The Aebeling Read online

  THE AEBELING

  Michael O'neill

  FIRST EDITION DESIGN PUBLISHING

  THE AEBELING

  “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph

  is for good men to do nothing”

  Edmund Burke

  First Edition Design Publishing

  The Aebeling

  Copyright ©2014 Michael O’Neill

  ISBN 978-1622-876-01-3 EBOOK

  February 2014

  Published and Distributed by

  First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.

  P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217

  www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means ─ electronic, mechanical, photo-copy, recording, or any other ─ except brief quotation in reviews, without the prior permission of the author or publisher.

  Book 1 of “The Casere”

  By

  Michael O’Neill

  thecasere.wordpress.com

  for contact information, maps, family trees and extra ‘stuff’

  © 2014, Michael O’Neill

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Darko Tomic.

  All rights reserved.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Culture and society are bound into concepts embedded in language and to create something of a framework, the historic language that provided inspiration for words for this world is Anglo-Saxon, and the source of some of the words is the eBook “A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary; For the Use of Students” by J. R. Clark.

  People names are Anglo Saxon or Viking in origin, and are inspired by names generated by the website www.gamedecor.com; there are a lot of names in the four books (and the thousand years of genealogy) and I’m truly grateful for its existence.

  Place names are also inspired by history and positioned into time and space of my own imagination. A wonderful resource is the maps created by Thomas Lessman at www.worldhistorymaps.info. Again, thank you.

  DEDICATION

  For Di and Hollie with much love

  And to those who provided suggestions and encouragement

  along the way; you have my sincerest gratitude

  CHAPTER 01

  The leaves, in their bright autumn colors, fluttered downwards as the wind successfully unseated them from their home of the past months. It was very cool, and then suddenly very quiet, in the ancient forest; as if everything had stopped for something. When something did happen, the animals in the vicinity fled – except for a Green Jay that twittered in the branches of a large tree. Instead of flying away from the humanly unperceivable sound of the tearing of the supposedly indestructible fabric that separates one dimension from another, it stayed, until the event had concluded, and then left for parts unknown.

  It saw, with definite interest, the glimmering light that suddenly appeared in mid-air, and then divided, each half glittering as it made its way to the ground. The result was an archway; from which it saw a man appear – tall, athletic, and blonde with a slight reddish beard; and he looked about twenty, in truth he was nearly forty.

  It could have noted, if it had been so inclined, that the man was well dressed, black woolen trousers, high leather boots bound with crisscross strapping, a studded purple Brigandine over a chainmail hauberk and a linen gambeson, and was also extremely well-armed – he carried two swords while the warhorse that followed was laden with a circular shield, two bows, a multitude of arrows and another sword; a two handed Claymore in a scabbard hanging on the side of the saddle.

  The horse, a buckskin Lusitano stallion was tall, over seventeen hands, with a deep golden hide, and black legs, mane, and tail. The stallion stopped and sniffed the air as soon as he had all four feet on the forest floor, and sensing that he was in no immediate danger, he followed the man. Directly behind, four other animals quickly appeared, burdened with packs. The last to arrive were two large white pregnant Maremma bitches.

  With everything through the arch, the blond warrior mounted the stallion and rode around towards the faint shimmering light. He raised his hand to the source of the light, grasping as if it were an apple from a tree; and as he did so, the light flickered and suddenly went out. The rider cursed as watched what appeared to be sand running through his fingers.

  Conn MacLeod, late of North America in the year 2056, had hoped that the object that had provided him with his way “in” would also provide the way “out” – but it appeared not to be the case. The eleven gemstones that once sat in the hand carved yew pendant were now scattered all over the ground, and the structure had had held them into place was now dust. He dismounted and collected up the sapphires from the forest floor.

  Where he was – he had no idea. All he knew was that this was the end of a thirty year journey to decrypt the notes written in his mother’s notebook. Found in her belongings after her untimely death, the single volume showed a sophisticated level of interest in history, mysticism, and the occult – among other areas of study – that didn’t fit with a life spent as a nightclub singer who had spent her youth in dancing, acting and singing classes. The enormity of the difference between the two personas – the mother he remembered, and the girl that everyone else knew growing up – was the very reason he had dedicated his life to unravelling the notebook. There was also the dedication in the book – written in Latin – “to my beloved son – search and you will find”.

  He had yet to find the answer; in fact, he had yet to work out the question.

  His mother died when he was ten; his father almost immediately after. Ewan MacLeod was a very different person; a highly decorated elite member of the British Army who had served with distinction in three wars – but not without serious emotional consequence. It was in the mountains of Japan with an old army buddy that he had sought sanctuary – and he even found a semblance of peace after he had rescued a Swedish nightclub singer from certain death.

