Travels With a Fairytale Monster Read online

  Travels

  with a

  Fairytale Monster

  Elizabeth Gannon

  Text Copyright © Elizabeth Gannon 2015

  All rights reserved

  Cover Image Copyright © Elizabeth Gannon 2015

  All rights reserved

  Published by Star Turtle Publishing

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  Or on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6886292.Elizabeth_Gannon

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  Books by Elizabeth Gannon

  The Consortium of Chaos series

  Yesterday’s Heroes

  The Son of Sun and Sand

  The Guy Your Friends Warned You About

  Electrical Hazard

  The Only Fish in the Sea

  Coming Soon: Not Currently Evil

  The Mad Scientist’s Guide to Dating

  Other books

  The Snow Queen

  Travels with a Fairytale Monster

  Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates

  Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian

  Coming Soon: The Man Who Beat-Up Prince Charming

  If you enjoy Elizabeth’s books, you may also enjoy books by her sister, Cassandra Gannon.

  The Elemental Phases Series

  Warrior from the Shadowland

  Guardian of the Earth House

  Exile in the Water Kingdom

  Treasure of the Fire Kingdom

  Queen of the Magnetland

  Magic of the Wood House

  Coming Soon: Destiny of the Time House

  A Kinda Fairytale Series

  Wicked Ugly Bad

  Beast in Shining Armor

  Coming Soon: Happily Ever Witch

  Other Books

  Love in the Time of Zombies

  Not Another Vampire Book

  Vampire Charming

  Cowboy from the Future

  Coming Soon: Once Upon a Caveman

  Dedicated, with love and undying gratitude, to the people who understand me.

  Me and my un-understandable books.

  And my un-understandable language skills, because “un-understandable” isn’t even a word.

  (Microsoft Word is losing its shit right now)

  But that’s okay.

  (Shut up, Word spellcheck)

  It’s okay, because I can use “un-understandable” anyway, and the people who understand me understand what I mean by “un-understandable,” and the people who don’t understand me don’t matter, because I obviously won’t understand them.

  …which sounds harsh.

  (Yep)

  That’s not really something an author should EVER say in an otherwise touching and heartfelt dedication, is it?

  (Even I’m misting up as I write this, I had no idea I was so eloquently lyrical yet structurally concise in my feelings)

  But hopefully you understand what I’m trying to say by “un-understandable” and my difficulty understanding the people who don’t understand the meaning of “un-understandable,” and how they probably don’t understand me as a person either and are thus not included in this dedication, except in so forth as their being part of the “un-understood” group which I am “un-understanding” because they don’t understand my demented mind.

  Understand?

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note/Commentary on book

  Sneak Peek!

  Chapter One

  “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.”-

  Isaac Newton

  The 10th Year of The War of Gold and Silver

  Everything burns.

  That much was evident, even to the casual observer.

  Taylor stood on the stone battlement and watched as the buildings across the river were consumed in flames. She didn’t really consider herself to be especially profound, but there was something almost cleansing about the fire. It removed the sight of the death and filth which she’d had to look at every day for what seemed like forever. More than that though, the fire indicated an end to things. A final consumption of everything and the closing out of existence.

  That was something, anyway.

  True, it was depressing to think about the final days of her life. But honestly, that prospect didn’t seem all that bad anymore.

  She watched expressionlessly as the flames continued the process of destroying her father’s shop and the small rooms above it where she had spent her earliest memories.

  She had loved that little place.

  But it was gone now.

  Just one more casualty in this horrible confrontation.

  For the past ten years, the great kingdoms of the world had been at war. The principle antagonists of that confrontation had been the Union of the Southern Isles and the kingdom of Baseland, which were seemingly on a quest to conquer the globe. Their sights were currently set on the kingdom of Cormoran, Taylor’s homeland, and they were doing their best to put all of Taylor’s countrymen to the sword. The war had reached a level of killing and ferocity which no one had ever seen before or would ever likely see again.

  The dead now outnumbered the living in Cormoran. And they were the lucky ones, considering what had already happened to many of the other kingdoms which had refused to surrender.

  But The War of Gold and Silver raged on. Dragging new lands and new people into its horrible grasp, in a chain reaction which didn’t seem likely to ever stop until everyone was dead. The world had become a free-for-all now, with ancient pacts and alliances being thrown aside for greed and revenge.

  And fear.

  Adithia, capital of the Southern Isles, possessed a navy unmatched in the world. They owned the seas, taking what they wanted. They joined with Baseland’s army, mining interests and vast wealth, and together they were dividing up the rest of the kingdoms among themselves. They were allied in this effort with several other opportunistic lands who wished to be on the winning side, as well as a few neutral kingdoms who refused to join either side, praying that somehow the war would pass them by.

