Resurgent Shadows

Book 0: The Successive Harmony Series

by Kevin L. Nielsen

Genres: Apocalyptic; Space Marines; YA Dystopian

Synopsis

From Kevin L. Nielsen, #1 Bestselling Author of Sands.

Humanity stands on the brink of annihilation. Dragons fill the skies.

Ever since the Breaking, when earthquakes tore the world apart and unleashed the nightmares of myth and legend, humankind has struggled for survival. 

Caleb is one of the survivors, and the only thing he cares about is getting revenge on the monsters that killed his wife and son. When he saves the life of a dverger—a mythic dwarf-like creature—Caleb discovers that the Breaking may have brought good to the world along with the evil.

On the other side of the country, Eric leads a small group of survivors in relative prosperity until a powerful war hammer is forced into his hands—a weapon with a will of its own so commanding that it sends Eric on a mission with one purpose: destroy the creatures that threaten his home.

Caleb and Eric must each decide to do something no one has dared before: to hunt the Dragonlords.

Release date: November 14, 2015

Publisher: Future House Publishing

Print pages: 346

Sample

The line moved forward. Someone cheered, though the sound was short and broke off jaggedly. Caleb glanced up the line and, for perhaps the thousandth time in the last few minutes, counted the number of people between his family and the safety of the city-fortress gate.

Too many. There were always too many. He took a deep breath and tried, unsuccessfully, to shut out the voices that whispered around him, like flies buzzing over rotted meat.

“What’re we going to do if we don’t get in?” a woman asked. She’d asked it before—several others had as well—it was the question that dominated everyone’s mind, even those at the end of the line over a mile away. They thought and questioned, wondered and hoped, even though they knew it was futile.

“There’s another city-fortress down in Georgia,” a man said. “We could go down that way. Or there’s the one up in Raleigh.”

“That one’s already full.” The speaker appeared to be an older woman, though the gray in her hair could just as easily have come from the falling ash as from age.

“What about the marauders?”

The hum of subdued conversation paused for a moment, like an old CD skipping over a scratch.

“There’s worse things than marauders,” someone else said in a voice shaky and tremulous with age. He glanced up the line to make sure no Guardsman was nearby. “I heard about creatures—nightmares—that came up out of the earth’s bowels during the cataclysm. The very denizens of hell itself, some say.”

“Rumors,” Caleb muttered to Rachel, putting an arm around his wife and infant son protectively.

She nodded in understanding, though she didn’t say anything. Despite the grime that covered her from two weeks camping in the line, he could tell her face was white and pale. She clutched Benson to her, though the toddler squirmed against her tight embrace.

Caleb smiled and took him from her, tickling him so that his laughter would distract Rachel from the voices that had joined in the conversation. If only he could keep his own ears closed as easily. He’d lived in a state of near panic for the last few months, barely contained behind a facade of stability. It was what his family needed. He had to be their rock, even when he felt like he rested on a bed of quicksand.

“I heard it too. Little green-skinned men who run almost on all fours. And big gray things, taller than men and with skin like stone.”

Several of the women around the speakers made shushing noises. One of them, a rather rotund woman herding a gaggle of small children that had grown suddenly quiet, hissed a quick admonition.

“Hush now, you’re scaring the children.”

The old man averted his eyes, shuffling from foot to foot, though his expression was sour. “The world is ending,” he said. “They should be scared. We should all be scared. I heard it from me brother afore he left for the west, I did. He come down from the city-fortress in New York and saw them himself. Naught three days past this was.”

“What’s all this, then?”

A soldier walked up to the line. His assault rifle, his badge of authority, was held at the ready. Two other soldiers followed him. The trio shoved through the lines of refugees as if they were mere obstacles rather than people. The crowd parted for them grudgingly and reformed their lines quickly after they had passed.

Caleb wondered what he was doing, putting the lives of his family in the hands of such hard, cruel men. Then again, hard men were the ones who survived times such as these.

The soldier who had spoken grabbed the older man and pulled him out of line. Everyone else looked away, glancing down at their feet or over at their companions, though Caleb watched the encounter out of the corner of his eye.

“What’s all this, then?” the soldier demanded again. “Stirring up fears and rumors? Disturbing the peace? You know the rules.”

