Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons is entirely coincidental.
Enigma: Awakening. Copyright © 2015 by Damien Taylor.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Editors: Shayla Eaton, Julian Brooks of EPOCH Studios
Cover Art: Julian Brooks, Mohammed Agbadi
Cover Design: Damien Taylor, Rushing Wind Books
Map Design: Cj McDaniel of Adazing
Formatting: Julian Brooks, Damien Taylor
Second Edition: August 2017
Dedication
To the thirteen-year-old me:
Sorry it took so long, and I hope you’re proud, little buddy.
Acknowledgments
First to God, to Whom all first fruits belong. Thank you for bestowing in me the gift of creativity and the ability to write with a living imagination. To You I give all the honor and the glory, forever and ever.
To my cousin Dimitri, who used to read his awesome fantasies from horribly handwritten spiral tablets—and whom I spent hours watching play countless RPGs—I dedicate this novel. Because of you, I found out where I belonged and who I wanted to be in this life.
To my mother, who listened that night to the plot in my head, even through terrible disorganization and repetition.
To my father for sharing the passion of an artistic hobby, supporting me, and pushing me to have the courage to pursue my dreams.
To my wife, Jey, who was amazed and appreciative of my creativity and passion and for sticking by me even after learning that her “Clark Kent” of a stud was just a fantasy super geek.
And finally, I want to acknowledge that thirteen-year-old boy who laid awake in bed at 2:00 a.m., restless and mind running. The world will finally get a glimpse of the vision that made you hop up and pace about until sunrise...
From the Fans
“I know the world of Vail is imaginary, but author Damien Taylor described it so well—even while it was in ruin—that I felt like it was a real place I had visited in the past. His descriptions were more than epic—they were memorable, unforgettable. His characters weren't just thought out on a sheet of paper—they were complex people whom Taylor clearly knew everything about as he wrote them. Taylor truly created a whole other world, and it reminded me of Tolkien. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys sword-fighting, legendary battles, and mighty warriors.”
-SHAYLA EATON, Curiouser Editing
“Love, love LOVE this book! As of late, I've grown tired of the clichés in fantasy, and this book certainly reawakened my love for the epic fantasy genre. Its non-stop action kept me from putting the book down, and every time I thought I'd met every single strange creature, something new would happen! The action scenes are my favorite, but what I love about the writing is the serious action with humor woven in. It made the characters much more likable. I highly recommend you pick up this novel and dive into an alternative universe!”
-ANGELA J. FORD, Author of The Four Worlds Series
“Damien Taylor managed to complete an encompassing villain that struck me as both chilling and fresh. The Abyssians are such an interesting and well-thought out force of nature. I very much enjoyed the insight we had into how they lived and expanded, and it brought an even deeper sense of urgency for the heroes because of how simply these villains could grow stronger. Enigma: Awakening's hero, Darwin Valkyrie is such a down-to-earth, no-nonsense hero that I could not help but root for him. I liked his frustration and disbelief with the Superiors, his questioning nature, and his kind heart, despite all the dark things he had experience since his youth. He was complex and believable, and I often felt like I was standing right beside him during his adventures, watching through the eyes of a traveler as he struggled and overcame. The rest of the characters and the world of Vail were so interesting and immersive; it was enjoyable to briefly be a part of that world, despite the darkness that threatened it.”
-NICHOLE BREWER, Author of A Handful of Ashes
“Truly a thrilling story from start to finish. The world within Enigma is facing horridly dark times, which couldn't have been conveyed more clearly than through the perspective of anyone but Darwin's. Character depth is an obvious strength of Taylor's. Darwin's stoical persona is balanced nicely with its first-person perspective and its supporting cast. There were many savory feelings to be had thanks to Darwin's more sensitive (or insensitive) thoughts. Memoria instantly feels more real when people are met or places are traversed. Best of all—and this comes with some bias—the antagonists are truly terrorizing. In my opinion, a juicy story becomes complete when the villain is one that cannot be shrugged off as a nuisance (i.e. Zombies). Enigma delivers 110% in this category. The Abyssians are every bit as formidable as their name might imply and they're only the beginning. This beautifully dark fantasy is certainly one I enjoyed reading and it's very clear that it's only just unfolding.”
-JULIAN BROOKS, Owner of Arcan, The Missing Nexus
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
From the Fans
Introduction
Ascendance
Darwin
Black Salt Plague
Captain Sergio
Through Nasracan Eyes
Irvina
Gemmin
Akhadius Dethroned
Forest Light
Velmica
Awakening
Blitzkrieg
The Amethyst
Desert Flames
Roth
Before King Dimicus
The Thing Itself
Den of Trolls
Nixie’s Domain
Tower Prison
Kreshauros
Aquamarine
Line of Carnage
Rats and Rumors
The Inevitable
A Sword and A Stone
Evanda Criét
Glossary
About the Author
Map
Introduction
The world, Vail, has met the horrid epitome of despair: the Abyssian Horde. War has depleted the three Ruling Races of the modern age beyond regeneration. The Abyssians wiped the last of the Elven kingdoms and their subservient colossi, the dragons, from existence; the Giants and their golems after them, though one of their isolated kingdoms still thrives elsewhere in the West. Kingdoms of Men are the only ones left who can fight the demon race though they remain divided in the cause. The Northern King neglects the cry of war and has so since the very beginning.
