Shieldbreaker: Episode 5: Following Bayne

By Ty Johnston

Sent back in time nearly two thousands to find the ancient warrior Bayne kul Kanon, Lerebus Shieldbreaker knows no end to his troubles. An army of Trodan soldiers march the land, ready to capture or slay any perceived enemies, while slave traders seek to add to their number of gladiators. Lerebus must get past them all.

Then there is the mysterious, scarred stranger who wears a large sword on his back. Could this monster of a man be Bayne himself? And can Lerebus survive this character's rampages through village and temple?

In the end, Lerebus must learn a secret, one he is fated to carry back to his own time and an evil wizard who awaits an answer.

Now Available
Shieldbreaker: Road of the Sword
Shieldbreaker: An End to Rage:
Shieldbreaker: Betrayal of the Self:
Shieldbreaker: The Slave Pits of Mogus Potere:
Shieldbreaker: Following Bayne

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ty Johnston
• Release date: May 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301563357

Ty Johnston

Originally from Kentucky, Ty Johnston is a former newspaper journalist. He lives in North Carolina with loving memories of his late wife.Blog: tyjohnston.blogspot.com

Book preview

SHIELDBREAKER

Part V of V: Following Bayne

The Ursian Chronicles

by Ty Johnston

a Monumental Works Group author

Copyright 2013 by L. M. Press

visit the author’s website: tyjohnston.blogspot.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

About Shieldbreaker

Readers familiar with my ongoing epic fantasy saga The Ursian Chronicles might recognize the name of Lerebus Shieldbreaker, the main character of this five-part series. Lerebus appears as a minor character in the novel Dark King of the North: Book III of The Kobalos Trilogy, and as a somewhat more influential character in my novel Under the Mountain: Part III of The Sword of Bayne. Funny how Lerebus keeps showing up in the final novels of my trilogies. Also, I do not hide the fact that the Jorsican barbarian known as Lerebus will appear in more of my works in the future, sometimes as a major character, sometimes as a minor one. This has led to a few questions from readers about the character, especially concerning his past. How did he come to serve as a soldier in the Kobalan army when he is from Jorsica by birth? How does he meet with the mighty Bayne kul Kanon nearly two thousand years before the events of The Kobalos Trilogy, in which Lerebus appears? This five-part series of short stories will answer many of those questions, and others, though new questions might be raised. This particular story, Following Bayne, is actually a continuation of the story before, The Slave Pits of Mogus Potere.

Also, I find it appropriate that here and now I raise a SPOILER alert and make readers aware some of the events in Following Bayne also occurred in my novel Under the Mountain: Part III of The Sword of Bayne. The difference here is the events are given more from Lerebus’s point of view, whereas the novel had a different approach.

42 years After Ashal (A.A.)

All was gray and mist, yet despite the wall of fog before him, Lerebus pushed ahead, his axe leading the way. A light glow lay in the distance, filtering through the all-encompassing smoke, and the barbarian warrior was thankful for it as he had lost his torch. He had had a torch, hadn’t he? He could not quite remember. His mind was as vague as his surroundings. Such was not uncommon when traveling the Lonely Paths, especially when the magic to do so was not one’s own.

Lerebus cursed the wizard who had sent him here, Verkain, the deposed king of Kobalos. If he ever saw the man again, Lerebus would have more than words with him.

His boots feeling as if dragging through twisting vines, the big man forced himself forward. Sooner or later the fog would have to end and he would find himself somewhere. Or would he? Verkain had said he was sending Lerebus not only from one place to another, but back through the years, back through centuries. Lerebus had traveled the Lonely Paths before, but he had never used them for traveling from one era to another. He had not even known such was possible until the wizard had told him. Brushing more mist away from in front of his face, he was still skeptical.

Then he smelled smoke, the charring of wood and flesh. Warrior and soldier, the scents were familiar to him, yet he had never encountered such while traveling the Lonely Paths.

It was then he realized he was no longer surrounded by the fog of the Lonely Paths. He had exited the Paths, and was now elsewhere. The gray air around him was not a mist, but the sprinkling of gray smoke streaking across in front of his eyes. That dim light had grown in strength and was now the sun far above, its glow straining to reach through the smoke.

Moving forward, his boots crunched, causing him to look down. Beneath his feet pale sand was littered with rocks of many sizes, from pebbles to that of large fruit. Minutes earlier he had been in a dungeon with the wizard, then had moved through the Lonely Paths, and now was somewhere else, somewhere foreign, somewhere unknown.

A stiff breeze brushed away the smoke to show Lerebus he strode through the bottom of a small valley, on either side walls of sand and dirt and stone rising up above his head. Before and ahead the valley continued, snaking around large stones to limit his view.

The sight of the bodies brought his boots to a standstill.

There were a dozen dead men less than twenty yards ahead of him along the valley floor. Each of these men was garbed from head to ankle in dust-draped robes splattered in blood. The bodies were strewn along a line with weapons littered all around as if they had gone down in a fight.

Standing among the dead were three of their kind, dressed in similar fashion and carrying bronzed scimitars. They turned at the approach of Lerebus, their eyes filled with hate upon seeing a stranger among them.

Confused, Lerebus held up a hand, trying to forestall a confrontation, but it was already too late.

As a group the three charged, their golden blades flashing before them.

Lerebus knew not who this men were, and he had no wish to make them his enemy, but he would not simply die for their stupidity. The first one to the warrior had an axe planted in his chest, and the man went down in a spray of blood.

His heaviest weapon lodged between a dying man’s breast bone, Lerebus let go of his axe and stepped back, drawing his dagger.

The next two robed figures came at him from either side. Lerebus lunged to his right, using the blade of his steel dagger to brush aside the weaker metal of his opponent’s weapon. Then the warrior planted a fist in his foe’s face, crunching bones as the enemy went down spitting teeth and scarlet gore.

Lerebus spun around to face the