Earthbound, p.1
Earthbound, page 1
Copyright © 2024 Katee Stein
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-0688495-1-0 (ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-0688495-0-3 (print paperback)
Cover design by: Maria Spada
Map by Annika Crum
Printed in Canada
EARTHBOUND. Copyright 2024 by Katee Stein
www.kateestein.com
EARTHBOUND eBook Edition: September 2024
Contents
Copyright
World Map
Dedication
Earth Be Damned
Forces That Bind
Earth’s Tempest
Leap
Memory
Immutable
Waking Nightmare
Primary Oath
A Bracing Cup
Goodbye
Unstable Ground
Under The Sky
Whether Sky Above
Or Earth Below
Raid
Shaping of Souls
The Keep
Armoury
A New Road
Stars
Rage
Book of Oaths
All Falls
The Way Home
First Fight
Face The Day
To Rip The Earth
Above Reproach
Mountain’s Roots
Nature of Oaths
Sky’s Alone
Rend the Night
Precipice
Time Unending
Words
Disavowed
Never
Eye of the Storm
End’s Beginning
Through the Earth
Collapse
Remnant
Undone
Last Breath
Burn Brighter
Epilogue
Glossary
Earthbound
Acknowledgements
About The Author
World Map
To the mess makers
Earth Be Damned
Tehran
“Tell me again why we are out here before the break of dawn.” Tehran threw the remark over his shoulder as the two men walked the narrow forest path. The canopy of leaves overhead cut dark silhouettes against the greying Mercurial sky.
“You know Emilia.” Knox tossed his hands up in the air. “Once she gets an idea in her head, it’s stuck. She couldn’t sleep thinking the communication breakdown could be due to the relay station. Which meant neither could I.”
“And naturally, this means I need to be miserable too.”
Knox chuckled at the comment and Tehran smiled. For all his complaining these were the moments he’d missed most over the last few months: working with Knox in the quiet spaces around day-to-day life. He pulled in a breath of the cool morning air. The long days of summer would soon give way to a season of harvest, and he’d be wishing for peaceful moments like this one.
“There it is.” Knox gestured ahead to what amounted to a hut raised on stilted legs. Maples spread wide limbs and the ground turned spongy underfoot with moss and half-decayed leaves from years past. Knox moved to inspect the footing of each stilted support. “Doesn’t look like any skuttle or racin have been nesting around here and setting things off-kilter.”
“Good, because I didn’t wake up early for pest control.” Tehran made an easy jump up onto the lipped balcony before the door.
“Show off,” muttered Knox, climbing the ladder.
“You know what you’re looking for in here?”
Knox shoved open the door, holding up a narrow drive. “Emilia said this would run the diagnostic automatically.”
Tehran flipped the lights, revealing a dust box of a room, filled with the hum of electrical components and fans cooling blocks of communication equipment. “Well, at least we know there’s power.”
Knox grunted an unintelligible reply, moving to a neat cluster of the boxes against the back wall and plugged in the drive. “And now we wait.”
Tehran crossed his arms and leaned back into the wall. “If you figure this out, you’ll be the hero of the hour.” A shadow crossed his friend’s face, and Tehran bit back a curse at the careless comment.
“Those days are long gone, but I’ll take any bit of goodwill I can garner.” A beep sounded from the drive and Knox pulled it free, pocketing the device. “All done.”
“That’s it? Why did you need me?”
“Can you see on top of that stack? Is there any damage?” he asked as he gestured to the communication relay equipment piled against the east wall.
Tehran stepped closer, straining his neck to see right to the back. Everything looked untouched except for a thin layer of dust. “I don’t see anything.”
A smirk pulled at Knox’s lips. “Perfect. Job well done, Overseer.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Tehran gave Knox a mock look of disgust. “What a waste of Mercurial resources.”
Knox snorted. “You sound like Patrem Solace.” They both laughed at that as they retreated out of the building, closing it up tight behind them.
Tehran guessed even Knox could see the detail of the forest around them now. Tehran’s enhanced senses cast the forest in a gentle glow from the soft light of dawn, adding a dreamlike quality to the stillness surrounding them.
“I’ve missed this,” Knox said, when they’d made it a ways back along the path.
“Waking up before the gods?” An acorn came whipping in his direction. Tehran didn’t bother to dodge letting it bounce from the crown of his head and laughed. Silence echoed in the space between them and he turned.
Knox gave a listless shrug. “I miss feeling like I have a purpose. That is, other than keeping you in line,” he said with a half-hearted grin. Tehran let the words land and didn’t offer empty platitudes. He knew what Knox carried. Theirs was a brotherhood. A lifetime of shared experiences that allowed for humour and vulnerability to hold common ground.
“Em’s been feeling sick the past weeks, and there’s nothing I can do to help. I can’t even take the bulk of this communication stuff off her plate; I don’t understand half of it. I want to serve, in some capacity, but there’s no place for me.”