  But the war would surely reach their shores eventually as well.

  Like fire, once the war started, there was no escaping it.

  Cormoran had held off the invaders for as long as it could, but it was doomed to be the next in a long line of states to fall before the enemies’ might. Only a handful of free kingdoms remained to stand against Baseland and Adithia now, and all of them looked on in terror at the fate which was befalling what had formerly been one of the world’s most powerful and beautiful kingdoms.

/>   Piece by piece, town by town, the Baselanders had taken over Taylor’s kingdom. Now, all that was left was the capital and a couple of its outlying villages.

  And it wasn’t looking too good for the villages at the moment.

  The Baseland army had destroyed the garrison across the river two months ago, and all that stood between the capital and the enemy horde was a tiny speck on the map which no one would have even noticed ten years ago.

  A speck on the map which Taylor had called home her entire life and which she was currently watching burn to the ground.

  She leaned against the makeshift battlement and stared out at the shadows of enemy soldiers as they moved around in the shifting illumination of the inferno across the river.

  “They’ll be coming soon.” Her brother Ryle informed her, not for the first time. “You can tell. Once the bodies burn to ash and there’s nothing left to steal or rape, they always move on.” His voice was serious. “We need to go. It’s not safe here.”

  “Go where?” She asked, genuinely interested. “Where exactly do you want to go where we’d be safe from that?” She pointed to the hundreds of enemy campfires which dotted the mountains in the distance, like stars in the night sky.

  “Lapland?” He offered.

  “Sure. Even if you could make it past our sentries without being hanged for desertion, and through the enemy forces which currently block the only road,” she turned to face him, “your plan overlooks the tiny but rather important detail that in-between us and Lapland is Baseland, the very kingdom that sent the evil army to kill us in the first place.” She went back to staring at the burning wreckage of her life. “Besides, it’s too cold there anyway. I hate the cold.”

  “I’m betting you’ll really hate being dead then, sis. Nothing’s much colder than the dead.” He informed her casually. “Which is all the more reason we should get the hell out of here while we still can.”

  “What if everyone thought that, Ryle?” She bit out angrily.

  “Then the war would be over and we could all get back to our lives.” He hopped up onto the wall beside her, dangling his legs over the edge. The action made him a perfect target for Baseland’s archers, but he didn’t care. She’d like to say that his current “Meh. Screw it.” attitude towards death was simply battle fatigue, but the man hadn’t been especially interested in safety even before he’d been drafted into the militia.

  His near constant yammering about desertion was entirely about keeping her alive; Ryle had long since ceased caring about himself. He’d seen too much. Lost too much.

  His parents.

  His wife and unborn daughter.

  All of his friends.

  His entire world.

  Cut down in front of him and burned to nothing.

  She ignored him and watched the fire reflected in the water. There was something almost beautiful about it though. Like it was dancing. The flames lapped at the framework of her father’s shop, blackening the wooden structure and turning its formerly bright coloring to cinders.

  “You have no business being here.” He gestured to their surroundings.

  “Yeah, I guess I should just stay at home.” She turned towards the charred remains of her father’s shop and made a face, as if just remembering something. “Oh… wait.”

  “The shop is gone, Taylor.” He sounded serious again. “I’m sorry. I know you loved it, but it’s gone. And killing yourself for it isn’t going to help anyone. If Dad were here, he’d…”

  “But he’s not.” She cut him off, sick of this argument. She pointed at her chest. “That was my shop. He left it to me, not you, and now it’s gone.” She gestured to the crumbling remains of the building they were standing in. “This is our village, Ryle! Our family is buried here! And if someone wants to take it, then they’re going to have to go through me to get it!”

  “I think that’s their plan as well, yes.”

  Something in the distance exploded, momentarily bathing the area in even more light.

  “Armory?” Ryle guessed casually.

  “No, too close. That was Kendrid’s storehouse.” She leaned against the wall. “You can tell, because it’s right next to where Mom decorated that…” She trailed off, her voice suddenly tight.

  “It’s just a stupid town, Tay.” He reminded her. “Just brick and stone. None of it is worth dying for.”

  “I know.” She nodded, trying not to cry. “You should go.”

  “Are you coming with me?”

  She shook her head. “I… I’m done, Ryle.” She stood straighter. “There’s nowhere left to run, anyway.”

  “We could try.” His voice broke.

  “We’d fail.” She shook her head again. “I always fail.”

