The New Age Saga Box Set Read online

  The New Age Saga

  The Acquisition of Swords

  &

  Phoenix Rising

  Timothy Ray

  The Acquisition of Swords

  May 2017

  Phoenix Rising

  May 2017

  Published by

  Ray Publishing

  Tucson, AZ

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2017 by Timothy Ray

  Also by Timothy Ray:

  The New Age Saga: Remastered Editions

  The Acquisition of Swords

  Phoenix Rising

  Coalescence

  Wrath of the Phoenix

  Nightstalkers: Origins (Available 2019)

  The Rotting Souls Series

  Charon’s Blight: Day One

  Charon’s Blight: Day Two

  Charon’s Debt

  Charon’s Coffers

  Charon’s Vengeance

  Slipstream

  Focal Point

  The Fifth Column

  Faith’s Embrace

  Hardwired

  Rampant Fear (Available 2019)

  Legacy Series:

  Sanguis

  Luna (Available 2019)

  Compilations:

  Rotting Souls: The Complete Series

  Charon’s Blight: Day One & Day Two

  CONTENTS

  Part I

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Interlude

  Part II

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part II

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Glossary

  the

  Acquisition

  of

  Swords

  Book 1 of the New Age Saga

  Timothy Ray

  Part I

  Do not do it to me,

  It is horrible.

  I said I would do it,

  I was not being serious.

  I tried to stop it.

  I encouraged people

  To do it the other way,

  But they did it the easier way.

  They destroyed it!

  Said I to the Old Ones,

  Out there,

  In what was left of the Earth.

  Samantha Millan

  “Who is to Blame?

  for Mandy

  Prologue

  I

  Two years earlier…

  The thrill of the chase coursed through her veins. Her vision jostled with every bounding leap, her feet barely touching the forest floor long enough to leave an indent as she darted through the trees. If not for her elven night vision, she’d be forced to take this much slower, or risk running headfirst into the pale birch trees placed haphazardly around her. The ferns tried to slap against her thighs but by the time they rebounded, she was gone. The only sound other than her labored breathing was the swish of the underbrush she occasionally had to dodge around, the divets she left behind the only sign of her passing.

  Deliberately taking a slow breath, she tried her best to stave off the passions that coursed through her entire body, the frenzied bloodlust barely held in check. The telepathic bond she shared with her companion was stronger than her sense of self, overriding every thought and making them one. Tuskar was flushing their prey in her direction and they were about to intersect.

  She came to an abrupt halt, drew her bow and prepared to greet their quarry.

  She could smell the fear, the sweat, the pure terror of their prey, and knew that it was driving Tuskar to run him down and tear him apart; their shared vision tainted with red. Feeling the ferocity of his passions made her worry whether she would be capable of stopping him from ripping into the fiend once the chase was ended, once their prey found out they were cornered and had no other way out. She wanted to rip into him as much as Tuskar did. Forcing herself to relax, she tried to exude some calm into the other’s mind, hoping it might ease up enough to keep the man’s throat intact; but her vision pulsed even brighter—it would be close.

  Walking a man out was easier than carting a dead one over miles of dense forest. She could take his head as proof of death, she’d had to do that more than once. However, it was unsettling carrying a head around in a bloody sack, no matter how large a price had been put on it. Their eyes stared at you through your bag in silent accusation, you could feel it in your bones, and it was enough to give her the willies. She knew it was just dead meat rotting in a bundle of cloth, but her mind had yet to shed the bit of Humanity in her that could view it from such a cold perspective. Decapitation an unnerving prospect on any other given contract, but this one might be worth it.

  She briefly considered just killing him and taking the loss, she wasn’t as hard up on coin as she usually was during a dry season. Some people just deserved to die, left for the crows to feast upon, rather than facing the courts and the slightest chance at freedom. In this particular case, that was not a chance she could stomach taking. It was true, for the sake of survival she had taken some questionable contracts over the years, hunted her targets with no clear reason the why or what for, but this wasn’t one of them.

  This contract she’d have done for free. This monster liked little boys.

  Tuskar could feel her anger and it increased the ferocity of his chase.

  Shit, my bad. You need to calm down, she whispered through their bond, trying to soothe the passions of her wolf companion. They had known each other for a long time and never had their shared vision been filled with so much fury and unbridled rage. His presence was growing stronger by the second and she knew the end was fast approaching. She pulled her bow string tighter, aiming the arrow right where the man would exit the dense forest before her, ready to let it fly the instant he tried to get past her.

  Moment of truth.

