Mud

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Reviews

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  After the End

  Excerpt: TIDES

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Additional Titles

  MUD

  Chronicles of the Third Realm War

  E. J. Wenstrom

  Praise for the

  Works of E. J. Wenstrom

  “Wenstrom’s debut is the catalyst for a planned series of fantasy war tales, kicked off with this thoroughly expanded retelling of the Orpheus myth...the clever use of weathered fantasy tropes and occasionally lovely turns of phrase will propel readers into book two.”

  - Publishers Weekly

  “MUD, I loved this book!! So unique so engaging, a Keeper and must read!!”

  - Nelsonville Public Library, Heather Bennett

  “I really like books about uncommon supernatural creatures, so, when I saw MUD had a golem as the protagonist, I jumped at the chance to read it. A well-written and enjoyable read.”

  - Metaphors and Moonlight, Kristen Burns

  “There's something primal in Mud. It's a reverent, mythical story of supernatural beings who justify desperate measures in their quest to feel complete. They struggle with emotions we all understand, even as they challenge the very rules that govern all of creation.”

  - Fantasy Author, Robert Wiesehan

  MUD

  Chronicles of the Third Realm War: Book 1

  By

  E. J. Wenstrom

  ***

  Copyright 2016 E. J. Wenstrom

  Cover Design by Heather McCorkle & Tina Moss. All stock photos licensed appropriately.

  Published in the United States by City Owl Press.

  www.cityowlpress.com

  For information on subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher at [email protected]

  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 events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior consent and permission of the publisher.

  For Christopher,

  who keeps me at least partially in the real world,

  and makes it all matter.

  - E. J.

  Chapter 1

  A STAIR CREAKS.

  With the rain pounding down on the temple’s rattling roof, the human may not have even heard the sound. But I do. It is too close, just outside the door of my tower. I look up from the Texts and listen.

  There it is again.

  A cold darkness tosses in my stomach.

  Another stair creaks, and I know I’m about to kill again. The boiling thrill for blood rises within me and I know better than to bother suppressing it. It will happen anyway, no matter how much I try to bury the monster I really am.

  Over the centuries, I’ve at least learned how to make it quick. My hand has already dug the box from the breast pocket of my cloak. I stride across my small room, my bare feet collecting dust. My back to the door, I lean on the mantle to lure the Hunter in. Then, I stare at the blank dusty wall and wait. The rustle of his cloak breaks the quiet with each step.

  I want this over.

  I hold the box high in my hand for him to see, as if I am inspecting it. So small, so delicate. It nestles easily against my palm, comfortable and sure. It knows I must serve it.

  Padded steps lift from the wood and onto the worn rug. My spine prickles with anticipation. Dread, heavy and thick like a storm cloud, wells up inside me. Have they learned nothing from their many losses? So many I cannot count them anymore.

  I lay the box on the mantle for him to reach. My fingers itch for the fight, but I will not destroy the human of my own will. He must bring it on himself. I step away from it, leave it there for the Hunter to set his fate.

  A rustle of rushed steps, a grunt, and a blade slices through my back, cool and slick. They keep trying to hurt me as if I were human, as if I felt the pain as they do. I reach around and remove the blade from my back. The skin knits itself back together.

  I turn to him. Rain beats at the window. Wild dilated eyes peer up at me from under a deep red hood. Young. The cloak slips at his neck, too large for his growing body. It is the same deep red cloak all the others wore. Rich, dark, velvety, with the same gold braided trim. My own cloak, worn and ripped, seems even worse next to it.

  The boy is trembling inside it. Waiting.

  Has he even experienced a true fight before? Why did they send someone so young? Guilt twists through me.

  “It’s not too late. Leave.” My voice is rough with disuse.

  I shift the knife in my hand, holding it away to show him I don’t mean him any harm, not if I can help it.

  Like their cloaks, the Hunters’ blades are fine, an elaborate pattern carved into its handle. It seems out of place in my hand, even after so many times. I run my fingers over its familiar ridges and wait. My ears are hot with anticipation, with dread of what I know comes next.

  He gapes up at me, my monstrosity. I fight the urge to drop my gaze to the ground and instead keep my eyes locked on his. I try to will him to turn away, to go back to wherever he came from.

  But I already know he won’t. They never do.

  Instead, he gives himself a quick shake and recovers his warrior’s front. “The Sworn will not rest until it is destroyed. Give me the box.”

  Courage glows in his eyes. Strong. Fresh. What a waste of a life.

  The Sworn? What is the Sworn?

  “I cannot.”

  If only I could. It would save both of us.

  He reaches for the box on the mantle.

  “Don’t—”

  His fingers wrap around it.

  The box’s force takes over and my arms reach for him. I wince as my hand slips the Hunter’s own blade through his soft middle. In the back of my mind, years and years of all the others who came before him flash through my memory. My hands buzz with mad hunger for the fight.

