Martyr

MARTYR

THE HUNTED

BOOK ONE

A.R. Kahler

SPENCER HILL PRESS

Copyright © 2014 by A.R. Kahler

Sale of the paperback edition of this book without its cover is unauthorized.

Spencer Hill Press

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

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Contact: Spencer Hill Press, PO Box 247, Contoocook, NH 03229, USA

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First Edition: October 2014
A.R. Kahler
Martyr: a novel / by A.R. Kahler – 1st ed. p. cm.
Summary: Accompanied by his boyfriend and a set of mysterious, powerful twins, a young mage sets out on a quest to save the world from the monsters mankind created—and if he's not careful, the monster he might still become.

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this fiction: Harlequin, Hot Wheels, Monty Python, Twinkies

Cover design by Hafsah Laziaf of Iceydesigns
with images © Shutterstock
Interior layout by Jenny Perinovic

ISBN 978-1-939392-78-7 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-939392-79-4 (e-book)

Printed in the United States of America

For my mother,
for teaching me strength
.

Also by A.R. Kahler

The
Cirque des Immortels
trilogy
The Immortal Circus
The Immortal Circus: Act Two
The Immortal Circus: Final Act

Coming in 2015
Love is in the Air

PART

ONE

THE ROAD TO HELL

“And with our greed,
a great sin was born unto this world
and like Eve to the apple
that sin shall consume us.”
– Caius 8:22
2 P.R. (Post-Resurrection)

1

It
was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the clean kill he had hoped for.

Tenn ran across the field, rain soaking through his leather coat, mud squelching up his boots. His breath came out in clouded puffs as he chased the fleeing shadow a few yards before him. In the heat of that moment, the world seemed dulled to shades of grey—light-grey sky, dark-grey fields, black shadows. Grey and black and cold, and as he ran he tried to ignore the red oozing across the palette. If he didn't hurry, that red would damn them all.

The shadow staggered. Tenn's heart leaped as his prey fell to the ground. A moment later he was at its side, knees pressed to the mud and his dagger in hand. Then, before his quarry could look him in the eye, before he could feel any worse about its agonizingly slow death, he brought his blade across the warm, heaving neck.

The buck twitched. Tenn kept a hand on the cut as the deer's lifeblood throbbed out in steaming spurts. It wouldn't be right to look away, to let the poor thing die alone and cold out here in the field. The thought sent memories and magic raging through him, the Sphere of Water churning anguish through his gut—
alone and cold, alone and cold, how many have died alone and cold?

He pushed the thoughts and the power away. Now wasn't the time to give in, either to the weakness or to that glorious strength. When the deer's rolling eye found his, he felt his stomach knot. He almost laughed from revulsion; years ago, he'd been a vegetarian.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. Not that it mattered. Not that those apologies ever mattered—not to the dying, not to the dead. The deer spasmed and fell still.

The sound of his approaching comrades slowed. Tenn couldn't break his gaze with the deer's eye. It didn't matter that the last three years of his life had been grislier than any nightmare; killing still turned his stomach. At least the blood staining his hands was usually far from innocent. Usually.

“Shit,” Katherine said when she stopped beside him. “That's a lot of blood.”

Tenn just swallowed and pulled his hands away, washing off the blood in a puddle before sliding his dagger back in his boot

“I thought you said you were a clean shot,” Katherine said, turning back to their other companion.

Michael stepped forward, his shoulders hunched and a bow held loose in hand. He was built like a linebacker, but right then he looked like a puppy caught pissing on his master's Persian rug. Five arrows jutted from the deer's hide, and another half-dozen were scattered throughout the field.

“I am,” Michael said. His words didn't hold much conviction as he gestured to his throat. “It's just been a while since I had to shoot dry.”

Katherine ignored him. There wasn't time for apologies. She pulled a set of nylon cords from her backpack and handed one to Tenn.

“Excuses,” she muttered to herself. She wrapped one cord around the buck's neck while Tenn tied up the hindquarters. Her movements were smooth, wellpracticed—her hands were used to dealing with the dead. Like Tenn, she was seventeen. Unlike Tenn, she didn't seem bothered by the buck's sightless glare. She nudged him. “Yo, you okay?”

He nodded. But his nerves were on edge, and the Sphere of Water pulsed in his stomach like a wound, one that desperately wanted to be touched, to inflame. Over a week had passed since he'd been allowed to open to that energy center, that source of pain and power. Every day made the ache worse. Like an abused child, it sat there and wept and begged to be noticed. But they had their orders—no magic. Not until the enemy army arrived.

“If we don't move fast,” he said, ignoring Water's pull, “they're going to smell the blood.” He turned to Michael and spoke a little louder. “And if that happens, it's all on your head.”

