A World of Order: (The Rise of Man, Book One PROLOGUE)

Book I

A World of Order

E.K. Sparrow

Preview Edition

The Rise of Man Book I:

A World of Order

Preview Edition

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events conveyed in this novel are fictional or used fictitiously.

Publishing History

Digital Preview Edition published September 2016

Maps by E.K. Sparrow.

Chapter Headings and Series Icon by Laura Barrett.

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2016 by E.K. Sparrow

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author.

For information address: eksparrow@eksparrow.com

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ISBN: 978-0-9980984-0-1

About A World of Order

Centuries after a shadowy conspiracy left human civilization in ruin, the village of Abingdon is desperately fighting for survival in the distant northlands of Ukō where long winters grip the land. Young Samuel and his friends race winter to find both lost hunters and enough provisions to sustain Abingdon as sinister legends come to life. Far to the south, young Raul has lost everything to Orkkun invaders and makes a desperate flight through the jungle. Can he escape his hunters, and if so what is left for him? Meanwhile, far beneath the ground, Bailey and her platoon of Deep Guard are combing the distant reaches of the Deep Roads only to make a terrible discovery. In the southwest, the Orkkun runt Gobi finds his idyllic life exploring the great canyon shattered when tribal duty and a sacred quest are thrust upon him. Above them all loom the mysterious Aelfin, a strange people that impose their rigid hierarchy: A World of Order.

Humanity may have fallen, but can it rise again?

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Also by E.K. Sparrow:

A World of Order (2017)

The Broken Pact (TBA)

Version 1, Revision 2

This book is dedicated to my better half, your love and support made this book possible.

Maps

Table of Contents

Copyright

Book Description

Other Books by E.K. Sparrow

Title Page

Dedication

Maps

I. Raul

1. The End of an Era

2. Toward the Rising Sun

3. River’s Shepherd

4. Bones of the Past

5. Jungle’s Edge

6. Cornered

7. The Burning Tree

8. Fettered in the Dark

II. Sam

1. Hunter and Prey

2. Hidden Treasures

3. A Boisterous Feast

4. The Broken Stag

5. Secrets and Valediction

III. Bailey

1. A Fool’s Errand

2. The Ancient Complex

3. The Fallen Gate

4. Forgotten Crossroads

IV. Gobi

1. The Shaman’s Task

2. Dust and Blood

3. The Oracle Speaks

Appendix

About the Author

Raul

Chapter 1

The End of an Era

Raul panted as he ran through the jungle, dense vines and undergrowth clawing at his every move. The past few weeks had taught him that his only chance at survival was to flee. What was left of his clothing hung in tatters from his skeletal frame, his brown skin littered with scratches and wounds from the jungle’s tender embrace.

It was a meager consolation that his pursuers were even less adept at moving through the dense vegetation. Rest was out of the question, for the two hulking brutes hunting him never seemed to tire.

He flinched but kept running when a serpent hissed to his left and startled him. After weeks of running, the errant squawks of tropical birds and surly grunts of hairy mammals rooting in the undergrowth no longer bothered him. The snakes still startled him. So did the big cats that would sometimes take up pursuit. At least until they invariably caught scent of his true hunters and fled.

When he closed his eyes, Raul could see them: two heavily muscled savages standing twice the size of a normal man, sweat glistening on their dusky olive skin in the humidity. The pair never seemed to tire or grow bored with the hunt.

Sometimes in the evening they called out to him, shouting in their guttural language. Although Raul could not understand many of the words, the sentiment was clear: the pair meant to catch him and butcher him, just as they had upon running down his parents. Their screams haunted him every evening he felt there was a safe enough lead to sleep.

He knew he must run; these were the final shouts of his father. Run to the mountains, looming ahead of him, hidden behind swaths of thick jungle. He was so close now. Surely the mountains would shelter him in a way the jungle had not protected his family.

