From the Publisher: “As Captain of the vaunted Marksmen Guard, Neil Stryder is considered one of, if not the most, dangerous warrior in all Ealderium. When a coup threatens to frame him for the death of his father-in-law, and leader of the country of Vessel, he and his fellow members of the Marksmen Guard are forced into hiding. With few friends left to him, and an entire country hunting him, Neil flees to become a mercenary while planning to clear the name of the Marksmen Guard by unveiling the true events of that fateful night.
While Neil spends years piecing together what he can about that night, his past begins playing a major role in his future, and the future of all humanity. Unknowingly he becomes embroiled with an old enemy that must never be awakened. Neil, and his friends, are the last hope humanity has in stopping an ancient power that seeks to change the world as they know it, but what if they can’t stop it? What if they shouldn’t?”
More info About the Author: “I grew up out in York PA, about four hours from the Pittsburgh area, and spent my youth balancing the comical dichotomy of being a huge fantasy fan and an athlete. I love everything fantasy starting from the days of my father and mother reading to my sister and I as children up until diving into reading my own books as soon as I could.I attended Robert Morris University, which led me to the Pittsburgh area, and played Hockey while starting to get to know Pittsburgh. After graduation I moved out here full-time and found a job working for the Pennsylvania State Senate, which I still do to this day. Politics always provides great intrigue for writing!
In 2020 I found myself with loads of free time, like everyone else, and my wife pushed me to give writing a shot. I put my love of fantasy to the test and started writing my own book in my own world. My early attempts were a bit fumbling, but I eventually found my rhythm and wrote The Marksmen Guard. With the help of Palmetto Publishing I got the book published on 6/15/2022, but realized too late it still had some issues that needed correcting. I’ve spent the last two years correcting those issues, writing book two of the Marksmen Guard, and starting a Young Adult series I’m calling Fractured Pantheon.”
Prologue: Knowledge
Year 697 Post Cataclysm (PC)
Memory, Year 692
She quickly turned away from the edge overlooking the city, sending her long black hair swirling around her like a flock of ravens. She stood on a high cliff across the river from the place she used to call home—the capital city of Trinity. It had been a place she’d lived in with happiness and love, but that had been ruined by her own actions long ago. Now, whenever she looked upon the gleaming white peak of the city, all she saw were the faces of those she had harmed and those who had cast her out. She did not deny the crimes; she had committed them, and they had led to her banishment, which had granted her glorious purpose. Did that not make it worth all the pain and suffering? The dead she had left behind had been necessary.
She heard the clang of weapons sounding from across the river as what she had just started turned into a pitched battle within the amphitheater of Trinity. It was the culmination of years of work, years spent fulfilling her purpose, years spent becoming who she needed to become to save the world.
The knowledge bestowed upon her in the temple made returning to that old life impossible, and after gazing on Trinity once again, she had realized it was a life she no longer wanted back. She had been granted self-actualization by those who came before, and what used to be important to her, what and who she used to love with all her heart and soul, became trivial in a flash of magnificent knowledge.
Five years earlier, she had been cast aside, left for dead, and forgotten by all she knew. She spent a few years wandering the lands of Vessel. Moving from town to town, forest to forest, cave to cave, in search of a new home. Stumbling through her new destroyed life while the life she had lost weighed on her shoulders. She never felt accepted anywhere, constantly struggling with her previous life of leisure being compared to her new life of squalor.
While wandering through lands long forgotten, she had come across a single mountain formation within the center of a large, dense forest. It had appeared as if out of nowhere, a brilliant flash of blue light she could have sworn was caused by dehydration, and suddenly, the mountain lay before her. A voice reached out to her upon the wind, smelling of pine and juniper, beckoning her forward. She followed the voice, the wind, the crisp smell into the dense forest. The freshly dropped autumn leaves crunched beneath her feet in the echoing chorus of her march to the mountain base.
If not by words, then by feeling, the voice told her to head toward the mountain, pushing her onward. What should have taken hours in her weakened state flashed by in mere moments. As she neared the mountain, clouds began to swirl, and the wind began to howl, growing ever stronger with every gust. The scent of pine departed on the strong wind, replaced with the scent of iron and the taste of blood. The trees seemed to lean in on her, closing in behind, keeping her racing forward as fast as her feet could carry her. Aided by the wind, she was moving at a speed she would have previously thought impossible.
Terror shook her bones, but as if drawn by a mystical power, the mountain approached with each bounding stride. With no way of avoiding the draw of destiny now upon her, she shook off the terror, accepting that this wanderlust she’d had since being cast from her home was coming to its inevitable close.
She finally reached the base of the mountain and looked up the length of its spiking mass. The gray stone was incised with a small crevice in the mountain above her with what looked like large steps leading from her to the gap. The steps and the edges of the fissure were a different type of stone: smooth and polished like slate but still the same gray as the rest of the mountain. She knew she was meant to be here; the wind brought her right to the start of the stairs.
She began to climb. Each step rose a bit higher than a human step would have comfortably been, as if they had been built for giants. As a woman of average height, she struggled to make it a long distance before needing a break.
As she turned to sit on the edge of one of the giant steps, she gazed back at the forest she had just left. The trees bent, and the leaves flew like shrapnel as the wind tore them from the forest floor. A branch swung by, and she ducked instinctually. It missed her head by mere inches. The branch felt like a sign to continue moving.