“Nothing, sir, nothing.” Sweat stood out on the older man’s sooty, balding pate. His eyes lingered on the assault rifle in the soldier’s hand. “I was just telling these fine people about me brother. He’s from up in New York, you see.”

The soldier snorted. “As I said, spreading rumors and hearsay.”

The soldier’s two companions chuckled. The first soldier turned the older man to face the city-fortress walls and gestured up at the defenses. The walls themselves were tall, stretching upward well over ten stories. The city-fortress had been created by converting the old Charlotte football stadium into a communal structure, meaning the walls were thicker at the bottom and thinner the higher up they went. Bailing wire glinted in the muted, reddened sunlight. Mounted artillery hung out over the battlement like silent, deadly sentinels, threatening anything that moved.

“Look at these walls,” the soldier said, raising his voice so more people would hear. “Do you think a band of marauders could breach that? The honorless swine would break against these walls like water on rocks.”

“Yessir, you’re quite right, sir,” the older man said, swallowing hard. “Nothing will get by them.”

“Good. Now get to the back of the line.”

The man stared at the soldier in open-mouthed horror.

Those around him who, like Caleb, had been sneaking glances at the scene, really looked away this time. Only the first twenty thousand would make it in. Caleb and Rachel had endured two weeks of cold, hard nights, huddled against Benson to warm his infant body, so they could get the position they had in line. They would be lucky to make it in themselves.

A small scuffle broke out, the echoing cries from the old man lingering for what seemed like an eternity as the soldier and his companions dragged the older man out of hearing. No one came to his defense. Everyone felt sympathy for the man, but secretly, in their own minds, they were glad there was one less body between them and the protection of the city-fortress’s walls. Pragmatism and the desire to survive buried the guilt. Or at least, that’s what Caleb told himself.

The line moved forward.

In a broken smattering, like birds resuming their song after a predator’s passing, whispers broke out among the line once more.

“Why did they have to be so . . .” Rachel trailed off and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, suppressing a shudder.

Caleb handed Benson back to Rachel and wrapped his arms around them both. He glanced up at the pavilion set before the gates. The three lines all converged there. Doctors and medical personnel examined each lucky individual who made it through the canvas doors. If they passed the medical exam, they’d be issued an ID card and be allowed full citizenship in the Charlotte city-fortress.

“They’re afraid,” Caleb said after a moment. “Just like the rest of us.”

“They’re bullies. Couldn’t they have shown him some mercy, some pity, something?” The desperation in her voice made Caleb’s heart ache.

“Fear does strange things to people, my love.” He gave her a quick kiss beneath one ear. “Bullies are really just cowards trying too hard to cover their own shortcomings. At least that’s what my father always said when the kids picked on me in school.”

Rachel sniffed but didn’t say anything more. After a moment, Benson began to fuss again and she pulled away.

Caleb counted the number of people between his family and the safety of those soot-stained canvas doors. Too many.

A wisp of ash landed on Benson’s head. Caleb reached out and brushed it out of his son’s curly hair out of reflex. More ash settled in almost instantly.

“I hate this ash,” Caleb complained, more to draw his wife’s attention away from the slowly moving lines than out of any real complaint. The ash was simply a part of life now, like breathing or the rising red sun.

“This is the new normal, Caleb,” Rachel replied. Her eyes showed a hint of redness to them. She’d been crying again, though she’d tried to hide it.

“We’ll be safe here, though.” He squeezed Rachel’s shoulder, hoping to belie the hollow sound he heard in his own voice. He swallowed the icy tendril of fear creeping up his throat. She was usually the strong one, but somehow over the last few months their roles had been reversed. Caleb didn’t know where he’d found the strength.

Rachel sniffed and gestured toward the pavilion. “Someone’s coming out.”

A man in a long white coat pushed open the door to the pavilion and surveyed the lines. At least the coat had once been white. It had been subjected to so much ash it had developed a permanent gray cast.

The man counted the people in Caleb’s line, quickly ticking off a number in a notebook he carried with him. The man closed the book and signaled to someone behind Caleb. After holding up ten fingers, the man turned and re-entered the pavilion without a backward glance.

Only ten more!

Caleb felt panic seize at his throat and quickly tried to count how many people were in front of them.

