The Progeny Assassin: A Tarnished Lands Story

by P.A. Wikoff, Levon Jihanian (Illustrator)

Overview

Lara is a young and deadly feathered-folk who protects what is left of a dying land. Burnt-out trees and ashen soil are all that remain of the forgotten forest. After years of becoming complacent, Lara seeks anything to break the routine. And when her master goes missing, she finds the adventure she's been longing for, only it isn't at all as she expected.

This the second story in The Tarnished Lands series. It can be read without reading the first book, "The Harrowed Half-Breed."

About The Tarnished Lands: In the aftermath of the utopian regime that ruled for over a millennium, famine, chaos, murder and deceit reign in lieu of balance. The pendulum now swings in favor of disorder. The fierce strong-arm the weak, cowards lurk in the shadows like rats, and the wicked take everything that's left over. This is no longer a place for good intentions; this is a place of survival.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780999005835
Publisher:	Modern Tunic
Publication date:	12/17/2018
Series:	Forgotten Woods , #2
Pages:	426
Product dimensions:	4.37(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.87(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Hunt

The lake is a dry, decimated wasteland with deep cracks and fissures marring the once enchanted waterscape. Vibrant shells are left behind by the decayed acting as a reminder of a lush, majestic time that has long since passed. What used to be a spectacular oasis filled with pink sparkling water is now an empty dream, nearly forgotten by all. Time has taken its splendor from this world and the memories from those who were fortunate enough to witness this once serene spot. Its beauty has been stripped away like a skinned unicorn left for dead. Now it only lives on the pages of outdated maps, hidden under stacks of tattered documents, withering away with time.

A young adolescent girl sifts through a decorative trove — not for something girlish or pleasing to the eye, but rather anything deadly sharp. Never one for vanity, her desires are that of a different nature, especially by the standards of other girls around her age. She didn't come here for the silky, rippling waves, as there haven't been any for even longer than the long-lifers can recall. One would expect that only the reckless or unhinged would venture to such a place of peril and punishment. Yet here she sits, knees tucked into her chest as her little fingers do the busy work of the day's find like an eager crustacean bottom-feeding off the discarded.

She appears to be at play, fixated on her task without a care for the drought that surrounds her feet, the scorching air that sits above her pressing down upon her like a weight, or the dryness in her joints — a gift from her dehydration. There is no question about it, this is not a place for a youth, or anyone for that matter.

But this is no ordinary young girl. Her skin has been hardened by the grueling ways of her ancestry, and her slim, agile body is a result of living off only one meal a day. None of this seems to faze her one bit. It's just another day in paradise ... if evil had sucked all that is good and pure out of it.

The ridge surrounding the lakebed is covered by burnt foliage, serving as a cemetery of the catastrophe that had rampaged through these parts. The roaring flames came in hot and fast and left just as quickly — never staying long enough for an explanation of why, or for the trees to be reduced to dust — leaving the leaves and bark seared and charred.

The soot casts its own darkness upon the land, an unforgiving scar. Ash normally turns grey as it transitions from ember to residue but not in this anathematized place. Here, the ash is black as coal and cold to the touch. The penetrating effect from the fire has had the same effect on the dirt, leaving everything dark and unfertile.

There is only one plant that grows naturally off this rancid earth — the butterfly kiss. Don't let its name and frail-looking stems fool you. It is highly poisonous to ingest and quite corrosive to the touch. If that isn't bad enough, during the spring season it releases pollen that will burn you from the inside out if you happen to catch a whiff of it. The real cruelty is that the pollen has an aromatic fragrance that is to die for, literally.

It's muggy with nowhere to find relief from the scorching sun. The clouds no longer cast their shadows this far out. Even the sun's rays don't want any part of the blighted earth, and you can feel its unforgiving heat just as strong as it reflects off the ground — misery attacking you from all angles.