She continued to climb, beginning to feel the weight of a presence upon her. No longer just a voice but a feeling, an energy that attached itself to her. She pushed herself to her limits to climb as fast as she could. The presence began to feel oppressive, making her feel an anxiety she had never felt before. Desperation nagged, insisting she had but one chance to turn her life around before the rocks closed and the stairs fell apart, leaving her stranded on the side of the cliff, alone and forgotten. She needed to continue, to persevere over her quickly oncoming exhaustion.
She reached the crevice with a final heave of her body, feeling muscles cramp and contort in new, painful ways. She collapsed on the last step, landing in the mouth of the crevice, exhausted and panting. She let the pain recede and the cramps work themselves out before slowly propping herself up on her knees. A new gust of wind washed over her despite the raging storm. A light breeze that lifted the body as much as the mind. Euphoria took over at having accomplished something, having succeeded when she had gone so long without any type of success.
The presence continued to push against her, fighting for a way into her mind, as if to tell her the secrets of the universe. She glanced back one last time at the surrounding forest and stopped. She had not noticed it in her mad dash to the opening, but the storm did not rage over the mountain. It was contained within the forest, swirling in a clockwise motion. The storm kept others at bay, holding its secrets for her and her alone. She had been chosen.
Without another look back, she vanished into the fissure. As if on cue, the mountain snapped closed, practically confirming her worry that she needed to get within. Instead of the fear that had gripped her most of her life, she felt that same familiar sense of acceptance she had in the forest and knew she was meant to be here.
The crevice turned out to be a carefully disguised door to an ornate, almost futuristic hallway. The hallway was a dark-gray slate lit by a soft, flickering, blueish hue coming from the hanging braziers near the tall, arching ceiling. They burned with a fire that sent shadows crawling along the walls. The walls were as smooth as polished marble and moved upward to a curved point, creating a triangle-shaped hallway. There was a door at the end of the hallway, a door the likes of which she had never seen but felt had always been before her. It was there before her life in Trinity, before her training, her marriage, her crimes, and her father’s betrayal.
The presence finally settled upon her, no longer pushing, but instead, joining her as she marched slowly down the hallway toward the door. She had been chosen.
She pushed open the large, triangular doors. They moved silently, swinging in with an ease that surprised her. They opened into a massive, circular room chamber in the same smooth, dark-gray slate, the same high, arching ceiling, and the same blueish light. The circular room was entirely empty except for a small dais at the center. A carving curled its way in a perfect circle, outlining the room. Within that carving was an engraving of a forest, and the dais lay directly in the center.
She carefully stepped around the engraved floor, taking in every detail. Turning her attention to the dais, she noticed it was littered with jagged lines that ran around it. The dais was the mountain, the jagged lines connecting in the front with an intricately drawn staircase leading to triangular doors. The nearer she drew to the dais, the presence hummed around her with excitement. She had been chosen.
Instinctually, she flattened her hand on the top of the dais where a carved circle was waiting. A circular room, a circle carved on the floor and now on the top of dais—it was all connected and waiting for her. She had been chosen.
The presence around her exploded from the ethereal into the real, the blue light matching that of the braziers as it sparked across the stone. Four more pillars rose from different sections of the engraved forest floor, surrounding her on all four sides, and creating an X with her at the middle. Light shot from the surrounding pillars, connecting with her and the dais and binding her to the smooth stone surface her hand lay upon. A voice filled her head, and a hum built with the light. The voice told her of an impending disaster for all of mankind. A disaster akin to the Cataclysm nearly seven hundred years prior. The hum continued to grow, and sparks that had exploded earlier took root in random spots along the ceiling as if creating a star-filled night within the chamber. The stars grew brighter as the voice continue to speak of the disaster and what could be done to prevent mankind from a second fall. She had been chosen.
With a final word from the voice—the glow now a blinding white and the hum at a crescendo—she was left in complete darkness and silence. She slumped as the dais released its grasp. She was shaking with terror, not from the dais or from being seemingly trapped in the mountain, but from the knowledge she now contained. She had been chosen, and she now carried a responsibility for the survival of the world.
She stumbled toward the hallway doors. As she pushed them open, sunlight from beyond the hallway flooded the room. She made her way outside, the words trapped in her memory. She focused on what lay before her eyes, attempting to block out the overwhelming voice by concentrating on the here and now. What she saw had dumbfounded her. She was no longer on a mountain surrounded by a forest, but instead, leaving a small cave among a rock-strewn hillside of rolling green grass. Her exhaustion began to take over—the words continuing to burn their way into her mind—and she was vaguely aware of a man approaching on horseback. He leaped off the horse, and ran to her side, surely seeing her as a desperate woman lost in the wilderness.
He grabbed her as she began to fall. Words flew from his mouth. She registered no sound, but the pounding words of the voice still occupied every aspect of her mind. She was quickly losing consciousness.
He pleaded for her to stay awake, but it was no use. In her exhaustion, she responded with a raspy, whispered, phrase that defined who she would become.
“I…know…”
She slipped into unconsciousness.
This excerpt is printed here courtesy of the author and should not be republished without permission.
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