Chaos Program

A few years ago I wrote a novel. It’s a fantasy novel, very much swords & sorcery kind of stuff – about a boy who loses everything in a terrible war against ancient and incredibly powerful evil. No one ever published the book, so I made it into a pdf file that people can download and read.

This is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, which only matters to you if you want to pass the book along to someone else to read (go ahead, for free) or modify the story to suit yourself (go ahead, but there are some restrictions). A description of the license terms is available here.

Download the file here.

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Excerpt

Want to read a sample before bothering with the file? Here’s chapter 1:

Duinnin Connagson thought he saw a ghoul.

He let the village know this immediately by shouting, “Goo- Guh- Goool! Guh- Goool! Goo-aahhhhhgg!”

Duinny was known as an emotional kind of guy, but nobody stopped to ask why he was shouting. It had been a bad summer for Trouton, our village. We were on the Northwestern frontier of the kingdom, in the valley between the Snake’s Tongue and Heatherblue rivers. War in the South had drawn the king’s troops away, along with most of the able bodied men. Small groups of goblins and bandits had taken advantage of this weakness to stage bloody raids against the homesteads and villages all along the frontier.

In self-defense we erected a stockade around the town. Everyone who could carry a weapon – including those who used to be considered too young, like Duinny and me – took turns standing guard and, when necessary, fighting.

When Duinny started yelling, he was on duty patrolling the west side of the communal corn field, outside the stockade on the north side of town. Everyone within hearing grabbed whatever could be used for a weapon and came running.

I was walking a post on the south side of the corn field, only a few hundred yards from Duinny, so I was one of the first to arrive on the scene.

I found Duinny jumping up and down, yelling incoherently and waving his spear about so wildly that I couldn’t get within ten feet of him for fear of being skewered. I didn’t see anything that could account for his excitement.

“Duin! Watch out! What’s wrong?”

He kept waving the spear and pointing. “Franz! Help! There’s a guh- a guh- ghoul!”

“A what?” I ducked a wide swing of the point of the spear, more concerned with keeping my head than I was with what Duinny was trying to say.

Just then, I felt a rush of air as my brother Erl raced by me. Without hesitating, he ducked under Duinny’s weapon and grasped his arm, stopping the deadly spear. He swung around in front of Duinny, taking his other arm and shaking gently. My brother was seventeen years old, six feet three inches tall, and weighed over two hundred pounds. Duinny, on the other hand, was fourteen, same as I was, and scrawny. Erl’s version of a gentle shaking lifted Duinny up on to the tips of his toes and rattled his eyeballs in their sockets. It got his attention.

“What is it Duin? What happened?”

Duinny’s eyes were huge, and he was babbling. “A guh! A ghoul! I saw a ghoul! I thought I was gonna die, Erl! You should have seen it!” He gestured, as well as he could with his arms pinned, away, into the darkness.

Erl released Duinny, letting him stand on his feet again, and looked in the indicated direction. Other people were beginning to arrive. Some had heard Duinny’s explanation too. Red-Headed Holm, about a year younger than I was, carrying a nicked and rusty old short sword, was skeptical. “Duin you liar. You didn’t see any ghoul. Nobody’s ever seen a ghoul around here!”

“I did too! It looked like a man, only it had huge teeth that dripped spit, and its skin was black and falling off in great strips! And it smelled worse than the back of Jannsen’s slaughterhouse!”

“Oh sure!”

A voice, someone just reaching the rear of the growing crowd, said, “Hey! That sounds like a ghoul! Did Duinny see a ghoul?”

“He didn’t see a ghoul!” Contempt was thick in Holm’s voice. He had a knack for being irritating.

“Yes, I did! I swear! I turned around and it was over by the edge of the corn! I didn’t know what it was at first. I thought it was a bandit or something, so I tried to sneak up on him. Then it turned around and growled at me and I yelled and it ran off!”

“Ran off? A ghoul?”

“Not bloody likely!”

Duinny was starting to wave the spear again. He was so wound up that I thought that he must have seen something. By this time Erl was walking slowly around in circles with his head down, ignoring the noise and the people. He was searching the ground for tracks. Harmon, one of the village elders, handed him a torch so he could see better. Harmon wore only a nightshirt, but carried a very business-like saber in his left hand.