  But it’s already over.

  He gasps, clasps his hands to his open belly, trying to hold it in. Then he slumps to the floor, spilling his life across the wooden panels. He opens his mouth to gasp, but it comes out as more of a gurgle, blood rising in his throat.

  Not much time left. I try to push down the throbbing anger, the monster in me that hungers for the fight. I kneel beside him, gripping his head urgently so he is looking at me.

  I hold the box to his face. “What is in it? Why do you come for it? Who are the Sworn?”

  A red line dribbles down his chin. He looks up at me, trembling, shak
es his head side to side.

  “You don’t know?”

  His words come out in a hoarse whisper. He is shaking all over now in a struggle for his life. He opens his mouth again, tries to push out more. But the dark puddle grows fast below him, and it is over before it begins. Again, I am alone in the heavy dark of the temple tower.

  ****

  The Hunter’s eyes are cold and dead and open wide.

  Watching, judging, condemning.

  And they should. They have seen what I am.

  I used to tell myself I would get used to it. I got used to snapping bones, last cries, pools of blood. But the eyes. The eyes freeze in an echo of their final panic and pain. When they realize these are their last breaths. Paled. Filmed. Hollow.

  The Hunter’s eyes stare up at me and I can’t bear it.

  I step out onto the balcony to escape them. Try to clear my head, still buzzing and grainy from the kill. Rain squeezes out of the sky like teardrops over the cobblestone streets in the marketplace below, over the thin rotted roofs of the laborers’ quarters beyond it, over the wall that traps them within the city’s borders. Even over the city center, where Epoh’s elite rest, safe and dry. It pounds down on me, drop, by drop, by drop.

  So close, yet again.

  I set the box next to me on the railing, finger the curves of the delicate patterns painted over it. Such beauty. But it’s what’s inside that the Hunters come for, die for. That much I know. If only it would open. If only I knew what my body betrayed me for, why my hands are covered in blood yet again.

  They will send another. They always do. I will be waiting. It goes without end, back further than I can remember. Centuries. Years trudge by, bodies pile up, the weight grows heavier.

  I cling to my new clue. The Sworn. The phrase is meaningless to me, but it’s a little more than I had before. Next time, maybe I can learn even more, if they keep sending their young and untested.

  Already the dark sky is lightening toward a troubled gray. Another weary day is here in the city of Epoh.

  Which means I’ll be stuck with the Hunter’s cold stare all day. There’s no time to move the body now. Soon Epoh’s Silencers will be out, the city’s guards who keep the order with fear and clubs. Ever since they burned down the Holy District and all the Texts so many years ago, anything related to the Three Gods makes them jump. Any sign of movement from a temple like this would trigger a full search of the grounds. Then where would I go? There’s nothing else left beyond Epoh’s walls. Nowhere else to go.

  It wasn’t always like this. The realm was happy once. There were tons of other cities like Epoh, and they were thriving. But something shifted in the Second Realm War.

  Some say the Three saw the destruction and anger and hate that spread throughout the realm of Terath in the Second Realm War and abandoned it. Others say the Three themselves were on the battlefield, and They came with Their soldiers to beat at Epoh’s wall, begging to be let in and shown a little of kindness—care for wounds, a drink of water—but the people would not let them in for fear of the rebels, and They gave up on us. Others say the Gods simply saw how few men dared fight for Them and turned away.

  Whatever it was, the Gods are gone, and the people won’t dare invoke Them for anything, afraid of Their wrath. The realm is in ruins. Only the Gods know what lies beyond Epoh’s high walls. If They care enough to look.

  That’s why I hide here, in the temple. I keep to where the humans don’t dare wander. The Gods don’t worry me. They forgot this realm long ago.

  I force myself back inside and quickly step toward the body. I drag my fingers over the grayed lids, closing them. I untie his cloak and pull it from under him to mop up the congealing blood from the floor. With his eyes off of me, my entire body finally begins to relax again.

  It must be such great relief, knowing you can end. I envy them that, the humans. But not like this. Not before your time. Not alone, with no chance.

  When I’m done with the floor, I lay the cloak over the body. His legs jut out at the end, the hand still pushing against the sliced organs. A grotesque empty shell.

  The eyes still haunt me through the cloth. But there’s no time to do anything more.

  I pick up the Texts from the mantle and move quickly past the body to the window, trying to push the Hunter out of my thoughts. Below my feet the ornate rug, once rich and brilliant, is worn so deep I can feel the wood’s grain under my toes. Decades of standing in the same place day after day after day. Here, I am in the shadows. A human peering in from the streets would not see me. But I can see out.

  I watch them. Completely alone, silent, still, there is nothing else to do.