  She let go of the bond, knowing that she needed to focus on what came next and could no longer afford to split her attention. Pausing briefly, she glanced at the full moon shining brightly upon her, looked to the top of the trees to gauge wind speed, and trained an eye on her incoming prey. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, the white strands glistening in the moonlight, the pink diamond tattoos over her eyes gleaming with sweat. Her albino eyes searched for her target; thin white eyebrows drawing together as the man finally burst into the clearing.

  He wore a brown jerkin s
tained with darker patches of dirt and sweat. His pants were slightly baggy, like they weren’t meant to be worn on the thin frame of gangly arms and legs flailing to a stop before her. His face was contorted with terror; his movements frenzied. He had seen her as well and even though he knew what was coming at him from the rear, his fear of her had stopped him in his tracks. Apparently, he’d rather be torn apart than face her—what kind of rep was she getting that would induce that kind of terror?

  She’d have to look into that; it might be useful in the future.

  “Please! I know—,” he began, but was unable to finish as Tuskar leapt out of the brush and drove him to the ground. She heard something break and even though she tried, she couldn’t stop herself from smirking with pleasure. Tuskar was doing his best not to end it, to sink his teeth into the man’s throat and silence the screams of anguish; she almost let him.

  Letting up the tension on her bow, she strode forward and hovered over the mounds of wrestling flesh. Judging by the pleas piercing the air before her, she doubted there’d be cause to draw again, but you never could be certain. She wore mismatched pieces of leather armor, purchased at various times throughout the years; each in a different state of wear from overuse. The armor represented the different cultures of the land and her long black cloak moved fluidly with her movement as she loomed over their mark with satisfaction; the chase was over.

  “Tuskar,” she commanded, silently ordering him to stand down.

  Reluctantly, her wolf companion relented, switching from attack to guard stance. His paws were forcing the man down, but his fangs reluctantly retracted—waiting for her to change her mind and let him finish what he started.

  “Please, I’ll never do it again, I swear. Let me go, I’ll disappear. No one will ever hear from me again,” the man begged, blood from a jagged wound on the man’s right ear running into his fearful eyes as he glanced up at her in terror.

  She could smell the putrid release of bodily fluids and didn’t fancy having to smell that all the way back to town. Yet, she wasn’t about to strip him naked and give him a bath either. Let him rot in his own shit and piss for all I care.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he plead, white spittle spraying the soil before him. “Please!”

  She sheathed her bow and reached for the knife at her waist, “is that what the children said to you when you attacked them? Is it?” she thundered, barely in control of her emotions as she knelt by the struggling man slobbering at her feet. She could end it right there and no one would blame her. It took literally everything she had not to follow through, to just slide the knife into the base of his neck and end his reign of horror. It was tempting, but it would let him off too easily; he deserved far worse than a quick death with only her eyes upon him as he breathed his last.

  She had a job to do and it was best to get it done, collect her reward, and move on. The faster she turned him over, the quicker she could put this behind her and get back on the road. This had been a time costly detour. One that she was glad to have taken, but it had put her behind schedule nonetheless. She hadn’t wanted to pause on her trek east, but when she saw the poster and the crime listed below—there was nothing else she could do; it had to be done and no one else seemed willing enough to do it. Yes, it was a nasty one, but she’d had others in her past that were far worse; if only slightly. In any event, her past wouldn’t have allowed her to walk away, regardless.

  Now that the job was done, her adrenaline began to dissolve, her heartbeat slowed to her normal range, and the rage eased into the calmness of a still lake, as the familiar routine of trussing up her prey and marching him home took over. Sighing, she slid her knife back in its holder, then reached for the pouch attached to her belt and pulled free a set of shackles. She would retrieve rope from her pack after securing her bounty, she wasn’t taking a chance that he’d try to rabbit again; she might not be able to call Tuskar off a second time.

  “Kylee, please don’t do this. They’ll kill me,” he begged. “I’ll do whatever you want, give you anything, just don’t take me back there!”

  Wow, he does know my name.

  She tried to hide her hatred and disgust; the look in his eyes told her that she was failing at it. “There is nothing that you can offer that has holds any interest to me, no bargain to be struck. You’re a monster, and don’t deserve an ounce of mercy. You have earned far more than a quick drop at the end of the rope for what you’ve done. I have half a mind to tie you to a tree and slice open a thigh. Not enough to kill you, at least not right away, but just enough to draw the predators in closer, like ringing a dinner bell. That way, you’re alive when they start eating you.”

