I am giving away a copy of Etherwalker. Yes, one made of actual paper that you can hold in your hand. Like this:
It’s one of the perks of being here.
How do you get chosen? Easy. Just share this article with your friends and you’ll be entered into the drawing. Simple enough.
US residents only. We’ll draw one random winner. The more you share, the more entries you get.
I’d like people to know about Stories of the Future. I haven’t done much to spread the word, and yet this community is still growing. When we hit 10,000 subscribers (which is pretty soon) I’ll do another special giveaway, but even bigger. I have something unique in mind.
And Now, The Hiveking
It’s time for your next regularly scheduled installment!
The next chapter release of Cameron Dayton’s best selling, blockbustering, sci-fi world-building hit book, Etherwalker.
If you haven’t had a chance to read chapter 1 of the story yet then jump back a few weeks and visit “Stories from a Worldbuilder” and “Science Fiction and Call of Duty.” Hint: You need to read both articles to get all of chapter 1.
Can’t wait? Get the full book right now:
Chapter 2 of Etherwalker
Our coming has not been sweet. Alas! Would that we could behold the birth of the sun. What have we done? We were united in our mountains, but our natures have been changed.
—Balam Quitze, Balam Acab, and Mahucutah,
The Progenitors Await the First Dawn
Mosk knelt stiffly before the altar, forced to stillness under the red light which smoldered from the clerestory above. Except for the occasional twitching of his thorny and segmented hands, he was motionless.
This was how the humans saw reverence—the body forms they needed to see folded before them in order to feel the superior enzymes. But it was all for show, just like this metal cathedral. And reverence was not something Mosk could feel.
I am Hiveking and I should not be here. The conflict with the Centek still rages, and they call me to this husk.
A dry voice—like sand being sifted through dead leaves—rustled from his armored throat. “Hzzk. My blood to your tongue, Sire. Command me.” Whether Rendel had been sleeping or merely pausing for effect, Mosk would never know. The results were the same. The tomb silence held for a moment, and then a switch clicked, echoing from deep in the shadows. Hidden gears began to turn, steam hissed from pistons, and the edifice stirred to life. Ticking servitors dimmed the lights in the surrounding niches and then crawled to pull on cables that dilated the rose window high above the altar. The resulting column of light silhouetted Rendel’s crowned form—or at least, this most human appendage of his form. Mosk suspected that the entirety of this mechanized cathedral was Rendel’s true body; the way it flexed and sighed in tandem with his lord’s whims was similar to the
breathing of a draconfly. But Rendel chose to use this smaller form, his withered carnal body, for addressing his supplicants. Mosk didn’t care how he was addressed, but the Arkángel Rendel Desgarrar appeared to enjoy making small concessions to his chattel.
Chattel. Hng. We are their most powerful tool.
The coldmen were the keystone of the Vestigarchy. They were the vital strength that kept the old order fervently gripping the reins of power even in this sleeping age.
Thanks to the cruelties of nature—cruelties lovingly incubated and nurtured by the ancient breeders—Mosk and his kin were living symbols of pain and hunger. After hatching, the first moments of life for the larval coldmen were pure violence. Brother devoured brother until only the strongest remained. The memory wet his mouthparts.
This primal hate had then been cleverly woven into something resembling human intelligence. The result was the most fearsome brand of warrior this tired world had ever seen. The sciences which named and blessed the coldmen were lost, and their numbers were now relatively few.
But those which remained were the most canny. Mosk knew that the Vestigarchy held tightly to its last remaining tools—tools from the days when men spoke and mountains fled. And Mosk was their leader—a name and a title given to Him Without Brother, the Swarmlord.
The Hiveking.
Rendel smiled, hidden servos moving skin and jaw in place of long-faded muscles. “Keep your blood for now. We want you to leave your battle with the half-men and take up the Hunt once more.”
Mosk’s spidery hands stiffened at the news, his misshapen ebony head swinging up to glare at Rendel with tiny yellow eyes. Mosk’s dry voice hissed, “The . . . Hunt? The last etherwalker died by my hand not a decade
ago at Tenocht. The witches reported none left in all of our Lord’s domain. Scans were done . . .”
“You will take two legions of your coldmen to the eastern continent. An inter-stratospheric signal was sent from somewhere near the southern tip of the Horeb Wilds not five days past. The signature is unmistakable.”
“Hzzk.” Mosk’s chewing claws rubbed against each other hungrily. This was how he received news, devouring it like flesh. Sometimes ideas had a flavor. “What does our—”
“Our Master intends to finish the Hunt!” boomed Rendel’s voice, enhanced by speakers hidden in the steel pillars of the cathedral. Tall windows of ornately cut glass shivered at the sound. Rendel shook his head with what Mosk had learned was “fatherly concern”—a subtlety entirely without meaning to the coldman’s bastard race—and the Arkángel lifted his carnal form into the air on a thick spine of cable, antennae, and steel umbilical tubes. Flooding the nave with crimson light, Rendel spoke in a pure basso that shook dust from the ceiling.
“All you need to know is that our ancient enemy still exists. The Hunt continues.”
Mosk stood. He unfolded his sub-arms with claws extended. “I will go and do as my Lord has commanded.”
Rendel nodded and lowered himself to just above his servant’s head, kissing the coldman’s brow with dry lips. “Good,” he whispered. “The draconflies will be waiting for you at nightfall.”
* * * *
A low hum rose, barely audible over the roaring of the wind and waves below. A white claw of moon crept out from among the clouds, silvering a dozen long and monstrous shapes as they sped over the whitecaps.
Moonlight momentarily glinted off spear points and armor. The monsters carried an army on their backs.
While most of the riders huddled tightly against their winged mounts, one lone figure seemed unconcerned by the long drop to the sea. Perched behind the massive head of his steed, he gripped its antennae tightly with two pairs of armored hands. Wind lashed at the figure, and beads of
condensation rolled down his oblong cranium. The swarm turned away from the moon toward the dark eastern sea.
“Hzzk.”
Mosk did not pause to shake the drops from his brow. He was staring intently across the waves, and only the giant beast beneath him could hear the clicking coming from deep within his throat. The beast was not much more intelligent than the primitive insects it had been bred from long ages ago, but even under the roaring of the wind, it understood the meaning of that sound. It was primal, a language as old as life. The language of hunger. The language of blood.
See you in the future.
Adam Sidwell
Creative Director
Future House Publishing & Future House Studios
And Another Thing…
I appreciate everyone who reached out after reading last week’s email about the loss of my friend Tommy. I also appreciate everyone who just had a kind thought. It mattered to me.
Join the Conversation: people are reacting to this post I made about Optimus Prime.
Sword of the Week: An unnamed fiery sword possessed by Durin’s Bane, the Balrog that drove out the Dwarves of Moria. We meet Durin in a recent episode of Rings of Power before he’s awakened the Balrog.
The Dwarves delved too greedily, and too deeply. You know what they awoke in those mines: shadow and flame.
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