The First Chapter of My Fantasy Novel (Take 2)

[TheSurvivorofDeath]

Here’s chapter 11

Spoiler

Chapter 11

Rex awoke from a fitful sleep. His right arm was throbbing within its bandages, though his enhanced body had nearly healed the wound already. He had slept only a few hours the night before, after arriving back at the Citadel in the early hours of the morning. Razing an entire town was exhausting.

Rex sat up on the edge of his bed, sitting for a moment before setting his bare feet on the stone floor beneath him and walking to the main door of his suite of rooms. He opened it, finding a young aide waiting just outside.

“Bring me some breakfast, boy,” Rex said, his voice barely more than a harsh whisper as he dispelled the last remnants of sleep.

The boy jumped, his face paling as Rex spoke. He stood for a moment, slack jawed. Then he finally turned and rushed away to get Rex’s meal. Useless servants. How they vexed him. Hopefully the idiot commoners wouldn’t botch his meal too badly. He returned to his rooms, sitting on a small couch while he waited for his food.

Eventually, as Rex was beginning to lose his patience, a knock came at the door. He rose, moving quickly to fling the door open. It revealed the same frightened youth, who was probably the son of one of his soldiers, holding a dish of food with a cover on it. 

“Took you long enough,” Rex said, snatching the dish.

The boy remained frozen in the doorway.

“Are you waiting for something, boy?” Rex asked, annoyed.

The boy shook his head, and Rex saw him swallow hard.

“Speak up, boy,” Rex demanded.

“N-no, sir,” the teenager choked out.

“Then be gone with you!” Rex shouted. 

The boy damn near leaped out of his skin as he grabbed at the door, pulling it closed as he rushed away from Rex’s rooms.

Rex sat down to eat. He quickly devoured the sausages and eggs, along with the toast and cup of coffee that the dish had contained. It wasn’t awful. Rex actually almost enjoyed the meal, until he remembered how bothersome the servant boy had been.

His mood thoroughly soured already, Rex went to check on his army.

The halls of the Citadel were so maze-like that Rex often wondered how its original builders had ever hoped to navigate it. Even after almost two decades in the place, Rex still barely knew how to get around in it. He followed a path he had discovered, by extensive trial and error, to be the fastest route to his training cavern. He still had to turn several corners, winding through corridors that narrowed and widened at random. Whatever ancient beings had designed this place, they seemed to have had a very strange sense of architecture. 

Finally, after walking for the better part of an hour, Rex turned one final corner and entered a vast open cavern. The natural cavern had been connected to the Citadel when Rex had discovered the place, though he wasn’t sure why. The large opening on the far side of the stone chamber, which gave Rex a view out into the stony landscape of the Uncharted Mountains, was actually how he had originally discovered the Citadel. He had entered the cave to shelter from a storm, when he wandered in his youth. He’d had no idea the wonders he would find beyond.

Amassed within the cavern was a large number of men. They were dressed in stiff black uniform coats and pants, metallic silver accenting the garments. On each man’s left breast there was embossed a silver skull, and at each man’s belt was a fairly large dagger made of fine steel. They would all carry rifles when combat came, but many of them were training in melee combat or were simply lifting weights. 

One group in the corner nearest to where Rex had entered did have rifles, and they were using them to shoot at straw targets at various distances. Most of the men were actually decent shots, though several of their shots went wild and ricocheted off of the stone.

The bulk of the army, which was some ten thousand strong, was in the large open area at the center of the cavern. The drilled military movements, working in fighting pairs to advance in calculated and precise maneuvers. Commands barked by squad leaders sent groups of ten men breaking off into pairs, which then spread out to surround and close in on a single straw dummy. Rex’s men knew that they would have superior numbers in the fight with Horandel, whose only military force amounted to less than two thousand constables. The more tactically minded of Rex’s recruits, as few as they were, had built their fighting strategy around that. Entire squads could surround one fighter in battle, if conditions were ideal.

Of course, Rex knew that conditions were rarely ideal, so he had his men train in single melee combat and in basic fighting pairs, so they knew how to fight even if they were separated from their squads. 

Rex stepped up to the larger group of men, finding his favorite, or rather, least hated, general overseeing the exercises.

“General,” Rex said, smiling slightly as General Pontus started. “Make the army ready. We will be moving to the new staging cavern in the morning. I trust everything is in order there?”

