In a ruined land, cursed by the gods and haunted by the dead, a young mercenary discovers a horror threatening to destroy what is left of civilization.
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Whether you’ve come here from social media, or happened to meander across this page, I am thrilled to have you visit.
This is Chapter 2 of the official preview of my new serial novel Hunted, book 1 of The Blood Rot Saga. If you haven’t seen The Beginning or Chapter 1, you can start reading here.
Unlike my last serial novel, Nameless (which you can read right here), Hunted will only be available to Erik’s Coffee Club, who support my writing through Buy Me a Coffee. Memberships start at only $3 a month, includes free ebooks or paperbacks (depending on your membership level), meet-ups with the author and, of course, a chapter a week of Hunted, right in your email inbox. And every membership makes it possible for me to spend more time writing, and to reach more people.
Content Warning: Violence, Death
Malc’s eyes snap open, and he stares at Goff in horror. The man is serious—more serious than Malc’s ever seen him. He’s also, Malc realizes for the first time, a mess. He has bags under his eyes and his skin is pale. His beard—which grew in thick after he turned twenty—and his long hair, usually neatly braided, are tangled and oily.
Malc glances to make sure no one is listening and whispers, “The fuck, Goff? This ain’t time for jokes.”
“No joke,” Goff holds out his hands and Malc sees them shake. “I got the shakes. And I got the black blood.”
Malc leans away, horrified and at a loss for words.
“I tried to tell you, earlier,” Goff whispers. “But the Lieutenant got to you and then we marched out.”
Malc bites his lip and looks away. Goff had started as a signaller ten years before Malc. He’d been there since Malc began and taught Malc all the lessons Jillet neglected to give him, and stood between Malc and Jillet’s wrath a few times. They’d been on campaigns together and save each other’s lives more than a few times.
And now, he was going to die like a mad dog. It makes Malc furious, because there’s not a damn thing he can do to help.
“I can’t go like that,” Goff says, his voice low. “Naked, screaming, biting everyone? No. Someone’s gotta slit me.” He takes a deep breath. “I can get the captain, or the sergeant. Anyone but Jillet. Prick would enjoy it. Rather end up in the Pain Pits of the Just One. But Malc . . .”
Malc knows where this is heading, and doesn’t want it to go there. His eyes are hot and wet and he wipes them dry before anyone but Goff sees.
“You been like a brother to me,” Goff says, then grins. “An irritating little brother who got better at everything than me, ya bastard.”
“You’re just mad because I’m the only one of us who knows his mother.” It’s an old joke between the two of them, but Malc can’t smile when he says it. Both fall silent.
“I’d rather it be someone who cares,” Goff says at last. “I’d rather its someone doing me a favour, then someone doing a job.”
Malc’s voice shakes. “Fuck, Goff.”
“I understand if you can’t,” Goff begins, but Malc cuts him off with a raised hand. For a moment, neither move, then Malc clenches his hand into a fist and punches the other man’s chest. The armour catches the force of it, and Malc hits him again for good measure.
“After,” Malc says. “If we live.”
“Hey, Whoreson,” Lieutenant Jillet yells. “The fuck you lying down for? You’re on watch.”
“Of course I am,” muttered Malc, rising to his feet. “Prick.”
“Malc.” Goff catches his arm. “Thanks.”
Because there’s no words for what he’s feeling, Malc just says, “You pay for the booze, first.”
Jillet leaves him on watch until the captain calls them together in the darkness. The rafts are big enough for one squad each, and group by group the company slides their rafts into the water slip out into the river.
They lie flat against the rafts, their weapons on their back to keep them dry. Four men lie on the outside, using small paddles to steer—Malc is one, on his raft—and four more lie on the inside, keeping still. The current catches them immediately and drags them downriver in near-silence. Water splashes up between the logs, soaking their fronts.
Ten kilometres later, Malc’s raft reaches the shore. He and the others on the outside slip silently into the water and hold it steady until the others get on land. Then they pull it up onto the bank and out of the way of the next raft, to keep them from drifting down to the bridge where the Godlanders might see them and figure out what was happening. With the raft secured, they slipped up the river bank and waited. It took a half hour for all the scouts to land and take their positions. The officers gave them another half to pour the water out of their boots and make certain their weapons were clean and dry while the officers conferred.
A night-bird’s whistle—the signal for attention—broke the silence. The sound came twice more, then an owl hooted. Jillet appeared out of the darkness, tapped Malc’s shoulder, and sent him out first. Malc cursed silently, even though he’d expected it.
Over the years, Malc learned he had better night vision than most, and better hearing. Darkness never really felt dark to him, and he could spot enemy sentries, or in one case, a pissed-off night-bear, far before anyone else. Jillet realized it early and used it as an excuse to send Malc in first at every chance he got.
