Soul of the Guardian: A Guardians of Taron Novella: Guardians of Taron

By Brenda J. Pierson

One moment all is normal, the next… insanity. Scores of people drop dead, their minds ripped to shreds. All that's left is a twisted corpse with alien eyes, and what survivors remain are given no explanation.

 

Ryanne and Kole beg relief from the Guardian, a sometimes-doubted mythical being who watches over the world, but this is beyond even his mighty powers. This is an invasion, a parasitic race determined to make humanity their next meal. In order to free their people from the monsters' hunger, the Guardian, Ryanne, and Kole will have to pool all their abilities… and decide what's worth sacrificing to save the whole of mankind.

 

Witness the birth of the legendary Bok'Tarong and the beginnings of the Entana war in this prequel to Soul of the Blade!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crimson Fox Publishing
• Release date: Sep 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9798215638682

Book preview

Soul of the Guardian

Copyright © 2015-2019 by Brenda J. Pierson.

Published by Crimson Fox Publishing

www.crimsonfoxpublishing.com

P.O. Box 1035

Turner, OR 97392

United States

Cover art by DesignRAN.

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

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law.

To Stan and Anita, the best Daddoo and Mumsies a girl could ask for.

Thanks for never giving up on me.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Soul of the Guardian is a prequel, set several hundred years before the events of Soul of the Blade. While readers familiar with Taron will find little hints scattered throughout this novella, those who have not read Soul of the Blade will find it no less entertaining. I hope that however you come to Soul of the Guardian—whether as a new reader or an established fan of the Bok’Tarong, you’ll find something in this story to enjoy.

CHAPTER ONE

Gideon reached toward the horizon, where the sun waited for his call to rise. His arms grazed the clouds in the sky, fingertips scraping the bottoms of the stars. Their touch was a familiar sigh, a greeting between friends as old as time.

They shivered as he passed, a subtle hint of wrongness that made Gideon pause. Their distress was a sour note distorting the air. The world—the galaxy—recoiled from it. Something was intruding. Something that should not exist in this universe.

Gideon turned from the stars and surveyed the lands of Taron. Green forests and snowy mountains and raw, brown desert to the south. An ocean lay beyond, and another crest of land rose on the other side, waving golden and green with expanses of savannah. They slept under the blanket of nighttime, though the sun would crest soon and the lands would awaken.

This planet had been his to protect, nurture, and guide since its infancy. He would not fail it now.

Gideon reached up again, searching the stars. Even in this short time their distress had multiplied, reality itself screeching as it was torn apart and tossed aside. He peered through the layers of space, but whatever had infiltrated his Taron was cunning. It left traces of its passage in the sky and the air and the moanings of the world, but Gideon could not track them to its source.

He looked back to the sleeping planet. Would it wake to a nightmare?

Gideon couldn’t allow that to happen. He was a Guardian. Neither human nor animal, neither physical being nor spiritual entity. He was all of that, and nothing. If pressed to answer, Gideon would say he was not a part of this world because he was this world.

The thick jungle at his feet was the first land to wake. The humans who had sprung up there were curious things, filled with devout faith and extreme self-importance. They believed themselves wise—that compared to the rest of humanity they, with their pious arrogance, had understanding beyond compare. But they did not feel the breath of the world each morning, or the sway of the heavens as stars danced in the night, or stretch among the vast reaches of the universe. They were contained within their little bodies, upon their little world, and they could conceive of nothing more.

Yet they could fight. They were constantly at battle, among themselves and within themselves and against everything they came into contact with.

Perhaps Gideon could use that.

And they suffered from this intrusion. They sobbed with pain humankind had not been created to bear. Humanity was many things, and deserving of many punishments for their actions, but no human should have to endure this.

This was the world itself crying out for aid, through human voices and the wind and the waves and the very air Gideon breathed.

Gideon looked toward the west, toward the pockets of humanity begging for relief. Toward the tears and the pain, toward the cries of Taron herself as she was invaded.

* * *

Screams tore through the jungle. First a few, then a dozen, then what seemed like hundreds. Ryanne stopped mid-step, almost dropping the precious planks of temple-blessed wood. Her clothes, already stuck to her skin with sweat, grew cold as a chill ran through her. The screams raced around her like cold winter air swirled a mountaintop.

She looked to the other workers, similarly laden with materials for the building site, similarly frozen on their trek. They peered through the surrounding trees as the screams grew louder and more numerous.

The next came from right beside her. Abbi, a stout mountain-bred woman like Ryanne, dropped her load of tools and collapsed, clutching her head. Ryanne knelt beside her, letting the carefully stacked planks fall to the side. They weren’t friends, exactly—Ryanne couldn’t claim to have many of those these days—but Abbi had always been kind to her. She’d been born in a village not too far from Ryanne’s own, far to the north. They even shared the same shade of vibrant red hair.

Abbi pulled at that hair now, tears streaming down her face. What is that? she cried, her gaze fixed on something behind Ryanne. "Dear Guardian, what is that?"

Ryanne turned, following Abbi’s line of sight. There was nothing there.

Abbi whimpered, turning her face away and squeezing her eyes shut. A moment of eerie stillness followed, then her whimpers became shrieks and wails of agony. Her eyes flew open, mad with pain and terror, the color and shape of her irises changing even as Ryanne watched. They became alien, completely inhuman, as Abbi screamed herself hoarse. She clawed at her head and writhed and raged like an animal. And then… she died. No grand ceremony, no profound moment of peace or stillness. She was just gone.

The entire thing had taken less than a dozen heartbeats.

Guardian preserve us!

The other workers muttered behind her, some swearing, others whispering similar pleas to the Guardian for protection. Ryanne knelt beside Abbi, staring at this corpse that moments ago had been a living, breathing woman. What just happened?

Something had killed her. Something Ryanne hadn’t seen or felt, but had undeniably been here. Could still be here.

One of the men—he’d only just arrived, Ryanne hadn’t even learned his name—began screaming next. Even as he fell the others scattered, leaving her alone with the dead and dying.

Ryanne abandoned her load and dashed off the path, plunging into the thick undergrowth. She breathed heavily, fighting air thick with humidity and pollen, pushing aside ferns and bromeliads and colorful plants still unfamiliar to her. She had to get away. Put as much distance between her and whatever had killed Abbi.

But how could she run from something she couldn’t see?

She headed downhill more out of momentum than any clear destination. Shrieks and cries surrounded her. Brief,