A soldier came up behind him and shoved him forward roughly. “We’re full,” he shouted as dozens of other soldiers poured out of the pavilion and the city-fortress’s gates. A team pushed forward to gather Caleb’s family and the others in the last group of ten. “The rest of you have five minutes to disperse before we open fire.”

As he was shoved into the tent, strong hands gripping his arms, Caleb heard the similar orders shouted by other soldiers and the angry, terror-stricken screams of protest that responded. The woman and her gaggle of children were not in their group.

Rachel shuddered and cried softly, her sobs silent against the noise behind her. They had made it into the pavilion. They were safe. They would survive.

Caleb tried to ignore the shouting and screams from outside as he was ushered behind a small curtain to be examined by one of the doctors. Rachel was taken to the other side of the pavilions where the women were being examined. Caleb felt a sharp panic. They couldn’t get separated, not after all they had been through.

Thankfully, she stopped somewhere he was still able to see her. Benson squirmed to get out of her arms so he could get down and play. Caleb watched him carefully as the doctor approached and felt a moment of relief so profound that, for a moment, the screams and horrors from outside the canvas walls dimmed and faded away. For a few moments at least.

The doctor shone a light in his eyes and swabbed the inside of his cheek. A nurse drew a vial of blood and dropped some sort of chemical tablet into it. Nothing happened. The nurse did a similar test on the swab and again got nothing.

From outside, a piercing scream rent the air. The nurse jumped. The doctor didn’t seem to have noticed. Instead, he pulled a metal box of files toward him and signaled for one of the soldiers. Caleb felt another stab of sudden fear and looked over for Rachel, but the soldier simply handed him a dark plastic box and walked away.

Breath returned to his lungs.

Rubbing his nose with one hand, the doctor jotted something down on some files with a thick, black pen. “Do you have your old social security card and an old driver’s license?” he asked, looking over a pair of thick, dirty glasses.

Caleb fished them out of a pocket and handed them to the doctor, who took them, wrote down some more notes, and dropped them into the metal file box.

The shouting from outside swelled to a frenzied pitch. A burst of shots rang out, sharp, loud, and echoing like thunder against a mountainside. Caleb glanced sidelong at the pavilion entrance, but the doctor ignored the sounds.

“We need your thumbprint,” the nurse said, placing a pad of ink and a green identification card on the table next to him. Her hands shook slightly, reflecting the fear Caleb recognized in her eyes. She tried to mask it, but Caleb could feel the power of her tremors as she took his thumb and made an impression in the middle of the ID card.

The doctor walked over and pocketed the card before the ink was fully dry. He took a few more notes, then handed the card to Caleb with a smile.

“Welcome to the Charlotte city-fortress. I believe the people are starting to call it New Harmony, though it’s not an official designation.”

Caleb smiled back, though he felt numb as he got to his feet.

The nurse hastily picked up the box Caleb had left on the table and handed it to him.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“A handgun,” the doctor said in a dry voice. “All men age sixteen and over are required to serve in the militia. Training duties will be provided once inside the city-fortress itself. Now, I believe your wife is waiting for you.”

The doctor pointed toward the back of the pavilion where Rachel stood with Benson. She clutched two green ID cards in one hand. They’d done it!

Caleb hurried over and wrapped his arms around them. A tear slipped down his face and splashed onto his hand. His family would be safe.

A soldier ushered them out the back of the pavilion, which opened directly through the gate into the city-fortress itself. Overhead, the .50 caliber opened fire. The screaming outside grew louder and then cut off in ragged bursts.

They didn’t look back.

Caleb Matthews came awake in the moment between breaths. His fingers tightened on the butt of his handgun in that same instant, eyes straining in the darkness to discover what had awakened him. There was little light to see by, even after his eyes had fully adjusted. The omnipresent ash cloud was a murky blanket obscuring the stars and painting the deep blackness of night a muddy brown.

He waited motionless for several long moments, his finger steady on the trigger and a bullet ready in the chamber, as always. The incessant hum of night insects was the only sound that broke through the muted silence of the impenetrable midnight veil. The crickets and cockroaches were the only things unaffected by the cataclysms. They still had plenty upon which to feed.

