Hey everybody,
Bit of a surprise drop today. Here is the opening to another project I’ve been working on, “Leo & The Broken Throne”, a fantasy/adventure book I’ve had in the pipeline for many years now, and I would love to see what you all think about it. Now, I’m aware that this isn’t golf-related, so it may not be of interest to some of you (which is perfectly fine), but, like with Mustang, if you enjoy this prologue (and the following first chapter which I’ve also just published here on the site) and know someone else who might, please feel free to share the link around and let me know in the comments what you think of it. Thank you very much – Stephen F. Moloney
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Leo wasn’t born when the Great Exodus of the Old World happened.
He wasn’t there to see the Trolls and Giants march across Europe.
He wasn’t there to see the herds of Centaurs and Minotaurs sweep across America.
He wasn’t there to see the fear in people’s eyes.
Leo wasn’t born when the war started.
He didn’t see the hatred or the killing.
He didn’t know why it ended.
He didn’t know why he needed to.
– Prologue –
Upon slowly opening his eyes, Edgar, for a moment, struggled to wrap his throbbing head around where exactly he was. He knew he was lying on the ground, that much was obvious; and he knew he was inside because he found himself looking straight up – albeit, admittedly, through rather blurred vision – at a series of beige, water-stained ceiling tiles. But as for how that had all come to happen? He wasn’t exactly sure. The last thing he remembered, he and his twenty-three man squad had been locked in a running battle with a one hundred-strong pod of Cave Goblins that had begun in and around Piccadilly Circus and ended up with them attempting to hold down a position in the heart of where Regent and Oxford Street intersected. And, again, as far as Edgar remembered, things had been going well. He and his squad had thinned the number of Goblins down to where it wasn’t as unfair a fight as it had been when they first engaged them. Plus, the more he thought about it, he distinctly remembered that after the call had been put in by one of his men for reinforcements, another squad from the King’s Shield had, eventually, radioed back saying they were only five minutes out from their location.
But as for what happened then … Edgar was drawing a complete blank.
No matter how hard he attempted to push his brain to remember more, it was just no use. The most that his brain could come up with were mere fragments of images so bereft of any real detail that, ultimately, they just wound up being a source of frustration as opposed to the illumination he was yearning for. With answers still being needed, Edgar – despite his pounding brain’s protestations – very slowly, and very stiffly, pushed himself up into a sitting position. As he took in the sight of his surroundings – with the soreness in his neck and back forcing a pained expression to etch its way across his unshaven face in the process – two things became immediately clear: one, he was in some small, abandoned corner shop; and, two, there was a broken window to his left that, given how he’d woken up, combined with the fact there were shards of broken glass all around where he was positioned, he figured he’d been thrown through.
Two answers, at least.
But with those answers – and, specifically, the latter of the two – came an even more prevalent question for Edgar: what had thrown him through the window? With thoughts of an eight-foot-tall, two-tonne Cave Goblin coming back to finish him off suddenly flashing before his eyes, all thoughts of how sore he was instantly evaporated for Edgar, and were, instead, replaced by just one: Gun.
A focused Edgar shifted his gaze off of the broken window and began searching the area all around where he was sitting on the floor to see if he could find his rifle. After that initial search yielded nothing, however – and the unnerving thought that he may not actually find it came and went – he turned his attention further into the dimly lit interior of the shop. He quickly scanned the empty shelves scattered around the shop floor, all of which had been left misaligned in the scrum that had taken place the day they were stripped of any and all sources of food, and … relief flooded his aching body. Underneath one of the shelves, one right near the very back wall of the shop, he spied his rifle; it must have slid all the way across the tile floor when he came in through the window. Reinvigorated, Edgar got slowly back to his feet and began to walk, somewhat labouredly, across the shop floor to retrieve his rifle. As he moved, however, the wet soles of his sturdy, leather combat boots squeaked on the tiles beneath his feet, making a highly on-edge Edgar cringe at, what he perceived to be, the obscenely loud noise. He knew Cave Goblins had extremely sensitive hearing. He’d learnt that the hard way six years ago at the very beginning of the war, with the scar running down the length of his torso serving as a permanent reminder of that fact. So, because of that, he knew all too well that a noise, even one as inconspicuous seeming as his boots squeaking, could be enough to draw a Cave Goblin’s attention to his location if they were anywhere, even remotely, in the vicinity – and even with his rifle, that was a fight Edgar wanted no part of.
Finally reaching the correct set of shelves, Edgar folded his gradually loosening out body back down onto the ground until he was on all fours. He reached his arm in underneath the shelves and pulled out his rifle, scraping a trail in the multiple years’ worth of dust and cobwebs which had gathered there in the process. Once his rifle was actually out, though, Edgar noticed there was a tin of something lying underneath the shelves which his rifle had, previously, been preventing him from seeing. Intrigued to see what it contained, Edgar reached his hand back in under the shelves to try and get it. Though positioned slightly further than his rifle had been, Edgar, after stretching his arm to its very limit, eventually managed to get enough of his middle finger onto the tin wherein he could finally pull it out from underneath the shelves. When he got back to his feet – bringing his rifle with him – Edgar looked for a ‘best before’ date on what he now saw was a slightly dented and very dusty tin of tuna. With nothing on the top where one would open it, Edgar turned the tin over and, after wiping away a thick layer of dust, found what he was looking for on the bottom.
‘Best before the twenty-ninth of September 2002.’
Having read the date quietly in his head – and despite the fact it was expired by a good nine months – Edgar popped the tin into the chest pocket on his tactical vest for safekeeping. He’d been at war for long enough to know he shouldn’t assume it was a given he’d get back to base from where he currently was before nightfall; so, any food at all, even expired tuna, was precious to have. Just in case.
