by Graham Brown
Shadows II
The Half Life
Graham Brown
and
Spencer J. Andrews
Stealth Books
Blue Lotus Publishing
The Half Life
Copyright © 2015 Blue Lotus Publishing: Graham Brown and Andrew Brown
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be printed, scanned, copied or transmitted without the express written consent of the authors.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents and places are products of the authors’ imagination and are used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual places, things, events or persons is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-939398-41-3
Cover design by Kit Foster
Also by Graham Brown & Spencer J. Andrews
Shadows of the Midnight Sun
The first instalment of the epic Shadows trilogy.
“…surges alone, effectively putting the reader on the raw edge of chaos…” – Webbweaver Reviews
The Gods of War
In 2137 the world is dying. Mars is humanity’s only hope. But war has already found the red planet.
“…epic military science fiction at its gritty, page turning best.” – Jeff Edwards, award winning author of Sword of Shiva
Prologue: The Dark Stone of Power
Arabian Peninsula, 1186 A.D.
The morning sky burned red as blood, as if a great fire raged in the heavens. Far below, on a long forgotten corner of the earth, a group of men on horseback thundered across the tawny sands of an enormous desert. They carried shields adorned with the Cross and a banner blessed by the church, but they were far removed from their appointed route, far from the Crusade in the Holy Land.
Richard of Wessex rode at the head of the procession atop a magnificent steed. Fifty had set out from the court, but only the most hardy had survived.
Richard’s second, a man named Thaddeus, rode up to him. “The morning air is cool, but the sun will soon take its toll. We should find shelter and we should find it soon.”
The small force had been riding at night to avoid the blistering heat of the day, but the prize and their destination loomed just over the horizon.
“Look around you,” Richard said. “There’s nowhere to rest, no shade for miles. Not until we reach the ruins. Even if there were some place to take cover, I wouldn’t stop now. Not this close to our destination.”
Thaddeus knew better than to argue. He knew Richard’s mind well; he knew the obsession that drove his master. During their first journey to the Holy Land, Richard had become interested in the history of the ancients. In return for sparing the life of a Moorish historian, he’d been given an ancient scroll. The writing dated to an era when even the Pharaohs were just a whisper on the distant horizon of time. Its contents were written in a forgotten language and Richard spent nearly a year searching for someone who could read it.
In the end, he found a rabbi of the most ancient sect. After reading the parchment, the rabbi tried to destroy it. Only under the pain of torture did this teacher reveal its secrets. It described a weapon of unlimited power, a weapon even the angels of God feared, a weapon known as the Dark Star. This device had been hidden in a canyon beyond the reaches of man, centuries before Moses walked the Earth.
“The ruins had better be near,” Thaddeus said. “We’re running low on water. The horses will soon drop from the heat. We should have taken camels like those the nomads ride.”
“Disgusting animals,” Richard said.
“Disgusting, yes, but far more suited to this place,” Thaddeus replied. “If we don’t find the ruins soon—and water with them—the sun will bleach our bones for a thousand years to come.”
Richard nodded. Privately he worried that Thaddeus might be right. He’d left the rabbi under guard with orders that he and his family should be protected until the knights returned, and killed after sufficient torture if they did not come back in six months’ time. He’d considered this warning adequate protection against some trick, but the deeper his band went into the searing desert, the fewer of them survived and the more Richard wondered if the rabbi had sent them to their deaths despite the threat that loomed over him.
So far the journey had been arduous, worse even than predicted. The sun and the heat were conquered by moving at night. But there were no landmarks along the way. Only sand dunes that towered hundreds of feet above them and moved slowly but constantly as if they were alive. For three nights they’d been unable to see the stars that led them because of a dust storm. And for two days they’d hidden from a swarm of locusts so large it blotted out the sky. A dozen men and horses had died after drinking from a poisoned well. Others had vanished in the night as if swept away by the wind.
But eventually they’d reached a pristine oasis shaped like the tip of a spear. This landmark, promised by the scroll, pointed them in the final direction. Two days after that, they’d come to the dry lakebed, the heat on its surface shimmering like a mirage in the sun.
If they could finish the crossing, make it to the hidden temple and retrieve the weapon, they would return to the Holy Land carrying a power that none could resist. Not the other knights or the lords of Europe, not the Jews, or the Muslims. Not even Saladin himself would stand before them.
“Faster,” Richard commanded. “Faster.”
As the heat of the day grew, the small party left the flat sands of the dry lakebed and reached the base of a canyon where another spring flowed. A trickle of dark water ran through the canyon. Palm trees and flowering plants grew around it. The horses drank and men filled their canteens amid colors and smells vastly different than the dust and sweat of the desert.
They moved forward in the shade of the canyon walls. Near the far end of the box canyon at the foot of a great cliff, they found the crumbled ruins of what had once been a stronghold. There was no sign of occupants and no clue as to who’d built it. The trickle of water ran down the cliff behind it and past the foot of the ancient stone.
