Starlight (The Dark Elf War Book 1)

by William Stacey

  Contents

  Title Page

  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

  Part 2: The Magic Kingdom

  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

  Part 3: Hunting Monsters

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Part 4: Gateway

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  William Stacey Starter Library

  Review Request

  Previous Works

  About the Author

  Connecting with the Author

  Acknowledgement

  Dedication

  Copyright

  STARLIGHT: BOOK 1 OF THE DARK ELF WAR

  William Stacey

  Chapter 1

  Maelhrandia, Princess of the Fae Seelie, Mistress of Red Moon Rynde and the Tarloth Delta, hid in the jungle, peering out at the ambush site she had set beside the flowing river. Although the night was overcast and black, she had still cast Shadow-Soul on herself, altering the light around her, making her invisible from all but the most gifted mages. Ten of her best boggart warriors, armed with neck poles and chains, hid farther back in the thick brush in two kill-capture groups, waiting for her instructions. The boggarts controlled her pack of hunting gwyllgi, which had already caught the scent of the approaching prey. One of the beasts, anxious to kill, snarled—too loudly—and Maelhrandia exhaled softly, her nostrils flaring. If released too soon, the animals would bound forward and prematurely set off the ambush. After that, they’d be that much harder to rein in.

  Maelhrandia needed prisoners this night, not ripped-apart carcasses. She closed her eyes and flashed a message through the mind-tether she had established with her boggart captain. Fool! Keep them silent, or you’ll be fed to them.

  When she opened her almond-shaped yellow eyes again, she saw the first of the intruders approach the riverbank. Like all fae seelie, her night vision was superb, but it took her some moments to comprehend what she was looking at. She had never seen their kind before. There were four of them, each attempting to move with stealth, clearly trying to be wary of their surroundings. They walked upright, with two arms and two legs, just like her people, but they were tall, broad in the shoulder, and wore strange armor with rounded helmets and four-eyed devices over their faces, giving them a bizarre, bug-like appearance. They held strange objects tightly against their bodies as they moved, pointing them like weapons. They reminded Maelhrandia of crossbows, but she saw no bolts.

  Even more bizarre, she sensed no magic. Were they mundane?

  She had expected… well, she didn’t know what, exactly—perhaps dwarves. After all, the intruders had left behind a mechanical device of some kind hidden in the branches of a tree. That was how she had found them. Redcap children had discovered the device while playing. Their parents, knowing well what could happen to them if they kept this discovery secret, had reported it to Maelhrandia’s guards. Then, it had simply been a matter of waiting. For three days, she and her warriors had lain in wait. Now, that patience had paid off. She didn’t know what these creatures were, but their hubris was astonishing. No one spied upon the fae seelie. All the lesser races of faerum had already learned that the fae seelie were the rightful rulers of this realm. Even the dwarves—dirty, grubby technocrats—had only been able to hold her people off for so long, and then it had been because they’d hidden away beneath the earth like the worms they were.

  Making fists, she dug her fingernails into her palms. These creatures were new, unknown. She could still release the gwyllgi then have her warriors rush behind them and try to take all four at once. Four captives would be best; their testimony could be compared, contrasted. One could even be made an example of, to loosen the tongues of the others. But her intuition warned her against that course of action. What you don’t know could easily kill you.

  And Maelhrandia was, if nothing else, a survivor.

  When the four intruders reached the base of the tree that they had hidden their device in, all except one of them dropped down onto a knee and pointed their crossbow-like weapons outward, watching all about themselves. The fourth climbed into the tree.

  No, she decided. Safer is always better. Her muscles tensed as she filled herself with magic and prepared to cast Drake’s-Gift. I am the knife in the shadows.

  * * *

  The first warning Major Wallace “Buck” Buchanan had that something was wrong was when a sheet of flames swept over Saunders, as if he had been doused in gasoline and lit with a match. The flash flared out Buck’s Quad-Eye Ground Panoramic Night Vision Goggles—GPNVG—and the optics struggled to compensate. The heat was staggering, and Buck fell away, instinctively putting distance between himself and the burning man. Saunders screamed and started spinning in place like a top, whipping the flames higher in the process.

  Still half-blind, Buck activated his MBITR—AN/PRC-148 Multiband Inter/Intra Team Radio. “Contact, contact, contact. Wait out,” he screamed into the microphone hanging near his lips.

  They had no comms with anyone but the covering team back at the LZ. He could warn them that he was under attack and let them know he was in the shit. But they were too far away to help.

  His optics adjusted to the flare-out. Ignoring the screams of Saunders, Buck scanned the jungle around them, aiming down the combat sights of his silenced M4 carbine, seeking the source of the enemy fire. Had they been hit with a flamethrower? A Molotov cocktail? Only feet away, Bolin had tackled the burning Saunders and was now frantically trying to beat out the flames. Someone else opened up with an M4, firing short bursts of suppressed fire. The smell of cordite mixed with the stench of burning flesh.

  “Who’s firing?” he yelled. “Call the target!”

  “Nothing,” MacDonald—one of the Canucks— answered, pausing to look over the smoking barrel of his M4. “I got nothing.”