  He reached into the pocket of his guard uniform and pulled out a small hunk of unidentified meat. He held it out to her, but she shook her head. Food of any kind was a rare commodity in the village these days, so she didn’t even want to know what type of animal he was currently eating. “Maybe the problem is that we joined the wrong army.” He pointed across the water and chewed thoughtfully on his mystery meat. “If we had moved to Baseland or one of the Southern Isles, we’d be doing fine right now. Or maybe our presence would just cause their efforts to fail. In either case though, it’d be better than this.”

  “Everything is.” She agreed. “There is nothing worse than this.”

  “Jeez, some of us are feeling rather depressed about the fact they’re watching their home burn and are about to die, aren’t we?” He laughed, trying to sound more cheerful than he was. He’d done that a lot in the years since Anna and his baby had died. He’d married young, but his wife and their unborn child had been the center of his world. Losing them both had left a hole which would never heal. Instead it had scarred over with a semi-suicidal, self-deprecating shadow of his former self. They’d taken a very large part of his soul with them when they left. The only thing he focused on now was her, since they quite literally had nothing but each other left. “Personally, I’m just hoping to see what all the fuss is about. I mean, I keep hearing about how badass the Baselanders are, but so far, I’m not overly impressed.” He stood up on the wall and cupped his hands to his mouth to yell across the river. “AND THEIR AIM SUCKS!”

  She swore and ducked behind the wall as a hail of arrows showered down around them a moment later. Ryle didn’t bother to move a muscle, absently watching the projectiles whiz past him and looking completely unconcerned. He spread his arms wide, as if welcoming the escape the barbs offered to him.

  The barrage finally subsided and he glanced down at her. “See? Told you.” He hopped down from the wall and met her eyes. “We’re going to die if we stay here.” He told her bluntly. “Are we okay with that?”

  “I’m through running.” She firmed her lower lip. “I won’t leave the land my family died defending, Ryle.”

  “Okay then.” He nodded. “Just wanted to clear that up so that there are no last minute feelings of guilt or second thoughts. If this is how you want it to end, I’m fine with that. I’ve been fine with that for a while now.” He kissed her forehead. “I love you, Taylor. I think we’ll both be dead within the day, so I want you to know that.”

  “I love you…”

  A stern voice shouted her down from the shadows behind her. “No fraternization!”

  She rolled her eyes in annoyance.

  Fucking Buggane.

  The man was their immediate superior in the Capital Guard, and took his job so seriously that he didn’t notice that he was incompetent and that no one liked him. He’d taken command of the local militia a year ago and things had only gotten worse since.

  It was hard to get worse than “death spiral into complete destruction” but he’d somehow managed.

  Their numbers had fallen to such incredibly low numbers that the militia had been folded into the regular Capital Guard now. They formed a ragtag and starving force with little leadership and no chance of success, but since they were also
basically the last soldiers Cormoran had in the war, they had to fight on.

  Buggane had been born in the village, but had always seemed ashamed of that fact, always dressing like they did in the capital and trying to take on their accent and mannerisms.

  The man had been a laughing stock before the war.

  And now he was in charge of them, simply because everyone else had already been killed.

  But he was still basically a laughing stock.

  Some things never changed. Sadly.

  His beady eyes glared at them from under the metal brim of his cone shaped helmet. “Pay attention to your duties and not intercourse!”

  Ryle stared at the man blankly. “This is my sister, man.”

  “Which makes it all the more disgusting!” Buggane snapped. “It’s no wonder the garrison fell, if this is the kind of morals its soldiers have! This is why I fled this horrid place in the first place. You people make the worst soldiers.”

  “Because we’re not soldiers.” Ryle informed him. “We’re just civilians who were drafted into the militia. If you treated us with some respect for once, we’d…”

  “We are all soldiers for our glorious king!” Buggane roared.

  “She’s a seamstress!” Ryle shot back, pointing at Taylor.

  “I’m a tailor,” she corrected, “I make custom clothes from scratch, not using a p…”

  “I don’t care.” Her brother interrupted. “Right now, I’m thinking we should let the soldiers kill each other, and then the rest of us can go home.”

  Buggane held up a finger in warning. “You will fight or I’ll have you hanged.”

  “No offense, but I think the gallows would be a nice alternative to what the Baselanders are planning for us.” Ryle reminded him, gesturing towards the river. “I’m a hell of a lot more afraid of them than I am of you, Bug.” He accentuated the man’s childhood nickname, just to piss him off. “You’ve always been an asshole, even when we were kids.”

  The man’s face darkened. “This is insubordination!”