by Eddie Patin
Some of the characters are dealing with their homes being assaulted by monsters from their nightmares. Others are dealing with entire worlds seemingly invading our own--environment and all. And some poor souls are feeling like they're not exactly in Kansas anymore...
As the survivors seek to understand and adapt to the crazy chaos around them, how will they deal with total societal collapse AND the variety of otherworldly terrors seeking eat their guts for breakfast??
"Empire’s End" is Episode FOUR of Season ONE of the "Time of Doors" (Book 4)
Read it today!
Click HERE to find Book 4
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About Eddie Patin
Author, entrepreneur, and adventurer, Eddie Patin was born in south Louisiana, and has lived the majority of his life in Colorado, USA.
A business owner and consultant during the day, Eddie spends his free time building a career as an author, an artist, and a musician. Outside of his writing, he has business experience in marketing, SEO, creating companies, ad and graphic design, and copy writing under his consulting business. He’s passionate about his music, the pursuit of martial excellence in firearms, combat arts, and medieval weaponry, and is a big fan of Capitalism and the Free Market.
Eddie Patin’s favorite fiction authors are Ayn Rand and Stephen King, and his favorite genres to write in are dark fiction, grim sci-fi, and horror. He is also an author of a variety of non-fiction topics, and likes to write children’s books designed to promote strong values.
You can find Eddie Patin’s titles organized under fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books, based on slightly different pen names:
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More Books from Eddie Patin
The “Time of Doors” Series
Portal Zero – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 1
Worlds Merge – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 2
The Days Alive – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 3
Empire’s End – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 4
Ruin Prevails – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 5
Wasteland, USA – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 6
Other Fiction Books
In Darkness of the Mountain’s Night – Werewolf Horror
Out of Paradise – Medieval Zombie Horror
Hijacked on Naos 5 – Science Fiction
Reclaiming the Maze – Fantasy Story about a Minotaur
Curb Painting – Little Books of Extra Cash Volume 1
Declutter Magic – Organized for Life Series Book 1
Declutter Magic 2 – Organized for Life Series Book 2
(Being Updated—Coming Soon)
MORE COMING SOON!!
Keep up with my Website for New Titles (Click Here!)
Enjoy this Excerpt from…
Reclaiming the Maze
A Short Fantasy Story about a Minotaur
About the Book
"A fun little short story about a monster taking back what's his from a bigger, badder monster. A+!!"
- T Conner, Horror Weekly
Treat yourself to a short novella from the "Forgotten Tales from the Realms of Primoria" series.
The story of Rexar, a powerful Minotaur, piecing together a mysterious eviction from his Labyrinth that left him waking one morning in the forest, and the short adventure of reclaiming his home from something bigger and badder than he is...
"Forgotten Tales from the Realms of Primoria" is a series of side stories from Eddie Patin's grim and mysterious world of familiar lands in a time long gone.
ONE
Slowly, Rexar opened his eyes.
Where had he been? His massive body felt as if it were made of clay, his corded muscles numb and buzzing with the odd sensation that always accompanies waking from the forced slumber of unconsciousness.
As the milky fog dissipated from his tumbling mind, he squinted his tiny eyes, trying to ward off the throbbing pain that spread through his skull with the incoming light.
Sunrise! Had he been out of it all night?
Now, as his senses slowly came back to him, he felt the cool, moist earth under his thick skin, felt the wet grass bristling through his fur. A gentle breeze swept through the trees, brushing his mane like silk, trying to calm the rage that was building inside. It was morning. He was in the mountains. His mountains!
Down the hill, Rexar saw the bend in the creek where he so frequently came by for a drink of water. Next to the creek was the tree where he rutted his horns during the long seasons of boredom. But, what was he doing out here? Why was he outside of his labyrinth?
He groaned, a rumbling bestial sound, and the wildlife around him fluttered in surprise. The sound of his voice broke the silence of the remote wilderness and rang in his ears. The great warrior closed his eyes until the pain faded. Maybe he would just lay here for a while…
Try as he did, Rexar couldn’t quite place the night before. The memories were only fragments, drifting and colliding in his brain. He remembered sitting in the comfortable darkness, deep within his chiseled walls, gnawing at the leg of a deer. There was a looming shadow. A flash of light. The scent of ash.
Was it an attack from the ogres in the neighboring mountains? Come again to steal his food and take what they can of his trophies and weapons? Or some meddling human dogs come here to prove their worth?
Oh, so many humans had fallen under his axe. So many men had been run through by the horns on his head. Rexar smiled at the thought. There were few pleasures quite like a good battle, and so few pleasures quite like feeling the heft of a man’s body as he is lifted, screaming in protest, from the ground by the muscles in Rexar’s neck and shoulders, tangled up in his horns, and thrown across to the adjacent wall.