This forest was once a lifeline for many humanoid and animal species. Scattered around the blackened forest are the occasional signs of trees that had reached temperatures so high, they exploded from the inside out, and on even more rare occasions, evidence of lifeforms dying in the same fashion.

Hidden deep inside the evidence of death, broken tools, pottery, and even clothes are scattered everywhere — signs of the past occupancy. Unfortunately, they all have been kissed by the fire and are brittle, if not completely in ruin.

The smart ones ran away with their lives, leaving their fears behind. Others had no choice — trapped like a wolf in a snare forced to eat itself alive. Lara is neither. She came to be long after the near extinction of her kind — the feathered-folk. She spends her days reading the emotion of the land, and it tells a tale of hardship and disaster. It says, "Everyone dies when everything is death."

She often wonders why anyone brought her into this dismal place to suffer alongside the aftermath. To most, nothingness seems more appealing than living in famine and poverty, but for her this is all there is, all there ever will be. Her own story is one of the many mysteries to be solved. She has become numb to the questions that she once racked her brain over during countless sleepless nights.

"The past never thinks about you. Why should you show it such importance?" Lara says in a mocking voice, recounting one of the many unsolicited pieces of advice that her master forces upon her constantly. If Lara weren't so micromanaged and lectured all the time, she might not be out here today to find comfort in the brutal silence.

Her soot-covered body blends perfectly with the charredscape, hiding her tough bark-like skin against the wicked wreckage. Her kind walks and talks like humans do, only with a particularly distinguishing characteristic — delicate feathers that sprout from her body instead of hair. Though she has no way of hiding her violet eyes, her soft silver feathers blend nicely with her dark disguise. This feature gives the feathered-folk an almost symphonic sound when a breeze travels through the forest, like a meadow of foxtails brushing up against each other on a spring afternoon, although Lara has never known the swishing sound or the feeling it evokes. It died alongside the trees when the forest lost its breath.

Her people used to believe that the wind would cleanse the nightmares that tainted their souls. However, her master says that the wind never took away the fears, but rather, brought everyone else's to them to play out its cruelty. Lara doesn't know what to believe, but in either case, the breeze no longer blows here since the leaves stopped growing to cheer on its presence with their rustling applause. Movements are difficult to hide in a place so still. Like hearing moaning in a graveyard, it puts you on edge. If it weren't for the sun's crusade in the sky, one might think that time had perished alongside everything else.

Closing her eyes tightly, Lara brings the blistering air to her face, mimicking nature's embrace — trying to trick herself into believing in a better time, one that is filled with hope and ... something, anything. Feeling the hot air crash upon her face unlocks emotions she has never known — love, pride, compassion, just to name a few. She is almost intoxicated with the sensation, though still in her adolescence, she has never experienced adult libations.

Lara longs to indulge in these emotions forever, like a gluttonous snake in a pit filled with mice, where each bite entices the next. It's a stolen feeling that gives her solace in this wretched land now known as the dead forest. It used to have a name — a great one — but similar to people, when forests die, they are long since forgotten inside their unmarked graves. Lara and her master are the last of their kind, acting like worms feasting on what is left of a cadaver.

Her eyes almost pop out of her head as she snaps out of the false euphoria that sedated her curious mind. She senses that something is terribly wrong. She knows this feeling well.

Lara sinks her fingertips into the soft residue on the ground, heeding nature's call. She senses movement to the east, and suddenly she is seeing through the shadow of another. It is faint, but it's undoubtedly there, far beyond the limits of her sight. Her vision is blurry, like looking through dark water, as she uses this trespasser's own darkness as a betrayal. To some, the scenery behind him may look like more of the same — burnt-out trees, rotted old stumps that have long since been severed — but Lara knows exactly where to go and where he is going to be next. She has plotted her domain all too well, and now it is time to reap the benefits of her iron-clad memory.

The forest, its ghost, haunts her bones when trouble is afoot, and currently it's trampling on her moment. No one ventures out this far for sightseeing or a brisk hike, as there is no food, water or animals to observe. From experience, Lara knows that no good can come from outsiders, and she must act before the bad makes things much worse.