I took Duinny by the elbow and walked him away from the crowd. Most of the people were watching Erl. A few imitated him. Gently, I sat Duinny down on the ground, taking the spear from his hand and setting it down beyond his reach. I kept talking to him, trying to keep my voice pleasant, not skeptical or condescending. “If I saw a ghoul I’d still be running a week from now,” I said. “That must have been scary.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “You better believe it! I thought, ‘Oh God, I’m gonna die! It’s gonna kill me and eat me and I won’t be able to tell anybody!’”

His voice rose almost to a shriek, and he started to stand up. I caught his arm quickly, and saw a hand belonging to his cousin Yarna grab his other arm. Together we pulled him back down to the ground. Yarna took over talking to him in quiet, soothing tones, doing a better job of holding his attention than I had done. Under slightly different circumstances she could easily have held my attention too.

I kept my eye on my brother. Like our Pa and myself, Erl was a hunter. He was one of the best too; better than me, better than Pa, better even than old Redgarn, who used to be a scout for the king. Erl would find out what Duinny had seen, and where it was too. Erl handed the torch back to Harmon, and headed away from the corn field, out of the circle of lights.

Duinny started to go after him. “Hey, wait!”

Yarna and I pulled him back down to the ground. “Easy Duin,” his cousin said. “Erl’s better off alone. You’d just slow him down, and maybe get you both in trouble.”

Duin sat, but his whole body stayed tense, twitching at every sound and sudden motion. Yarna kept on talking, soothing him.

No one else offered to go after Erl. Like Holm, most people didn’t really believe there had been a ghoul, but no one wanted to risk fighting one if they were wrong. Like I said, things had been bad. People were nervous.

I held back for a different reason: I knew that Erl’s night vision was much better than mine, or anyone else’s. I couldn’t keep up with him in the dark.

For tense minutes there was nothing to do but stare into the darkness and whisper. Someone ran back to the village to tell the people who’d stayed behind there what was happening. The gates had been flung open, but they were guarded by Widow Tanner and her seven sons and daughters. The children who were too young to help with any fighting were gathered in the longhouse with the widow’s shiftless cousin, Rayl.

Holm and a few of his cronies told anyone who’d listen that Duinny had gone crazy. Most people agreed with them.

“A ghoul,” they said. “There’s nothing out here for ghouls!”

“Except meat.”

“But there’s more of that in the heart of the kingdom. They like human meat best you know.”

“Yup.” Knowing nods would follow, and the two-fingered gesture that some folk believed warded off evil spirits.

Ghouls were monsters, made by evil magic from the bodies of dead people. They had no souls, but they could move and think and, especially, they could eat. They were always hungry. Since they were dead, they did not feel pain, and did not even use most of the organs of their bodies, so they were almost impossible to kill. Also, they never grew tired, so they were relentless hunters. The only things I knew of that they feared were sunlight and running water.

In most civilized countries a necromancer, a wizard who practiced the particular brand of evil magic that could make and control a ghoul, was burned at the stake, sometimes without trial. This stopped them from creating more ghouls, or even worse undead, like vampires, but it didn’t get rid of what they had already created. No one knew how many ghouls were loose in the world. No one in their right mind wanted to know.

Though most people answered Duinny’s screams within a few minutes, stragglers were still showing up for quite a while. About twenty minutes after the alarm, Old Bizel the Cobbler stumbled up, limping on his lame right leg, wisps of white hair fluttering from underneath a ceramic pot on his head.

One of the last to arrive was Redgarn, looking just a little too bleary-eyed to be really majestic with his long white beard, gleaming armor – almost the only full set of armor in the entire valley – and absolutely perfect military posture. At his side he wore a finely crafted longsword that had been awarded to him after the battle of Brallockshire for bravery. He had been a soldier for a long time, making the rank of sergeant before he retired, ‘for his health,’ as he said.

Six people tried to tell Redgarn what was going on, all at the same time. He listened with a critical expression on his face. After all the commotion it must have been confusing to find no fighting and no bleeding bodies. After a minute Redgarn left the competing explainers and strode over to where Yarna and Duinny and I were still sitting. He signaled with a crooked finger for me to come with him. Reluctantly, I left Duinny with his cousin.

Redgarn led me a little way off, and spoke to me in a low voice that sent the smell of whiskey into my face. “What’s this I hear about a ghoul?” His tone was skeptical.

“Duinny says he saw one over by the corn field, but it ran off.”

Redgarn turned and studied Duinny. “Do you think he saw one?”

“I don’t know. He’s scared enough, and his description was good. Erl’s gone to check it out.”

He grunted but made no comment. When he asked nothing more I went back to Duinny and Yarna. Redgarn wandered over to talk to Harmon.