There were so many blade-slinging dogs who had come for him, dressed out in shining metal and leather, all bearing the aura of supposed righteousness, all holding their sturdy little swords and axes in their confident little hands. Some were more vicious than others. In the end, they were all cowards. When the moment of truth came, it was always a delight when Rexar could pinpoint the split second that the dogs, in an epiphany of horror, realized their error. In that instant, their fighting spirit, however misinformed or magnificent, would break, and then they would quake in their boots. By then, it was always too late for them.
Lost in a violent daydream, Rexar felt his hackles raise and the fur of his arms and chest bristle with excitement. Washed in the light of the morning sun, he sat up on his haunches and looked over the valley. It was a peaceful morning. In the lower corners and crevasses of the mountains, a thick mist hung as if the land itself refused to completely awaken.
Any of the meeker beings around him, those who knew about him, would always come. The humans. Ogres. Orcs. Even those damned dwarves, who seemed to harbor for him a special hatred. Despite the fact that he rarely left the immediate area around his labyrinth, these challengers somehow felt that they had to do him in. They were threatened by his existence.
Many, many years
ago, Rexar had descended into this valley. He happened upon the bear cave that would eventually become his grand, twisting home.
And yet, he understood why these lesser creatures felt the need to strike him down. The humans especially were quite competitive. Rexar, with a great deal of thought and patience, could place himself in the mind of a human dog. For a human, with its shiny armor and its shiny sword, slaying Rexar could maybe yield a similar sensation of superiority and pride, the same as if Rexar were to somehow bring down one of the monstrous giants from the north. Or, perhaps they felt that the meat on his bones could provide many meals for their small appetites, and could bring a human hunter some prestige in his tribe?
The ogres, on the other hand, were cowards. Always cowards. Despite being so much larger than the humans, they were too lazy to find their own meat. On occasion, especially during the winters, Rexar could expect several half-hearted assaults. If he were to knock over one of these brutes and split its skull open with his axe, the others were sure to run away.
None of it mattered, of course. As long as he lived this closely to other creatures, they would always come, and he would always kill them and feast on their corpses. Could it be that last night he was finally bested by another?
Rexar looked down at his large, weathered hands. His dark tawny fur was matted from sleeping in the wet morning. As his hands looked back at him, he slowly closed his fingers and clenched his fists, felt the hard claws pressing into his palms. Where had these hands been last night?
Steadied by the monumental boulder resting in the earth next to him, Rexar roused his sleeping muscles back into the chill of the brisk morning air, and pulled himself upright. His shadow stretched out across the grass and down the hill as he grew taller, the long, dark form more of a goliath than he was.
His grumbling moan seemed to vibrate through the surrounding rocks.
Why didn’t he remember fighting? How could he have moved from his feeding chamber to out here? If it were humans or orcs who had attacked him in the night, he would find them in his home, in his dark corridors, and bowl them over! He would scatter them like leaves and send them running and screaming into his traps! He would grind them to dust, and hang their broken bodies on pikes as examples!
As the bloodlust grew within his heart, spreading like a wildfire through his veins, the faint odor of death drifted into his snout. There was a dead body around here somewhere! Following his keen senses, Rexar stalked over the ridge on his right side, and there, sprawled among the underbrush, were the hulking bodies of two rotting ogres.
Inspecting the dead, the memories slowly teased his mind. Rexar recognized his own handy-work. These brutes, awash in the stench of filth and sour body odor, were broken and mutilated. Their ribs and shoulders crushed by his hooves, their features twisted into expressions of fear. One ogre’s face was smashed into his skull. The other ogre was gored in the abdomen, his intestines, now writhing with insects and caked with dirt and pine needles, were spilled through the shoddy bear-hide clothing onto the ground.
Gradually Rexar remembered the battle, being dragged away from his labyrinth by the ogres, unable to struggle, mind foggy, and fighting to stay awake. Unable to move. Yes, he remembered these two bastards. There was a third as well. He remembered his body being unresponsive, at least for a while, and with a great deal of effort he was able to find his hooves under him and fight off his captors. At least, until he collapsed.
Was it poison that did him in? What was the flash of light?
The unnatural snap of a twig over the hill towards his labyrinth suddenly jolted Rexar out of reverie and back into the brisk morning. His nostrils reached out into the wind and brought him the faint scent of a human. A female human.
Forgetting the bodies, Rexar hunched down his bulk and slid through the bushes as quietly as he could to take a look. Whoever this human was, he would have to be cautious. If this creature was powerful enough to catch him unawares in his own home and somehow render him helpless in an instant, it would do no good to fall prey to such an attack again.
If only he had his axe! Rexar was unarmed and unarmored. Looking back at the ogres brought no relief. The only weapon among the two corpses was a crude spear, smashed into three pieces. Slightly anxious, he moved to spy on this mysterious human female from between two large pine trees. Rexar had crushed many opponents in the past with his nature-given weapons, so his fists and his horns would have to do.