Instead, Men from all continents and nations set out to join what manifested into the White Fox Militia, undergoing rigorous training to hunt and kill the menacing horde. But even with decades of training having made them deadlier than any royal army, still their efforts wouldn’t be enough. The Abyssians destroyed many of the Lesser Races as well, the four naiad queendoms and their leviathans, the minotaur, dwarves, and sprites. And now that the Militia has lost the thousands with which it began, there is nothing to keep the devastating vigor of the soul-drinkers at bay.
For seventy-odd years, devastation has wrought history. The Northern King and his vastly technological prowess have yet to oppose the Abyssians. The Militia has preserved what little strength it has for a westward journey. The Vanik Isles in the east, where the bulk of the war has taken place, is nearly no more. The Abyssian Horde, a monstrous race once confined to the isles, has mult
iplied. Their consumption of Vail resumes.
Ascendance
THE BLACK SALT unsettled the night above Vail's heartland. It came up from gaping fissures like swirling smoke, flourishing with frightening significance. It was a menace capable of destruction deadlier than fire. Abyssians were the predators of all things burning with the gift of life, plundering vessels of their souls and seeds of hope, irreversibly so. The horde had guzzled its way across the Vanik Isles and set a preying gaze on virgin lands thriving with the Ruling Races. There was still much prey left in Vail to game, more living essence to appease their immortal gluttony. Where they had arrived, there was plenty to nourish and satisfy them—for the time being.
The wind whispered in the trees that lived on Memoria's eastern border. The land was concave and broken. On a platform unreachable by any creature of natural ability save for birds, Blitzkrieg watched a multitude of Abyssians as they awaited something. Their flesh-like upper bodies were solid with muscles; their skin rough, dead, and pale as stone. From the abdomen down their jaundiced tones graduated to the darkest shade of gray; their legs and clawed feet hard as metal and shone like glossy lead. Above bulging hairless brows, curved horns bent in wild directions. The humanoid monsters shrieked and ticked with anxiety, as would have Blitzkrieg, had he not been an abundantly more powerful entity.
Blitzkrieg was the ultimate form of an Abyssian; one made whole by his fiendish consumption of souls hitherto. Unlike the inferior evolutions surrounding him, he resembled a man beneath his attire and had tens of thousands of more souls imprisoned within him—twisted souls colonized by potency and shattered memories forged into the very essence of himself. A Whole Abyssian.
He stood in the cleared gap of the clustered horde, dressed in metal and a black robe, buckled, and trimmed of crimson. Jagged pauldrons rose above his shoulders in points. He bore two swords—long, curved, and whip-thin single-edged blades with round crossguards sheathed in black scabbards. One strapped his left side while its longer sibling was crossways on his back.
In front of him stood two other robed and armored men, their faces veiled in the shadow of black hoods. They too waited patiently. Blitzkrieg knew nothing about them, but the tremoring within him indicated their powers far exceeded his own. The souls trapped within his body shuddered.
The two before him had been something else entirely, and only a few times before then had he ever seen them. They were something more, beings similar to the one who made him. The maker, he had never seen.
When echoing caws resounded, the two black hoods looked up. A hundred rooks, assembled in admiration of the horde’s formation, blackened the sky with frenzied flight and then disappeared. A strobe of lightning crackled over the night, and then came a roar mightier than the shrill of thunder. Out of a cloud appeared the one whom they awaited.
Like an armored statue, he stood on the arched neck of a bone-white dragon descending upon them. Abyssians screeched and hunched in fear, shuffling over one another as they cleared its landing. The magnificent beast shook the craterous border as its hind claws came beating against hallowed ground.
The man’s sabatons clanged in the dirt when he leaped down. His silver hood spun in a careful search. Obsidian gauntlets shuffled at his sides. From his visage, airy breath echoed across the ether unleashing an ominous whistle that found Blitzkrieg’s ears. Blitzkrieg’s insides cringed. It was him—the one who made him. A domineering aura flowed from the maker, setting Blitzkrieg ablaze with the desire to bow.
The maker’s dragon, whose claws were more massive than Men, sat upright and robed its wings around itself, lifting its pointed chin with majesty. A snort of burning smoke hovered and evaporated quickly. Blitzkrieg watched it. The dragon's ruby eyes glowed like burning coals. He sensed that the beast was highly principled and peculiarly saturated in benevolence. “Not an Abyssian,” he perceived. “Still alive... bewitched? No... infused with predominating souls.”
Souls not initially tethered to its body had suppressed the rightful soul to which the dragon body once belonged. Blitzkrieg swallowed, the thought of claiming the dragon incited his thirst. What such power could he have inherited from guzzling its essence? A creature so ancient would have made for an evolutionary feast had it been an option for indulging. It would have had Abyssians killing each other for it in droves.