“Yes, sir,” Pontus said, failing miserably to mask the fear in his voice. Rex liked to keep his men, even his generals, afraid of him. Too afraid to even consider treachery.

“Good. Carry on with the training, General. But have the men ready to move by morning,” Rex said.

“It will be done, sir,” Pontus said, tapping his right index and middle fingers twice against the silver skull on his left breast in a salute.

Rex nodded, satisfied. He turned, walking silently across the cavern. He noticed, with a bit of pleasure, that the conversations in the chamber had died as the men noticed him. He felt their eyes on him as he walked from the chamber, their fear a delicious feeling that washed away his earlier displeasure. 

Once he had entered the hallway, Rex quested out to his Shades. A few of them resided in Horandel, one of which moved silently through the streets, stalking its prey. The majority of the dark beasts, however, were in the many chambers within and around the Citadel of Night. They lurked, waiting for a command from their master.

Go, he commanded the beasts mentally, sending them impressions of the various parts of the Grand Republic. He showed them the Outlands, the Northern and Eastern Reaches, even the Southern Wastes. But not Horandel. Horandel would fall another day.

Rex smiled as he felt the Shades pour from their caves, shadowy claws scraping on stone as the creatures ran at impossible speeds through the mountains. Their crimson eyes glowed brightly as they spread through the land, intent on destroying. Their wicked teeth and powerful jaws waited eagerly for flesh to tear in service of their creator.

Chaos had come to the Grand Republic, and Rex was its master.

 

[TheSurvivorofDeath]

So, uh, it’s been a little while since I’ve posted. But I have decided to return, if people are still interested. So here’s chapter 12.

Spoiler

Chapter 12

Dem was still lost. Twelve days had passed since Rex had destroyed the Grand Court. Nearly a quarter of their time. And Dem still had absolutely no idea what to do. 

The midday sun was high overhead, though the day was cold. Dem’s uniform coat, which was thick and padded, kept him warm, though the air was still frigid against his face. He walked through the streets, accompanying a pair of street constables on their patrol. 

He hoped that being down on the streets, actually working among the people he was trying to save, might help him think of some solutions. So far, it hadn’t been successful 

“Let’s head down that street, then circle back this way. That should cover our whole patrol sector by the end of our shift,” Constable Ridding, the senior officer of the pair, said, pointing towards a side street.

The other constable nodded, but they both turned to look at Dem. He’d told them to pretend he wasn’t there, but they obviously wanted to look good for their commanding officer. He nodded in agreement, and the trio turned down the street.

How am I going to help these people? Dem thought to himself, looking around at the people milling about in the streets. Here in the Middle District, just about everyone had the means to feed and house themselves. There was still the occasional beggar, but most people moved about with deliberate purpose. 

These people were counting on him. They likely didn’t understand the danger they were in, but Dem did. These people would have read about the attacks, felt the explosion. But they hadn’t been there. They certainly hadn’t stared into the eyes of a man intent on killing them. A man so confident in his own abilities that he would attack the very center of society and dare to issue an ultimatum. A man who would threaten an entire republic, simply because he could.

Dem had seen Rex’s soul in that moment in the Square. Rex knew he could wipe out this city if he wanted to. And from what Dem had seen of his powers, he agreed. That was why he needed a plan. They had to stop Rex before he could move on the city. Otherwise, he wasn’t sure they could beat him on his terms. They needed to take the fight to him. 

We have to find him first, Dem thought. But I don’t even know where to start.

His thoughts were interrupted by screams in the distance. A woman’s voice, by the sound of it, shrill and piercing. Dem knew that kind of scream. It was one of pure terror.

The two constables, who walked slightly ahead of him, looked at each other, then at him. The three men nodded in unison, beginning to run in the direction of the screams. Dem had Devastation out by the time they came upon the scene. He soon realized, however, that he wouldn’t be needing the pistol.

The first thing Dem noticed as he came around the corner was the old woman, still screaming as Ridding approached her. What his eyes found next, though, shocked him to his core.

The scene was a gorey one. The corpse hung from the roof of a single story home, blood pooling on the ground below the body’s swinging feet. The man had been gutted, his organs hanging out of a long vertical gash from the top of his sternum to his belly button. His throat had also been slit, and bright crimson blood trickled slowly from the collar of his brown work clothes down to his boots, where it slowly dripped into the ever-growing pool of red. 

