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    Refugee Trail
    Refugee Trail
    Refugee Trail
    Ebook112 pages1 hour

    Refugee Trail

    By Tracy Falbe

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    About this ebook

    Myles Rulong leads a band of survivors into unknown lands. They were driven from their ancestral home by the brutal Lashers waging a campaign to capture resources. A comet had hit their fair world of Deos, and the planetary disruption had brought cruel drought to a once bountiful continent.

    Myles and his people are now bereft of their ancient Kadolia magic. Their Elders say that the magic came from their homeland and that it is gone forever. They are scrambling desperately through badlands to stay ahead of Lasher slave hunters when a faction of survivors wants to turn back and surrender. Myles struggles to keep his people united, but annihilation looms until he senses the return of his power.

    Read this fantasy novella of survival and magic today.

    Fantasy stories by Tracy Falbe have addicted readers for years. Refugee Trail launches a new world created by an author known for great characters and powerful action.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTracy Falbe
    Release dateNov 15, 2018
    ISBN9780463047101
    Refugee Trail
    Author

    Tracy Falbe

    I have been hooked on fantasy and science fiction since preschool when I watched Star Trek the Original Series with my family on TV. Then came Star Wars at the theater when I was 5, and a few years later, I discovered the joys of reading fantasy with the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.The elements I like most about the genres are the high stakes (save the world, overthrow the empire, etc.), the diversity of characters, and how magic or extraordinary technology allows plots to expand in interesting ways. The ability of fantasy and sci fi to include analysis and criticisms of social conditions like religion and politics is especially fascinating as well. When this is done in conventional fiction, people and readers descend into arguments about whether an opinion is valid or the historical information is accurate instead of assessing the concepts themselves.Of course, fantasy and sci fi can just be fun as well. I love a good hero or heroine and villains can be the best of all. And there is something therapeutic about picking up a sword or blaster and solving the problems of the world.My taste in genre has inevitably married itself to my love of writing. For some reason I am a person capable of writing novels. The act of creating thousands of pages of fiction does not overwhelm me. Making it a good work of fiction is the hard part that requires countless hours of editing and rewriting and lots of daydreaming too.When I'm not writing, my other passions include cooking, growing food, reducing my plastic waste, raising rabbits, spinning wool, and reading.

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      Book preview

      Refugee Trail - Tracy Falbe

      Refugee Trail

      By Tracy Falbe

      Copyright Tracy Falbe, all rights reserved

      Published 2018 by Falbe Publishing.

      Smashwords Edition

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This book is a work of fiction. The characters and events described herein are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not done on purpose by the author.

      This work is protected by U.S and International copyright law. All rights reserved to the copyright holder, Tracy Falbe. Except for reasonable quotes and excerpts by reviewers, the content of this book cannot be reproduced or distributed in whole or part in any medium without express written permission from the publisher.

      To contact Tracy Falbe, please visit her website at www.braveluck.com.

      Cover design copyright Tracy Falbe. Stock images are licensed by Shutterstock.com.

      To Those Who Wander and Are Lost.

      Table of Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1. The Splinter Group

      Chapter 2. Killing the Competition

      Chapter 3. Abductions

      Chapter 4. The Feeding of Vultures

      Chapter 5. A Decision for the Warriors

      Chapter 6. Dreaming

      Chapter 7. A Fresh Grave on the Trail

      Chapter 8. A Reckoning

      Chapter 9. The Judgment of Heaven

      Chapter 10. A Time for New Rules

      More Books by Tracy Falbe

      About the Author

      Prologue

      Deos felt the comet coming. Its icy mass that had traveled the cosmic emptiness chilled her consciousness. She readied herself for the impact that would bring change. After she received the hard kiss of the thing hurtling toward her with its silver tail, she would never be the same.

      Yet she would go on. She would heal. The pain would not be so great for her. She had suffered such blows before. The specks of chaos that the cosmos threw at her served to reawaken her inner fire. Without them, she feared that she might gradually grind down into a thoughtless slumber, and then her skin would grow thin and go to dust and her heart would cool until she was just a thoughtless stony orb within the celestial infinity.

      Deos sensed that the comet longed for the contact. It may have been flying through the heavens since before even she had taken form. Eternity had been measured in its curving flight defined by distant stars and the mighty voids that even her greatness could not fathom. The comet's long journey was coming to an end. She would embrace it in a conflagration that would scar her fair face. But then the comet would be at rest. The impact would blast its ice into vapor that the clouds would weave into themselves. Great Deos, a lonely queen of heaven, would add the essence of the comet to her flesh.