Malc suspected it was part of the man’s ongoing campaign to make his death look like an accident. He stood up, raised a hand, circled it in the air, and pointed downstream. The rest of the squad, moving as silently as himself, rose and walked with him.
The land on this side of the river had long ago been cleared of forest, though they’d left trees on either side of the river to help maintain its banks and reduce flooding. Malc leads his squad on the edge of the tree line, slow and steady, keeping his eyes out for sentries, or worse, farm dogs. The beasts were far more disciplined about protecting their flocks than any soldier, and the ruckus they raised would give the Scouts away just as surely as a picket’s shout.
Malc hated killing dogs.
They had four kilometres to cover before they reached the enemy’s camp, and the hard part began. 10,000 men take up a great deal of space, and their camp spread a kilometre on either side of the bridge. There would be fires, tents, sentries on duty, and men seeking out the pleasure houses and taverns in their followers’ camp. Sneaking ten men or twenty through the camp would be a challenge.
Sneaking one-hundred-eighty felt like an impossibility.
After the first kilometre, measured in carefully counted steps, Malc calls a halt and kneels, waiting. The second squad takes over, moving at the same slow, steady pace. It will take three hours to cover the distance to the camp, and they arrive at the deepest, darkest part of the night, when sentry’s eyes played tricks on them and their battle against sleep was most likely to be lost.
Second kilometre crossed.
Half-way through the third kilometre, Lieutenant Jillet slips past them in the darkness, then stops and watches them go by, eyes narrow and sharp, ears peeled for the sound of equipment rattling or buckles scraping. He gives a special glare to Malc but finds nothing to complain about.
A quarter hour later, the men in front of Malc stop and kneel, fists raised. Malc raises his own and does the same, knowing the signal will be passed back along the column. Malc cocks his head, listening. After a moment he hears the moans and gasps of a couple engaged in activities they don’t want their families finding out about. He sighs, knowing what’s going to happen, and wishes they’d picked another night, or another place.
The sounds cut off in mid-moan. A moment later, the men ahead open their fists and gesture the scouts to start moving. The column walked on, passing the still, slit-throated bodies of the young lovers.
Only Malc sees their naked ghosts, hand in hand, staring in horror at their bodies and the soldiers passing them.
After the fourth kilometre they stop again. Jillet walks along his platoon, tapping each man on the shoulder. After he taps Malc, he gestured with an open hand, pointing forward. Malc nods and rises, and Fallon, the squad leader, rises with him.
The Godlanders were not fools. They’d cut down all the trees along the riverbank for the width of the camp plus a hundred meters, and set sentries every twenty metres along the bank. They were more than ready for an attack from the river. Inland, though, the sentries were set at 100-meter intervals, which meant that with some luck and calculation, the scouts could slip through.
The trick was simple: sneak up on a sentry, silence him with arrows or a knife, and take his place. Usually, the other would scouts slip by and raid the camp, then sneak out the way they came in. It was easy enough with a squad. Harder with a platoon, and nearly impossible with the entire company. And worse, this time they weren’t coming back the way they went in, so the men replacing the sentries would have to make their own way home.
Malc moves forward in a low crouch until he spots the first sentry, standing with a spear in his hand and his long cloak wrapped tight around him for warmth, eyes on the river. The man has no light, and his head moves slowly back and forth scanning for boats. Malc stops, glances behind and sees the rest of the squad twenty meters back. He waves his hand twice, and waits until the first pair crawl up and take his place. Malc slips down on his belly, and crawls inland until he spots the second sentry, then the third, all awake, all watching. Behind him, the scouts spread out, two men at each sentry, ten yards away from them in the tall grass. Other men take up the spaces in between, so the squad can communicate by hand signals. No one makes a sound.
Malc stops in front of the fourth sentry, who stands alert as the others. He pulls his bow off his back and waits until Fallon, moving as slow and careful as Malc, joins him. Malc raises his hand high enough for the nearest men to see, spread five fingers wide. He touches Fallon’s shoulder, pointed at the sentry, then his own throat. Fallon nods. Malc checks and sees hands raised with open fingers on the next group.
He pulls his fingers into a fist and raises his bow. Beside him, Fallon does the same. Both nock arrows and count silently to five before loosing.
The arrows fly true—Malc’s to the eye and Fallon’s the throat. The man drops to the ground and Fallon and Malc moved forward in a low, silent run. Fallon picks up the man’s spear and stands where he had been. Malc crouches at his feet, removing the dead man’s helmet and cloak and handing them up so, from a distance, Fallon looks like the sentry. Malc turns back to the dark field, circles his arm, and waits.
Time for the tricky part.
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