  Together they had a child that they raised in the mountain forests of Kyushu. Living as peaceful recluses, their lives were then destroyed by the tragedy of their deaths – their murders by Yakuza.

  The ten year old Conn not only found himself an orphan in a foreign land, but one hunted because he witnessed the murder of his mother. It was his father’s friend who made sure that he was safe, and hidden, until he was ready to face the world.

  Today, however, he was all alone again, a very long way from home and now with no way of getting back. Five years of computing power combined with a hundred hand carved and whittled attempts had been made getting the alignment of the gems in the pentacle just right – and it had just dissolved in front of him.

  Placing the stones in a leather pouch on his waist, he patted the stallion and spoke aloud, for the first time, in this ‘new world’.

  ‘We can’t just stand here, can we? Let’s find a spot for the night.’

  He walked the stallion back to the four pack animals that waited patiently. Around him peaks showed snow-capped mountains in all directions, indicating that he was in a valley of some kind. To the north and west the land sloped down, and as he had no inclination to head for the snow, he elected to follow the path downhill until the light failed. It was already afternoon, so he doubted that would be far. Interestingly, it was early summer, at dawn, when he had walked into the archway, but it was clearly late autumn here, and late in the afternoon.

  The sky was a deep blue, cloudless, and the sun’
s waning light flickered through the tall trees to the forest floor. Everything was still remarkably silent – the loudest sounds being the steady stamp of his horses’ hooves through the leaves. An hour later, Conn had found a defendable position beside an extremely dense clump of trees on a small knoll. The trees would form excellent protection against the bitter wind that had arrived as the sun disappeared behind the mountain.

  Bamboo was amongst the many plants growing plentifully in the forest that he recognized, and Conn used his machete to cut poles to build pens for the animals. As he worked, he would inadvertently stop and stare at the stand of ancient oaks and elms behind him. They looked out of place in this temperate forest, as did the bamboo, and there was definitely something menacing about it. That said, although he didn’t feel in danger, he felt no inclination to go inside.

  The animals secure, he assembled a small yurt for himself. The light was gone as he finished and the temperature had dropped significantly with the wind. Protected by the grove, he would, however, be warm inside the shelter, and when he finally sat at the doorway, the only light in the yet so far moonless night was the flickering of the fire in the iron firebox that cooked his dinner, and he watched it until it went out. Of his two dogs, one sat at outside his door while the other sat with the horses, doing her job. Feeling strangely secure, Conn lay down to sleep.

  Early the next morning Conn, still dressed in armor, saddled the Lusitano, and headed out to investigate the countryside. He had decided to scout the area thoroughly before heading further downhill. All morning he found no indication of human existence – or at least recent existence. He did find remnants of stone walls that indicated significant habitation a long time ago; not castles but certainly stone based communities.

  By midday he was eating his lunch of cold meat, cheese and bread, perched on an ancient drywall, and scouring the horizon with his telescope. To his left, a brook babbled its way downhill. He had drunk from the stream; the water was pure, clear and cold; the waters coming from the snow topped hills to his east. From his perch, he could see all the way down the mountain to a huge lake that sat surrounded by dense forests on all side. It seemed to be very large valley, and with mountains in all directions it appeared to be a caldera. Even from so high up, there was no visible sign of humanity; no smoke or roads anywhere. If there was human life here, and it seemed a big if, it had to be near the lake. Tomorrow he would continue his travels downhill.

  Animal life was however certainly plentiful – and all animals species he recognized. Conn had studied a herd of deer in the distance for some time, and when a fawn suddenly took fright and scampered to the safety of the herd that as quickly fled, Conn took notice. Conn’s stallion also stopped eating, raised his head and snorted. Moving himself and the stallion back into the shelter of the trees, Conn remounted, and searched for the cause.

  His telescope was the most technologically advanced item to make its way through the “portal”. Once the door had been created, Conn had discovered – with some bizarre outcomes – that only handmade items from handmade materials could make it through. A hand forged sword was fine – a machine made pistol would dissolved into the elements that were its construction. Fibreglass bows shattered; the bamboo bow survived. The discovery resulted in delays as he had to remake everything in his travel kit by hand; from his saddle to his medical supplies.

  Conn continued to search and was just about to give up when he saw a faint movement. He soon discovered five men creeping down between the trees, over a thousand yards away, until they hid themselves in the grass verge of a bank of a dry creek bed. Unsure if it was prey or victim, Conn scoured the valley below them. Finally, he found three people riding slowly up the same creek bed, their figures dipping in and out of the trees. They seemed to be heading straight for him, and straight past the path of those that lay in wait.

  Of the three, two seemed large enough to be adults while the third was smaller, a child. They were now almost at the ridge where the assailants waited, and when he looked back towards them, he saw two of the men stand and fire arrows; resulting in one of the figures falling from their horse.