      A lush southern forest that she had grown for millions of years was about to receive the fireball of ice. She pitied all the creatures that would perish. She cherished all of the life upon her fertile skin. She would feel all of their deaths as the smashing comet shook her. Deos could not save them. Her powers were many and astounding, but to move aside and let the comet pass were beyond her. The forces that guided her and the comet had set their courses eons ago, and there was no undoing this strict inevitability more certain than fate.

      Not all would be lost. Life would go on in many places, but Deos knew that the changes would be hard on her children as they endured this new age. She wished that they did not have to suffer as she restored order to her divine system. She understood that her healing would take time. Generations would pass among the little denizens of her worldly body before her life-giving bounty became predictable and generous again.

      Forces were in motion that exceeded her ability to be merciful. All of the life that sprang from her body would face many trials in the aftermath. She would nurture what survived when and where she could until all suffering was forgotten.

      Deos received the blow. Her two attending daughters, Ecko and Tally, shivered when her threads of connection to them shuddered. A gruesome blossom of debris and vapor and fire blasted aside her clouds, and destruction spread from the wound. The worst was over for her but was only beginning for her splendid children.

      Chapter 1. The Splinter Group

      Chronicle of the Abatur Priesthood

      Year 1257, 7th day of the Third Moon Dark

      No prophesy forewarned of the catastrophe that came. Our Sky Priests watched the menace grow larger every night. Through the Eyes of Heaven, we saw our dazzling doom. Snowy bright it was with a glittering tail like a serpent of the seas. Both moons were dark when the catastrophe came. It struck our world somewhere far across the Zenali Sea south of the Golden Empire of the Lashers. The skies darkened and sea surged. Great waves knocked apart the fair cities along the coast while a tempest raged above. Black clouds that burned with fire disgorged lightning and ashy rain. Those who died were beyond counting. Many were washed out to sea. Their bodies replaced by the sea creatures dropped on the land, many of which were strange and never seen before.

      No peoples escaped the destruction of the Zenali Coast. The kingdoms of the Sheshar and Canetuk suffered alongside the Lashers.

      After the skies quieted, the rains failed. Where clouds fat with downpours had once cruised, a haggard sky dribbled a pittance upon distant hills. Seeds in the fields did not sprout. Livestock dropped in brown pastures. The rivers shrank, and the drying deltas could not feed all who hungered.

      Following the command of God Most-Knowing, we the Priests of Abatur bade the Princes of the Lashers not to hesitate. There would not be enough to go around, and he who acted first could take command of what was left.

      And so the Lasher Empire even in its darkest time expanded. Our warriors bravely made sure that those who mattered were fed and those who did not were put down.

      ***

      Myles knew that the lone rider bore bad news. The figure broke the horizon with an abrupt and purposeful entry. Myles judged that the man was galloping straight toward him, and surely brought some message that demanded his presence at camp where his people pondered their fate on the open land.

      He preferred to spend his days among the shepherds. Below his vantage point, livestock continued to feed peacefully. The animals nibbled diligently at the drought-blasted remains of prairie grass in the thirsty land where he and his people now found themselves. The tranquility of the trackless region could not give them respite from their woes.

      He resisted the sigh forming in his chest. Any concession to his sadness would overwhelm him. Grief must be left to the others.

      Drawing his sword, he used its blade against the sun to signal to his partner on the opposite bluff. He flashed his intention to meet the arriving man. He picked his way down the bluff to reach his horse. When he affectionately slid a hand over the horse’s soft muzzle, his fingers brushed across the ridge of a healing cut.

      The skinny horse resumed grazing while Myles awaited the rider. He was Burton, one of Tristine's men, although man was a generous term. The dark fuzz on Burton’s upper lip attested to his youth that had been tested too soon and too hard.

      Chief Rulong! Burton yelled as he jumped from his horse.

      Chief, Myles thought. The title still stung. He was too young for it, and his sorrow for his father slapped the surface of his emotions before diving back into an abyss too black to behold.

      Burton saluted Myles, but the gesture of respect was only a shadow of what he would show Tristine. Myles supposed he could not blame Burton for his loyalty to the woman. Tristine had earned the respect of many during their valiant resistance of Lasher invaders.

      Burton blurted his news. Wangen and his followers are leaving!

      The news afflicted Myles with painful despair. His

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