His wounds had a strange cast to them, the edges black like they’d been burned, though the skin around them was almost too pale, even for a corpse far older than this one was. The rope around his neck had clearly been tied there after the man had been killed. The knots were too clean to have been involved in a death struggle. Whoever had done this had arranged the body after the murder, indicating an organized attack. 

Dem turned his eyes away from the corpse, noticing that Ridding had calmed the old woman enough to get her testimony. He surveyed the rest of the scene, his gaze soon finding the wall of an adjacent building. There, several slashes, seemingly random, were carved into the wall. They looked like they’d been done with something very sharp, likely a sword or long knife. An interesting weapon for a murderer. Harder to conceal than a smaller knife.

The slashes also had a strange blackening along the edges, like they’d been burned into the wall. That blackening seems familiar, Dem thought, turning to go speak to Ridding and the old woman. As he did so, he saw the younger constable-Dem had forgotten his name-looking sick to his stomach, his face pale. Poor kid had probably never seen a murder scene before.

“What have you found out, Constable Ridding?” Dem asked as he reached the blue-clothed man. 

“Nothing much, sir,” the constable replied. “Misses Dola wasn’t home when her son died. She arrived only a few moments ago. She started screaming as soon as she saw the corpse.”

“By the look of the body, the poor man has only been dead for a few minutes. Half an hour at most,” Dem said.

“That’s strange, sir,” Ridding said. “Why would a murderer commit such a brutal crime in broad daylight, out in the open?”

“No idea, Constable,” Dem said, leaning down to speak with the old lady. “Misses Dola, did you notice anything suspicious before you found your son’s body?”

“No, sir,” the woman said, her aged voice clearly shaken by what she had seen. “I just came back home, the same way I always come, and I found poor Danid there.”

“Are you sure there wasn’t anyone coming from this direction when you made your way home, Misses Dola?” Dem asked, trying to sound as kind as possible.

“Well, there was a shadowy figure. He walked with a hooded cloak up over his face. I didn’t think anything of it, but he did seem strange now that I think about it.”

“Thank you, Misses Dola,” Dem said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

With that, he pulled Ridding out of the old woman’s earshot.

“This isn’t good, Ridding.”

“I know, sir,” Ridding agreed. “What should we do?”

“Have your partner see to the woman,” Dem said, gesturing to the young constable, who still looked sick to his stomach. “Try to get her to go stay with family. Then, get a team down here to clean this mess up.”

“And what will you do, sir?” Ridding asked.

“I,” Dem began, “am going to solve another Spirits-cursed problem.”

He turned away, leaving the other two constables to deal with the corpse and the old woman. He took one last look at the scene, steeling himself as he began to walk through the streets, looking for a carriage to take him to his station. The images of blood and blackened wounds were still fresh in his mind as he stepped up into the carriage. Thoughts of Rex were shoved into the back of his mind. 

He had more immediate problems to deal with.

 

[TheSurvivorofDeath]

Here’s chapter 13

Spoiler

Chapter 13

Poma awoke to screams. She had been sleeping peacefully, dreaming of her dog that had passed a few months earlier. Then, the calm and quiet night outside her window had been pierced by a shrill, bloodcurdling cry. The first scream had been joined by countless others as Poma opened her eyes, the serenity of the night soon broken into a discordant cacophony of screams.

Poma sat up, sleep still clouding her mind as she slowly got out of bed. She tapped bronze from the slivers of metal implanted in her forearms; it was common practice for Ferromancers to keep some of their metal inside their body, along with the jewelry they wore. Her body accelerated, the last physical remnants of sleep dissipating as she moved from her bed to her closet. She grabbed a coat and threw it on over her pajamas, then slipped on her tough leather shoes. She snatched her hunting knife, a good steel blade, off of her nightstand, then dashed down the stairs. All of this took her a matter of moments, moving nearly four times her normal speed, nearly the limit of her Ferromancy.

By the time she reached her door, she was still somewhat groggy from having been awoken so suddenly. As she opened the door, though, the frigid air of the Northern Reaches shocked her into full wakefulness. What she saw in the town around her was terrifying.