Lara stashes the shells she has scavenged inside her satchel, avoiding the sharp spirals that could easily cut her tough skin. She proceeds to climb out of the dry lakebed hopping from boulder to boulder. Each step is memorized from past excavations — this is her playground, and she knows it well. Every boulder, tree and rolling hill is imprinted in her young mind. Rarely is anything out of place, and when it is, she takes notice and updates the map she has internalized. New discoveries can only be found underground or outside of her territory, though the latter is a forbidden act. Like anywhere, rules are rules, and breaking them can have horrifying consequences.

Although Lara wishes she could spend the entire day inside the lakebed, she reluctantly follows the aching feeling inside her, like a homing pigeon, where home is death.

While she skips, Lara wipes all her tracks away with a bristle sweeper she has invented to make erasing her steps much faster. It mimics the natural ripples of the dead forest, leaving no trace of her whereabouts for curious eyes that may be lurking.

She is quite proud of her accomplishment, but sharing her ingenuity with her master would result in more work and less time for leisure. So it is withheld, like many aspects of Lara's day-to-day operations. She doesn't see this as a betrayal, by any means. It's exactly what her master preaches more than anything else — survival.

Her stomach tightens the closer she gets to the culprit, as if she were starving. Though no food could tranquilize this feeling.

This is the part of her daily activities that she dreads — her real work. She prefers the openness and freedom of discovery, not the rigid routine of the task ahead of her. It must be done by her master's strict instructions, and there is never room for improvisation.

Her ashen body glides low against the uneven ground, like a shadow escaping its owner. Only the birds would know the truth, if there were any soaring above.

Approaching the last garden, and only place to grow anything that isn't a butterfly kiss, Lara is nearly upon the source of her discomfort. She hears the intruding footsteps. Crunch, crunch, crunch. She cringes at every step, which inspires her feet to quicken as she carefully dodges between the rows of small crops, showing more tact than the intruder. He is ruining everything, trudging through nearly a year of hardship and dedication. Water is scarce and extremely laborious to acquire. Each plant and sprout has been carefully nurtured and looked after, more so than a spoiled prince or princess.

She creeps in fast, without warning, acting on her master's will. It's orphan-making work, and Lara just began her shift. She catches the invader's foot midair, before it crushes another seedling — a variegated bristle thorn that Lara has spent months trying to grow in this rotten and unforgiving soil. The fragile growth is weak now, but she hopes that it will grow into a mighty thorn-producing shrub, much against her master's warning ... this field is strictly for consumable vegetation. Remove that thing immediately! You cannot eat thorns.

Lara has no intention of eating the thorns. That would be ridiculous. What she has in mind is much more exciting, and lethal. Luckily, she was able to apprehend this person's foot before he unknowingly carried out her master's wishes.

The invader wobbles, caught off guard by her actions. He never expected to find another living creature out so far, let alone a youngster.

Looking at the two-leaved sprout that has been spared, Lara lets out a sigh of relief and allows a smile to brighten up her dark face. It only lasts a moment, as her grind begins.

Lara pushes against the invader's standing leg, causing his ligaments to tear. Her countless hours of study have taught her that this injury hurts just as much as breaking a bone and takes longer to recover from. It also requires less strength to inflict upon someone, which is something she has been trying to solve for a while now.

The invader starts to squawk out in pain like a dying bird, but Lara's little hand is already silencing his mouth. She is quick, that's for sure. The man didn't even see her change positions. For a moment, he thinks there might be more than one of her, though he is wrong. She is merely an army of one. He would fare much better if her talents were split among many different people.

"You entered the wrong garden," Lara whispers, slithering her arm around his neck like a constricting snake.

