Awakening Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  Legal

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Jelly Communicates

  Author Notes - Ell

  Social Links Ell

  Series List

  Thank Yous

  DEDICATION

  To everyone who ever dreamed of making a dent in the universe.

  — Ellie

  AWAKENING

  The Sword-Mage Chronicles 01

  JIT Beta Readers

  Jim Caplan

  Leslie Wade Hager

  Ron Gailey

  Scott Ambro

  Jason Greatreaks

  Andrew Anderson

  Brian Roberts

  Charles Tilman

  Chelsea Wright

  Cory Sutliff

  Darlene Heisserer

  David Smith

  Diane L Smith

  Elise Wilson

  Jackey Hankard-Brodie

  Jamie Jackson

  Jeff Carter

  Jim Springer

  Joshua Ahles

  Kathleen Nelson Snowberger

  Kimberly Boyer

  Kelly O'Donnell

  Mary Morris

  Debi Sateren

  Thomas Ogden

  Robert Gould

  Ron Gailey

  Sarah Weir

  John Camer

  Heather Smith

  Tonya Waldron

  Peter McLean

  If I missed anyone, please let me know!

  Editor

  Amy Teegan

  Awakening (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  This book Copyright © 2018 Ell Leigh Clarke

  Cover Design by Jeff Brown

  Cover copyright © ProsperityQM LLC

  ProsperityQM LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  ProsperityQM LLC

  1500 South Lamar Blvd, 1050

  Austin, TX 78704

  First US edition, 2018

  Version 1.01.06

  The Sword-Mage Chronicles (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2018 by Ell Leigh Clarke

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Oof! Why do these things have to be so damn small?” A LaPlace army scout in a black atmospherically controlled suit dropped from the vent in the empty cargo hold. A small cloud of dust announced her arrival.

  She paused a moment to regain her balance, then scanned the darkness with her corteX heat filter for any signs of life.

  Nothing.

  She moved two steps to her left and gave the signal.

  Plop.

  Her partner, Alber, landed deftly beside her. “It isn’t small, Kodyn,” he hissed, barely audibly. “You’re just getting fat!”

  He too activated his broad-spectrum vision app and took a read of the space, ignoring the glare from his partner.

  “That is high on the list of things you never say to a woman.” Even as she spoke, Kodyn’s attention was on the job, rapidly scanning and calculating options, while moving through the space towards the door.

  “All clear,” she whispered into her corteX comm. Cautiously she stepped into the hallway.

  Alber joined her.

  The pair of them stood back to back for a moment and then crouched in synch with their backs to each other. Their corteX-enhanced eyes scanned the long, modern corridor for signs of surveillance equipment, laser trip wires, or anything that might alert the ship’s owners to their presence. For them, it was something as natural as breathing. They noticed everything: the tiny cracks that ran along the steel walls, the pale green color of the tiles. They couldn’t see any surveillance equipment, but they knew it was there. It was almost as if they could just feel it. Just beyond the corner of the hallway.

  Alber breathed out a slow, controlled breath. “Ready?”

  “Always,” his partner returned.

  They stood up, glanced briefly at each other, and then continued down the hall. Rounding the corner, Kodyn moved in, fast and silent; almost invisible. Sliding on the ground next to the camera, she pressed in close to the wall, and with a small springing step, stuck a small piece of wire into a control panel that effectively disabled the surveillance network.

  “Too easy,” she muttered, grinning and moving back into formation with her partner.

  The two disappeared fluidly out of the hallway, their movements perfectly synchronized as if in a beautiful dance. As they moved, the shadows moved with them, extensions to their own bodies. One looking from afar would not have seen them coming, and most likely would never see them go.

  It wasn’t long before they reached the next airlock. It was a standard unit. Functional. Efficient. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in a scrap yard, or at the entrance of a bank, and it didn’t look out of place here. Two huge half circles reached from the floor to the ceiling, with two eerie blue lights coming out from the sides and a thin strip of LEDs which showed the air pressure in the airlock. On the other side of the airlock, Amroth’s ship had attached itself, and had two segments of the tactical unit waiting.

  The control box for the airlock was outside, with a standard unlock protocol. They were about to access it to release the door when the voice in their ears startled them.

  “What is going on in there, you two?” Amroth’s voice demanded over the earpiece. “Why are the energy readings on the ship increasing?”

  “Increasing? Sir, this is the dullest ship I have ever been-” Kodyn’s sentence was cut off by a scream that came from the top levels. An anguished, horrific scream that chilled every bone in her body. It must have lasted for maybe a full five seconds, even though it felt so much longer, before fading away into silence.

  The two held their breath, perfectly still and quieter than usual. Neither of them moved a muscle. They kept their backs to each other, and ran their eyes over everything around them.