Had they met five years ago, Michael would have probably shoved Tenn's head into the school toilet just for making eye contact. The guy was a nineteenyear-old tank, with broad shoulders and short brown hair and tattoos from eye to collarbone. His face was a plane of white scars and black ink. Tenn, on the other hand, was tall and lithe—years of using Water had crafted him a swimmer's build, rather than the hulking muscle of Earth. He was built for speed, for grace. But now, when Tenn spoke, Michael shrank into himself a little bit. The Resurrection had changed everything; this little role reversal was about the only perk. Michael bit back his response and shouldered his bow. Then he grabbed two straps and hoisted the deer nearly off the ground. Tenn and Katherine each took a strap and helped him drag the deer toward the highway. Tenn kept his eyes trained on the countryside. He didn't want to see the way the deer's head lolled to one side, its tongue curled out and its eyes wide with static fear.

“We should be okay,” Michael said, his voice cutting through the rain like rumbling thunder. “I mean, rain dilutes blood, right? And there's no way its cries carried in the storm.”

“Just shut up and keep your eyes open,” Tenn said.

Yes, there was a chance the rain had diluted the blood and hidden the buck's wild cries of pain, but there was also a chance the rain was just helping the blood spread. He wasn't about to test his luck, especially since he'd been sent out with Michael. That alone was a sign the fates weren't on his side.

Michael shut up, and Tenn went back to watching the fields, brushing his choppy black hair aside so he could see. Nothing set off his nerves and imagination like waiting to be attacked. Not that they were unprepared. Katherine's katanas were strapped at her waist, and the hilt of Michael's mace thudded against his thigh with every step. Tenn's own bladed quarterstaff was embedded in the earth beside the highway, where he'd been forced to leave it to chase down the deer. In all, the three of them were an imposing sight. If only physical weapons were enough; battles were lost and won by magic now. Without it, they were like lambs to the slaughter.

Not an emboldening thought when lugging a two-hundred-pound sack of meat through the wilds.

Chills raced across his skin as he peered deeper through the curtains of rain. He couldn't tell if the unease was from the late-December cold or the fear of being watched. The sooner they were back to camp, the better. Food-gathering expeditions were far from exciting. They'd spent a good four hours on the road, and the deer was the first and only creature they'd found. The fact that they'd found it at all was lucky—no jerky and stale cheese tonight. Having to walk it all the way back, in the cold and the rain, and pray that nothing discovered them en route, was not.

Tenn grabbed his bladed staff the moment they reached the highway. The road home was far from pastoral—cars lay scattered and broken like some kid playing God with his Hot Wheels. Shattered glass littered the ground, shards jutting from windows like open jaws. Rust coated exteriors in a sheen of bloody stains. And everything, everything, was quiet and empty, the only sound the rain and the occasional moan of wind through hollow hoods, a cacophony of and for the dead.

They walked up to the wooden cart and unceremoniously dropped the deer on top. The sick sound of flesh thumping on wet wood was a noise Tenn had grown accustomed to, which almost made it worse.
How easy it is to get used to dead things
. He nodded to Katherine.

She withdrew one of her katanas and raised it high above her. Then, with a quick slice, she lobbed the deer's head off. It fell to the pavement and rolled away, settling in a pool of its own steaming ichor. Tenn turned; its eyes were trained straight on him, and he'd had enough postmortem glares for a lifetime.

“Still seems like a waste to me,” Michael said. He threw his bow beside the carcass, not caring if the string got bloody, and picked up the handles at the front of the wagon. That was the problem with food-scavenging missions—no cars, not unless you wanted to scare off prey or attract predators. “I thought the tongue was supposed to be a delicacy.”

If not for the fact that Michael's sole purpose was to be a pack mule, Tenn would have cursed Jarrett for sending him along. The world might have turned on its head in the three years since the Resurrection, when the monsters appeared and magic went south, but Michael was still the same old, brain-dead jock. Some stereotypes, apparently, never changed.

“What—and risk being followed?” Katherine asked, cleaning her blade with a spare bit of cloth. “Are you a fucking moron?”

Michael shrugged and began pulling the cart down the highway. Tenn bit back his smirk. At least Katherine's wit made up for Michael's lack thereof.

“I'm just saying, kravens aren't known for their big brains.” The way Michael said it, it was like he was discussing an opposing sports team, not a mob of creatures who'd happily rip him limb from meaty limb. Tenn wouldn't have been surprised if that's precisely how Michael saw things. Michael often complained about missing his football days, like that was the greatest of his worries.

“They think like animals,” Tenn said.
And who are you to talk about big brains?
He tried to keep his voice even. “If they find blood and no body, they'll go searching. You know this. They're starving their asses off and won't stop chasing us until they either find a meal or die. And we already have enough on our plate.”

The last statement sent memories coursing through him that he'd tried his best to forget—hordes of kravens, tearing apart towns and cities as they desperately sought out flesh of any kind—animal or human, cat or dog or bird or child. He'd seen it, first on the television, then right in front of him. There was a reason the wilderness was nearly empty; the Howls had devoured everything they could get their hands on.

Tenn made sure no blood dripped down from the cart. There was no way in Hell he'd give a Howl any Hansel-and-Gretel breadcrumb trail.

“We could have at least kept the tongue,” Michael muttered, then fell back into silence.