lengthy story.” He waited for the boy to plop down next to him, defeat playing over his features and hunched shoulders. “Now. Doesn’t that feel better?”
“I’m a little hungry.”
“Is that so? Well, we don’t quite have the luxury of food right now. Chew on a blade of grass or something.” He watched the boy puzzle over his suggestion. Waving with an impatient flick, he growled, “Go on. You’ll find it tastes like melon. Thank me later.”
Aturos shrugged, pulled a long blade of yellow grass from a nearby tuft and stuck it in his mouth. His eyebrows shot up on his forehead as the tiny grass blade burst into flavor.
“Now then. It was about the time that the single most important plane of existence died a sloppy, disheveled, inglorious, and humiliating death. We needed to decide the fate of the rest of the athersphere after that. Then I went and got myself banished, like a greased idiot.” He paused, grimacing. “So I couldn’t stop them from making the biggest mistake in all of sentience. They created the infinity particle, the damnable pack of stubborn-arsed fools.”
“What’s the infinity particle?” Rendan asked.
“Hush, boy. This’ll take eons if you ask questions. We’ll get to that soon enough.” He frowned at Rendan to give a visual to his irritation, discouraging him from future questions.
“Fast forward — well, fast forward a lot of years, and the mistake of it all became clear, not only to us, but to the bad guys too. And that’s when all the hells break loose, but not right at once. We had time to prepare.”
“So far, this story is terrible,” Rendan said, looking irritated and disappointed. He poked a row of holes in the dirt with a small stick.
“What?” Aturos shrugged, his tone defensive. “What do you want? I’m not good at telling stories, okay? I wasn’t expecting to entertain you.”
Rendan glanced back at him, still frowning.
“Fine, I’ll skip to the good part,” Aturos sighed. “I think I liked you better when you had the fear. But before I continue, I must say your command of the Verellen language is far beyond you being able to understand just a little.”
“I don’t speak Verellen.”
“That is most definitely not the case, little one,” Aturos said. “For we have been conversing in Verellen this entire time. Or didn’t you notice?”
Chapter One
First Sergeant Lariss Asirra turned her face toward the twilight that formed over the far horizon to the west, her chin dragging against the ground as she did so. Wispy purple haze, a trick on the sun’s lighting, hung at the world’s edge in a thick heavy mist. The sight might have been beautiful if she were not lying against the ground with one cheek pressed against the dirt-dusted stone.
The vanishing sun’s light enhanced the silhouettes of the army that occupied the deep ravine below her as the spray of salty waters peppered her face from the west in light sheets. To the east, hills rolled as far as the eye could see, cradling the broad valley that held the Legion.
Thousands upon thousands of soldiers moved along the valley toward their destination. An inevitable military confrontation with the Legion caused her distress and regret, but she was a soldier in the Crimson Bloodguard, guardian of her home and realm.
Miles of land grew poisoned beyond redemption as the Legion moved. Ruined cities, war, and the turning of innocent souls to the black harbored generations of embittered and orphaned children. The Legion devoured everything, as was their nature.
Had she not seen the collection of monstrosities with her own two eyes, she’d have called the one reporting sights reserved for a terrible nightmare a liar. The wind scooped up and stirred the sulfurous and oily stench of decayed flesh and brimstone, testing her gag reflexes constantly. The sounds made her fear. But the sights made her believe.
The Legion, a corporeal manifestation of the idea of life’s end, was as real as the insects crawling about in front of her nose. It’s unstoppable and indestructible nature also played on the metaphor that death spares no soul.
Razor hounds, fire ravens, and creepers, the blackness of decay clinging to their rotted bodies, plagued the skies and ground. Remotely operated cadavers, or ROCs for short, lumbered within the ranks of the other soldiers with an awkward and twitchy gait. They also sported metal straps across their chests and shoulders that bound their bits of flesh and chunks of bone together. The chest cavity held volatile explosives linked to an electromagnetic detonator which doubled as an approximation of life through its pulses of current.
Necrotrancers took up the rear of the formation. A line of thin-limbed once-humans, gray skin taut over their bodies, controlled the lesser beings with action and inaction, like masters of some great dead, stinking puppet. They animated the dead and ensured there were living beings and the unturned to feed upon. That absorption of life fueled the black and drove it forward. Anyone who succumbed to the hunger of the Legion became a part of the Legion, thus completing the cycle.
Steelbacks, monstrous transports that resembled giant black and red beetles, dragged their shells through earth and stone with long, serrated hook-like appendages. This action flattened the areas which needed flattening, and widened cramped areas along the valley to allow the Legion to pass with relative ease. The operation saw that a gentle rumble persisted as the Legion moved, albeit at a glacial pace.
For months upon end, the Legion transversed the terrain south, and for months, Asirra’s contingent of scouts tracked them. They hadn’t moved very far, for the size of the Legion was great, choking the valley with a blanket of bloated, rotting and crumbling souls.
The essence of death, or the black, as it was also called, coalesced either as a thick billowing cloud or an oily bilious slime. It dragged itself along in a gelatinous liquid but could solidify as pitch black shards harder than obsidian under the right condit
ions. The solid form appeared so dark that the surface seemed to swallow the light. The black always took the form and function best suited to its purpose.
Asirra had become separated from her team. Their task was to surmise an approximated account of the Legion’s troop types and overall numbers over the past several weeks, chart their direction of travel, and report on general activities.
Destroying the source of the Legion’s power was their primary task. Often referred to as a gatespire, the structure gave direction to the black, and thus provided momentum to the Legion. The recon outfit’s secondary task was the elimination of the Iron General Bastille, the Legion’s highest commander.
The Iron General did not always accompany the Legion, but the Legion always accompanied the black. The Legion and the black were insistent upon one another. But until now, the Legion lay dormant for centuries along with the black. Fact turned over to fiction, and fiction turned over to legend in the time since anyone encountered the undead monstrosities. Now they moved.
Asirra paused for a moment, listening intently to the faint strangled cries of the living realm as the black devoured it. The essence of death fed on the essence of life. The wrenching sound constantly reminded her of what was at stake, and therefore boosted her resolve to continue, but it also weighed her down with its slow and systematic stripping away of life. Her task remained grim, but no less imperative. Fear found its way into her soul as she prepared to descend the cliff into a wide valley filled with animated death in search of the gatespire. Finding the Iron General would confirm the worst of all her fears, and a part of her hoped he did not show.