A small sound reached his ears, foreign to the standard night symphony. His eyes turned in the direction of the sound and noticed a faint glimmer of light from the copse of trees. The light flickered and swayed against the trunks, casting shadows that stretched out like fingers across the ground. Caleb had ignored the inviting embrace of the boughs when he had bedded down for the night. Instead, he had chosen to make his bed a few hundred yards to the south. Though the greenery and life had been a welcome sight against the backdrop of death, such havens invariably drew visitors, and he was unwilling to take that risk.

The small sound came again, and this time, he recognized it as the sound of voices. He immediately threw aside the light sheet, sending a shower of soot into the air. His handgun remained in his right hand. Packing his bedding quickly, he tossed his pack over a shoulder and silently holstered his handgun. He slung his rifle over the other shoulder.

He took a step to the south, away from the light, but then glanced back over his shoulder. His booted foot twitched in that direction, but he shook his head and growled softly, turning away. Part of him longed to creep toward the light and bask in the sweet sounds of human conversation once again. That part of him told him it would be worth the risk. But the wiser part of him, the survivor, warned him that anyone foolish or uncaring enough to light a fire within the confines of those trees would not be someone he wanted to meet.

He strode away, following the path he’d been tracking before bedding down for the night. A faint glimmer of red appeared on one horizon.

The footprints he followed were fresh, deep, and well-defined, without the buildup of ash from prolonged exposure to the air. At most, his quarry was only an hour or two ahead of him, hidden amongst the hills.

He drew his handgun with practiced ease and released the magazine, dropping it into his other hand and rolling it in his fingers so that he could glance at the rounds within. Round-points. He frowned ruefully as he stopped for a moment to reach into an outside pocket of his pack and pull out a second magazine loaded with hollow-points. The breadth and depth of the tracks told him he’d need the extra damage that hollow-point rounds would provide. If he were able, he would only ever have hollow-point rounds in his magazines. But it was becoming harder and harder to find ammunition. He’d picked the area around the ruined city-fortress clean, and his reloading supplies were already stretched thin—and were several dozen miles away at that.

He snapped the new magazine into place with a faint click. The first magazine went into another pocket on his pack, and he slipped a second hollow-point magazine into a loop on his belt, next to a brace of knives. He had his rifle, a scoped, bolt-action affair with a large enough caliber to take down just about anything that walked, but he wanted his backup gun ready. Just in case.

The sun rose completely, casting the landscape into hazy relief.

The land was devoid of life, buried under a sea of ash that engulfed the horizon as far as the eye could see. With each step, little clouds of soot blossomed around him, and his heavy boots sank deep into the ash. Blackened husks of trees and unidentifiable skeletal remains were the only marks on the horizon that broke up the monotonous blackened quilt, but even those were beginning to gray.

The sky continued its progression from blackish to reddish gray.

Caleb grimaced, not at the sight before him, but at the memories that swelled within him. They came unwanted, unbidden, and uncaring for his desires, swirling in a vortex that finally rested on the memory of the firelight he’d left behind him earlier that morning.

They had probably been marauders. Who else would have been that foolhardy? Those who ignored the basic rules of survival were either those too powerful to care, or those too stupid to realize they would shortly leave the world with one less idiot to populate it. Still, at least they’d been human.

With difficulty, Caleb banished the thoughts and continued his hunt. Nothing mattered besides the hunt of the day. This quarry had proved elusive thus far, always keeping a few steps ahead of him. But it was slowing now, and Caleb was getting close.

*      *      *      *

The creature rummaged around in the trunk of a long-dead car, tossing a deflated spare tire aside as if it weighed less than a pillow. The tire landed in a massive drift of soot piled behind the car, sending a billowing cloud of thick gray into the air to mingle with the already drifting flakes.

On a nearby hill, Caleb watched the creature through the scope of his rifle. It was a relatively simple shot, especially with the rifle, but his finger rested against the side of the trigger, safety still on. Caleb studied the creature with a detached, professional curiosity, struggling to suppress the hunter’s voice within his mind long enough to assess the situation.

This was a creature he’d not seen before.

Caleb narrowed his eyes, considering the implication. Before the cataclysms—back before Caleb knew the difference between different handgun calibers and how to shoot, hunt, and defend himself from everything else that walked—things had been simpler, and happy. Afterwards all hell had—literally—broken loose. He’d long since resigned himself to goblins and trolls walking the earth, destroying everything in their path as they worked their way across the United States like a massive horde of locusts. There were other creatures, far fouler but less plentiful. And then there were the dragons and their masters.