Tehran gripped his friend’s shoulder. “You’re going to be a father. I think you’ll find it’s calling enough.”
Knox pulled in a deep breath as they broke the tree line and their path reunited with the main road leading into Rikken. Across low hills, the road hugged grain fields still cloaked in summer green. “Gorrde has me training in his shop. I think he hopes I’ll end up being his replacement, but I feel like an Acolyte all over again, untried in every way.”
Knox’s competence at nearly everything his hand touched had always driven Tehran to frustration growing up. There was very little in this world truly beyond Knox’s grasp if he set his mind to it, but Tehran could appreciate the frustration.
These words were the pressure release valve of a life turned upside down and a man trying to right himself within the new reality. And Knox wasn’t the only one. The two had functioned in tandem since childhood and Tehran too felt like he was taking the unsteady first steps of a toddler finding his feet.
“You’re not alone. I don’t—”
The ground trembled, sending ripples through the feathered grain around them like rings on a pond.
Knox stumbled. “What was that?”
“I have no idea.” Hearing shouts, Tehran scanned the field, eyes narrowing and breath hanging before him in a thin cloud. Bands of fog obscured the low-lying areas.
“A quake?” Knox shifted uneasily next to him.
Mist curled in lazy motes, revealing an early morning crew. Spread out amidst the knee-high grain, the workers looked around in alarm.
A twill’s warning song rang out.
The foreman, at the far edge of the field, shouted an order. “Long poles out. No movement.”
Workers moved with exaggerated care to lift stout poles, twice the height of a man, across their shoulders. No one spoke.
The hair on Tehran’s arms prickled as another tremor stole through the earth. He breathed a curse and met Knox’s steel gaze; his friend’s familiar and unflappable nature a comfort to his churning stomach. Leaves trembled on the maples, breaking free and fluttering down around them. With sinking certainty his eyes narrowed, muscles taut in anticipation and nostrils flared.
This was no seismic event.
As if it was a pot coming to boil, the placid field roiled. In three separate locations, grain slipped beneath the surface revealing dark soil, blushing like bruised flesh amid the vibrant green. Solid ground gave way to new physical laws and flowed with liquid ease within the wounds. Roots and stones churned within the dark solvent of granular soil.
Tehran’s body flooded with energy, assessing those in the most danger.
“Sky help us. Earthbound,” Knox said with a breath of disbelief, before he stepped into the grain and shouted. “Get off the field! Now! Earthbound!”
Faces turned toward him, fear painting features with wide eyes.
“HOLD!” The foreman’s distant shout countermanded.
Within the moving soil, slate scales breached the surface. Twin ridges gave the impression of swift predators on a parallel course but resolved into a singular wake, revealing a massive creature. The immense animal cut through the earth, liquefaction radiating out before it with the rushing sound of stone grating upon stone.
A living, breathing, monstrous earthbound. Its diamond shaped head and twin ridges identified it as a granits. The Mercurial had their share of the damnable creatures, but not this large; creatures this size belonged in the Tumult.
“What in the Sky is Loghin thinking? Granits will sense the workers, standing or running,” Knox growled to Tehran before lifting his voice again. “GO!”
Those closest to the liquefactions dropped their long poles and ran, grain stalks whipping at their thighs as they tried to cut an escape.
Granits were merciless predators designed to chase down surface prey. The arrow-headed, heavy-toothed monsters moved through the earth as easily as pike through water. And not one, but three such creatures stirred the field into choppy seas.
Knox darted toward the nearest worker. Tehran snatched his arm, hauling him back. “It can’t be you. Get to the trees. I’ll send the others your way.”
The morning sun glinted off the rust highlights in Knox’s hair, matching the intensity flickering in his grey eyes. He struggled a moment against Tehran before falling still. “Fine. Go. I’ll meet you at the northern edge.”
Tehran didn’t wait to see if Knox kept his word before he dashed into the field, the ground vibrating beneath his feet. Screams filled the air as workers fled the changing earth. Repulsors whirred as vehicles rushed over liquefactions towards those still stranded, proving why hovercraft were the only choice here in the temperamental lands of the Reaches.
A smaller transport sped towards Tehran over the rough surface, carrying the livid-faced foreman.
“Overseer, help!” The shout pulled Tehran’s attention to a woman struggling as a rapidly approaching liquefaction grabbed at her heels.
He angled towards her at a dead sprint. One of the granits closed in, zeroing in on the vibrations of the woman’s steps. Its broad, angular head cut through the earth like a river barge; its stone skin and oily black sensory pits glinting in the early morning light as it bore down.
Now.
Instinctively, Tehran pulled on the power of an Overseer nestled within his core. Strength rushed in, infusing his limbs and a feeling of invincibility buoyed his thoughts. His senses sharpened as he reached the woman just ahead of the sweeping liquefaction. With a sharp heave, he pulled her clear of the muck, sending her sprawling into a stumbling run toward the safety of the tree line.
“Get to Knox!” he shouted.
