Today I decided to put an excerpt on the 'Love Romance Cafe' site just to let people know that I'm still around. All of my books are still available from Melange Books. Please, browse through my books on the right side, click on one of them and you'll end up on the Melange Books site to find out more about the book or any other.
Just for visiting, I'll send you one of my books for free in any format you would like. Just send an email to hegro@shaw.ca and ask for it.
As I mentioned in previous posts, Codename Salamander is the fifth book in my SF series 'The Spider Wars', but the book stands on its own. You might want to read the first book in the series 'Outpost Epsilon' or perhaps the second book, which is the first one in the trilogy. You'll find it in the column to the right: Epsilon.
Here is the first chapter of Codename Salamander:
Prologue
Through tired
eyes, Ahrragula watched the flock of black Cloudsingers
circling above the Koura-trees. His
eyesight, along with his ability to hear, had been gradually failing. Sick and
weak because of his stiff joints and loss of muscle, he was of no use to the
tribe now. Only young and strong males could protect the offspring and the
females. There was no place for an old warrior like him. He had become a
burden, so the tribe cast him out and left him in a remote area of the swamp to
fend for himself. His chances for surviving more than a few days were slim to
none. He had no illusions about that. Death would most likely come in the dark
mantle of the night. Too weak to thrust the spear they left him he would not be
able to defend himself against the giant Swamp-eels
or the striped Windghosts roaming the
sandy lands beyond the swamps. In his youth, he had been an expert with the wookka, always bringing down his quarry
with the first throw. Now it hung from his belt of woven reeds, an ornament,
useless for anything else. He even lost the ability to throw it in such a way
to make it return to him when he missed his target.
He carried no
grudges, because he knew the tribe had not made him an outcast to punish him or
out of cruelty. It was the way of the People, and it had been so as long as he
could remember. The tribe could not support the old, the crippled, the
malformed, and those whose mind had been touched by the gods. The only thing
they were still good for was to become nourishment for the wild beasts. It was
their final sacrifice to the eternal gods.
A distant roar
made him cast a look behind him, but he saw nothing in that direction but high
grass, rocks, and the windblown skeleton branches of shrubbery foreign to him.
He was used to the lush plants of the swamps, the tall, thick reeds with their
purple globes of feathery seed carriers, and the broad-leafed giant Ferns.
Things were not
the same anymore as they had been in his youth. The presence of huge, fierce
beasts not native to this world and three times the size of the Windghosts forced the People out of
their home territory. Used to living in the swamps since beginning of time,
they felt uneasy and out of their element on dry land; it was not their natural
environment. The plants were not the same and the animals were different.
Unknown dangers lurked everywhere.
Some said the
demons from the sky brought these beasts to the World. Not even the Seers-of- the-Future had seen this in
their dreams. There had not been time to prepare the People for this new
menace.
Even though
resigned to have his life ended shortly, he was still curious enough to investigate
when he witnessed the arrival of a massive silvery, oblong rock descending out
of the clouds to land near the swamp amidst the tall Koura-trees. The rock had skin so smooth and shiny the reflection
of the light from the Lifegiver
nearly blinded him for a quick moment as he watched it coming to rest on the
ground.
Crawling on his
belly, he was careful not to give away his presence. He didn’t know why,
because in a way it didn’t matter if the demons found him. He was destined to
die anyway, but some survival instinct made him cautious. Survival instinct and
the need to know what they were up to.
As he watched,
he saw a crack appearing in the belly of the sky-rock and a number of demons
spilled out of the opening, like seeds from the pod of a bursting Blood-flower. Then a larger hole opened
in the rear of the sky-rock. A bulky object floated from it and settled gently
onto the ground. The demons went to the object and began removing round spheres
the size of a young male’s head. They carried them into the wooded area that
surrounded the Koura-trees and deposited them among the tall shrubs.
In the meantime,
another, much larger object had emerged from the hollow sky-rock. It looked
like a cage and something moved behind the thick bars. The old warrior held his
breath when one of the demons opened one side of the cage. A few moments later,
a beast unlike any he had ever seen stepped into the open. It must have
crouched inside the cage, because, now free, it rose on its powerful hind legs
and it looked twice the size it had appeared behind the bars. It moved its
giant head slowly from side to side as if surveying the area.
Shuddering with
sudden fright, Ahrragula lay unmoving among the tall grasses. Pressing his thin
body as best as he could against the ground, he peered over the small boulder
he had chosen as his observation post.
The demon beast
could not have sensed him, but it fastened its small, glittering eyes on the
rock that seemed suddenly much too small. Its thick tongue lolled between
double rows of pointy teeth in those massive jaws that were large enough to
swallow an immature male with one gulp. A deep sound like thunder escaped from
the beast’s throat as it moved sluggishly away from the sky-rock that had
spawned it.
The demons stood
watching the beast for a moment and then they withdrew into the belly of the
sky-rock. A few moments later the silvery rock rose into the air and shot with
ever increasing speed toward the Lifegiver
hidden in the hazy sky.
Ahrragula
watched it disappear behind the clouds, as he lay still frozen among the
grasses. His gaze moved back to the scaly giant beast the demons had left
behind. He realized its movements were slow and lethargic and he speculated
that this was not typical for this creature. It seemed almost half-asleep, but
Ahrragula knew the beast would soon be awake, and when that happened, he’d
better be far away, unless he wanted to be its first meal in its new home.
Somehow, he
didn’t have the desire to give up his life yet. With new hope, he slowly
crawled away from the rock, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. There
was a good chance the tribe would welcome him back if he brought testimony of
what he had witnessed. This proved what so many had already assumed—the
sky-demons released the menace that threatened the survival of the People on
this world. To what end nobody knew.
He was certain
that those round spheres were nothing but eggs that would hatch more of those
demon-beasts. Perhaps he should try to destroy them before that happened, but
he had to wait until the scaly demon left the area. He needed to be far away
but still close enough so he could watch the beast.
When he found a
safe hiding place between two large boulders, he crawled into the narrow crack
and settled down for a long wait.
Available soon from Melange Books.
Thank you for visiting and reading this far. Watch for the book on my blog.
