Isle of the Ape by Jason Halstead
Isle of the Ape
By Jason Halstead
©2013
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Cover art © 2013 Willsin Rowe
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Jason Halstead’s website: https://www.booksbyjason.com
Keep an eye out for these other Order of the Dragon books coming soon:
Isle of the Ape
Sands of Betrayal (Coming soon)
Chasing the Dragon (Coming soon)
Dragonlady (Coming soon)
And look for these Blades of Leander books:
Child of Fate (book 1)
Victim of Fate (book 2)
Silver Dragon (book 3)
or pick up all 3 at once in the Blades of Leander boxed set
Chapter 1
"Still happy for the fresh air?" Sir Celos asked his squire as her boot sank deeper into a pit of mud. He held out a branch for her to grab and ignored the buzzing insects around him.
Aleena forced a smile on her face and pulled herself out of the bog. She looked around and wrinkled her nose. "Not much fresh air here, but it's good to be on the move again. I enjoy my time spent at the church learning and in prayer, but there's nothing better than living Leander's will."
Celos shook his head and chuckled. "You're something else."
"I am, I know," Aleena admitted with a grin. "But why do you think so?"
"It's impressive, what you've accomplished. Your attitude and your dedication have not gone unnoticed."
Aleena felt the heat come to her cheeks. She glanced away and then back up at him. She couldn't wipe the smile off her face in spite of the stench of the marsh surrounding them. "Unnoticed by whom? Does Sir Celos Lyonsbane think I'm worthy?"
Celos snorted and turned away to find another path through the swamp. "You proved yourself worthy last year in the battle at Dragonsgate. Unconventional, but worthy."
Aleena's brow furrowed when he called her unconventional. "One of those men serves the church still and the other, I'm told, returned home to speak kindly on our behalf. Without those mercenaries changing sides that battle may have gone differently."
"Not may, would," Celos glanced back at her and said. "None of us would have lived through the day."
"Might not have mattered anyhow," Aleena said. "After Alto killed the dragon, the army just fell apart and ran back to their caves and holes."
A frown crossed Celos's face before he turned back and started through the marsh again. "Had we not been there, they would have come out of the mountains."
Aleena nodded at the conviction in his voice. "I believe you," she said.
Celos stopped and raised his hand. Aleena dropped her hand to the sword at her side and followed his gaze into the gloomy marsh. They'd entered the bewitched forest just after noon but a few hours had passed. The terrain had grown worse as they trekked north into the woods, with the trees looking sickly and the undergrowth dying and rotting. Even the mushrooms were shriveling up and splitting apart.
Shapes moved through the gloom. The trees were covered in vines and moss that hung like aging cobwebs in a barn. What leaves grew on the limbs worked with the moss to blot out the sun's light.
"This place needs Leander's blessing," Celos murmured. He drew his great sword and started forward again, heading towards the shapes they'd seen.
Aleena slipped her shield off her back and set it on her arm, and then drew her sword and followed her mentor through the dying forest. She glanced to her left and behind, making certain they weren't being surrounded. The mists rising off the pools of water swirled, giving her starts and making her think she saw things that weren't there. From her right, she heard water bubble as swamp gas belched, startling her.
"Celos! Look." Aleena pointed through the swamp in the direction where the methane had escaped. The fuzzy outline of a cottage could be seen.
Celos turned. "We'll start there," he said.
Aleena nodded, but glanced sharply to her left when she heard a splash. She couldn't see anything, but the trees and ridges of land that ran through the swamp could have hidden a small army. "Hurry," she urged.
They saw the cottage was in good shape, unlike the rest of the swamp. The door was closed and no light shone around the edges of the wooden shutters, but only a few vines had begun to crawl up the stone walls.
"Doesn't look like anybody's home," Aleena observed.
Behind them in the swamp they heard some splashing and then a roar. It was followed by more splashing and the bray of another animal they couldn't identify. Celos and Aleena looked at each other long enough to be certain they were both thinking the same thing. Celos turned and hammered on the door with his gauntlet.
Aleena jumped when she heard a loud croak beside her. She glanced down and saw a large frog with horns hop out from where it had been sitting in a corner of the cottage's walls. The frog stared at her and croaked again. She stared at the horns, each one forked out for a total of four points and covered in velvet like a stag.
"What is that?" Aleena gasped.
"I don't know," Celos admitted.
The frog's mouth opened and its tongue shot out, crossing the three feet between them to slap against Aleena's boot. She yelped and tried to yank her foot back but it was stuck fast to the creature's tongue.
Celos's sword flashed, severing the tongue and forcing the frog to rock back on his hind legs. Aleena cried out and then stepped forward to kick the creature and send it rolling into a puddle.
"Into the cottage!" Celos ordered. He turned and tried the door. It was locked. Undeterred, he threw his metal-clad shoulder into it and broke the feeble catch on the lock.
Aleena followed behind the knight and turned to throw the door shut. She glanced around and saw nothing to bar it.
"Here!" Celos carried a short wooden bench from inside the house and the two of them wedged it against the door.
Aleena grabbed up her sword from where it rested against a wall and stepped over the bench so she could look into the house. It went deeper than she'd expected, an open archway leading to another room beyond the kitchen they found themselves in.
"Hello!" Celos called in to the house.
When no response greeted them, Aleena allowed herself to ask the question that had plagued her since they opened the door. "What's that smell?"
"Smells like the rest of the swamp," Celos said. He glanced around the kitchen and frowned. Herbs and roots had been gathered and stored. Mismatched cups and plates were stored on open shelves. "Whatever it is, it's not coming from this room."