A menacing and cold voice seized all attention.
“We are crowned victors of the eastern war. Time is of the essence.” Raising his hand, the silver-hooded one roused enthusiasm from his brutal audience. Blitzkrieg and the two cloaked figures stood poised, silent, and alert.
“Do not fear,” he said to one specifically: Blitzkrieg. “I have much use for you. One war has ended, but the west still awaits conquering. This desert-land Men call Memoria lies in the very center of this world. It is the perfect place to construct our utopia. Your chance to prove your worth has presented itself. What say you, newcomer?”
The order was clear. Blitzkrieg shifted submissively.
“I desire only to fulfill your wishes.”
“Good then.”
What the maker spoke next, he meant expressly for the other two hoods in their company. But Blitzkrieg knew it was an implicit message for him.
“The vessel was nowhere to be found on those forsaken isles. However, I feel our fortune will soon shift. Go and find it. Bring it to me.”
Blitzkrieg wondered what this vessel was but knew better than to let curiosity manifest among his wiser peers. His maker’s final words were to him.
“The Abyssians are at your disposal. Do not fail me.”
It was a calm and concise warning, yet dreadfully sincere. The maker and his dragon took to the sky. In a flash of lightning, they vanished with terrifying severity. The other two robed-ones, never uttering so much as a whisper, disappeared into the shadow of night. Blitzkrieg remained with the horde and the swelling height of the Black Salt.
Darwin
“WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”
“Darwin. Darwin Valkyrie of Lucreris.”
“I’m Rola Augusta of the Northern Kingdom,” said the brunette sixteen-year-old boy sitting at the long wood table across from me. His simple attire was wilderness worn like my own and saturated in the sweat, and filth of combat training. A thread of blood trickled freshly from his pierced ear. Even covered in grime, the boy’s silver stud gleamed, much the same as the polished blade of a sword.
Next to him was a child of striking resemblance, no older than thirteen. He was just as dirty. “This is Masters, my little brother,” said Rola. The boy, Masters, stared in silence. There was a poignant glow in his blue eyes.
“You did great out there during the trial,” said Rola. He coughed into the collar of his white tunic. “You must’ve spent some time with a blade before setting out to join the Militia.”
“Not really.”
Rola flinched in surprise. “Where’d you learn to move like that?”
“Instinct, I guess.”
There were whispers down the table of boys my age, and men. Rola dipped his head and inclined forward into a pale-faced gape.
“None of us would’ve survived if it hadn’t been for you.”
I swept my eyes across the deck, finding scores of astonished orbs watching me—even ones from the other tables. Hundreds of recruits crowded the mess deck, all captivated by the hearsay surrounding me. Barking cadres tore down the aisles, demanding an explanation with ferocity in their glaring eyes.
“I...”
“All right, varlets!” interrupted a battered man whose voice was like a thunderous trumpet.
The officer was a man near his thirties, the contour of his face sculpted by a wild beard. A top hat dressed his head, and a long, shredded coat wrapped his torso. The man crushed his right eye closed as he sucked the burn into the end of his cigar and then took it from his mouth—rings of silver on each finger. He was expressionless as the smoke left his nostrils in rushing tendrils. Captain Albany Gastro. I’d learned the off
icer's name out on the training field.
“Some o’ you have got some real talent,” he said. “Some o’ you... won’t make it to your next meal. For those o’ you who thought this training was going to be like plucking veggies and blowing dandelions, the general’s ordered us to allow termination of contracts. Anyone wanting to accept this gracious offer now’s yer chance to pack it. The next time we arrive at port, it’ll be good riddance to ya.”
Many rose and left the mess deck. The captain grunted. “Flower-sniffing sissies,” he said under his breath. He took another puff of his cigar and pointed at the boy, Rola. “You there. You’ve got some good aim with a slingshot—not too bad of a throwing arm either. You gave a man a concussion out there.”
“My father taught me to shoot, sir,” said Rola nervously. “... did all of the hunting back home—the best in town. Took first place in all of the games.”
“Hrm... crossbow or regular artillery?”
“Musket, sir.”
Captain Gastro rubbed his chin, grinning. “Impressive. Might set you aside for my battalion. I could use a gun-slinger in my Tail so long as you quit calling me, sir. I work for a living, Slingshot.”
The captain discussed others who had stood out to him on the battlefield, reassuring them their diligent efforts hadn’t gone unnoticed. A boy who looked around the age of sixteen came beside him. He shook blond bangs from his slate eyes. He wore a leather breastplate molded with cuts of a chiseled abdomen. Lean, pale arms stretched at his sides. I’d seen the boy out on the field but had forgotten his name.
“This here is my lieutenant. He’s fifteen, and just as deadly as any man on this ship. You haven’t seen the finest cuts of meat until you’ve seen this kid chop an Abyssian into mincemeat. Give him the same respect owed to me. If you don’t, I’m gonna light up every cigar I’ve got and shove ‘em up your hides. That’s no warning—it’s a promise.”
Enigma: Awakening Page 1