The creature below wasn’t a goblin, though it was similar in appearance. Nor was it a troll, the larger counterpart to goblins. If anything, the creature seemed like a cross between the two. Almost man-height, the creature shared the green-gray complexion of the goblins, but the thickness and musculature of the trolls. This was something new.

Caleb knew they weren’t really called trolls or goblins. Most people called them that because giving them a name out of childhood stories and fairy tales objectified them in a way that made them less intimidating. At least, that was the hope.

Caleb’s curiosity waned. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human, and therefore it was worthy of death. He itched to put a bullet between its eyes. Caleb slipped his finger onto the trigger and turned off the safety.

With a guttural growl, the creature righted itself from where it had been crouched half inside the car, its pig-like snout sniffing at the air. A faded red duffel dangled from one meaty hand.

“Time to die,” Caleb whispered. He dropped into a measured, easy breathing rhythm and tensed his finger on the trigger, ready to squeeze off a round.

Movement from the opposite side of the secluded valley made him drop back down behind the blackened tree trunk, silently cursing. Part of him screamed to shoot the creature anyway, but his training forced him to wait, sighting back down the scope so he could watch what was going on.

Down in the shallow valley, the creature tossed the duffel bag aside with a snarl and snatched up a massive, double-headed axe that had lain hidden in the soot near its feet.

Caleb still marveled how a technologically inferior race could have so easily wiped out humanity, though in truth the cataclysms themselves had rendered much of the technological disparity between the groups null and void. Everyone in the Charlotte city-fortress had a different theory about it, each as unlikely as the rest. For Caleb, the what and why no longer mattered. He only cared about how he was going to continue moving forward.

The creature grasped the weapon loosely in one hand, outwardly calm as a pair of trolls entered the valley.

The trolls were much larger than the goblin-like creature. Well over seven-feet tall, gray-skinned, and stone-like, the trolls were muscular warriors who appeared to have but a single purpose: to kill. Their torsos were girded with thick, red breastplates that bore a flaming fist painted over their left breasts. Pennants hung from the wide-bladed spears they carried, an image of a red dragon on a field of purple, fluttering in the breeze.

Caleb studied the pennants closely through his scope, noting the intricate detail. The creatures often traveled in large groups, wearing similar clothing, but the armor and the pennants spoke of an organization that Caleb hadn’t witnessed before. These were obviously guards. This was another new thing, and new things were rarely, if ever, good anymore.

“Hail Loran,” one of the trolls growled in a rumble that carried up to where Caleb hid. “Right hand of Mortan-zai, Dragonlord of these parts hereabouts.”

Even after several years, Caleb still had trouble understanding the trolls’ speech. It was like listening to a native German trying to speak English through a mouthful of marbles with the occasional grunt or snort thrown in for good measure.

The goblin-like creature grunted, sounding like a dying pig, as another, shorter figure entered the valley behind the two armored trolls. Caleb guessed that this was Loran. The figure was wrapped in a red cloak, hood pulled down to cover his face. The figure stopped when he was level with the two troll guards. He paused and pulled back the hood, revealing a human face. Long brown hair tumbled free as the red hood fell away.

Caleb gritted his teeth.

“So this is the envoy Granil sends us,” the man said, studying the creature with cold green eyes. “A half-breed mutt?”

The half-breed chuckled in a deep, gravelly voice and snapped his axe up onto one shoulder, the half-moon blades glinting in the dull sunlight.

“I be Athore,” he said, “and I be the general of the armies that follow Granil, Dragonlord of the Browns.”

Loran regarded him coolly. His gaze grew flinty, boring into the half-troll as if Loran were attempting to kill him with a glance. Athore smiled back at him, revealing crooked, yellowed teeth that had been sharpened to jagged points. Loran’s smooth, flawless face broke into a tight-lipped scowl. He raised a hand, and the armored trolls snapped to attention.

“You train your pets well,” Athore observed with a mocking little bow.

The trolls rankled at the insult. Low guttural growls sounded from deep within their throats. The troll on the left glanced at Loran, who nodded and waved one hand permissively in Athore’s direction. It charged, pole-arm lowered. The other troll followed only a few steps behind.