  Regaining her cool, Kodyn grinned. “Ah! There you go, Alber,” she hissed. “There’s a death metal band on board.”

  Alber turned and glanced sharply at her. “Not the time,” he muttered, making sure his comm to the boss was off. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  Alber switched the comm to his superior, his eyes still fixed on Kodyn. “Sir, I don’t know what’s going on in there. Recommend aborting and gathering more in-”

  He was cut off, this time by Amroth’s voice. “That’s not going to happen. You have your objective. Proceed!” His tone was stern and controlled.

  Alber shuddered. Hands shaking and heart beating fast, he didn’t dare press the issue. He opened the control box and disengaged the locks. “His obsession with gett
ing that sword... you might think he is trying to compensate for something,” he chuffed, trying to relieve the tension.

  Kodyn smiled weakly. “Sooner he gets what he wants, the sooner we’re out of the firing line,” she reminded him.

  She helped him heave open the airlock door.

  Almost immediately the tactical unit came in full force, blowing past the scouts and tripping the alarm. The two scouts jumped out of the way of the stampede and simultaneously face palmed. If there was anything Amroth and the scouts agreed on, it was that the rest of the team had a straight one hundred percent stupidity rating.

  “Like a herd of buffaloes, eh?” Alber commented dryly. “Well, at least when it comes to their stealth capabilities.”

  Kodyn shrugged, uninterested. “K, we did our job. Let’s scoot.”

  “Not yet,” replied Alber. “Something weird is going on. I need to find out what it is.”

  “Let them find out,” Kodyn pleaded, wagging her thumb in the direction the unit went. “We did what we were ordered to do, and frankly, we can’t do anything more. We are kinda under-equipped for all-out battle.” She indicated to their atmospheric suits and lack of body armor and weapons.

  Alber knew she was right. All they had was a small gun and a small knife each, which was perfect for their jobs as scouts, but not much good for anything else.

  Kodyn eyed him carefully for a moment. “Well I’m going. You can stay if you want to.”

  No reply.

  Kodyn shook her head and walked on. Alber could get stubborn like that.

  +++

  A few rooms away, the two tactical units maintained comm silence as they swept each room in a well-practiced pattern. They covered one area after another until the whole lower level was cleared. Only then did they break comm silence.

  A soldier’s trained voice cracked through the shared corteX channel. “No sign of movement here, sir. Empty.”

  Another commanding voice came over the comm. “Well, there is something in there.” A pause. “Frostbite One, sweep the upper levels.” Another pause. “Frostbite Two, better stay where you are. Nobody comes in or goes out.”

  The leaders of the units looked at each other and nodded. “Yes, sir!” they replied in unison, before splitting into two.

  Back on the ship, Amroth switched off his corteX receiver and turned to the last two segments of the LaPlace unit. They looked dangerous strapped in their ultra-light space suits, jet packs and glowing green pulse burst guns. All were equipped for space walking, and wore their standard issue gravity boots for when they needed to stay in contact with an exterior hull. The leaders of the two segments stood slightly in front of the rest, like statues, their figures framed by the light coming from the various rows of monitors. One of them had the look of a boy in his teenage years, with his ruffled orange hair and seemingly clueless eyes. The other stood in stark contrast, with a massive build and a sharp, relentless look.

  Amroth ran his eyes over the two teams before he spoke. “Frostbite Three, you will circle the Chesed on the exterior,” he instructed. “Make sure nobody escapes from the upper decks.”

  “Frostbite Four,” he said, turning his gaze to the others, “you will be space walking proper. Circle Legba’s ship. Don’t move in until I tell you to. We don’t want a repeat of last time. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” they acknowledged, making their way into a second airlock which would put them in space.

  Within minutes the two troops stood on the wide-open area right outside the ship, staring at the deep space all around them. Their thin space suits made slight hissing noises as they breathed.

  One of the soldiers complained quietly on the team channel. “As if these boots weren’t tight enough, they had to add huge chunks of metal inside them.”

  “Oh, quit whining,” replied the leader. “The thrusters will make it so much quicker to get around.”

  He was right. The thrusters that had been added on the boots and gloves of their suits had made it much easier to travel in deep space. Thruster powered suits had been around for a long time, but it was only recently that they had become standard issue.

  “We’re off,” the leader of the other team said, without so much as a nod or a glance in their direction. “Try not to fall on your faces when you land this time.”

  One by one, they pushed off the ledge of their own ship, before activating their thrusters and spiraling off towards the Chesed.

  “Jerk,” the leader of the second unit muttered, before wagging his hand in the direction of Legba’s ship. “Ok, let’s move it.”