She didn’t need encouragement. Arms pumping, she sprinted forward. Networks of large trees would keep even the largest earthbound at bay. The trees’ deep roots created an underground canopy preventing the creatures from breaching the surface. She only needed to reach the edge of the forest.
Undeterred, the granits rushed forward, pushing the ground before it into the unnatural earthen liquid. Tehran cursed. Gauging the leading crest of the liquefaction, he launched himself forward with a powerful jump and skimmed over the nose of the creature, crashing between the sharp dorsal plates onto a flat section of its broad head. The earthbound stopped its pursuit, instead twisting and thrashing, forcing Tehran to grip one of the ridges to keep from being tossed into the bubbling earth.
The foreman’s hovercraft swung dangerously close, whining past the beast, distracting it for a split second. Tehran used the moment to regain his footing before the creature jolted forward after the vehicle.
This was far from the ideal way to manage any earthbound, least of all a giant hunter like a granits, but it was all he had. Tehran pulled a long-handled star mace from his belt and sent up a quick prayer before searching for the heat in his belly and letting it permeate every cell. He lifted the metal head high and brought it down full force into the back of the creature’s skull.
The mace bit into the stony flesh with a satisfying crack. The bone gave way beneath the blow, and the animal shuddered as it dipped. Liquid earth poured over the arrow-headed snout, leaking between the dorsal ridges and pooling around his feet.
Stones. Did the blow not kill it? He crouched to jump clear of the sinking animal, but a backwash of earth spilled up to his waist and knocked him back. A thrill chased through him, keenly aware of how close he was to being swallowed by the deadly slurry.
The earth around him rippled and turned thick. His weapon wrenched from his hand, and he cursed as he felt the solid mass of the earthbound beneath him drop clear. He sunk into the dark loam up to his chest before it stilled, becoming once again solid and predictable.
A shiver pulsed through the ground, and Tehran recognized the vibration—a granits’ call. Half expecting a sudden rush of the other two creatures, he froze. High above, the twill screeched again and flapped its stunted wings double-time as it swooped past.
The field fell still. A few stalks of grain remained in forlorn clumps, quivering in the breeze. And he, Overseer of the Reaches, stood trapped in the dirt like a fool who’d never stepped foot into the Mercurial before.
He twisted his shoulders, pushing at the earth to create space, but his arms remained pinned to his side by the press of dense soil. Voices called to one another, their figures blocked from view by the deep furrows left in the earthbounds’ frozen wake.
He squirmed another moment before pausing to take in a slow breath. Taking hold of the power, strength and calm flooded through his body. A sharp jerk left and right pushed back the soil. Within the small space, his elbows could hinge, and with a grunt he pulled his arms free. The effort sent a spray of soil into the air like a beacon.
“Well, this is a bit awkward,” a voice said from behind him, footfalls sliding down the loose soil.
With a heave, Tehran pulled himself from the earth’s grip.
Knox crossed his arms and smirked down at him with a wry expression. “Overseer of the Sky, trapped by the Earth. People would talk, you know.”
Tehran grunted and stood, dusting himself. “I wasn’t trapped. I take it by your insufferable smugness, everyone got clear?” He didn’t need to admit how close he’d come to being swallowed by the earth. How long could I survive, trapped like that? He shook off a shiver. Too long.
Levity bled away, and Knox’s thick brows furrowed. “I’ve never heard of granits this large anywhere but the Tumult.”
“Except in that infernal picture book you had Patrem Solace read to us every night about the dawn of the world. The beasts carved the land and devoured everything in their path. Gave me nightmares.”
Another smile broke free on Knox’s face. “Which is exactly why I loved it.”
“And exactly the reason why it found its way into the fire.”
“You didn’t?” Knox shook his head with a laugh. He swept his arm in a wide arc. “Your seven-year-old self may have destroyed the only document we have on ancient earthbound because of bad dreams.”
Tehran crossed his arms. “Worth it. I’ve slept nightmare-free for twenty years.”
The two climbed from the depression and stood atop the crest. The gently sweeping lines of the field were gone, replaced by the sharp edges of earth trapped within waves and wakes.
“There he is!” The woman who Tehran pulled clear pointed. Her brown hair flew free, broken grain and dirt clinging to her clothes.
A hovercraft drew close, and a thick-chested man, a year or two older than Tehran, pushed his way forward.
“Overseer Tehran, you’re still alive.” The foreman crossed his arms over his barrel chest, narrowing dark eyes that matched a trimmed beard.
“Don’t sound too excited, Loghin.” Tehran tipped forward and ran his hands through his hair, releasing a cloud of dust before straightening and striding up the hilled earth towards the small huddle of workers. Each formed a fist and pressed it to their sternums in a sign of respect, accompanied by a short bow.
Knox hung back, reluctantly climbing from the depression toward the group.
The foreman stared daggers at Knox and pointed a thick finger in his direction, seething. “You.”
Knox lifted his chin, meeting the challenge, jaw tight.
“You almost got my entire field crew killed.”