  This was not a battle; this was murder. Conn reached for his bow, and kicked the stallion in action. The horse had been trained for just this kind of work and he burst from the trees and quickly stretched out into a high speed gallop. Though not a thoroughbred, the stallion would still make the distance in minutes. Conn hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

  The path down the ridge was reasonably open and the stallion had little in the way of fallen trees or gullies to impede his gallop. Conn could see now that three men had leapt from their cover and tackled the two other riders, pulling them from their horses. Conn had spent his life studying martial arts, including both field archery and mounted archery; learning from the Mongols, the Hungarians and the Japanese. As the stallion galloped, Conn stood in his stirrups and readied his bow.

  With the sound of his horse now echoing down the valley, the two bowmen suddenly realized someone was racing towards them, and they called out warnings to their friends. While turning towards him, they fitted arrows to their bows, but they hadn’t even sighted their bows before feeling the thud of arrows deep in their chests. With the bowmen dead, the three remaining men quickly retreated behind their shields. With the stallion snorting as he pulled it to a sudden stop, Conn dismounted in a fluid motion, and landing with a Katana in his hand.

  They spoke nervously to each other, ‘Who the heck is this? He ain’t an Ancuman or a Twacuman, and he ain’t like any Priecuman I’ve ever seen.’

  Conn was surprised that he was able to understand what they said – it was not any language he knew and it was as if the meanings of their words simply appeared in his head without him even having to translate them.

  Another answered. ‘True, he is unlike any Priecuman that I have seen before. And he wants to be a hero!’ He addressed Conn. ‘So, hero, what are your last words?’

  Conn studied them as they circled him; each was armed with a sword about two foot long; two-edged for cutting and slashing but also with a tapered point for stabbing, it was a handy weapon. They wore leather and brass lamellar breastplates over linen shirts and rough woolen pants. The lamellar didn’t withstand the force of his arrows, but would be a helpful defense against his blades. However, they were clearly not professional soldiers but brigands of some sort.

  Giving them the benefit of the doubt, Conn drew his second Katana; the shorter wakizashi.

  ‘I don’t have any last words, and if you have any, I don’t really care.’

  He didn’t expect them to understand him either but they did; stranger still. He had spoken in English.

  ‘He doesn’t speak any Priecuman language either’, one said as they continued to circle him. ‘And did you see his horse – that’s the most magnificent Ancuman horse I think I’ve seen – it could be worth more that these Twacuman. The Ancuman will pay a fortune for that stallion.’

  ‘What about his swords?’ The other asked, as they circled Conn, ‘They would be worth a lot too. We are going to be very rich men.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too certain of that.’ Conn advised as three surrounded him. Conn stood still and waited; he was an experienced fighter who was confident in his abilities – he had yet to suffer defeat in any form of combat – albeit never when the stakes were so high.

  Eventually they thought they had him where they wanted him and all three engaged at the same time. Confident in their superior numbers, they were let down by the inferior skill – in moments two were gasping their last words as the unseen slash of the katana severing arteries in their necks – the only target left for a quick result. Conn now faced the single survivor whose face showed a range of emotions as he watched his comrades’ fall to the ground; surprise, shock, fleetingly fear, and finally anger as he rushed at Conn in a wild but futile attempt to survive.

  As he crumbled to the ground, a young voice could be heard behind him.

  ‘Well, th
at was a bit quick and boring.’

  Conn turned to see a girl sitting on a bank looking at him. She had escaped her bindings. Conn cleaned his swords and returned them to their scabbards.

  ‘Could you not have made them suffer a bit more?’ she continued, ‘These were not nice men.’

  Conn saw that she was young, perhaps twelve, though it was hard to tell. Before he had a chance to answer, her companion, also female but older, who was cradling her prone comrade, called out.

  ‘Caewyn, Derryth is still alive.’

  Conn walked quickly to his horse, grabbed his medical kit from his saddlebag and headed to the prone warrior.

  ‘What is your name?’ the girl asked.

  ‘My name is Conn MacLeod.’ Conn answered. This time the girl spoke in a different language to before, but he still understood her. The language before sounded pleasant and functional – this one was lyrical and sensuous. It felt like poetry in motion. She appeared startled that he had responded. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you. What’s yours?’

  ‘My name Caewyn il Halani. It is unusual that you understand the language of the Twacuman. Normally we have to speak a Priecuman language to communicate with Priecuman. And you are Priecuman, aren’t you?’ she said, as she followed him to the fallen warrior, studying him intensely.

  ‘It depends what a Priecuman is – but I think so’. When Conn reached the victim, he asked the woman if he could have a look at the wounds. She was about to refuse when Caewyn interrupted and said ‘Let him’. Conn was surprised that the girl seemed to be in charge.