“Tie the horses here,” Richard said. “We’ll approach the gates on foot.”
“Is that wise?” Thaddeus asked. “On foot we’ll be vulnerable.”
“A great power is hidden within,” Richard said. “More than any army of men could ever command. If an adversary waits for us here, it will matter little if we ride or walk to our doom.”
The horsemen dismounted, and when their movement stopped, not a sound could be heard, not even the buzz of a single insect. No attack came. No spears or arrows from on high.
“It seems we’re alone,” Thaddeus noted.
“Still we must be careful,” Richard said. “Who knows what treachery lies behind these walls. Leave two men to guard the horses. The rest shall come with us.”
Richard stepped to the door as Thaddeus relayed his orders. With a shove from his gauntlet-covered palms, he pushed the doors wide, allowing light to spill into the chamber for the first time in centuries.
In a moment they were walking with torches burning. Carvings on the wall seemed to hold ancient Hebrew writing along with other hieroglyphic symbols that seemed vaguely familiar, though neither Richard nor any of his men could place them.
“We should have brought the old rabbi along,” Thaddeus lamented.
“He would not have survived the journey,” Richard said.
“Will we?”
At the far end of the room, stone steps led downward in a narrowing tunnel.
“The steps are swept clean,” Thaddeus noted.
Richard lowered his torch. “So they are. Perhaps this place is not abandoned after all.” He pulled his sword from its sheath. “Be ready,” he ord
ered. “Just in case.”
At the base of the stairway lay a narrow room. The ceiling of the chamber was low and rocky. The air was stale.
“This must have been a mine at one point,” Thaddeus said. “I wonder what they dug from here.”
Richard had no answer and no interest in pondering the question. All his thoughts were focused on the prize. He strode forward, the musty smell of water swirling around him though there was none to be seen.
On the far side of the chamber, four tunnels branched off in different directions. If Richard was right, they’d delved into the heart of the mountain behind the structure.”
“We have a choice,” Richard noted.
“The rabbi said we would choose our own doom,” Thaddeus said, “like Pharaoh, selecting the final plague of God’s wrath.”
Richard paused. Only God knew what waited for them down there. Traps at the least. Or perhaps the system was so vast and confusing that once entered no man would ever find his way out, like the Minotaur’s labyrinth of Greek mythology.
“Do we spilt up?” Thaddeus asked.
Richard hesitated. There were so few of them and yet… “Yes. Divide up. Two into each tunnel,” he said. “Thaddeus and I will search the far left tunnel. Do not be afraid. We wouldn’t be here if it were not God’s will.”
The men nodded and slipped into the gaping mouths of each passageway. As the glow of their fires diminished, Richard hung his own torch on an iron hook that sprouted from the wall. “To mark our way back,” he said.
He and Thaddeus entered the last tunnel. They encountered little on their journey until they’d traveled at least a hundred yards.
“Cover your torch,” Richard said. “But don’t put it out.”
Cautiously, Thaddeus blocked the light of the torch with a cap. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, a small pinpoint of light could be seen at the far end of the tunnel. It shone like a star in the night sky. Richard became aware of a feeling inside of him, a surge of energy that woke all of his senses. It drew him forward, and Thaddeus followed.
The hand carved tunnel became tighter and tighter as they approached the distant light. Richard was aware that they were now moving uphill. They passed through a small archway and entered a large chamber.
In the center, sat a golden chest. It was polished to a blinding glare. A pinpoint of light illuminated it from above—from a hole drilled through to the surface perhaps. The light seemed to play on it in a strange fashion, like the reflection from a mirror or from the surface of a pool. The walls around them were covered with carved hieroglyphs of a style Richard had never seen. “The language of the angels,” he whispered in reverence.
Thaddeus was not listening. His eyes were fixed on the golden chest. “We shall be kings in our own right,” he declared. He rushed forward, reached up, and pulled the heavy chest from its resting place.
“Wait!” Richard shouted.
The warning came too late. As soon as Thaddeus pulled the chest free, the sound of heavy stones moving was heard. A torrent of water came gushing into the chamber from sluices on all sides. The flood cut Thaddeus’s legs out from under him and he fell back, the heavy chest pinning him to the ground.
Richard was also knocked backward, but he grabbed onto the archway and used it to brace himself. As the water level rose, a pair of heavy stone slabs began to close the portal behind them. For now, the water poured through the gap though its level was growing higher and higher. Once the two jaws met, the chamber would fill rapidly and both men would quickly drown.
Richard’s first thought was to run, but something commanded him to stay. He pushed forward, battling against the swirling water. He reached for the chest and tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. Perhaps it was solid gold as the old scroll had claimed.
Beneath it Thaddeus struggled, but Richard had forgotten him. His mind thought only of the prize and his own glory. He pulled his dagger and tried to pry open the chest, but the blade snapped off like a piece of dead wood.
Time was running out. The water had reached Sir Richard’s waist. The doors behind were halfway closed. He pulled his sword, raised it high, and with a mighty swing cut the lock from the front of the chest. It opened as if on command, and Richard grabbed the satchel that lay within.
