The Shepherd

By J.C. Staudt

In the heat-blasted wastelands of a post-apocalyptic world, Toler Glaive makes his living as hired muscle, guarding trade caravans against the storms, mutants, monsters, and nomads who harry them every step of the way. Only the strongest survive the wasteland, and the strongest of them all is the trading company's brutal overlord, Nichel Vantanible, a man who doesn't tolerate smugglers in his ranks.

But that's just what Toler aims to become. He's got all the pieces in place to pull off the biggest heist of his life, and he isn't prepared to settle for anything less than perfection.

When nomads ambush the caravan, Toler soon finds the pieces of his carefully laid puzzle coming apart. Can he live out the remainder of the journey and dispose of the goods without Vantanible finding out? Or will his career as a gambler be cut short by a headsman's machete?

The Shepherd is a prelude to the Aionach Saga, a post-apocalyptic fantasy epic beginning with The Infernal Lands.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Staudt
• Release date: Feb 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311365002

J.C. Staudt

J.C. Staudt was born in Oceanside, New York, and moved to Virginia at the age of four, where he has lived ever since. He is a graduate of George Mason University, with a B.A. in Integrative Multimedia Studies, and he works for an Engineering and Consulting firm as a New Media Designer. He lives with his beautiful wife in a house lacking pets and children in Manassas, Virginia.

Book preview

The Shepherd

Book Zero of

The Aionach Saga

J.C. Staudt

The Shepherd is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 J.C. Staudt

All rights reserved.

Edition 1.0

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Map

1. The Hounds

2. The Clayhollows

3. The Way to Tristol

4. No Person Better

5. The Railside

6. Calistari's Crate

7. These Don't Exist

8. A Man Short

9. The Cave

10. Rills

11. The Deal

12. Riverbed

13. The Starwinds

14. Gambit

15. Lottimer

16. Dolls

17. The Switch

Afterword

1

The smell of meat over the campfires brought the hounds prowling.

Toler Glaive sawed off another bit of gristle and tossed it over the sand, watching it land at the edge of the fire’s glow.

Don’t feed them! You’ll only make it worse.

Toler raised an eyebrow. Have some charity, Blatcher. One of these nights they don’t get fed, they’ll come for you.

Or you. Blatcher’s face was a motley of orange and gray in the firelight, shadows dancing over ugly scars.

Toler shook his head. Wild things can smell fear. That makes you easier to smell.

A black shape loomed above the scrap and was gone.

Blatcher grimaced, hugging himself as if the warmth had gone out of the night. They’d never touch me. They know better. Mongrels, all of ‘em.

Say what you will of the hounds, Toler said, flinging them another scrap. They’re loyal as any house dog.

These hounds are no dogs, boy. They’re bred to hunt men. It was Jakob Calistari, the cloth merchant whose shipping crate was the shepherds’ to guard for the next three months. His words came wet and muffled through a mouthful of food. He planted his considerable girth in an empty seat by the fire and began picking through the leavings on his plate. It was uncharacteristic of the merchant to grace the shepherds with his presence during dinner. Loyalty’s one thing. Hunger is another, Calistari said.

Speaking as an expert on the subject, Blatcher muttered.

The others laughed, garnering stares from crews around nearby fires. Calistari gave Blatcher a stare of his own, only he wasn’t laughing.

They aren’t dogs, that’s true enough, said Toler. But they’re feral. They don’t hunt men any more than you or I do, unless they’re starving. Which is why a token of goodwill is in order every now and then. He glanced at the spot where his most recent token of goodwill had landed, and found it missing.

I still don’t like ‘em, Blatcher said. It’s unsettling, them being on our heels all the time. Staring at us from the dark, licking their lips. Those table scraps won’t keep ‘em filled for long. Who’s to say when it is they get good and hungry?

They’re no bother as long as you show them a little kindness, Toler said. It’s the savages’ trained pets you’ve got to watch out for. They’re the dangerous ones.

The nomads should keep them on leashes, said Calistari. That would stop them running away and prevent these kinds of infestations.

It’s a little late for leashes, don’t you think? Strays have been ranging the foothills since before the Heat. Besides, they breed them big, and big things don’t take to leashes so easy.

They do if you show them who’s in charge, said Jakob. I’ve got a kennel full of curs at home. They know when to beg and whom to follow.

Your curs are scarce the size of bushcats, Blatcher said, sparking another bout of laughter. Try leashing a brace of these monsters in each hand and see where it gets you.

Halfway over the Clayhollows, I should think, said Toler.

Men sputtered and hacked, stoking the fire with their drink. Toler took a long draught from his flask and felt it scald his throat, smiling at the revelry. The nights were cooler than the days, but they were never cold. The light-star made sure of that. Toler was warm and drunk, and that was the way he liked it.

"What do you know of it, boy? How many times have you been north of these mountains?"

Toler hated when the merchant called him boy. He was twenty-three. It didn’t matter how often he reminded the other shepherds of that; he was the youngest, and that meant he would be boy for as long as Jakob Calistari liked. I’ve never been north of the Clayhollows. Vantanible doesn’t trade outside the Inner East anymore.

Tender boy, said Calistari, his eyes sharp in the firelight. Thinks he’s wise beyond his years. Thinks he’s seen the wide Aionach, but he doesn’t know the half of it. Young punk.

Go easy, Jakob. He was just giving us a laugh, said Korley Frittock, a lithe middle-aged man whose blond hair was so pale it might’ve been half-gone to gray without the casual observer knowing the difference.

The fireside fell silent, giving way to the insects’ shrills and the tinder’s crackling. Toler looked away, trapped under Jakob’s stare. Somewhere off in the darkness, the hounds were snarling over a morsel.

Jakob must have felt responsible for the silence, because he was the one to break it. Blasted things swarm like roaches every time we travel in the shadow of the mountains. He frowned, tossing away a leftover bone like a peace offering. It bounced and skipped over the sand, landing too far past the light’s edge.

What’d you do that for? said Blatcher.

What? The merchant shrugged, innocent.

You don’t give ‘em the bones. You never give ‘em the bones.

What's the harm? The boy can feed the beasts, but I can’t?

Not if you count on getting a wink tonight. I thought you said you had dogs of your own. They’ll be warring over that bone halfway ‘til dawn.

Toler resisted the urge to point out that beasts as big as the hounds could chew through bones that size without batting an eye.

"Excuse me, Jakob said with disdain. I’ve never spent a night in the kennel with them."

Maybe you should–you’d learn a blasted thing or two.

Jakob inhaled through his nose. "It isn’t your place to lecture me, shepherd." The word was an insult. Like boy.

Blatcher was unscathed. "Right you are. I’m just your lookout. ‘Cept maybe