The town square was a mess of screaming figures, backlit by flames that had begun to lick at some of the buildings. Shadowy figures, too beastly to be townspeople, were occasionally visible, like flickering shadows from a candle. Poma stood there for a moment, taking in the scene. A scraping on the roof behind her caused her to turn.

Above her, a lupine form perched on the roof. Its maw hung open, dripping phantom saliva that dissipated into darkness before it touched the ground, and the massive claws that protruded from its four large paws must have been what caused the scraping she’d heard. The beast growled, a guttural, hair-raising sound that shook Poma to her bones. Her scream joined the cacophony in the air.

The creature leaped down from the roof, claws and teeth poised to tear her apart. She tapped speed instinctively, the beast slowing so much that it almost froze to her eyes, and stepped out of the way. Her knife flashed to the side as she released her bronze, the blade taking the shadowy monster in the throat. The creature’s body fuzzed around the blade, but it didn’t so much as flinch. 

The things jaws snapped out, clamping down on her hand before she could react. She let out another scream, which joined the now-quieter mass around her. The townspeople must be dying. Poma yanked her arm back, feeling bones crush further as her flesh was stripped by the monster’s razor teeth.

She tapped bronze again, moving across the square in an instant. Several other creatures had begun to close in on her, stalking across the stone ground of the square. Their claws scraped on the stones, their jaws gnashing in search of her blood. She stared out all around her, finding nothing but a sea of crimson eyes backlit by the growing fires. The night was silent again, except for the scraping of claws and gnashing of teeth.

Poma soon found herself surrounded by shadowy monsters. She had nowhere to run, the creatures too close together to move between, even with her enhanced speed. She could only stand there, knife clutched uselessly within her undamaged hand, as the creatures closed in around her. She finally began to feel the pain in her arm as the minutes wore on, the warm blood trickling from her wound a sharp contrast to the freezing winter air. 

Finally, after several agonizing minutes of watching death approach, the demons were upon her. Claws slashed and teeth tore, flesh ripping away from bone as Poma screamed out a final plea to the Spirits. Then everything went dark.

…

Turk loved the marketplace at dawn. In a bustling place like Eastvale, the city never really slept. Turk himself had been out with friends for most of the night, and had decided he might as well get his weekly shopping done. The marketplace never closed, though some merchants would stop selling at various times. Luckily, it looked like Turk would be able to find everything he needed. 

He relished in the sights and sounds all around him. Vivid silks and cloths, whose beauties were stunning even in the darkness, covered many of the stalls all around him. The sounds of haggling and merchants announcing their wares filled the night with life and energy. The smells of spices and meats, mingling with the salty ocean smell of Eastvale’s port, filled the air. Turk took it all in as he shopped, slowly filling his basket with everything from his list, and a few extra items.

The sun was just cresting over the hilly landscape around Eastvale as Turk handed a merchant a few silver spirules in exchange for a bundle of carrots. His basket was nearly full, and he almost had everything on his list. He glanced down to check the sheet of paper where he had everything written down, but he stopped before he caught more than a glimpse of the paper.

He wasn’t sure what it was that stopped him. Maybe he saw some movement out of the corner of his eye. Maybe he heard some sound in an alley nearby. Whatever it was that gave him pause, it let him notice something in the shadows. Tapping his brass, he peered into the murky dawn shadows, his mental speed enhanced to let him process what he was seeing at incredible speeds. He gazed into darkness. And crimson eyes gazed back. 

Turk shied back, his body moving sluggishly compared to how incredibly fast his thoughts were running through his mind, as a large feline creature emerged from the alleyway. The beast’s body looked to be made entirely of shadows even deeper than the ones that still shrouded the city. Razor claws scraped on stone, the sound distorted slightly by Turk’s astonishing speed of thought. Though he tried to scramble away, the creature stalked slowly towards him, his body moving too slowly to escape. His racing thoughts and enhanced perception allowed him to notice, in his peripheral vision, more of the shadowy beasts emerging from the shadows throughout the marketplace. 

The monster in front of Turk tensed, as if preparing to pounce. Turk’s mind watched shadowy muscles tense, claws and teeth preparing to strike, as his body moved too slowly to escape. He turned, trying to run, tripping as he did so. Lightning quick thoughts fed him an image of merchants and shoppers throughout the marketplace falling to shadowy monsters, let him hear screams rising into the night, let him smell smoke and blood mingle with the salty air as Eastvale began to die.

