Airship Down

By Brent Nichols

Colleen Garman is not having a good day.

Mercenary soldiers have invaded the Mediterranean island of Capria. Ben, the man who means everything to her, is leading the resistance. Colleen's job, as she sees it, is to keep him alive long enough to drive the invaders out. But when the airship returns, the resistance crumbles and Ben and Colleen must run for their lives.

Harried and hunted, Colleen has all she can handle just staying alive - until the air turns cold, and a strange cloud forms over Monte Albo. The cult is opening a portal. They're about to release the mad god Katharis.

With the fate of the world at stake, Colleen has to stop running and take the fight to the invaders. It means letting go of smaller concerns, like Ben. Or her own survival. The seconds are ticking down, the mad god is coming closer, and Colleen has to stop him - no matter what the cost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brent Nichols
• Release date: Jan 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311276377

Brent Nichols

Brent Nichols is a writer and trainer based in Calgary, Alberta.

Book preview

Airship Down

By Brent Nichols

Copyright 2014 Brent Nichols

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Invasion

Chapter 2 – Counter-Attack

Chapter 3 – Captured

Chapter 4 – The Portal in the Pit

Chapter 5 – The Mad God

Chapter 6 – Into the Airship

Chapter 7 – Death of the Gray Eagle

Author's Notes

Chapter 1 – Invasion

Colleen Garman sat on a flat stone, watching the sun rise over the Tyrrhenian Sea. Exhaustion dragged at her, but nightmares had woken her before dawn. She was enjoying a brief lull in her endless war with the cult of Katharis, doing her best to rest and recuperate. She would regret the lost sleep, she knew. The battle was going to start back up again soon enough.

The distant rumble of an engine drew her eyes to the road below her, and she fought down a squirming anxiety. It could be anyone. It could be Ben, coming back from meeting with his supporters in the town below. It could be a member of the team, dropping off supplies or a report.

Just the same, she felt a wave of relief when the engine stopped somewhere on the outskirts of the town below.

The rising sun glinted on the tile roofs of the town. Telti was the biggest town on the island of Capria, but that wasn't saying much. From above, at sunrise, it looked wonderfully romantic, like a relic of the eighteenth century. There was hardly a straight road in the entire town, and very few cars. It held some wonderful people, she knew. People who were trying to stamp out the cult that was spreading like rot in their midst.

Beyond the town the fishing fleet was already heading out. The wind was from the west, as usual. When the boats got out past the lee of the hill Colleen was sitting on, they would spread their sails and triple their speed.

Her eyes followed the path the boats would be taking. She saw another boat, a big diesel-powered craft, heading inshore. A smaller boat kept station on its right side.

She stiffened when she saw a third boat alongside the other two. All three boats were heading directly for the town.

There was nothing she could do but watch and wait to see what happened. She cupped her hands around her eyes, shading them from the rising sun, and watched as one boat separated from the other two. The lone boat moved to the shore just south of town, and she watched with a cold lump of fear in her stomach as half a dozen figures sprang from the boat and waded ashore.

A truck was waiting to meet them. The invaders had an agent onshore, then. That was one of the worst things about the cult. Katharis could always find someone to subvert.

The other two boats came in more slowly, passing through the outbound fishing fleet. They vanished behind some of the taller buildings on the waterfront, but a minute later she heard the distant pop of gunshots.

The town was under attack.

Colleen turned her attention to the truck. She could trace the progress of the truck by the plume of dust that rose behind it. When the truck reached the main road leading inland from the town, the plume of dust disappeared. The truck had stopped, which likely meant they were blocking the road, to keep people from fleeing the town.

Ben would be coming up that road.

She rose and jogged to the little wooden house behind her. Gavril, the old man who lived there, had gone inland to recruit his brothers and cousins to the cause. She had the house to herself, and she moved quickly from room to room gathering supplies. She filled a backpack with a canteen, some food, and a box of cartridges. Then she took Gavril's rifle and headed outside.

She ran, trying to pace herself, torn between urgency and the need for caution. When she judged she was within a mile of the truck, she left the road and picked her way forward through rocks and low brush.

At last she saw the truck ahead of her. It was parked so that it blocked the road, and she could make out the shapes of several men crouching behind the fenders or scattered among the rocks nearby. The road made a blind curve just beyond the truck. Anyone coming up the road from town would be upon the roadblock before they could see it.

Colleen sat down behind a rock, laid her rifle across the top of it, and settled in to wait. It wasn't a powerful rifle. Gavril had referred to it as his rabbit gun. Still, she would do what she could when the time came.

Long, tense minutes crawled past without much of anything happening. Sweat cooled on Colleen's skin, making her shiver, but the sun rose higher and she was soon warm again. The air smelled pleasantly of earth and grass, with a faint undertone of her own perspiration and gun oil from the rifle. The sky was a blue so deep and perfect that she wanted to forget the war and just stare upward.

Beauty always seemed more poignant when death was in the air.

The men around the truck began to stir. The movements were small, a sitting man rising to one knee, another man ducking lower behind the cover of a boulder. Colleen checked that there was a round in the breech of her rifle and took long, deep breaths, wondering what the men were reacting to.

Then a faint rumble came to her ears. A vehicle was coming up the road. She told herself that it could be anyone, either fleeing the invasion or going about their business, but somehow she wasn't surprised when she recognized the battered car that came around the bend.

The car slid to a stop in a cloud of billowing dust, and men rose from behind rocks on both sides of the road. It was Colleen's first decent glimpse of the invading force, and she didn't know what to think. They weren't wearing uniforms, not quite, but every man was dressed in olive green. The cut and color was similar, if not identical, from man to man. She thought she saw some variety among their weapons, as well. Each man had a rifle of some sort, and some wore sidearms.

A man with dark epaulettes walked up to the car and spoke to the driver. The driver's door swung open, and a tall, broad-shouldered young man stepped out. Three or four rifles were trained on him, but he turned his back on the gunmen as if they were beneath his notice.

Colleen felt herself smile despite her dismay. There was something about Ben that was utterly magnificent. No matter how much trouble he was in, he always managed to look like the person in charge.

If anyone could drive a ragtag private army out of Capria, it was Ben. Colleen's job, as she saw it, was to give him the chance to do his thing. She curled her finger around the trigger of the rifle, took a steadying breath, and lined up the sights.

She wanted to shoot the officer,