A Fray of Furies Read online

  The Waking Worlds

  - BOOK II -

  A FRAY OF FURIES

  by A. van Wyck

  The Waking Worlds Series Copyright © 2016 by André van Wyck

  A Fray of Furies Copyright © 2019 by André van Wyck

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Cherie Foxley

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my wife, Lindie, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Get a real job, I suppose. (Shudder!) Thanks for all the love and support. It got me through depression, caffeine withdrawal, writer’s block and that weird bit – when the keys began popping off my laptop.

  To my trusty proofreader, Jandré, whose keen eye for language (and enthusiasm for fantasy) I have shamelessly abused. One day, I swear, I shall repay you in more than just proof copies.*

  And to the readers: bless your hearts for picking up this book! I would love to hear from you. Leave a review where you purchased this copy or send an email via my website. (Details here below).

  * But, most likely, not in actual money. Sorry.

  ALSO BY ANDRÉ VAN WYCK

  The Waking Worlds Series

  A Clatter of Chains

  A Fray of Furies

  The Patchwork Prince Series

  Stumbling Stoned

  visit:

  ---www.andrevanwyck.com---

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ALSO BY ANDRÉ VAN WYCK

  FOREWORD

  PART I

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 – Of Lambs and Lions

  Chapter 2 – Burning Desires

  Chapter 3 – Of Moths and Flames

  Chapter 4 – Ride of the Herald

  PART II

  Chapter 5 – Rude Awakenings

  Chapter 6 – Tenement of Terror

  Chapter 7 – Thin Skinned

  Chapter 8 – Into the Fire

  PART III

  Chapter 9 – Curses in the Dark

  Chapter 10 – Debacles and Barges

  Chapter 11 – Sinking Feeling

  Chapter 12 – Of Conviction

  PART IV

  Chapter 13 – What Lies Beneath

  Chapter 14 – Snatched

  Chapter 15 – Dreams End

  Epilogue

  – END OF BOOK 2 –

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FOREWORD

  First off, reading Book I is in no way a pre-requisite for reading Book II. A Fray of Furies was written as its own, self-contained adventure. The characters will share any pertinent information with you, should they feel the need arise. If you see a character, running through a flashback, please try to keep up.

  For the completionists and the terminally curious, Book I is also available for purchase online.

  There will be no list of Dramatis Personae, so as to protect the true identities of characters under deep cover. There is also no map of the Empire or surrounding continents – since the cheat-code for eliminating ‘fog-of-war’ was lost centuries ago.

  Please, do not read while operating heavy machinery.

  Enjoy!

  PART I

  Prologue

  Following the Fall of Thell

  Landing of the Heli Fleet

  The Monokenda Kingdom

  Capital City of Tellalanu

  He turned the helm over in his hands, letting the solitary sounds of the surf soothe him. Tears were alien to his kind. But he’d spent a long time among the Lesser. Enough that he sometimes envied them their simple gestures.

  People, he corrected himself. Not Lesser.

  “So,” she intruded on his mourning, “Allerius succumbed.”

  The helm seemed to grow heavier in his hands, “That he did.”

  “It was inevitable. Of us all, he relied most heavily upon his hearth ties. With the alignments skewed, we are cut off. Doomed to slowly dwindle and die. Thanks to your lady.”

  Metal creaked between his fingers, “I’m glad to see exile hasn’t dulled your tongue, sister.”

  “I meant no offense. We all knew the risks. Her sacrifice was, arguably, the greatest. Allerius, at least, got to see the peace his death purchased.”

  “Peace?” he scoffed. Up and down the beach, as far as he could see, soldiers were hauling up and dismantling troop transports. The materials would go to build temporary barracks. “As far as these people are concerned, we are an invading army.”

  “We are their saviors,” Sybaline argued. “They are grateful to host us.”

  “They have no idea what we even saved them from.”

  “They will learn. We will teach them.”

  “And in the process,” he scowled, “suborn them.”

  “Such is the price of survival. Theirs and ours.”

  “Did you come find me,” he growled, “to banter about the philosophy of the victors? Me?”

  The old rage stirred in him, threatening to unseat his sorrow.

  “No,” she said, peaceably couching her spear. “There is an engineering dispute. Comorant calls for you.”

  Breathing deeply, he rose, “Fine.”

  He tramped up the dune with her, back to the bustle of the city. The Monokendan did not build in stone, preferring wood, bamboo and waxed paper. They were an unassuming people, small of stature and steeped in culture.

  As he and Sybaline passed, the commoners kowtowed, staining their silks to put their foreheads in the mud.

  “There was a time entire worlds knelt to you,” she observed him sidelong. “Surely this does not make you uncomfortable?”

  He sighed. But he could not argue the necessity. This land was perfect for their purpose. Half a world away from the devastation of the Fall. Ringed about by cliffs and mountains. Their nearest neighbors barely out of their yurts. The perfect base for a naval nation – which they were now reduced to. So why all this regret?

