Overkill Read online

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  Steven Shrewsbury

  Copyright © 2012 by Steven L. Shrewsbury

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be copied or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise, without express written consent of the publisher or author.

  Cover art and illustrations: Matthew Perry

  Cover art and illustrations in this book Copyright

  © 2012 Matthew Perry & Seventh Star Press, LLC.

  Editor: Joshua H. Leet

  Published by Seventh Star Press, LLC.

  ISBN Number 978-1-937929-83-1

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012935047

  Seventh Star Press

  seventhstarpress.com

  [email protected]

  Publisher’s Note:

  Overkill is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are the product of the author’s imagination, used in fictitious manner. Any resemblances to actual persons, places, locales, events, etc. is purely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to Mark Boatman, Mark Hickerson, Peter Welmerink, Angie & Christopher Fulbright, Stephen Zimmer, Matt Perry, Josh Leet, Louise Bohmer, Brady Allen, Mark Shrewsbury Sr, Mark Shrewsbury Jr (the Godson), Amy Shrewsbury, Jim McCleod, Joe Howe, Rhonda Harris, Michael Knost, R. Thomas Riley, Kimmi Jo Greenwell, Bob Freeman, Cheryl Lynne Staley, Randy Chandler, Gina Ranalli, Roy Booth, Jodi Lee, David Wilbanks, Martel Sardina, Ginger May, Donnis Lovell, Ty Schwamberger, Rhonda Wilson, Evyl Ed, Andrew Wolter, Michael West, B.J. McPherson, DezM, Elizadeth Hetherington, Jeremy Bulloch, Shawn Reeder, Debi Hulbert, Mark Johnson, Kelli Miller, Elizabeth Donald, Scott Nicholson, Laura Long, Dean Harrison, Stuart Bergman, Cat McMinn, Gail, Minh, Noigeoverlord, Mike Ko, Stephannie Scott, Wulf, D.J. Weaver, Brandon, Rita Scarlet, Justin Chiang, Angela Bodine, Andrew Leonard, Keevah, Amy Simpson Seel, and Brian Knight.

  Special thanks to Norm Partridge, Ron Kelly and Bryan Smith for words of encouragement.

  Lastly, but most of all, thank you to my family, Stacey, John and Aaron.

  Shrews

  Rural Central Illinois

  DEDICATION

  For those that pass me in the Ether-realm

  You know who you are

  And

  Mark Worthen

  A Friend Who Passed

  “Some costs are too lofty, no matter how greatly you may

  crave the accolade. The article one can’t swap for one’s

  heart’s desire is your heart.”

  -From tablet Fragment found at Larak

  PREFACE

  Then

  Nykia opened her door and watched her bodyguard’s head roll past. She took one step out into the hall and looked to her right following a trail of blood to where it originated. Vanda’s body laid on the rug woven by her aunt, Mavik. Jets of blood shot from the ragged stump on Vanda’s shoulders, each beat firing less of a volley as his heart realized it no longer was needed. Clothed in lighter leathers, and no armor, Vanda’s right hand wilted, dropping a short sword as his killer stood over him. This intruder, naked, save for leathery moccasins on his feet, bellowed and swung a crude bronze-tipped axe down onto Vanda’s headless body. Nykia recognized a ruddy Pryten savage when she saw one, mostly from paintings and one at an execution back home in the capitol of Qesot. Nykia couldn’t understand why the Pryten buried his axe in Vanda’s chest. At eight years old, even Nykia could tell her guard wasn’t getting up soon.

  The Pryten warrior locked eyes with hers. His eyes, black, burning and shallow, made her freeze in place. “She’s here,” he grunted, barely understandable in her own tongue.

  Nykia broke from the shock and stepped back into her room. She shut the door fast. A tiny trigger allowed a thick crossbeam to drop across the doorway. Nykia used little effort to trip the switch Vanda installed when the family first took up vacation residence there in Perpignan. Such delicate fingers created a great obstacle for the Pryten warrior to get through as the curses at his first failed attempt testified.