  “Then stop shooting, jackass.”

  They needed to move, to get out of there immediately. Somehow, Bolin had managed to put out the flames on Saunders and was now bent over the thrashing man, trying to help him. Saunders had stopped screaming, but the wet noises coming from his throat were far from reassuring. Buck had seen enough men burn to death in Afghanistan and Iraq to know that Saunders wasn’t going to make it—there was no need to even check. As if on cue, a long wet gurgle came from Saunders’s
throat, and then the man lay still.

  Bolin looked up at Buck. “I think he’s—”

  “We’re out of here,” Buck said. “We’re in a kill zone.” He keyed the mike on his MBITR again. “Newf, we’re Oscar Mike to your location, coming in hot. Danger close.”

  There was a single chirp in his earpiece as Captain Alex Benoit, the covering team leader, acknowledged. Buck pointed at the dead man. “Pick him up. We need to—”

  Bolin flew backwards into the air as if he had been sent flying from a blast—but there had been no explosion, nothing. The man vanished into the thick foliage. Buck stared dumbfounded, his mouth open.

  MacDonald jumped to his feet and spun about. “What the hell?”

  Buck grabbed his arm and yanked him along, dragging him away from the river, back in the direction they had come. “We’re out of here,” he yelled, firing his M4 blindly behind them, not giving a damn that he was now doing what he had just admonished MacDonald for.

  “But we’ve got men down,” said MacDonald.

  “Dead. We exfil now,” Buck said as he pulled a smoke grenade from his load-bearing vest, popped it, and then tossed it behind them. In moments, dense clouds of smoke filled the air. Buck began to run, fear and adrenaline giving him speed. In moments, he was far ahead of MacDonald, leaving the other man to keep up as well as he could.

  This was bad, real bad. Two men down. Saunders was dead for sure, and Bolin was… well, maybe Bolin was dead. He didn’t know, but he sure as hell wasn’t hanging around to find out. That had been a hard contact, but who had hit them? His blood pounded in his ears, and his breathing became strained, but he pushed himself on. By now, he must be out of the kill zone. If he kept moving, he should be able to stay ahead of any pursuer. He was going to survive, thank God.

  This wasn’t his fault, but he knew Colonel McKnight would hold him responsible even though Intelligence was at fault, not him. Someone should have seen this coming. When he got back, he was going to punch the Task Force Devil intelligence officer in the throat. He owed it to his men. He’d—

  Something big and heavy crashed through the jungle behind him, and Buck heard MacDonald yelp in surprise then begin screaming, calling out for help. Buck spun about to see MacDonald on his back, a massive creature on top of him—like a dog or wolf but way too large, easily several hundred pounds. Another one of the monsters—flames trailing from its open jaws—was almost on top of Buck himself. Its eyes glowed with an eerie light as it leaped through the air. Instinct, more than anything else, drove Buck’s actions as he opened fire with his M4 in a long, wild burst. The monster rammed into him, knocking him down, but Buck scrambled back, still firing, with one hand, point-blank into the thing’s snout. His M4 finally stopped when it clicked on an empty chamber, but the wolf creature was dead, its head shredded by 5.56mm fire. He scrambled to his feet as he rushed to reload.

  “Buck, help me. Jesus, help me!” screamed MacDonald as he fought to hold the massive wolf’s jaws away from him. In the jungle behind them, Buck heard something crashing through the trees, almost on top of them. He only caught a glimpse of them—large man-shaped figures, coming right for him.

  He turned and ran. MacDonald’s screams chased after him.

  * * *

  Captain Alex Benoit and his four-man covering team lay prone in the jungle clearing, behind the stone ruins, surveying the terrain around them in every direction. Since Buck’s initial contact report, there had been no further communications from the patrol.

  He briefly considered calling Buck and asking for a situation report but immediately discarded the idea. Buck was an experienced soldier. When he could, he’d radio in and let Alex know what was going on. If he didn’t make it back, Alex’s orders were clear: activate the keying device, link back to the Gateway, and get out. But could he do that? Could he leave men behind?

  His attention shifted to the sound of something crashing through the jungle—coming right for them from the same direction Buck and his team had gone, making no attempt at stealth. His thumb moved near the firing selector on his M4. Alex flicked his M4 to automatic, peered through his M68 Collimated Combat Optic—his CCO—and let his finger touch the trigger.

  And then Buck broke through the screen of bush, staggering toward them. He no longer had his M4 or much of his equipment. Even his armor was gone. Had he stripped it all off? In his hand, he held only his 9mm pistol. Alex rose from behind the stone rubble. “What’s going on?” He looked past Buck for the others. There was no one else.

  Buck stared at him through his Quad-Eye GPNVGs. He was panting, and spit ran down his chin. He shook his head, bent over at the waist, and gasped for air, coughing as he did.

  “Talk to me, sir.” Alex stepped closer. “Where are the others?”

  “Be… be… behind me,” Buck squeaked. He reached out and gripped Alex’s shoulder, leaning on him. Buck was a big man, at least six foot three, and he towered over Alex.