Athore glanced at them both without apparent concern, not even bothering to raise his axe. “I be glad you have enough guards to lose these two, Subcommander.”

The trolls bore down on their smaller adversary. The troll on the left was the first to reach Athore and charged forward blindly. Athore stood motionless, watching them come down on him, and, at the last possible moment, stepped quickly to the left with astonishing speed. The halberd’s point passed harmlessly to one side, though the move took Athore directly into the path of the oncoming troll, who let go of the halberd with one hand to swipe at him with a meaty fist.

Athore took the blow on the side of his head just beneath an eye. Caleb heard the meaty smack as the blow connected and winced despite himself. Still, Athore retained his axe, which spun in his hands and swung back and to the side, neatly hamstringing the troll that had struck him.

It fell forward with a roar of rage and pain, dropping its weapon and clutching at its severed calf.

Athore stumbled slightly, his eye already beginning to swell shut, but managed to plant his feet in a ready stance facing the first troll.

The first troll changed its course clumsily to compensate for Athore’s sudden movements. Athore grinned and grabbed a dagger from his belt. His arm cocked back and then shot forward. The light glittered off the blade as it flew through the air and plunged into the troll’s shoulder where the breastplate ended. Athore cursed something inarticulate and readied his axe.

The troll dropped the halberd and tore the dagger from his shoulder with a small grunt of pain.

A moment later Athore’s axe crushed into the troll’s armored chest with enough force to knock the troll off balance. The massive gray creature stumbled, twisted nearly all the way around, and toppled toward the ground. Athore finished him off before he could rise.

Athore turned back to the hamstrung troll, who had managed to get back onto its feet with the aid of an abandoned car. It was weaponless, but bellowed in angry defiance as Athore sauntered forward.

“Finish it, half-breed,” the troll barked.

Athore touched a hand to his forehead in mock salute and stepped forward. It was over in mere moments. Athore buried his axe into the ground next to the lifeless trolls and sat down on the hood of car, which buckled and protested under the strain.

Caleb’s eyes widened in grudging admiration. What the half-breed Athore had just done, Caleb would have normally said was impossible. Even with a gun, Caleb would have been hard pressed to kill both trolls. The trolls had skin like stone that even armor-piercing rounds had trouble getting through. It would have taken some incredible shots to the eyes or soft spots—the groin, mouth, nose, ears, or throat—for Caleb to kill one.

Loran laughed, a genuine smile of pleasure coming over his thin, bloodless lips.

“Well done, well done indeed, Athore,” Loran said approvingly. “I see that Granil chooses his envoys well.”

Athore inclined his head slightly and bared his yellowed, pointed teeth in a snarl. “If you be done with your little test, Loran, I do be needing to return to me Dragonlord soon and the journey is long. Let’s be getting this done here and now.”

“I agree. The siege at Raleigh is already under way. The assistance of your Dragonlord is no longer required.”

Athore leapt to his feet, his axe seeming to leap into his hands. “This be not the agreement made between Granil and Mortan! The hosts of Granil and the Browns will be joining the battle at Raleigh, with you or against you. You be choosing which.”

Loran made a strange gesture with his right hand and pushed it out toward Athore with an indecipherable shout. Athore was thrown backwards as if struck by the force of a small car, flying at least twenty feet through the air in a jumble of arms and legs before he crashed into one of the abandoned vehicles strewn about the valley. The car buckled and bent under the force of the crash. Broken glass exploded outward from the shattered windows.

Athore toppled, face-forward, onto the ground. Shards of glass stuck up from his back, stained orange with his blood.

“The agreement is annulled,” Loran snapped, pulling the hood of his red cloak back up over his head. “Tell Granil that his services are no longer required and, should he desire to test his might against the power of Mortan-zai, he is more than welcome to meet his death at our hands.”

Without a backward glance, Loran turned on his heels and headed back the way he had come, soon vanishing behind the hills.

Caleb sat motionless behind the blackened tree stump, eyes off the scope, not understanding what he had just seen.

Down in the valley, Athore moved shakily, his arms twitching and jerking uncontrollably as he struggled to rise. He pulled himself halfway up the car, but his legs wouldn’t move. He yanked feebly at the roof, struggling vainly to pull himself up, but his grip slowly gave way and he slid down the side of the car.

Caleb looked down at his rifle and then glanced down to th