The utter disbelief in his eyes is replaced by terror as he tries to break free from the much smaller girl. He hobbles and flails, trying to reach his belt, but it's no use. She shifts and rotates her position on him without relinquishing the pressure on his neck. The young girl is much too sly for him to lay a hand on her, or anything else to aid in his struggle.

Lara rides him like a bull, steering his limping body out of the small garden, lessening the destruction his leather boots are causing.

He cries out again, this time in frustration. "What is happening?"

She ignores his strife and shifts her body. The extra pressure causes his sprained leg to buckle, bringing him to his knees. She then uses his weight to assist in her chokehold. It is only a matter of time now.

To Lara, this is a boring, predictable, and often menial task. To others, this is murder.

CHAPTER 2

Mistakes are Made

Lara lets out a long yawn as the invader writhes between her dainty arms. This is how it must be — no cuts, no weapons — just slow, uneventful execution.

In order to make the experience slightly more enjoyable for herself, she imagines how exciting it would be if there had been multiple intruders. Then she would have to do something clever. Maybe she could separate them with a diversion, or perhaps lure one into some brush where she would be lying in wait. Her mouth unknowingly moves as she acts out the battle inside her head, complete with swooshing and crunching sounds, like a child playing with figures.

What if I had to fight them both at the same time? That thought gives new life to her eyes.

This method is clean, tried and true ... and most of all, safe. She doesn't like safe. It's far too predictable. Accepting reality, her excitement is replaced by rolling eyes and a drab expression.

Instead of asking the invader what business he has in these parts, she makes up her own story inside her head. It isn't really going to matter in a couple of moments, but it sure is a good way to pass the time. He's a renegade of the royal throne, seeking refuge by befriending simple people in the region and murdering them in their sleep. Just like a no-good coward, he takes more than he is given but only what he can carry, as his treachery brings him to the next home to plunder. Nameless, he is known simply by his actions — the destroyer of families, or more succinctly, as "the divorcer." Today is different, however. He doesn't expect to find a feathered-folk in these parts, as they are said to be extinct. If only he were that lucky. His evil red eyes grow tired as the ironic truth sets in — he will die in his sleep today, and her mighty arms are the things putting him to bed.

Then something catches Lara's eye, breaking her out of her internal dialogue. It's a sparkling light reflecting off the intruder's belt. It's the thing he was struggling to get ahold of, the very thing she is also after — a weapon. Not a shell or a thorn but an honest-to-goodness implement of war.

Suddenly, all her regimented instruction and training disappear like a corpse at a cannibal dinner party. Lara quickly releases her hold on the intruder, relinquishing the upper hand she had over him. This is careless. If Lara had any patience, she would have waited for him to perish before giving in to her curiosity. This is not part of the plan. This is the reckless behavior her master is always scolding her for. But her master isn't here, and her master won't find out ... or so she believes.

The man gasps and wheezes as air returns to his lungs. "That really ... hurt," he says, underestimating how close to death he really was. He has a human-made weapon, one that is not rusted beyond repair. It has a jeweled hilt and great potential. With her arms outstretched and her body low, Lara gives the human an opportunity to arm himself so that she can give him a fighting chance before liberating him of his weapon and cutting his throat with it. She imagines herself as a proper hunter, allowing the rabbit a head start before giving into the chase. She is always honorable inside the fantasy of her active mind.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Progeny Assassin"
by .
Copyright © 2018 P.A. Wikoff.
Excerpted by permission of Modern Tunic.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

The Hunt,
Mistakes are Made,
Trapped,
Yes, Master,
All by Myself,
The First Night,
Growing Up,
Sacrifice,
A Dance, a Debt, and a Deception,
The Edge of the World,
One Side of a Thought,
Frozen in Time,
First and Last,
Call to Action,
Eastern Bound,
A Grave Memory,
The Leftovers,
Onward,
Work or Play,
Exploring the Tide,
Land of Humans,
Village of Broken Dreams,
A Fight to the Death,
Reunion,
About Time,
The Immortal,
Parting Ways,
Epilogue,