Blurb
In the year 1872, the newly unified continent of Cythea has known ten years of prosperous peace and civility, but for the Inquisitors, militants for the Continental Church, there is no peace.
Forever vigilant, suspicion breeds among the inhabitants of Cythea’s city states and the Inquisitor will track and hunt for Mysticism. The forever enemy, the Mystic, knows no peace. The Mystic is the evil within.
Inquisitor Vincentas, along with his retinue, seek out Mystics to slay. However, evidence points towards a missing Inquisitor and friend. Against his doctrine, Vincentas seeks out his truth.
On the eastern island of Ralake, Cass toils the wheat fields and sheers sheep under constant threats and the whip of her prison wardens. She serves in the Penal Colony and longs to see her daughter. Her desperation fuels a mother’s need to escape and reach her daughter; she will go to any lengths.
Vincentas and Cass will journey through a world they barely know, encounter dangers within and unravel heretical revelations that defies their world. Their truths will be tested, realities shaken and The Voice of the World will answer.
Excerpt
“Penal Legion. Pike and carry!” The same barking voice commanded. Cythean soldiers, beige pith helmets their distinctive marker and carrying bolt-repeaters, formed a three-ranked line. Typical Cythean formation, relying on discipline, bolt-repeaters and overwhelming firepower. They were not pretty, but they were ready for battle.
Pikes, eight-foot spears, were held in carrying crates. Two inmates handed them to the approaching prisoner. Cass lead Stell forward, jeers and shouts rained down on the inmates. An Arbiter of the Law waved his iron cudgel directing the prisoners, his grim, lantern shaped jaw the only humanity that was visible.
“Hold it against your chest, wrap your arm around it for support.” Cass guided Stell.
“It’s too big.” Stell whimpered.
“That’s what she said.” Jolam sang.
“Not now.” Cass snapped. Beads of sweat burned on her face, trickling down her brow. Silence grew between them as Jolam’s face flared in redness, he trotted away with his pike. Mumbling.
“Make a soldier out of you yet, thief.” Taze rasped.
Cass headed to the front, seeing the Arbiter’s form facing them. She passed the kneeling Jolam and crouched beside him.
“Time and place, Jol, not now. Sorry.” Cass laid out the pike before her, no point in holding it now, only when it mattered.
“Prepare pikes and die for Cythea.” The Arbiter shouted. He marched down the ranks, looking broader than an aurochs. His cloak skirting the mud churning ground, heavy and thick.
“I want a repeater.” An inmate demanded, four places down, and stood up.
“Eyes down.” Cass warned Stell. The iron cudgel drove down on the inmate. A splitting crack felled the protester. He got his freedom from this world, at the price of his life. He got off lightly, Arbiters were renowned for their brutality of keeping their victims alive longer.
“Get the pike ready.” Cass encouraged Stell as the snows started to fall, peppering the ground white. The girl shivered. Cass gripped the pike in steady hands, placing the pike against her foot in the sludge of the ground, soon it would be hard with frost and ungainly to balance.
“Against your foot, like this.” Cass spoke softly to Stell.
“She’s crow food, Cass.” A rasping voice breathed on Cass’s flank. She gritted her teeth, feeling her back shiver from the voice not the swirling snows in the distance or the threat of frost crackling in the air. Cass turned seeing Taze, kneeling beside her and pike raised efficiently.
“Repeaters, lock and load.” The orders were shouted down the line. Taze winked at Cass.
Grumbles resounded around Cass, the tips and shafts of the spear line wavered slightly as she looked passed Taze, turning she saw the pike points stretched until they disappeared from her unaided eyes, with a telescope there would be more. Her stomach growled from captivity, sooner this battle was over the better.
A bestial howl echoed in the distance. The air seemed to cool and physical cower under the roar. Cass felt cold too, but it was a different kind of cold. Leather boots creaked, wooden repeaters shuffled and steady breaths turned to shaking pants.
Convulsions rippled along the ground. The pike jolted from the balance of the boot. It was a herd of animals, it had to be, a thunderous pounding of hooves fleeing across the plains. Cass gripped the pike, others had fallen, twanging off the ground.
“Steady pikes!” The Arbiter blasted.
Through the low-lying fog, they thundered. Grey and black, brown and red, the Primals descended on the Cythean thin line. Cass’s eyes blinked at the mass of animals baring down on them, some on all fours, others limbered on two gangly legs. Simian featured, horns, open maws, a tinkering of metal on some of them, carrying scattered remnants of their defeated foes. Always the noise. Howls and roars, deep and stomach shattering, a resonating baritone with the intensity of a furnace. Her stomach could have turned inside out had she eaten this morning.
“Repeaters fire.” A commanding voice ordered.
A multitude of deafening whir’s echoed in the response of the order. Cass’s head lowered instinctively. Stell cried out beside her.
“Stay still, don’t move.” Cass shouted. Someone was laughing beside her.
Primals dropped and rolled, skidding in the slick snows. The Primals kept coming with a ferocious, booming determination. They stood, waving their claws, hammering fists and throwing things at the line. A blood strewn pith helmet landed in front of Cass.
The Primals stopped. Gave a final howl and leapt backwards, ploughing into their own ranks, running from the Cythean line. “Cease fire.” A relieved voice shouted down the line.
Jubilation rang out, laughing and shouting of hysteria. Cass dropped her pike and hugged Stell, who racked with sobs.
“It’s over, but you must be ready. Pick up your pike, come on.” Cass rubbed the back of the shaking Stell. She would get through this, Cass knew Stell only signed up because of Cass.
“I can taste freedom already!” Cheered Jolam. Cass picked up her pike, digging it into the ground, gripping it tighter knowing its secure balance would take her home, give her a chance to see her daughter.
“Ah, see that convicts, we didn’t even need you.” A Cythean shouted.
“Ready weapons.” Cass shouted. Silence descended in the ranks.
“Who are you to give orders, criminal!” A chorus of voices rebuked.
“Damn Brand telling us what to do.”
“They were testing for weaknesses.” Cass snapped, half turning back to face her accusers. She saw two Cythean soldiers staring at her. Taze balanced her pike, levelling it with Cass’s with strong rigidity. Her lips pursed, ready to speak.
“But… they’re animals.” A voice called out.
“No,” Cass sighed. She turned her back to the Cythean’s, purple veins grew and flared in the clouds, wind picked up. Her eyebrows knitted together. “They’re worse.”
“Here they come.” The warning called down the ranks.
About the Author
Born in the North East of England, years after shipyard closures and coal mining
strikes, A.J. Forster grew up in a region where dwelling in fantasy and imagination
was more hindrance than acceptance. Enjoying the raptures of fantasy in all its
glory, he took to pen (and computer, laptop, even reciting tales of splendour out-
loud) and wrote many incantations during Secondary School, college and University.
While his forte lays in the Fantasy genre, primarily for adults, he dabbles in all areas
of speculative fiction. A.J. Forster stories contain dark, conflict-laden sagas full of
interesting and complex characters, action and intrigue, antiheroes and villains,
monsters born in cosmicism, and hope - proving that humanity, no matter the odds
and the extremities laid before us, can kindle a measure of resilience.
You can find A.J. Forster on various social media apps, planting the flag for fantasy
and in particular Sword and Sorcery.
Purchase & Connect
Check out The Wanderer, also by A. J. Forster
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