“EDGAR?!”
The sudden loudness of the shout slicing through the silence he’d been cocooned in since he woke up took Edgar completely by surprise – but he knew immediately who the owner of the voice had been. The High Commander of the People’s Army. His Royal Majesty. King Edward.
Or as Edgar knew him, ‘Father’.
It was just starting to rain outside as Edgar turned his attention sharply towards the broken window. Big heavy drops were falling straight down from the sky and splattering against the street in a series of loud pops. But King Edward was nowhere to be seen. After checking how much ammunition he had left in his rifle with a deft, practiced ease, Edgar moved quickly back across the floor of the corner shop and pressed his shoulder against the wall alongside the window. He scanned the street outside in both directions.
Like it had with the rest of London, the war had rendered the street outside practically unrecognizable. Half-destroyed buildings, torn-up streets, and burnt-out overturned cars had become so much the norm on every street in England’s capital that it had become difficult to instantly distinguish one from another, even for someone who had lived their entire lives in London as Edgar had. Upon craning his neck a little further, however, Edgar could just about make out the unmistakable junction between Regent and Oxford Street no more than fifty metres from where he was positioned; a positive, not only because he had a bearing on where he actually was, but it was now also definitive proof that the memories he had of before he mysteriously fell unconscious were, in fact, correct. What was not a positive, though, was that there was still no sign of King Edward in either direction. Realizing he was going to have to venture out into the street to continue his search, Edgar moved the two steps from where he was standing towards the door of the shop, slid back the deadbolt that had been drawn across it, and pulled it open.
Though his sweep from inside had shown there were no Cave Goblins out on the street, Edgar wasn’t taking anything for granted as he exited the corner shop. He moved in the same furtive, stealthy manner he would in sweeping any street with possible hostiles present, the exact way that had been drilled into him back in his academy days. His eyes were up and going smoothly through his progressions to clear the different areas of the street where a Cave Goblin could possibly hide – which, given their immense size, wasn’t many, but still. And, of course, he had the butt of his rifle pressed hard into the inside of his right shoulder so that if he had to take a shot, it would be a true one. Reaching the middle of the street and feeling confident enough that the coast was, indeed, clear, Edgar relaxed his hold on his rifle and let the barrel point down towards the ground. With an uninterrupted view of the street now at his disposal, Edgar, after seeing there was nothing in the opposite direction either, focused his attention up the street towards the junction. Apart from the burnt-out cars and large pieces of concrete scattered around it – which he now remembered he and his squad had been using for cover in their fight against the Cave Goblins – the junction was completely empty. There were no other members of his squad. And, annoyingly, there was no King Edward.
Frustration began to build up inside Edgar once again. He turned away from the junction and looked down the street in the opposite direction, his rifle falling limply down to his side in the process. He was sure he had heard his father calling him. Convinced. And, to further add to his frustration, from the volume of his voice, Edgar could tell King Edward hadn’t been all that far away either. Yet the fact remained that he still couldn’t see him anywhere. And because he didn’t want to risk calling out himself in case any nearby Cave Goblins would hear him, Edgar felt, understandably, caught between a rock and a hard place. Just as the possibility that he’d actually imagined hearing King Edward calling out to him because of a possible concussion began to gain some unwelcome traction in the darker, more paranoid recesses of Edgar’s mind, however, a voice pulled him from the depths.
“Edgar …”
Unlike his initial shout which had loudly grabbed Edgar’s attention, its urgency desperate to be heard, King Edward, this time, sounded not only close enough where a shout wasn’t even necessary but also seemed noticeably calm – relieved, even. Not wanting to risk missing him again, Edgar quickly turned around and looked back up the street. There was no missing him this time. Standing in the very centre of the junction, his red dress uniform a striking bolt of colour against the palette of grey which surrounded him was King Edward. Seeing that he looked, for all intents and purposes, perfectly fine, a wide, relief-soaked smile creased Edgar’s face as he began to walk slowly up the street towards the junction.
“So, I take it this is where you make me do push-ups for letting my guard down in an active warzone, right?” called out Edgar, his casual tone echoing off the buildings lining either side of the street.
“Normally, that would be the case, yes” replied King Edward, a tired smile curling the corners of his mouth.
Edgar arrived in front of King Edward. Now up close, Edgar could get a better, more in-depth read on how his father seemed overall. Though not showing signs of anything which would contradict his first impression that he seemed physically fine, what Edgar did notice was just how weary his father looked. The big, dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep (Edgar had long suspected that his father hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since what had happened on the Tube back in ’99 … what started it all). How gaunt his face looked, which was made to appear all that starker with the weeks’ worth of white stubble outlining his high cheekbones and angled jaw. And the increased number of wrinkles which had, seemingly, carved their way into his face since the last time he’d seen him; a face that, before the war, had belied his fifty years with its youthful appearance. Yet, in spite of all that, as he stood in front of him, Edgar couldn’t help but get the sense that King Edward was just as relieved as he’d thought he’d sounded when he called out to him that second time. It was almost palpable; like this field of relaxed energy was just emanating out from him and straight in through Edgar’s chest.
“But somehow …” posed Edgar, sounding somewhat curious. “I get the impression that isn’t the case now for some reason. How come?”
“Because it’s over …” answered King Edward, his tone suggesting he was struggling to believe that the words he’d longed to say for years were finally falling from his mouth.
Though the meaning the words conveyed appeared to be straightforward, Edgar was reluctant to jump the gun – not with something like this.“What do you mean it’s over?” he asked quietly. “What is?”
He needed nothing other than crystal clear clarification.
King Edward took a step closer to Edgar. He placed his hand on his shoulder. “The war, my boy …” he said, tears now filling his eyes. “It’s over. They’re gone.”