Turning, he waded for the closing doors. Lunging at the last, he was swept through the gap by the force of the water now funneling between them. He went under and was thrust forward, pushed on by the torrent now pouring down the long tunnel. He tumbled like a man caught in the rapids of a wild river. Some corner of his mind realized the sloped tunnel was part of a drainage system for the trap. A way to use the trap and reset it once its victims had drowned. But having escaped the drowning chamber, the rushing water became Richard’s mode of propulsion.
Down the incline he went, banging the walls and floor, carried on until he was spat out into the ‘room of the choice’ where the four tunnels branched off. The water swirled deeply here, and Richard sank to the bottom, dragged down by the heavy chain mail he wore. He was saved only by the water level dropping as it poured through large drains on either side, disappearing into some deeper part of the mine.
Disoriented, half drowned and soaked to the bone, Richard still gripped the satchel with all his might. The flow of water was already decreasing. Once the doors at the far end came together, it dwindled to a trickle.
Spitting water and heaving violently, Richard tried to catch his breath. In between bouts of coughing, he shouted for his other knights. He yelled until his voice was hoarse, but all that came back was the echo of his own panicked words.
Finally, he saw a flicker of orange coming towards him from deep within one of the tunnels. It continued to approach and then suddenly was snuffed out. A scream that ended with a dull thud reached him.
At this, his nerves failed. He ran for the stairs and charged upward. He had to get out. Even if he was alone. He stumbled and fell and continued to climb with maximum haste. Finally, he reached the great room above and the light streaming though the rotted wooden doors.
He ran for them, shivering and winded, until he burst through the enormous doors and into the blinding sunshine once again. There, he collapsed down onto the warm sand.
Looking up, he froze, as if a cold wind had blown through him. The last of his knights, left behind to guard the horses, lay dead, their bodies shot through with arrows. Standing around them were fifty men shrouded in Bedouin garb, curved swords drawn, faces covered except for their eyes.
They did not move. They did not speak. They just stared at him.
Richard’s hand went for his sword, but it was gone, used to gain the prize he now held in his hands.
He reached into the satchel and pulled the weapon out. It was a flail made of dark and strange material. Spikes on the end seemed to catch the light and extinguish it. And it appeared to cast a shadow as he swung it through the air.
The chain from the handle was heavy and thick, the grip cold steel, mated with ivory. It was covered in writing similar to what they’d found on the walls in the chamber.
The eyes of the Bedouin were drawn to it, and Richard felt his own mind turn toward the weapon. He could see his reflection in the dull shine of the spiked ball. It was beautiful, fearsome and it filled him with power and rage.
Sir Richard turned to his opponents ready to destroy them with this weapon, but the instant he moved three arrows struck him in the back surging through his chain mail and out through his chest.
He dropped to his knees, releasing the weapon in the process.
Fighting to draw oxygen into his punctured lungs, Sir Richard gazed upon the faces of his adversaries. He saw no hostility. Only a sternness that brought to mind a sense of duty and a trace of pity.
“You should have gone back when we poisoned the drinking well,” the closest of them said. His skin was weathered like animal hide; his eyes were sunken but he was not old.
Richard could not respond. There was no breath to move hi
s tongue. He lay there, his death an imminent certainty, his eyes on the trail of his own blood. But instead of soaking into the porous ground, the red liquid was trickling across the powdery sand. It traveled like quicksilver in an alchemist’s tray, glistening bright red in the sun as it moved uphill, against the slope of the ground and toward the weapon from the subterranean cavern.
Despite his pain, Richard was mesmerized. He stretched his hand toward the translucent black rock at the end of the flail and watched as his blood was absorbed into the spiked weapon itself.
His mind whirled even as his eyes began to fail. “What darkness is this,” he whispered.
The leader of the nomads threw a cloth over the weapon, covering it like one might cover a deadly snake. “Yes,” he said. “What darkness indeed.”
Chapter 1
A flicker of light glinted from the edge of a steel blade as it slashed through the night. Instead of its target the blade found a wall of stone, blasting splinters of the rock outward in a cascade of sparks that lit up the dark labyrinth.
The intended victim moved back with surprising agility. Surprising because the eyes peering from beneath the hooded cloak were jaundiced and yellow. The face was old and weathered, the shoulders weak and hunched.
Christian Hannover paused before continuing the attack. Drakos—the Snake—the King of the Undead—all but cowered before him. For a thousand years, Christian had feared him and, at times, fought him. For almost as long before that, Christian and Drakos, who now went by Drake, had been allies if not friends. At the very least they’d been travelers on the same path. A path, Christian reminded himself, that Drake had lured him onto.
Christian stepped forward, determined to finish the war. He brought the shimmering blade down toward Drake’s skull, but missed once again. Drake slipped away, spinning and slamming an iron gate behind him. Christian crashed into the gate but it held tight. He was sealed in. Trapped.