A burst of shouting heralded Erl’s return. He loped back into the light along a line at a slight angle to the one he had taken when he disappeared. Immediately he was surrounded by curious and nervous people, demanding to know what Duinny had seen. Duinny broke away from Yarna and clawed his way to the front of the crowd.

Characteristically, Erl drank up the attention. He held up his hands and, laughing, declared, “Nothing to worry about folks. Everything’s under control. No need to be alarmed.”

He moved smoothly through the crowd to where Harmon stood with a knot of people, all in late middle-age or a little past, the informal heads of the village. “Hi Harm. How come you’re still here? I’d think this party was a little late for you.”

Harmon looked impatient. “What did you find?”

Harmon’s wife, standing next to him, asked, “Did you see it? Was there a ghoul?”

Erl shrugged. “Wellllll – I don’t know. I saw some tracks, but they weren’t very clear. It could as easily have been a hermit, or a deserter, as a ghoul. Some toothless beggar who hadn’t bathed in a few weeks might be mistaken for a ghoul out here, late at night.”

The nearest people to Erl began passing word back to others that there was no ghoul. The people breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Honar, the tin smith, asked, “Will it come back, do you think? If it is a ghoul, I mean.”

Erl shook his head. “Not until it’s hungry again, and by then it’ll be a long way off. They like to keep moving, y’know. Unless you think Duin looks especially juicy.” That drew a general laugh. Then Erl allowed his face and voice to become more serious. “Just in case, though, it would help if everyone started carrying a sprig of holly or a blessed charm. Those’ll hold the things off at least. Tomorrow, someone should take a walk through the cemetery, leaving a prayer mark at every grave, to make sure the dead stay dead.”

Harmon nodded. “I’ll do it. I’ll watch for signs that any graves have been disturbed. Redgarn, will you come along?”

“Aye. I will.” Redgarn’s voice changed to a parade ground bellow that echoed off the stockade a hundred yards away. “All right! That’s the end of it! Nothing there. Nothing to fight tonight!”

As quickly as they had gathered, people began to turn back for bed, loosening second-hand armor and sheathing weapons as they went. A few curious people paused to ask Erl why holly was proof against ghouls. He cheerfully explained that holly was sacred to the ancient elven priests and was used in a number of healing type spells. Satisfied, they also drifted away.

The circle of light dwindled to a single lantern, left standing in the dirt.

Shortly, there was no one left except Erl and me, and Duinny, Redgarn, Yarna, and Holm. Holm surprised us all by sticking his hand out for Duinny to shake. “I’m sorry I made fun of you Duinny, but you really should have seen yourself leapin’ around and hollerin’!”

Duinny shook his hand, but didn’t laugh at the humor. He was still pale and shaking. Yarna took his arm steadying him. I sympathized. In the same situation I thought it would take me at least a few days to settle down again.

“If you want to show the boy you’re sorry, why don’t you take the rest of his shift?” asked Yarna sweetly.

“Aw!” Holm looked down and scuffed his feet.

“Yeah,” I put in. “Come on Holm. Duinny’s not in any shape to stay out here tonight. It’s only a few more hours anyway. We’ll be relieved at two.”

Reluctantly, he gave in. “All right. Go on home Duin. Get some rest. You need it after a scare like that.”

“Th-thanks, Holm.”

“Thank you Holm.” Yarna pinched the redhead’s cheek and led her cousin back toward Trouton. Erl and I watched them go, focusing on Yarna. Before they were quite out of sight Redgarn cleared his throat. I had forgotten he was still there. The old soldier had a tin flask in his hand, with the cap hanging on a string. He handed the flask to me. I took a swig of burning, foul whiskey and passed it on to Erl.

Normally, neither of us was considered old enough to drink alcohol, except maybe some punch at festival time. Being allowed to fight – and we had fought, desperately, more than once that summer – had changed that, too.

So we drank out there by the corn field, where the feet of a couple hundred frightened people had trampled the grass flat. When we had all coughed over the vile stuff, Redgarn took the flask back, and took another swig himself. Then he asked, “What did you really find out there, Erl?”

One corner of Erl’s mouth twitched downward. He picked up the lantern and motioned for us to follow him. He took us fifty paces beyond the corn field and stopped, pointing at the ground. Just visible in the damp grass was a quickly fading footprint.

“See the points at the ends of the toes? Claws. And see this, how the middle toe is a lot longer than it ought to be? I caught a whiff of decayed meat too. Duinny saw a ghoul, all right. Nothing else it could be.”