A brief glimpse over the edge showed the human, fully dressed in metal armor, painted as red as a blood moon. She wore a sleek helmet, also red, which completely covered her face, save her black mane, which was tied behind her like the tail of a horse. On one arm, Rexar recognized a shield, a round slab of red metal with a central spike, surrounded by a painting of an elaborate eye, yellow like the sun. No doubt to instill fear into her enemies. Rexar never had any need for shields, but he saw humans and orcs use them frequently. He supposed that shields were necessary for warriors with soft skin. In her other hand, this red female held a human sword, much like all of the other swords Rexar had seen.
The human was skulking about, watching the entrance to his labyrinth, which Rexar could now see off in the distance. She seemed unaware of his presence.
Rexar smiled to himself as he sunk into the deep shadows of the pine trees around him. If the human didn’t know he was there, then this would be an easy victory. He was delighted in the anticipation of leaping upon the red female, breaking her sword and shield, and throwing her into the trees. Or, perhaps, slamming her frail body into the rocks, then impaling her with his horns! Then, her red armor would become red with her warm blood.
He looked to the ground beneath him, and in the underbrush, found a rock the size of his immense fist. Rexar felt his blood warming, the heat rushing to his neck and ears. He squeezed the rock in his hand, felt as if the stone would shatter into dust in his grip, and stood suddenly from hiding, his arm tense and winding for a throw that would punch through the human’s skull.
His great arm snapped out like a catapult, and the rock flew towards the human, splitting the air with its power. The human reacted in surprise and raised her guard. With a crash, the rock sundered the round shield, sending shards of red-painted metal showering about the woman, who let out a cry of shock. She let the ruined shield fall from her arm and prepared her sword.
Furious with his miss, Rexar let out a roar that shook the ground, and leapt out from the bush. He was on the human in an instant.
As Rexar ran the woman down, he heard her yell something in the language of men from beneath her red helm. Likely a plea for her life, just like the rest of them. Well, if this human female was somehow in league with the ogres he killed last night, he would show her no mercy. Rexar would crush her under-hoof, reclaim his home, and eat her in the evening.
As he came down upon her, towering over her, she raised her sword in defense. In a flash, he batted the blade aside and lowered his massive head. Rexar vaulted into the human, yearning to feel the satisfying scrape and twisting metal as his horns plunged through her armor. Instead, she dodged the horns, and he felt a solid impact as his thick skull hit her like a battering ram. She was sent sprawling to the ground.
Rexar prepared himself for another attack, and the female, with effort, pushed herself to her feet. He could see the sparkle through the dark visor in her helmet as the light reflected off of her eyes. She cried out to him again, but this time Rexar recognized the rough tongue of the giant-folk.
“Wait!” she screamed. “Let me help you get your home back!”
Rexar scowled. It was a trick. Humans would do anything to save themselves. He had witnessed on many occasions multiple humans in groups, around campfires or fighting among themselves. What they lacked in physical prowess they made up for in nimbleness with words and speech. Humans frequently battled each other with words instead of strength, and spoke constantly with each other, instead of merely resorting to action like Rexar and his kind.
; Lowering his head and aiming his horns, he charged at her again. He longed to feel her caught up in those horns, to throw her into a nearby tree.
He came at her like a storm, and was astonished when she side-stepped the attack. Her blade danced through the air as he passed, and he felt its bite along his right arm. His thick hide deflected most of the cut, but it split his skin just the same. Rexar bellowed in pain and spun to face her. This human was quick.
“Please!” she cried. “Stop! I want to help you!” Her grasp of the giant tongue was very basic, but he understood what she was trying to say.
What could she mean? How could a human help him? How could he trust a human? She would only persuade him to drop his guard and then stab him in the back the first time he turned around. His head would not be made a trophy on some human female’s wall!
Rushing her like before, Rexar moved with awesome power, and made to gore her with his horns once again. When she raised a similar defense, he suddenly changed direction, crouched to the ground, and let loose a side-kick that hit the woman warrior square in the torso and sent her flying. Her body, flung like a rag-doll, smashed into a tree, and she fell to the ground in a heap.
Gripping fervently to her sword, the woman tried to get back to her feet, but was staggered. Rexar saw that she was strong, but she couldn’t possibly contest his great might. He ran to her, the ground thumping under his weight, and kicked the sword from her hand. The shining blade tumbled into the brush.
Now was his moment. Rexar could almost sense it, the fear, the loss of confidence. The human was about to release her will to live. Savoring his victory, Rexar placed a hoof over the woman’s chest, pressing her into the ground. The metal of her breastplate groaned in protest and she cried in pain.