  Unknown location

  “The sword is all that matters now. You must… protect the sword.”

  Cold hands pressed against her cheeks and forehead. Disorientated and in pain throughout her whole body, she wasn’t sure what was happening.

  Her eyelids fluttered involuntarily when the hands went away but her eyes refused to open. Perhaps it was the intense throbbing inside her skull that was keeping them so tightly closed; as if tiny gremlins were beating on the backs of her eyeballs with iron mallets.

  Or maybe it was the fear creeping into her bones as consciousness slowly returned but her memory remained absent.

  There was a quick flash of being a little girl, alone in a dark room with all manner of boogie men hiding beneath her bed. Someone, her father maybe, told her that if she didn’t open her eyes, the bad things could not hurt her.

  She had believed it then and wished it were true now.

  But she knew better. The boogie man was there, whether she opened her eyes or not.

  The fact that she could not remember her father’s name, or face, failed to register at that moment. Her brain was too busy struggling with the present to concern itself with the past.

  Her nostrils twitched.

  The smell of sweat and fresh blood wafted in the air. Was it her sweat? Her blood?

  She mentally checked her body. There was no pain other than the savage headache behind her eyes. Maybe the blood belonged to the person touching her?

  It was a man. Of that she was sure.

  His touch was coarse and clumsy, not soft and gentle as a woman’s might be. She could hear him breathing heavily beside her, wheezing, as if each breath took great effort.

  She flinched as his fingertips probed her neck, stopping only when the feel of her pulse pounded against them. The fingers remained pressed to her neck for a moment, then fell away. She heard him sigh.

  “You will live. For now,” he said, his voice deep and hoarse, speaking just above a whisper. He coughed hard. It rattled through his chest. “Open your eyes. I know you’re awake. Time is too short for games.”

  Her eyes opened slowly to a blindly bright and disorientating world.

  She blinked several times, fighting to ignore the sharp pain still pounding at her temples. Gently rolling her head to the side, she found herself lying in a padded seat: an examination chair of some kind.

  She could see the man now, sitting on a stool next to her, though his features had not quite come into focus. He was perched with his shoulders hunched and his hands now limp in his lap, like a dentist who had dozed off waiting for a root canal patient to emerge from under the spell of the gas.

  “Who are you?” her voice quivered as the words croaked from her throat. She barely recognized it. Her mouth was bone dry. She licked her lips, but it didn’t help. “Where am I?” she demanded as strongly as she could. “What are you doing to me?”

  When he didn’t answer, she lifted her head off the chair to look frantically around the room, though the light was still too bright for her to see anything clearly. She lifted her head some more and realized there had been a light in her eyes. In the gloom beyond she could make out a few features: equipment. Drawers and benches. She thought they might be in a medical room of some kind.

  She could just make out the shapes of medical equipment mounted on racks behind him, and two metal cabinets standing along one wall, probably containing supplies
. She didn’t know where or when, but she had spent time in such a room in the past.

  There was also an odd blue glow that seemed to be coming from somewhere beneath her or the chair. The blue glow grew stronger as her vision cleared, until she could see herself and the man bathed in the blue light.

  She brought up her hands to make sure she wasn’t manacled to the chair. Then she quietly moved her legs for the same purpose. She wasn’t bound in any way. She sat up, and found the light wasn’t in her eyes anymore.

  That’s a good sign, she thought. Good guys don’t tie down good people. Assuming that I’m one of the good people, of course.

  She didn’t have time to dwell on that thought. Her eyes focused on the man whose clammy hands she could still feel lingering on her skin.

  He wore a long, navy robe with a hood cowling around the back of his neck. His hair and beard were long, streaked with black and gray. His eyes were dark, but not menacing. His lips parted as his teeth clenched. He was probably handsome in his youth, but at that moment his wrinkled face was twisted into a mask of pain.

  Then she realized the sweat was hers, but the blood was his.

  “Answer me!” she said, more forcefully now. Knowing that he was an injured old man quelled the fear but fueled the anger. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

  The old man took a deep breath that made his body shudder. He slowly lifted his right hand to the left side of his chest above his heart. He winced as he brought the hand down and held it out to her with the palm up. His palm was covered in blood.

  Her eyes went wide as they trailed from his hand to the wound in his chest. It was the size of her fist. The blood had drenched the left side of his robe and was dripping to the floor.

  “Shit,” she whispered, leaning up on her elbows. “You’re hurt.”

  “Very perceptive,” he said with a pained smile. “Such a brilliant girl you are.” Even injured, she noticed, his tone carried an air of humor. Or was it sarcasm?

  She thought she saw him smile, but a racking cough quickly chased it away. He covered his mouth with his fist and struggled to steady himself on the stool.