  My temple tower rears up against what’s left of the holy district, tall and tired, leering over the market. I watch each day play out on its wide streets and small carts. Behind it, the expired grandeur of the aged towers rises, a rotted reminder of a lost past.

  There was a time when Epoh was Terath’s shining jewel. Its streets bustled with life at all hours. But the Second Realm War changed everything. The First Creatures tore through the realm like it was paper, their battles destroying men’s cities, homes, the land itself. And the men, they took part. Some stood up and fought for their Gods. But others turned away from them in anger. Others’ loyalty was easily bought with magic, jewels, or promises of safety after it all ended. Still others ran, cowered, and just waited for it to end.

  I’d never, in all my years, seen such destruction.

  This is when Zevach arrived at Epoh, with his flock trailing behind him, desperate to believe his promises of protection and hope. Then Zevach told his followers if they wanted the city, they must take it for themselves. Desperate and scared, they fought their way in and destroyed most of its people.

  They should have known then what he would become, that this is the city’s fate. I should have.

  The sky turns from pitch black to a troubled gray. The rays of light touch over the battered city. Silencers’ boots tap against the pavement. Another weary day in Epoh is here.

  Chapter 2

  EVERY DAY IS the same. There is no rest.

  The Silencers are the first to take the streets. Zevach’s trained men, guards he collected to protect the people he brought here in the Second Realm War. In the beginning, he handpicked men for this great honor. They watched the city’s borders, made sure nothing got in. But when the war was over, they turned their eyes and their weapons inward. Their ranks are filled with laborers eager to escape life on the bottom, and the children of prisoners taken from their homes. They leave their people proud and hungry. When they come back in their fine black cloaks and shining silver armor, it is as if they don’t even remember. Zevach told the people the Silencers are here to keep the peace. But all they sow is fear.

  Each morning the Silencers circulate through the roads and alleys, clinking in their armor, their heavy black boots tap-tap-tapping through the fog before curfew lifts. Steam pours from their mouths like dragons in the damp morning freeze.

  As the sun pulls itself up, the rain tapers down to nothing. Shopkeepers drag their wooden carts to their usual places along the sides of the street and arrange their displays, pulling their cloaks around them tight. Their jobs carry less risk than the laborers, but their hours are earlier and later, working around the laborers’ strict shifts and the elite’s late night amusements. The market is the one place in Epoh all the classes share. The air here is always tense.

  Soon the laborers come. The ones who grow the food, sew the clothing, create the luxury items for the city’s elite. They flood the streets in a rush to get the day’s meals before shift. Tired, beaten. Their trampled voices throw off tower walls and bounce up to me amid the morning quiet.

  Inside the teeming mass, a young boy with bright red hair stands very still. He stares up at my tower. He can’t possibly see me, not from all the way down there. But still his stare prickles behind my ears like pins. Ever since he and a few others slipped into my temple through a sha
ttered window, he does this.

  It happens, sometimes. Just restless laborers’ children curious about the things no one talks about, mostly. Sometimes the helpless get desperate and come here hoping the Gods will listen. I keep to my tower, and soon they are gone again.

  Except this last time. This time they climbed the tower stairs. They had explored every room. Anxiety spread over my shoulders and down my back as their hushed voices had crept closer and closer up the tower, pausing at each room on the way. I buried the box in my pocket and hovered in the room’s darkest shadows.

  When finally they reached the top and swung open my door, I tried to be as small as I could, tried to let the shadows swallow me. But there was no hiding. As soon as they saw me, the other boys gasped and fled. But the red-haired boy, he had stayed. He stepped closer. He reached his hand toward me, fingers stretched and palm out as if feeling for something. He frowned as he looked me over. “What are you?” he asked.

  The other boys seem to have forgotten. They never look to the temple. They don’t dare go near it, or anywhere on the Holy District’s border. It’s only this one, this boy with the red hair. He looks up at my window and his face reminds me how quickly I could lose it all.

  What are you?

  The question grates and scratches along the walls of my mind. All he has to do is tell someone I’m here, and I’m forced out the temple, out of Epoh, into the wastelands beyond the wall.

  But now the other boys call to him and pull him back to the street. They greet him with grins and friendly slaps to his shoulder. Before they run off, the boy runs to a woman and pulls on her skirt. She always comes to market with him. She leans down and says something to him, her fiery braid swinging off her shoulder. In a different world, one where life had not wrung so much out of her, she would have been beautiful. She turns away and begins her morning shopping at a nearby cart.

  The boy turns and races toward the middle of the street with the others. They split up, their eyes glued to the streets. The boy pushes against the flow of traffic, hardly noticing as the others shove and knock him as they pass. It takes only a few minutes, and with a shout to the others, he dives under the crowd. He emerges victorious, waving a flat smooth stone over his head.