  A great many things raced through her mind, like if she really would die at the hands of Pryten barbarians at a coastal retreat in Perpignan, Transalpina or if they’d take her back to their sacred woods to sacrifice her. She wondered after her parents and the others in the royal party and how the invaders could’ve made it through the grounds, into the house and up the stairs. Nykia retreated to her bed, hands pressed to the sides of her painting smock as she pondered why the savages bothered to speak her tongue at all. But the hammerings on her door blotted these thoughts out.

  Nykia backpedaled to the corner of the room. Beyond her bed mat Nykia knelt by the shrine she’d erected. As the axe struck the planks that made up her sturdy door, Nykia didn’t pray to any god or goddess. Her thoughts of her savior filled her mind, the object of her shrine: Gorias La Gaul, fabled warrior from afar off lands. All the splintering of wood and curses at her door couldn’t get her eyes from the drawings and paintings of Gorias on her shrine, nor the tiny clay rendering of the great hero that slew the last of the dragons.

  “I love you, Gorias,” she said, folding her hands, eyes on the bearded images for a moment, then closed, recalling the time she saw her grandmother speak to the legend himself…how amazingly tall he stood, the ruggedly handsome figure he cut even if his long hair and beard had turned gray. 700 years would do that, she reckoned with a grin as the door started to leave its hinges. She’d heard whispers the legendary warrior would hunt with her father in the coming weeks and the possibility of meeting Gorias dominated her dreams. However, Nykia reasoned with sadness, she needed him now, not in a few weeks.

  Her dreamy state shattered just like the crossbeam. The Pryten, who smelled like horses and urine to Nykia, stood in her room at last, but his axe hung at his side. Behind him, someone in a cloak drifted past the ruined doorway. Nykia only got a glimpse of this person, but enough to realize the figure wasn’t a Pryten. Hands from the cloak with milky white skin gestured to the savage, but the figure didn’t speak before disappearing into the shadows.

  Nykia didn’t recall much about being armed up under the Pryten’s left armpit, but she closed her eyes at the gore in the house. The cook, nursemaid, the man who kept the horses and the other guard all missed limbs & their lives. The cook really put up a fight by the state of the dead Pryten at his feet, but they’d chopped off his right hand, which lay on the rug by the pantry door, still clutching a cleaver.

  Once outside, she saw more Prytens, but only a dozen, not the army she expected. At their feet lay a few of their brothers’ bodies, so Nykia smiled that some died in the exchange. The Prytens quickly put the luxury home on the coast to the torch, unconcerned if nearby trees or fields of autumn would catch in the blaze.

  When they threw her to the ground, the air left her body. This moment became her first taste of terror. She couldn’t breathe and flipped over, arms flailing in the air.

  The person in the hood stepped forward and admonished the Pryten who dropped her. “Fool. Be careful. She’s of no use to Tancorix damaged.”

  The Pryten spoke in his own ton
gue as he grabbed Nykia up by the hair. He swatted her back and she gagged, air rushing back to her lungs.

  Tancorix, the Pryten queen and high priestess of the Wood…Nykia didn’t like the sound of that. She’d heard tell of evil Tancorix around the hearth in tales to scare children, but what would that crazy woman across the channel want with her?

  The hooded person, a woman, she thought by the voice, said acidly, “Getting the wind knocked out of you is the least of your worries.” The woman whose voice rang familiar turned to the Prytens. “Prepare her for the journey to Pergamus.”

  Her heart spiked with terror at that name: Pergamus, the land from where the dragons came. She imaged a proper sacrifice back in the Pryten wilderness on a stone slab to their Queen Tancorix, but Pergamus? It sounded impossible and unfathomable. Would she be fed to dragons?

  Nykia always loved to braid her long hair and the way the ebony locks shone in the sun. It took but a few moments for the Pryten to shear off her tresses down to the scalp with a curved blade. She’d not cried until then, and words from the throaty woman about lice didn’t fill the void when Nykia mourned her long locks.

  Once the warrior removed her hair, he ripped her painting smock off in a single swipe. He then pulled a textured sack over her head. Nykia nearly giggled as her head and arms found holes in the rough sack to pop out from.

