This is best read with chapter three, so you get a better understanding. Slowly, the tale begins to unfold, at least this part. -grins- Enjoy.
Personal satisfaction came in all sizes, shapes and forms to one lonesome shade. Memories tied, twisted and perverted the spectral mind. Leaving the cemetery without a trace, only the knowledge that a piece of the traitor's life had been disturbed. The betrayer's security dampened, and slowly, ever so slowly would be without much sanctuary. While ever mortal actually served as a part of the plan, they also served as a part to a long trail of vengeance. Without remorse, and a lonely heart. Pain, suffering and love, the only things that drove this shade into existence. Often conflicting in a perpetual lessening life past.
The shade arrived where its resting place gave it a sense of familiar airs, a place beyond the reach of mortals, deep within a festering grave in the outskirts of a forgotten graveyard. A place about fifty feet underground, and quite personally made for various parts of life that had been restored to the shade over time.
Here he rested, remembering. Always remembering.
~~
September 16, 1759 – McCannon Lands, the farm properties outside of Garrison City.
Major Loinne Lyle McCannon slept contentedly beside his pregnant wife, Helen, daughter of a former British officer, and long friend of the McCannon clan. Unknowing of any plot against their lives, or the jealousy from a family friend.
The night had started out beautifully. Loinne came home to a fine cooked meal, a ready and willing wife who bore the first of their children, and a warm fire. Leave had been granted to take care of personal matters, as well as military affairs within Garrison City. No one had known of any spies that could intercept messages from the McCannon lands. Intelligence kept a close watch over the city, but not much care came out into the farm lands, especially one ran without any slaves.
Jaderick Taliskurr road in an urgent call to duty. Armed with large knives, a throwing axe, and a long rifle. He rode upon a painted stallion without a saddle. His destination: the McCannon home. The duty? Exterminate the McCannon family, and all that lived within their household, to include animals.
The French offered Jaderick much more amenities, than the British. Granted upon mission completion, according to the sealed papers, and diplomatic promises–The entire McCannon lands, and the sum of one hundred franks for the continued support, information as well as assassin-like duties. How could he refuse? Yes, the Major had been a longtime friend, and confident, just stupid. Losing him would be slightly painful, but his families' land back? Worth more than friendship.
He arrived at midnight, painted for the emotional fit he had to get himself through emotions, before he broke into the house, and began his 'stealthy' and silently kill all of the lower level of the three story mansion. Slowly, within the hours of early morning, he worked his way upstairs, slitting throats, scalping the dead, leaving the best death for last. Major McCannon and his wife remained unknowing in a blissful slumber.
Jaderick opened the master chamber doors, determined to make the last two memorable deaths, and in favor of the customs of his family. In the name of self-proclaimed honor, and some assurance from the French–He came upon them, breaking their intertwined bodies, and began with the largest threat. Just as the Major would hear the gasp from his wife, he would sense a weapon's 'slice' through the air, and feel the blunt bite delivered into his skull. Thundering pain. Screams of his dear wife. Loinne would know agony beyond all the war wounds of the past. Loinne felt himself falling through something very cold, very fast.
Loinne would not discover who delivered these blows, until he watched as beyond the curtain of his own death. Witnessing the brutal rape and murder of his pregnant wife by his longtime friend, Jaderick, known to him as "Bright Wolf."
From beyond the curtain, unable to grasp his own death, or prevent what happened next–Loinne simply watched as Bright Wolf scalped both his wife's body, and his own. Bright Wolf then made a sort of hair-like braid that soon got tucked away into his pockets. Then he watched in horror as Jaderick cut off his testes, stretching them over a good sized rock, and proceeded too detatch his wife's breasts. The Indian then cut out the muscle and fat, stretching her flesh over larger sized rocks, to make a circular shape when they eventually dried.
Pieces of himself and his wife were taken away on the betrayer's person. A person that would never come back to the McCannon lands, alive.
A world of steam and springs. A breakneck race for power. Will one woman's defiance topple a kingdom? If you like feisty heroines, fearsome dragons, and fast-paced action, then you'll savor this steam-powered thrill-ride.