  “The others are behind you?” Alex asked.

  Buck stared at him again as if he couldn’t understand him. What the hell had happened?

  “No. Enemy,” Buck stammered. “We were hit.”

  “Where are our people?”

  Buck shook his head. “Dead.”

  Alex looked past Buck but saw nothing else moving in the trees. “We should go look. A quick sweep just in case they’re only hurt.”

  Unexpected rage filled Buck’s voice. “I said they’re dead! We’re not going anywhere. Activate the keying device.”

  Alex paused, speechless. “Sir…” He searched for the words to calm his superior, to make him understand. Combat was frantic, and things were never as they seemed at first. “I can take one man with me, do a quick sweep, real fast. We won’t be long, and then—”

  Buck ignored him and pointed in the direction he had just come from. “Concentrate defenses in that direction. Keep an eye out for giant wolves.”

  Wolves? “Look, sir, if it’s just animals we can still—”

  Buck rounded on him, jamming the barrel of his pistol into Alex’s face, literally smashing it against the lenses of Alex’s GPNVGs. “Newf, one more fucking word out of you, and I’ll shoot you myself. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.” His hopes sank.

  “Now, activate the keying device.”

  Alex nodded then turned away to do as he was ordered. He had done what he could, and it wasn’t as if he could fight his superior because he didn’t like his orders.

  He pointed at the keying device, a flat black cylindrical metal machine the size of a footlocker, with carrying handles on its sides. It sat in the center of the shattered remains of stone columns and bizarre elf-like statues. Once they turned it on, it would recall the Gateway. Then, after they were gone, it would become a lump of burned-out metal and melted electronics. “Turn it on,” he said, hearing the defeat in his own voice. “We’re going home.”

  He shook his head then walked away to the edge of the clearing and stared out into the trees. Who does this? Who leaves men behind? There was a bright flash behind him as a streak of multicolored light appeared in the air in the center of the clearing. The streak extended and grew then pulsed out, forming a circle five feet in diameter. On the other side of the glowing circle, Alex saw the lights of the Jump Tube, and through it, home. The Magic Kingdom.

  “Let’s go,” Buck said.

  Buck was the first man through the Gateway, followed by the other three members of the covering team. Alex paused one last time and stared into the bush behind him, hating himself. In the distance, something howled, and Alex couldn’t help but think it sounded like a cry of triumph.

  He stepped through the Gateway.

  Chapter 2

  It was almost six in the evening by the time the Dash-8 stopped in front of the terminal at North Peace Regional Airport, just outside Fort St. John. Cassie Rogan smiled at the flight attendant as she exited the aircraft and began to descend the metal stairs. The cold mountain air was a welcome relief from t
he too-hot little aircraft. It was May, but unlike coastal Vancouver, the weather this far north would remain cool until the height of summer. Northern British Columbia wasn’t exactly the land of the midnight sun, but it was still the North.

  She turned and shaded her eyes as she gazed out at the Rocky Mountains to the west. One year ago, those mountains had promised adventure, an escape. Now they mocked her. There would be no getting away for her: tiny Hudson’s Hope would be her life now. She’d remain there with all the other losers who couldn’t get away, and end up married to some oversized trucker or logger, popping out a herd of children and working at some shit job she couldn’t stand until she was too old and fat to care anymore. Flicking a strand of blond hair out of her eyes, she recognized the self-pity for what it was but couldn’t help how she felt. She could always join the army, she supposed, like Lee was going to do.

  No. No she couldn’t. She had been a lousy student; she’d be a worse soldier. Adjusting the strap of her carry-on, she began making her way across the tarmac to the terminal.

  The interior of the North Peace Regional Airport hadn’t changed at all in her absence, but then, nothing ever changed up north. Pillars interspersed throughout the tiny terminal held up a cedar ceiling, glass partitions lined the walls, and a single snack stand with posters advertising Molson Ice beer catered to three customers. In the entire terminal, there might have been a dozen people—a far cry from the urban hustle of Vancouver International Airport. A ten-foot carving of a grizzly bear stood silent vigil beside a glass display case with wood carvings of prospectors and early pioneer life.

  Welcome to northern British Columbia, everybody. Contain your excitement.

  The other passengers surged forward to greet loved ones, hugging and laughing. Cassie’s eyes scanned the terminal. It wasn’t like her sister Alice to be late for anything. And then she saw her, standing alone, a look of trepidation in her eyes, her hands clasped in front of her. Alice was shorter and stockier than Cassie and had their mother’s auburn hair. At twenty years of age, Cassie was not only fifteen years younger but also taller and more athletic—at least she had been until she’d dropped out of track and took up partying as her new major, living on fast food and beer. She still looked good, though, and still grabbed men’s attention—especially when she was dressed as she was now, rocking a tight T-shirt, shorts, and sandals. Alice looked old and worn out. For a long moment, they stood frozen in place, staring at one another. Then Alice smiled, and the years melted away. She rushed forward to embrace Cassie. An unexpected surge of emotions washed over Cassie. She hugged her big sister back—hard—surprised at how much she had missed her.