  The smelly warrior mumbled something about “the sea.” Nykia only understood him when she saw their series of small crafts wedged in the sand down the coast. It stood to reason they’d cross the channel and her heart screamed at that idea. Though not afraid of the water, she wouldn’t trust venturing out on such a tiny ship.

  Again, the warrior carried her under his arm and she looked away from the sea. Flames crept around their large home and the thatch in the roof started to smolder. She couldn’t understand how such a thing happened, her in a place where they were so safe. No one could approach the lands from roads nor through the dense forest nearby. Dogs patrolled the grounds and many guards held a leisurely post all about. Transalpina was at peace; even a little princess such as Nykia understood that.

  The closer they drew to the boats, the more she put it together that these savages crossed the channel from Albion, probably the Pryten wilderness to the west, to reach this spot. Though she’d sailed on larger vessels, she couldn’t comprehend how they’d performed such a feat on bitsy boats.

  It took the snorting of a horse to make the hurried Prytens stop and turn their backs to the sea. The man carrying Nykia also twisted, causing her to face the water. Only after he dropped her did Nykia turn to claim the same sight as the abductors.

  An enormous black stallion, as big as a draft horse, stomped down the coastline. The animal carried a huge figure encased in a faded navy blue cloak. At first, she thought this man another one of their party, but soon abandoned this line of thinking due to the unrest caused amongst the Prytens. A few jumped in the boat on the left, another fumbled with his shield, trying to get the crude buckler made of twine in the correct spot on his arm.

  The warrior guarding Nykia turned to square his shoulders to the oncoming rider. This move sent Nykia rolling. In the sand, she looked up and thought a dream materialized. It couldn’t be possible, outside a fable or a bedtime tale by her grandmother the Queen Garnet, that Gorias La Gaul would ride in to save her.

  And yet, there he was...the legend his own self, revealed as his hood and cloak started to part. He wore his bluish armor rumored created from the skin of a wyrmling dragon, and his helmet didn’t hide the flowing gray hair out the back.

  Even if she dreamed, Nykia reasoned, it was a good dream, for the arrival fought and killed like the legend. The horseman put the reins in his teeth and threw a small object at the first man to step up. The article appeared at first like a tiny ball, but opening to spin long cords that encircled the arms of the Pryten. While this bolo wouldn’t subdue the savage forever, it only had to until the rider disengaged two swords from a pack on his back and sliced one through his target’s forehead. The horse thundered on and the slit-open man stood, shaking, brains running down his face, before falling to his knees in the sand.

  Nykia’s heart came near to bursting when she saw the swords come free. The rider, close enough now to see the reins disappearing in a slit on the helm, had to be La Gaul. All the tales of his twin swords that came from angel’s wings and were lodged in scabbards on his huge back. They cleanly passed through the crude swords the Prytens offered up and swiped on down through flesh like they were spreading butter. La Gaul slew two that approached him on each side, standing in his stirrups and slashing down, not only cutting through bone and metal, but also twisting as he withdrew, ensuring neither blow dealt a simple injury. Nykia swore she saw part of a rib cage pull out when La Gaul yanked back from a Pryten on her left side.

  The huge man slung his legs from the horse and tossed free his cloak, sending it over the head of the robed woman who directed the Prytens. While she struggled with this obstruction, Gorias turned to the other warriors. One already advanced and stabbed at his right side with a spear. The blade glanced off the dragon scales. Gorias’ back swipe with the sword in his right hand sent the Pryten’s jaw flying. A bubbly scream echoing in the throat of the maimed warrior, his terror didn’t last long as Gorias brought his blade around and inserted it in the man’s heart. Gorias turned the blade and pulled, near to a good handshake

  A Pryten managed to parry the left sword arm of La Gaul with his shield, but drew close, getting out a small stone axe and slamming it into Gorias’ midsection. The axe head broke off and the Pryten stopped. Up close with the big man, Gorias drew his right forearm across the neck of the Pryten and shoved him away. Blood spouted from the Pryten and his face wore a confused look, not comprehending what Nykia saw: the armored forearm of La Gaul held a dew nail of the wyrmling dragon, now decorated with the Adam’s apple of the Pryten.