Turk stopped tapping brass, bringing his mind back into the moment. The screams of the dying became all the more real to him as he turned to face the beast behind him. Shadowy saliva dripped from its powerful jaws as it stalked closer and closer, only a couple of feet away from him after that first pounce. Turk felt himself begin to tremble in terror as the thing inched ever closer, forcing him to confront his own death as he listened to his people die all around him.

“Nexu, may your Divine Connection guide my soul to peace,” Turk prayed, speaking to the old God from his youth as the monster before him tensed for another pounce.

Turk closed his eyes as the creature leaped. He felt strong jaws clamp around his throat as razor claws sliced into his shoulders and back. His scream died as his throat filled with blood, coming out as a gurgling shriek. Turk felt his life draining away from him as the demon thrashed him about. Then, after agonizing moments of pain, everything went black.

…

Dust filled the air as the sun climbed slowly into the sky. Most of the shadows had been dispelled by now, so Gim could see quite well as he walked alone in the orange light of dawn. In front of him lay the endless stretch of rocky hills and dusty plains that were the mark of the Outlands. Behind him, there was the small town of Stoneview. Gim’s home for all his life, the town was scarcely more than a clump of small shacks and rickety houses, inhabited by the only people stupid enough to live in the Outlands: the poor. 

Gim kicked up the red-grey clay dust as he walked, adding to the streams that the gusty winds kicked up. His brown, somewhat tattered work clothes were stained with the stuff, just like everything else in the Outlands. The dust there never washed off. Gim was lost in thought, wandering aimlessly. He was so immersed in his own thoughts, in fact, that he didn’t notice the bear-like creature that lumbered from the shadows around a hill and swiped its deadly claws at him.

Gim saw the beast just as its claws struck him, ripping his throat open and spraying blood onto the dusty ground. He cried out, falling to the ground as incredible pain rushed through his body, followed by a wave of numbness from the shock. Then, as a new warmth began to flow through his veins, his wound began to heal. The pain subsided slowly as the edges of the gash in his throat began to knit back together under the influence of Gim’s gold.

Slowly, over the course of a few minutes, strength returned to Gim’s body. He carefully climbed back to his feet, his clothes and the ground now stained with dark red blood. He turned, finding the shadowy bear creature standing on two legs, crimson eyes focused on Gim. The beast roared, a powerful and unnatural sound that shook Gim to his core. Gim screamed. Then he turned to run.

He’d gotten only a few feet when another shadowy monster, this one more canine, blocked his way. He pulled up short, the first creature stopping a few feet away from him. Several others joined these two, and Gim saw dozens more moving towards Stoneview, where the townspeople would just be rising for morning work. Gim tried to run, but the beasts barred every turn with painful attacks. 

Gim lost a chunk of his shoulder, blazing pain washing over him as he tapped gold and healed again. His next attempt to run cost him half of his face, leaving him to wait for his eye to reform. For minutes on end, stretching into over an hour, Gim tried to escape. He heard the screams as Stoneview was attacked, as men and women who were his friends began to die in horrible ways. He watched as his home was destroyed.

After the first few attempts to run, his gold had stopped erasing the pain. By the time Stoneview fell silent once again, his body was a mess of searing agony. Every cell, every atom, in his body felt as if it were ablaze, and no amount of healing could alleviate the pain. To make matters worse, Gim’s gold was beginning to corrode at an incredible rate. Every time he passed near one of the dark monsters, his metal blackened a little more. Already, barely any of the shiny yellow metal remained untouched. 

After over an hour of pain and healing, Gim was mentally and physically exhausted. He was ready to die. So it came as something of a relief when the monsters surrounding him began to advance. They clawed at him, ripping off chunks of flesh, the last of Gim’s small supply of gold corroding away. The two small bracelets on his wrist had cost him years’ worth of money. Not that it mattered anymore. With the last of his gold gone, his wounds stopped healing and continued to stain the dust deep red. Soon, the creatures grew more bold, and began to truly attack him. The pain that had consumed him for the last hour reached a crescendo, and a scream escaped his lips, splitting the silent morning. 

His flesh tore and his bones shattered. His body burned with unrelenting pain. He continued to scream as he slowly died, the monsters seeming to toy with him. Finally, after so much pain and suffering, after listening to everyone he loved die and being powerless to save them or himself, everything went black.