Best Laid Plans (2 page)

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Indie Book Blog

Best Laid Plans

“
Prior is a talented writer and great story teller...he has the skill to both describe the surroundings and details of this interesting world and at the same time develop several intriguing characters that have real depth.”

Four and a Half Stars

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Ray Nicholson, Top 1000 Reviewer Amazon.com

 
Thanks to Harry Dewulf of Densewords for content and copy editing, Paula Prior for content editing, proofing, and reformatting as well as Theo Prior for listening.

A big thanks to all the people who’ve taken the time to review the first book in the series,
Cadman’s Gambit
, and those who’ve reviewed
The Ant-Man of Malfen
, which keeps going from strength to strength.

Finally, a huge thank you to Anton Kokarev for his stunning cover art, to Mike Nash for the map of The Nousian Theocracy, and Theo Prior for the map of Sahul.

CADMAN’S GAMBIT

Dr Ernst Cadman has led a quiet life, but that’s how he’s wanted it all these hundreds of years. With a secret like his, anonymity and caution are the best friends a man can have. Nothing could tempt him from the safety of his parasitic existence at the heart of the city of Sarum—at least nothing this side of the Abyss.
Cadman stakes everything on obtaining the artefact that once destroyed an entire civilization, but in so doing he draws the gaze of a sinister presence from beyond the stars.
Meanwhile, Deacon Shader, veteran of the war against the undead armies of the Liche Lord, has one last fight in him. This time it’s just a tournament, with the prize a sword steeped in myth. Win or lose, Shader intends to defy his Templum master and retire to the Abbey of Pardes.
When a horror from the past wrecks Shader’s monastic dream and leads him to plague torn Sarum, he finds an ancient power unleashed that imperils more than he could possibly imagine—a power now in the hands of Dr Cadman.
Gods tremble, and worlds will fall unless Shader can conquer his personal demons and accept the fate he’s been prepared for since birth.

Buy it now if you haven’t already read it

AETHIR: THE TIME OF THE RECKONING

M
aldark held firm to the mast of his boat, eyes narrowed against the spray and the squall. The yawl reared and plunged, wind punching the sail. A fierce gust whipped hair in his face, the boat lurching as wave after wave broke across the bow. There was a moment’s calm, a gentle bobbing, and then stillness.

He held his breath, eyes fixed to the reflections of the twin suns rippling on the surface.

Mouthing a prayer, he wrung the moisture from his beard, tasted its saltiness. He flopped onto the bench, ran cold fingers through limp hair, and listened.

Nothing
. He was almost disappointed.

Lying back, he stared up at the bloated clouds, blood pounding in his ears. He started to hum the tune always gnawing at the back of his mind: the lament of his fellow dwarves in the Abyss. A lament or an accusation, for had he not betrayed them, along with the hybrids and all the races of Aethir?

The oaken hull began to creak, quietly at first, and then with increasing strain. There was a scrape and a crash as his war-hammer slid across the deck to lodge beneath a bench. His hand snaked out catching his helmet by a horn as it rattled in pursuit. Jamming it on his head, Maldark scurried around the ship looking over the side. The keel was warping and buckling under tremendous force, the sea sucking greedily as violent eddies and swirls formed up ahead.

There was a sudden blast of wind, the ship heaving dangerously as it was wrenched against the swell. Ocean walls rose on either side, a frothing corridor of roaring water. Maldark clung to the mast as the boat sped along the channel towards a spinning black maelstrom.

‘Lord?’ he cried, eyes riveted to the whirling darkness up ahead. ‘Is it finally Thee?’

He prayed that it was; prayed for an end to the years of drifting on the seas, seeking atonement, but knowing there was none; hoping for a way to make things right, to put an end to Sektis Gandaw—still untouchable in his black mountain, still warping the creatures of Aethir and dreaming of the unweaving of all creation. How could Maldark have believed his lies?