  Gorias shook off the gore as a smaller Pryten jumped on his back. This man held a dagger in each hand. Legs wrapped about Gorias’ waist, he stabbed down wild, like he beat on a drum, both blades crashing into Gorias’ shoulders. The daggers both broke off on the armor and Gorias twisted once. Not dislodged off him, the man remained intent on pounding at him with the handles of the broken knives. Gorias raised the visor on his helmet.

  Free of the cloak, the woman screamed at the warriors, “Get him! He’s one man!”

  One closed on Gorias on each side and another to his front as the small man on his back worked on to no avail. Each of the men charged in like the savages they were and Gorias spread his arms, stabbing each flanking Pryten in the stomach. However, when he struck the two, the woman screamed a guttural chant and flung a glowing ball of glass at Gorias. The ball imploded in the air as he stabbed through his two attackers, and he froze in place. For a moment, Gorias couldn’t move, but then he released his swords and stepped forward. The two dying men remained standing, blades in their guts, and the man on Gorias’ back remained paralyzed. This time when he pivoted his shoulders, the man on his back fell off.

  Nykia thought she heard Gorias curse wizards as he planted his right sword in the smaller warrior on the ground, relating a Mage’s parentage to donkeys and swine.

  The woman gaped, unable to move herself at first, stunned that her magicks didn’t stop Gorias.

  Gorias moved on the man in front of him, who staggered to move as well under the effects of the magick ball of the witchy woman. Gorias grabbed each wrist of the stunned man, raised a boot to the Pryten’s chest and fell backwards on the sand, arms extended. Two loud pops echoed as Gorias dislocated both of the Pryten’s shoulders and kicked him back. His fall also smashed the frozen man on his back into letting him go. Gorias got to one knee and drew two daggers from his belt. He glanced Nykia’s way and then reared back, burying the blade in his left hand in the small attacker’s chest. The small Pryten’s frozen legs twitched but he never moved as Gorias pushed off his body to get up.

  Up on his feet,
Gorias used his right forearm to wave off a couple flying tomahawks thrown by Prytens as they cautiously fell back. He put his knives back in their holsters and turned around to take his swords by the pommels. After he pulled them from the frozen dead men, Gorias squared up to the Pryten with two dislocated arms and criss-crossed the blades, removing the throat of the injured man so fast Nykia gasped. The Pryten moved his mouth many times, trying to gag, but couldn’t make a sound, save for the one his body let out when he hit the sand.

  As Gorias made this move, two more savages attacked, one hitting him in the back full on with a tackle. He stumbled forward, helmet coming loose and falling forward, but Gorias stayed on his feet. One Pryten grappled Gorias’ left arm, hugging it to make sure he couldn’t use it for a sword strike. The Pryten drew back with his stone-headed tomahawk, but hesitated when he locked eyes with Gorias. The old fable pivoted, facing Nykia at last. Her chest filled with cool air. Gorias’ strong face would make anyone stop and question a move, Nykia reasoned. She also saw that in the tackle from behind Gorias had dropped his right sword, but held his helmet by the edge in his right hand. He used the helmet on the stunned warrior, smashing it into the Pryten’s face, causing him to spin away, drop his weapon and put both hands to a bleeding countenance. Gorias staggered a little when his tackler planted a stone tomahawk on his right hip, but Nykia saw the head of the weapon shatter. Gorias used his left saber to strike out and impale this attacker who backpedaled away from his destiny.

  “C’mon,” Gorias grunted. “Ya wanted me.” The Pryten fell, dead, like the rest, only with Gorias accidentally stepping on his head as he caught up to his prey.

  Gorias’ grim face turned to the last warrior, the one near Nykia, his lips parted as he said, “Your benefactor is dead.” Gorias gestured back at his horse, and swiped away another of the glass balls the wizard woman threw. “Yer startin’ to piss me off, honey. Just stop it.”