  “I am not as I once was.”

  “Thank the fates for that.”

  “No. Thank Helia.”

  “I never had the chance.”

  Their arrival saved him from having to reply.

  “Juris! Sybaline! Over here!”

  “Comorant,” he nodded.

  Even stooped over his bench of plans, their brother towered above his staff, Monokendan and Heli alike. The two groups were easy to distinguish. One wore armor with the ease of long familiarity. The other flinched every time Comorant flashed his double row of teeth. As he did now.

  “What do you think?”

  He glanced at the collection of calculations and annotations.

  “I think we’ve been here less than a fortnight. Is it not too soon to be raising monuments to ourselves?”

  His brother’s face fell, “Helia was very clear on this, Jur. We need a nexus – and a vault. And we need to start now, before we have nothing left to build with.”

  He meant himself.

  With high magic denied them, they had no power but their own. Comorant’s immortal soul would provide the mortar for this monstrosity he wished to erect.

  First Helia. Then Allerius. Now Comorant. He glanced at Sybaline, wondering whether she’d heard the same prescience in their brother’s voice. But her eyes were elsewhere. Hers was the element of change – her sympathy, like her attention, was a transient
thing. Death and loss meant very different things to her.

  Sighing, he forced himself to evaluate the drawing honestly.

  “She’d never have countenanced such self-aggrandizement,” he judged. “Lose the sun motif. Go with something more neutral. Serene. A flower, perhaps. Don’t you agree, sister?”

  Finding her silence uncharacteristic, he followed her rapt gaze. Since the fleet’s arrival, the Monokendan capital had become a hive of activity. But he saw nothing awry in the bustle. The customary mix of porters, paramours and patrols. Perhaps the odd beggar...

  The beggar looked up, saw Sybaline staring at him.

  The man’s sour stare, so at odds with his blank expression, might mark him as simple. It would explain why he snarled at Sybaline and took to his heels.

  “Sybaline, no!”

  Her spear punched through the beggar’s back. The force propelled him a dozen paces and pinned him to a post.

  “Dammit, Sybaline!” he cursed, jogging after her. “We’re supposed to be attracting these people’s trust! Not hunting them in the streets!”

  The Menokendan were hysterical. Some ran. Others seemed too stunned to do more than stare. The Heli circled nervously. Many had drawn steel, none sure where the threat lay. The situation was moments from turning into a bloodbath. What a mess!

  “Agh,” he gushed as he came upon the corpse. The broad spearhead had sheared clean through the spine. The beggar slumped, dead. “What were you thinking?”

  Far from contrition, Sybaline looked intrigued.

  “Don’t you smell it?” she demanded.

  Behind them, Comorant sniffed, “Is that…?”

  “Krinjala,” she confirmed.

  There were gasps as the corpse stirred. And arm jerked. Its head rolled back, giving them a glimpse of bestial fangs and features. People screamed again as it hissed, scrabbling against the post to try and win free. When this proved impossible, it flailed awkwardly at them, claws scything air.

  “How…?” Comorant wondered.

  He stepped forward, his gauntleted first driving through tusk and skull. Brain matter scattered in a wide arc. Unseen, wood split with a sharp retort.

  The headless creature collapsed as Sybaline plucked her spear free.

  “I did not think this possible,” Comorant said, kneeling to examine fledgling talons and fur. “The return to mortal form should be impossible after the melding, yes?”

  “Without the anchor to their home,” their sister speculated, “they suffer the same fate as us. Theirs is an unnatural union, one forced upon them. Absent that force, they are simply… broken.”

  “This is our fault.”

  They looked up at him.

  “Thell is a world away. The only way it could have reached here is on one of our ships. It is a stowaway.” Dammit. No one had been looking for monsters in their midst. He let his gaze play over the crowd. The Heli had formed a loose cordon around them. The ring of Monokendan spectators had thickened.

  “Who knows how many more we brought along,” he mused.

  “What do we do?”

  He looked down at his brother, “Build your vault. It seems we’ll need it sooner rather than later.”

  “What will you do?” Sybaline asked, silently appraising him.

  “My lady may still live. I will set off in search–”

  “Helia left specific instructions,” Comorant objected. “We are to consolidate, rebuild and rearm for the return–”

  “I’ll do it,” Sybaline volunteered, eyeing him. “I have a few centuries in me still. I can, at least, set their feet on the right path. Make sure the surviving priests don’t go completely re-inventing the wheel, as it were.”

  He gave her a searching look. Despite their ready alliance, she’d never had much love for Helia. But then, love was not her way. Helia had understood that. And had trusted her.

  “Thank you,” he said, meaning it.

  “Thell can’t be more than a crater in the sea bottom by now,” Comorant objected. “How do you even hope to reach her?”

  He looked out over the mountains, “By any means necessary.”

