Lunar Vampire Chronicles

H.S. Darke

Description

There was a time when the universe was young and cosmic laws written. Our progenitors were born in a broken world. Why was it broken? The answer is simple: when Cosmic Laws are broken, we all pay the price. Cheating death is the ultimate taboo, and karma is a dish best served long after the fact. But when dealing with immortal beings, they have more than enough time to live in the ugly world they've created; karma becomes the very air they breathe.

Love. Lust. Hate. Jealousy. Travel throughout the world 300,000 years ago. Learn the origins of the major players: Ascended Humans, Vampires, Rogues, Shamans, the Great Pyramids, and much more. Learn the ancient names, the precursors to their modern iterations. Follow Arson, Ramanlese, Illgress, Goser, Tomakis, Hemily, and Jezzeria from Eden to hell. Follow Zento, Ekka, Edril, Bestick, Ry-ala, Ephisiostecles, Roch, Mephiantone, Rubidicus, Karianus, Styre, Vane, and Marschelle through their many stories. Their world was a world of sadness, crisis, loss, but some happiness. Right or wrong, their stories are told. There were no true winners nor losers, and aspects of each will endure till the end of time. The gray just got a whole lot grayer.

Sujets

• Science Fiction
• Lunar
• Ancient history
• Chronicles
• Ancient
• War
• Fiction
• Vampire

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 10 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781524575038
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Lunar Vampire Chronicles
 
ANCIENT WARS
 
BOOK 3
 
 

 
 
H.S. Darke
 
 
 
Copyright © 2017 by H.S. Darke.
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-5245-7504-5

eBook
978-1-5245-7503-8
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 08/16/2022
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
734215
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Artwork contributed by Jarry Manilow & I. C. Yadik
Other images licensed through Shutterstock.com
Contents
Chapter 1 Entombed
Chapter 2 The First Cedun
circa 51,000 BCE
Chapter 3 1 st Ascended War: Know Your Enemy
circa 51,000 BCE
Chapter 4 Illgress’ Campaign
circa 51,000 BCE
Chapter 5 2 nd Ascended War: Draco/Debrecen
circa 45,000 BCE
Chapter 6 Nighttime Attack of the Assassins
circa 44,997 BCE
Chapter 7 The Rohena/Rogue War
circa 38,000 BCE
Chapter 8 Ephisiostecles
circa 38,000 BCE
Chapter 9 Disposition of the Collective
circa 30,000—13,600 BCE
Chapter 10 Roch
23,000 BCE
Chapter 11 Return to Afra-ia/Africa: Jeku and His Ministry
21,500 BCE
Chapter 12 Meeting of the Three Foes
circa 21,000 BCE
Chapter 13 Where are the Humans and What to Do?
20,000 BCE to 13,500 BCE
Chapter 14 Vampire Estuator
circa 13,500 BCE
Chapter 15 3 rd Ascended War: To Hit or Not to Hit
circa 13,490 BCE
Chapter 16 The Little Girl and the Wizard’s Cave
circa 13,490 BCE
Chapter 17 The Last Battle of Flame
circa 13,000 BCE
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Appendix F
Appendix G
Appendix H
Dictionary of The Dark Tongue*
Vampires


Chapter 1
Entombed
It was a great irony being imprisoned in that cave; released, they claimed. The narrow, nearly inaccessible entrance sat high on the cliff face of a tall mountain. It was sealed long ago, around 2,400 BCE, so from the outside of the mountain, it was not obvious that therein lay a cave. There he sat in darkness, chained to a stone. That stone had a name. In the Dark Tongue it was Osa’Dar, but in English it meant permanency; it translated quite literally into unbreakable weight. Though his hands were free, he was quite unable to defeat the chains that bound him, but his arms were kept free so that he would be able to read the Dark Codex that lay before him, a reminder of his real mission in life.
Mostly, however, he sat slumped against the stone, utterly forlorn, his head bowed down. Rain sometimes poured into the cave from a hole high above his head that was delved for the purpose of allowing moonlight, of allowing her, to imbue him, and many nights, it drenched his beautiful hair. No one would ever really know if it was working.
In this dark and damp prison, he could only wonder when they would come back for him. What had become of his friends? What did she think of him? Despite all this, his eyes still shone.
Arson
The Cosmic Gods watched all from a plane of existence unattainable to mere humans. The laws written by the Cosmic Gods that govern the universe are fixed; they abhor that which is outside the natural state. What occurred long ago on Earth was outside the natural state, and it gave rise to a problem without a solution. This is, in truth, the story of that problem.