  “I can feel them even now, lurking in the shadows, waiting to see what I do with you,” she told him wistfully, her eyes floating over the surrounding forest in adoration. “But—a woman has to eat,” she sighed heavily, shutting down any further thoughts on the subject and returning to the task at hand.

  Tuskar growled and she glanced at him while slapping the shackles on the man’s wrist. “And wolves,” she amended with a smile, as she dragged her prisoner to his feet. “Though, I wouldn’t wish this rancid pile of rotting flesh on anyone, especially you, my beloved.”

  The pleading and begging ceased instantly as he realized there was no way out, that she would not entertain for a second the thought of letting him go; his time on the run was over. She watched as his eyes hardened, changing swiftly from fear to hate; the predator within rearing its ugly head at last. “You’re not a woman,” he managed, spitting blood from a split lip and trying to rub bits of soil out of his eyes with his shoulder.

  “Oh yeah?” she ventured, nudging him in the direction of her horse waiting patiently within the tree line, having finally caught up to them at last. It was the one perk of having the ability to speak with her animal companions, her horse and followed after them and now she wouldn’t have to walk back to town. “What am I then, other than too old for your sexual perversions?”

  “An unnatural witch birthed from the pits of hell. You’re an elven whore that writhes about the forest floor while savage beasts ravage you from behind. I know your demon spawn of a wolf has been at you, but has your horse mounted you as well?” he spat. He was trying to piss her off, hoping she’d kill him rather than return him to the parents of the children he had molested.

  She chuckled and shook her head; letting it slide. “You have heard of me,” she smirked, giving him a hard kick in the ass and throwing him forward. “Either of those choices would be far preferable than the likes of you, your perversion is beyond even the animal kingdom’s ability to stomach.”

  He made as if to lunge in her direction, but Tuskar was quickly at her side, snarling and making it clear what would happen should he try anything. The fiend paused, briefly considered doing it anyway, then thought better of it as he turned away in defeat.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she snarled, the humor gone as her mind drifted back to the man’s crimes, turning her stomach in disgust. This was one job she was glad to have taken, it was good for the soul to end the reign of someone so evil; it would be the highlight of her week. In fact, maybe she should just leave him on the front door of his last victim, let his parents handle things, then she would know for a fact that justice would be served.

  She forced her eyes in another direction and tried to divert her thoughts away from it, no matter how tempting it was. In the end, it wasn’t her place to make that decision. She had taken the contract and given her word to the town magistrate; now it was time to collect and move on.

  “Where’s my horse?” he asked, as she drew rope out of one of her saddlebags, her hand lovingly rubbing the tan mare’s hide in appreciation of her arrival. Her horse didn’t even look in her captive’s direction as he spoke, as if unaware of the newcomer’s presence. She had been trained well.

  “Oh please,” she chuckled again, tying the rope around the man’s shackles tightly and meeting his fierce gaze. “Walk
or get dragged, I don’t care which. Either way, this is the last walk you’ll ever make. I’d make the best of it if I were you, your days of freedom are over.”

  II

  “Did you have to cut him?” the burly man with a beard asked from across the table. He was in his thirties, broad shouldered, and had a gut to show how well he was fed. His tone was incredulous, his face pained, and slowly his fingers tensed on the wooden table-top, as if unsure of whether to clench or twitch.

  She had spoken to him a few days earlier, having secured the contract before heading out. At the time, he had been overeager for her to find the man, insisting that it be taken care of by any means necessary. She had taken him at his word, so she found his current state a bit humorous, causing her to grin mischievously. He was not concerned with the man’s health, just her interpretation of the words “any means necessary”.

  Men.

  Shrugging, she said dismissively, “Tuskar was hungry.” Her companion was lounging on the floor next to her and barely stirred at the mention of his name. His ears twitched, but that was going to be the limit of his interaction with their employer. She maintained her smile as she motioned for him to hand over the bag he was holding under the table.

  Bringing it out, he bounced it for a few seconds, her eyes tracking its weight and knowing in an instant it was the agreed upon price. He then tossed it in her direction and she caught it deftly with her right hand, her fingers tightening on the leather fabric and feeling the shape of the coins held within. Dropping her hand just as quickly, the bag was gone from sight once more; the contract complete.

  “Still,” the magistrate muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat and forcing her to chuckle once more; not endearing her to the man in the slightest.

  Men are so touchy.

  “I cauterized the wound. He will live long enough for you to hang him,” she snickered. “In my opinion, he’s in no way suffered enough. He should be drawn and quartered, then disemboweled for the masses to see. It’ll give the victim’s families the closure they seek, and dissuade any other monsters hiding in your mist against similar actions in the future.”