  Chapter 1 – Of Lambs and Lions

  Present Day

  North-Eastern Reaches

  Barrier Mountains

  The Heli Empire

  Furious footfalls and snapping branches hounded her. The citymen struggled after her in the underbrush, barking curses. Too many citymen were wandering the People’s lands of late. They seeped from the boils that were the city’s logging camps and mines. These ones must be lost. Or they’d ignored the warnings: the skinned and skewered corpses, standing sentinel at the borders.

  Anger added its burn to her lungs.

  Her second-mother was going to crow about this. Citymen had snuck up on her?! The vaunted woodswoman?

  Behind her, one of her pursuers stumbled and fell.

  With her bow, she’d have fed their freshly feathered carcasses to the ground. But it lay, in pieces, near the falls. The pounding water had deafened her to the danger. The supple deer in her sights had stolen all her attention... If not for its sudden start, the citymen might have snared her unawares.

  The wrong-footed fools lacked all woodcraft, no better than toddlers, stalking a hen in high grass. The first to break cover got the arrow meant for the deer. Breaking the second fool’s head had broken her bow. The third had managed to tackle her off the ledge.

  Coarse as a plains buffalo, his crushing weight had rolled them right into the icy river’s embrace. Somehow, in the churning black, her knife had snagged between his ribs. The current had carried the corpse, and her last weapon, away.

  She’d twisted her ankle among the sharp stones, fighting her way towards the bank. A hundred paces upstream, two more men in city garb had picked their way across the falls. A third, unbalanced and bloodied, had stumbled after them.

  Three.

  And her, unarmed and unsteadied by badly bruised ribs.

  Almost – almost – she’d taken her chances with the swift water. But the current could hardly be expected to give her up a second time. So, clutching her side, she’d hobbled toward the tree line.

  Though they couldn’t know it, they were herding her away from home and help. Her only hope was to lose them and double back.

  Strident pain shortened her lead. She didn’t dare go to ground where they might see her. She needed to push deeper, where the trees weren’t so sparse. Somewhere she could disappear.

  If only she could catch her breath–

  Between one step and the next, the forest sounds failed. Every bug, bird and critter froze. The sudden stillness hit her harder than the riverbank, rocking her to a standstill. Something was horribly-

  There! A whisper of movement among the boles.

  Fast. Too fast–

  Her mouth ran dry. Her drenched furs felt positively warm. She strained her ears above her starving lungs and screaming ribs…

  There!

  A spindly branch bobbed beneath her attention.

  There!

  Kicked-up leaves, settling slowly to earth.

  A bush nearby erupted.

  The cityman who clawed his way free probably thought her shriek was for him. He checked his headlong rush, smiling anticipation. His compatriots crashed into view a moment later. They must think she’d given up their game. In truth, she just knew better than to be the buck that broke from the herd.

  Irrelevant details clamored for her attention: how one’s bald pate was bright with sunburn; how the other’s snarl of beard bristled like a bird’s nest. They shared a hungry intensity, even the bloodied one with the lopsided glare.

  Sunburn and Lopside flanked her, cutting off any escape. Bird’s Nest was spouting city-speak, sidling up to her like she was a skittish colt. She spared the soon-to-be-dead fool no attention.

  There!

  A suggestion of speed between the trunks.

  The krin had found them.

  She gasped surprise as strong hands flun
g her to the ground. Crude laughter sounded. Above her, unremarked, Lopside was fiddling with his breech-ties. Between his knees, she glimpsed a streak, speeding from the trees. She tensed against the impact.

  The crunch snatched her eyes back open. For a frozen moment, a blizzard of blood hung suspended above her. The world sped with a sizzle. Wetness splattered her face. She blinked to see Bird’s Nest, staring in horror at the gore painting him.

  Lopside was gone. Unspooled innards trailed off into the trees. The krin had taken the bleeding one first. She blanched at the thought. She was the lame doe – safely left for last.

  “What is it...?” Bird’s Nest appealed to her, backing away.

  Sunburn’s whole hand hid in his mouth, somehow failing to plug his puling. A line of bloody saliva dribbled down his wrist.

  She tried to get her feet under her.

  “What is it?!?” Bird’s Nest screeched.

  A low rumble rose around them, deep and promising death.

  Sunburn – one hand dirt-stained, the other spit-washed – flailed at his ears. Pushed past sense, he ran for the trees and made it clear past the second line of tall trunks.

  Though she knew the allure of safety to be a lie, her legs begged to follow. She watched as Sunburn was swept off his feet by a flash flood of shadow. His shrill screams dwindled into the woods, pealing out even as the furious ripping began.

  When it was done, the forest rang with silence, save for Bird’s Nest’s tortured gasping.

  “What...?” the man struggled between breaths, seized joints swiveling him toward her. “What in the dark places is it!?!”

  She might have answered him. But the answer presented itself in the bushes at his back. Her tongue cleaved to her palate and she could not have shifted her gaze if her life depended on it.