First his mother had lagged behind, tripping on a gnarled root when the brutes gained on them. The arrival of the invaders and occupation of their village had been hardest on her. They were fortunate that he and his father had not been culled in the first days, like many of the village men. The barbarians paraded long lines of wretched humans through their village, always chained together and marching east after only a day or two. Raul knew it was a risk, but several evenings he snuck out to speak to a few of them. They were from villages in the surrounding area.

You are lucky, one boy his age with empty brown eyes told him. Our men tried to fight them.

The miserable youth then looked away and said, Now go away and enjoy your freedom until they run out of the rest of us. Then they’ll take you too.

He could still see them, crystal clear in his memory. Dozens of blank eyes deep-set in bruised, bloody faces smeared with soot followed him through the darkness as he snuck back to his family’s hut.

In hindsight Raul knew he was lucky to be alive. Rumors of foreign gray-green giants had circulated through his village and those nearby for months before the invaders appeared. One time after Raul heard the village elders whispering together about the rumors he gathered the courage to ask his father at dinner.

His family sat outside around the fire, a dense cloud of flies and biting insects held at bay by the smoke drifting up in front of their small straw hut. At first Raul thought he had spoken too softly, for his father did not look up or stop cleaning the river-fish caught that morning. He glanced at Raul after he finished cleaning the fish and set his tools aside. It was only then Raul had noticed that his mother and sister Mary stopped peeling yucca and potatoes for dinner. Their worried brown eyes darted intently from Raul to his father.

My son, Raul’s father said in a measured tone, although Raul noted his voice was strained. Those are just foolish rumors. The jungle has always protected us and always will.

The Aelfin nourish the woods and will push any invaders back, his mother interjected furtively. She looked to the east and kissed a small piece of bark hanging from a leather necklace. Some of the elders in the village said such artifacts were from the giant tree to the east where the Aelfin lived.

The fairy folk are just a myth, his father said curtly as he furrowed his busy black eyebrows. Not everyone in the village believed in the Aelfin. His father felt those who did believe relied on protection from empty spirits where they should rely upon the jungle and their own cunning.

I’ve seen them dad! his sister Mary had exclaimed. As Raul thought back to that night she seemed so young and full of life. The broken frame he laid to rest in the embrace of the river a week before had none of the same vibrant youth.

Nonsense, his father retorted, resuming his preparation of their dinner. They all knew his sister had been saved from a crocodile by something, the teeth marks scarring her legs told that story. Little else but the mythical Aelfin, protectors of the balance, could pry a meal from the river’s hungry maw. This was when their mother truly started to believe.

Mary enthusiastically told him of her savior many times. At first Raul thought she was delirious from blood-loss and her injuries, but her story never changed through the years. Sometimes she would return home from gathering in the jungle with her friends and excitedly tell him about seeing her Aelfin again. Sometimes he thought he would catch a glimpse of the creature himself.

Mary’s guardian, as it had become known. Tall and slender, it moved through the jungle foliage with a grace impossible for even a jungle cat. Mary would tell of its voice, musical and fierce like the river yet gentle as the breeze stirring the jungle canopy far above. Others in the village started to become superstitious, even insinuating that the jungle had marked Mary. According to the complex dogma of their people, none could say if her rescue was a good or ill omen, but their father had always been a cautious man and soon he became fearful of the attention. Difficult times in the past sometimes turned friends and family into a superstitious mob known to perform ritual sacrifices. On occasions of unexpected bounty, the same fickle mob could shower adoration rather than rain blows upon one so marked by the jungle. In the days following the occupation, Raul had become afraid of such whispers and glances. In those days there were more immediate concerns to be had in the form of the brutal invaders.

Mary’s Aelfin. What good did such a creature do their people, if it had ever existed? He felt foolish, but sometimes when he foraged with Mary in the years following the crocodile attack he would catch a glimpse of a tall unearthly figure moving through the jungle. Try as he might, Raul or his friends could never find the Aelfin’s tracks. Soon after his friends began teasing him for chasing ghosts, he began to find excuses to sneak off on his own when he caught such glimpses. From what Raul could tell the mysterious watcher came and went as it pleased, leaving as much of a trace as a breeze stirring through the canopy far above.