The skin of his face was stretched taut, his back crushed against the mast. Shutting his eyes and fixing his mind on God’s hallowed name, Maldark shrieked a plea for forgiveness as the ship fell into the dark and merciless eye of the vortex.

Oblivion did not come.

The bobbing of the boat told him that. His eyes opened upon mist rising from a slick black river that bubbled through a gorge of steaming rock.

Gehenna
, he realized. The underworld connecting Aethir to the Abyss. He’d been here once before, when he’d removed the black axe,
Pax Nanorum
, from the world above lest his people fell for the deception. Power is the bait used by the Demiurgos, he’d explained at the time, and most of the dwarves had accepted his wisdom. Most, but not all. The safest solution had been to send it back from whence it came. But its curse had stayed with him, in spite of the precautions he’d taken, the briefness of the contact. He’d not aged a day since, and now he’d forgotten just how old he was. Impossibly old—even for a dwarf.

Vast stalactites dripped from the ceiling like an inverted forest, globs of oily liquid clinging to their tips, heavy and threatening to drop like poison from one of Sektis Gandaw’s pipettes. Poison that altered rather than killed, forcing life along pre-determined routes, twisting, changing. Metamorphosis, Sektis Gandaw had called it. Forced evolution. The terms had meant little to Maldark, but the effects of the process had been clear. New creatures, dark creatures; creatures moulded to suit every purpose of their creator. Creatures to be discarded like soiled rags once their usefulness was at an end. Creatures like Maldark and the rest of his deluded race.

Muffled cries penetrated the fog, fading from the walls of the gorge and falling upon the oozing stream with the silence of death. Sulphurous fumes burned his nostrils, made him hack and rattle deep in his chest.

The boat was snatched by an invisible current and lurched towards the middle of the river. Maldark straightened the prow with the merest of thoughts, steering a course towards the cries. Funny how so natural an action could still make him think of the dwarves who’d made the boat, who’d made so many of the wonders of Aethir. His heart was heavy with the thought that he’d never see them again. He didn’t deserve to.

A pitiful wail came from the shore, sending ice through his veins. The gloom was darker further back along the bank: empty spaces or shadows roiling in the mist, whispering to him, beseeching him, accusing him. One stocky wraith detached itself from the throng and drifted out over the black flow. Maldark’s breath caught in his throat, and his heart thumped against his chest. He knew what it was even before the face emerged from the smog: a face etched with pain, eyes like the Void, and a beard matted with blood.

Maldark opened his arms, the tremors in his legs threatening to pitch him over the side. The dwarf came to his embrace, the chill of its touch driving all warmth from him. It was a communion of death, a condemnation, and a plea all in one. The air about the wraith shimmered, its eyes turning from black to grey, its beard transfigured into the white of virgin wool. It passed through the mast, wafting silently down the river and fading from view.

The boat continued on its way, going wherever the black river would take it. Maldark’s ears were full of the calls of the dead walking over the acrid surface towards him. Arms wide like a father’s for a child, he bade them come.

***

If time passed, he did not know
how
much, but he was sure he’d crossed over into the Abyss. It only seemed right. Perhaps God had finally given him what he deserved.

The boat drifted past scenes of fire and blood, and grotesque figures groaned or screamed from the banks. He lost count of how many wraiths he embraced—the ghosts of the dwarves he had led to their doom. Their pain seemed more pitiable the further he travelled, the deeper he went into the realm of the Demiurgos. Did his touch truly help them, free them from this hellish limbo, or had he been deceived?

They ceased to come as the gorge forked, the lefthand stream frothing with black foam as it coursed downwards into the dark. The waters to the right rushed towards a whirlpool shimmering with greenish light. With only an instant to make his choice, Maldark willed the rudder to take him to the right. He held onto the mast as the boat was caught in the maelstrom’s grip and sent into a dizzying spiral. He shut his eyes and fought back the urge to vomit. There was a brief surge of pressure, a loud pop, and a blast of warm air.