Around 70,000 BCE, Arson lived in a village called Mala-Din, meaning grim foothold, located far to the southwest of modern-day Syria and just to the east of Mt. Denay-Ra. That mountain, which bore a name meaning aimed at the sun and which would much later be called Mt. Hermon, was located between the modern-day border of Syria and Lebanon. During that era, the area was much more fertile than it came to be in modern times. Arson was something of an eccentric man. He always saw the world differently than those around him and studied what esoteric subjects he could. He was never satisfied with doing things the way others did them.
When he was thirty-five years old, he decided to make a self-imposed pilgrimage of sorts into the wilderness, carrying with him only a waterskin and some salted meats. His goal was to walk toward the horizon until he could walk no more, seeking for that which he sought, then begin the journey back home. He did indeed walk for days toward his destination until utterly spent, but then found himself lost and bewildered, unable to make his way back home. In his misery and despair, he couldn’t even find comfort using what woodcraft he knew, and the cold defeated him at night. He quickly ran out of food and became too exhausted to acquire more, but he still had an ample supply of water from a nearby spring he there named Ula-May-Uda, meaning the earth’s tears, or more literally the earth crying, these fell. It was the purest spring in the world but has long since disappeared. Despite this, water offered only one kind of sustenance; Arson was starving to death.
After a certain point, he resigned to the fact that he was going to die, reconciling with himself that he traveled too far into the wilderness to ever be able to return. By nighttime, he found a cave. Removing his sandals, he lay down by the entrance and slept, awaiting the inevitable.
In the morning, he awoke and watched the sunrise from the mouth of the cave. He did so for perhaps fifteen minutes until he could stare at the Sun no more.
He said, “That was the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. How I wish I could stare at it longer, but its brightness blinds me. Oh how it hurts my eyes. Perhaps later I’ll be able to study it some more.”
In the evening, he watched the Sun again as it disappeared below the horizon.
He said, “That was the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen, and I am glad that I could witness such a sight upon my death.”
Then he quickly took inventory of himself. “And yet, I don’t feel as if that will happen any time soon, for I grow less hungry. Well . . . it must be the calm before the storm. I suppose it’s my body shutting down.”
With that thought, he once again fell asleep, expecting never to wake up again.
When he awoke the next morning, however, he felt as if life were beginning anew within him, a far cry from dying. After just a few days of repeating this sun-watching ritual, his hunger began to fade completely, and he wondered greatly at that. “This doesn’t make any sense. Where have my hunger pangs gone? For surely, I could eat a rabbit this moment were it dead before me, and yet I question now why that should be. Does not the rabbit have as much right to exist as I do?”
He thought even more deeply. “If I am to coexist with the rabbit, the cow, the bird, and all life, how could I possibly also wish to kill them and consume such living beings for my own sustenance?”
It was a paradox that he began to deeply ponder. He found himself arriving at a conclusion that seemed to fit with the facts he observed.
He thought out loud. “All must eat, for they feel the need to do so in their bodies. If they don’t eat, then they’ll die, and their bodies will drive them to commit horrible acts in order to eat something . . . anything. I’ve even heard rumors of men that have killed other men in order to consume their flesh. And yet, I neither eat nor feel the need to eat, and my hunger pangs have utterly vanished. How can this be?!”
After several more days of staring at the Sun, he began to make a connection. “Does the very Sun do this?” he pondered out loud. “Does it provide for me that which I would surely kill on my own to acquire? And yet, feeding of the Sun makes me more like a plant, I deem, than a wolf. If I already hold the Sun reverent, and yet it has the ability to change me thus, is it not a more holy entity than even I have begun to realize in this very cave? Have I found what I sought, without knowing what it was nor even that I was to seek for it?!”
After a few days, he decided to experiment by walking out and about. He wished to see if his newfound lack of hunger was somehow tied to the cave, so he walked out into the wilderness barefoot, but only got so far before his feet began feeling the pains of the Earth too greatly. Despite the pain of rocks and sharp undergrowth tearing at his feet, he was able to note that he was still not hungry enough to wish to kill any living thing in order to consume it and satiate himself. He even saw a rabbit grazing nearby, but found he desired only to watch it. After only a short while, however, he had to return to the cave to retrieve his sandals.
He slipped them on quickly and walked out into the wilderness once again, expecting to feel just as he had earlier that day. He saw another rabbit almost immediately, and for some reason, it approached him much more closely this time. Perhaps it was able to sense that he did not wish to kill it for food, that he was not a threat, and that he was