On the morning of the invasion Raul and his sister were shaken from sleep, their mother softly crying as she tightly clamped a hand over their mouths.

Do not make a sound, my little ones, she said in between sobs.

We must not test their patience, their father said, head poking in through the hut’s door. The strain on his face was apparent.

They were bustled outside to stand in line with the other villagers, everyone in a row and many shaking with terror. Raul began to ask a question but his breath caught as he saw them.

The invaders were giants. Standing almost twice the size of any man in the village, they were covered from head to toe in complex, colorful tattoos. Some wore their hair long and tied into war-braids woven with tokens and trophies. Others were hairless, tattoos spiraling up their necks and covering the thick olive skin of their scalp. All wore fierce expressions, herding the assembled villagers like livestock.

Several invaders walked the line, shouting as they yanked three of the village’s strongest men forward to stand in front of the others. The men fell to their knees, much to the amusement of the invaders. Snarling warriors grabbed them by their hair and yanked them roughly to their feet.

Walking up to them, another huge warrior offered the three an assortment of weapons: axes, knives and swords.

Quivering with fear, the men were so terrified they almost dropped the weapons. Every man and woman in the village was proficient with wooden spears, blowpipes and an assortment of hunting implements. The metal weapons used by the invaders were unwieldy and cumbersome.

Suddenly the crowd of invaders parted to reveal a figure towering above the others: a giant covered in the yellow-and-green tribal tattoos that he would later come to know as the markings of the Chu’a tribe. Metallic serpents sparkled in the sun as they twined up the olive skin of his neck and spread their dripping fangs next to his eyes.

The towering invader held a double-bladed long axe in one hand, its edges notched from heavy use. The haft was decorated in the same pattern of serpents and the metallic blade took on an emerald cast as he raised it in the morning sun.

The first of the three villagers died before he could lift a blade, his head landing a few feet away from Raul. Roaring, the giant felled the second villager with a backhanded swing of his axe. Crying and sobbing could now be heard along the line of villagers. The jungle was a harsh place to live but it was efficient, and this sort of senseless brutality was not economical. It was rare for neighboring tribes along the river to fight; the jungle and creatures of the Aelfin took enough lives to prohibit such petty squabbles. To prosper required all to work together for the greater good in the face of such ever-present peril.

To Raul’s dismay he recognized the third villager as his friend Tomas, a muscular youth only a few years older than him. They had often hunted together as boys. Tomas taught Raul the ways of the jungle.

Tomas quickly dropped the heavier weapons and took a few jabs with a wicked looking dagger as the brute circled him with the axe held low. Tomas tensed, relying upon skills perfected while hunting: in the jungle humans were frequently the prey. Tomas ducked as the Chu’a swung high, lunging to thrust the dagger under the brute’s ribs.

Mary stood next to him, her little hand gripping his tightly as she squeezed her eyes shut. Raul forced himself to watch. He knew it would be important to understand the invaders if they were to survive in this strange new world. For centuries the Aelfin had ruled with cold and mysterious precision where now these savage barbarians stood.

A sticky crimson covered both Tomas and the brute. The axe now abandoned on the ground, the Chu’a bled profusely from a gash across his ribs as large calloused hands gripped Tomas by the neck. The giant bellowed in pain and broke the youth’s neck with an audible pop, callously tossing the limp body aside.

Raul knew Tomas’ sacrifice would not be in vain. The invaders now appraised the villagers differently, glancing from their bleeding champion to the line of scraggly villagers. The giant surveyed the villagers while a softer looking invader wearing a leather harness covered in pouches bandaged his wound.

The crowd of tattooed warriors parted and a gaunt man in heavy bindings was led