Aleena slipped past him and made her way deeper into the house. She found a room with a table and a chair. Along a wall, a small cot rested next to a bookcase and a chest. A free-standing mirror sat in a corner next to a diagram that had been painted on the floor. The walls had shelves built into them with ja
"Witch!" Celos growled as he surveyed the room from behind her.
"Or wizard," Aleena pointed out. She could feel him scowling behind her. She was outspoken and difficult, but she considered it part of her charm. It made her unique and allowed her to be taken seriously among the church. It had been hundreds of years since another woman had joined the ranks of the Knights of Leander. She hoped to encourage other girls so it would not be so long after her.
"Keep going or get out of my way," Celos growled. "A Knight of Leander does not fear the unknown."
"I was studying the room," Aleena snapped back. "A knight also doesn't blindly rush into danger."
She heard him harrumph. She moved forward, heading towards the next doorway and slowing as she approached it. The stench of death was stronger there. "Something's dead in here," she said.
"The owner of the cottage, no doubt."
Aleena wrinkled her nose as she stepped up to the doorway and pushed the door open. Insects and small lizards fled at her approach. She saw the dried out and partially eaten corpse of a man lying on a bed. Drawn about it lay another mystical diagram.
"This is bad," Aleena whispered. She sheathed her sword after looking around the large bedroom to be certain there were no other threats.
Celos stepped up beside her and coughed on the odor coming from the dead man. His eyes had been plucked out and insects still crawled in his nose and mouth. He shook his head and sneered. "This is the fate that awaits those who toy with powers beyond their control."
"Are you sure? Looks like natural causes to me. A knife in the heart will naturally end your life," Aleena said before she stepped closer to the bed. Breathing as shallowly as possible, she plucked the dagger from his chest. She gasped and dropped it as a jolt of arcane power leapt into her hand and wrist.
"Are you all right?" Celos asked, at her side again.
Aleena squeezed her hand into a fist a few times and nodded. "Just a moment of pain. Burned me, I think."
"Fey wizardry," the knight muttered.
Aleena nodded. She turned and looked around the room at the bookcases and more shelves with strange materials. She thought she saw eyeballs floating in one. Fighting the urge to gag, she looked past it at the large desk and the many tomes piled on and around it.
"If this is the source of the enchantment in the forest, I'd say we're too late," Celos mused. "This wizard's cast his last spell. Fetch me that blanket; we'll cover him up at least."
Aleena turned back to the dead man and nodded. She grabbed the blanket that was bunched up at the foot of the bed and was going to pull it up when she stopped.
Celos sneered at her. "The man's long past dead and indecent, hardly the kind of thing a proper woman should be looking at!"
"I have young brothers and I spent my childhood working in a bar. I've seen a man before," Aleena reminded him. She pointed at marks on his chest and stomach. "What are those marks? Bugs didn't make them."
Celos leaned closer to the marks Aleena pointed out. "More magical foolishness cut into his body."
Aleena nodded. They had a pattern to them. Runes of some sort. Like Celos, she felt uncomfortable around them, but she'd spoken to Alto's friend Kar enough that she didn't fear them like her pious mentor.
"A man doesn't plunge a dagger into his own heart," Celos said. "Nor does he carve on himself."
"You think there's someone else?" Aleena asked.
Celos glanced at the naked man's crotch. The hungry creatures of the swamp had been at work there, too. "A man doesn't lay in his bed naked without cause."
"Some men do."
Celos scowled. "A right and proper man doesn't!"
"I do, sometimes."
Celos narrowed his eyes and turned on her.
"I'm not a man, I know, but I don't think it's fair of you to assume that all men should be as pious and righteous as you."
"You're risking heresy," Celos warned.
"No, I'm not." Aleena stood her ground. "Leander's teachings allow for love and for a man to take a woman as a wife. He encourages prudence and propriety in all things, but He does not forbid pleasures of the flesh of any sort. Even that of luxuriating in the feel of freshly washed sheets upon bare skin."
"I do not approve of this," Celos said, dismissing it. "Whether he was enjoying his sheets or not, no sane man enjoys being carved up like a roasted turkey."
Aleena nodded, agreeing with him. "So there's someone else, another wizard?"
He scowled. "Perhaps. These wizards are wrong on every level."
Aleena sighed and turned away to walk out of the bedroom.
"Where are you going?" he demanded.
Aleena sighed and studied the middle room again. Why was there a small bed here as well? "I'm looking for something to help explain what it is we might be up against."
"We should leave and burn this unholy place to the ground!"
She moved and opened up one of the shutters to peer into the swamp. It had gotten darker outside. They'd been in the cottage longer than she realized. She gasped when she saw movement in the darkness. She looked further and picked out more shapes, and then she hurried to another window in the kitchen and opened it. It was a little lighter on the western side of the house but that only helped her see the bizarre creatures that had gathered and surrounded the cottage.
"Celos, I don't think I'm ready to leave this place yet."
"What nonsense is this? Are you bewitched?"
"We're surrounded by some very unnatural, um, beasts."
Celos clanked through the house until he stood at her side and stared out the window. "By Leander's grace," he whispered.
Aleena nodded and stared at a creature that looked like a large black bear with the front legs of a hunting cat. "Let's dig a little deeper first, shall we? It's getting dark and we didn't see them during the day. Perhaps we should stay the night?"
Celos frowned while he stared at the growing crowd of aberrations in the swamp. He nodded. "Yes, perhaps. While we search for answers, at least."
Aleena smirked behind his back. "I'll get to it."