Description

The remnants of two civilized worlds, once separated by countless star systems, are brought together under a shared calamity. The Vagantem home world was lost forever, and its people forsaken. Stranded in the near empty cosmos for years, the Vagan people eventually found a habitable planet. This world, however, was already claimed. As they introduced themselves to mankind, the Vagantem soon understood the gravity of their arrival.

Times were unstable for humanity, long before the Vagantem arrived. The discovery of life and technology outside of their comprehension only sped up the inevitable. Earth’s governments quickly grew aggressive and paranoid, opting to fight, spy and vie for the closest seat next to their new friends from across the void. Soon enough, world war was rampant. The Vagantem had initially chosen to remain neutral and uninvolved with the battles, until the very planet was at stake.

The Vagantem interfered, and before anyone realized, Earth was a blasted and irradiated wasteland. Humanity had fallen, just as the Vagantem had. With limited time to act, the Vagan soon worked to cleanse and terraform this world they now inherited, into the beautiful likeness of their old home. The fleet remains divided and splintered, in orbit along with man’s lunar colony, reluctant to fulfill the promise and potential of what they had started below.

Unbeknownst to them, not all of humanity was extinguished. From the deepest cracks and shadows survivors have emerged and embraced this new world. It has been eleven years since the end and now, warlords and scavengers rule what they can.

Read An Excerpt From Chapter Ten

A man entered the arena with his hands up. He had a skyreaching top hat decorated with the bones of small creatures. His jeans were skintight and the material was torn away at the knees. The man began to flap his blazer like the wings of a black bird. Then he spoke, pulling out a microphone from his jacket’s pocket.

“Iiiiiiiiiit’s fiiiiiiiiight niiiiiight!” he blared over the speakers, and the crowd grew feral. Some climbed onto the chain-link dome while various scuffles broke out in the ensuing chaos. One man smashed his head on the gate as if he was trying to squeeze through the holes. As the band played, the announcer did a backflip, and his hat fell off when he was upside down. Before picking it up, he ran circles in the dirt and kicked his legs out like a cancan dancer.

The drawbridge gate that the beasts of the arena were released through began to rattle and clank. The crowds hushed and the announcer turned anxiously. Suddenly, the Huntress entered from the fighter’s side, and the crowd erupted in a frenzy more intense than before. “Let us welcome… the Hunter!” blasted the announcer as he grabbed her hand and lifted it as if she were already the victor.

She pulled her hand back and socked the man across the jaw. He fell and spat out blood, though more continued to flow. “The Huntress… get it right,” she hissed. The man smiled. He stood up, brushed off the dirt, and wiped away some more blood.

“I mean, the Huntress!” he corrected, and the audience continued to be rambunctious.

The announcer exited, jumping up and down and clapping his heels together, as the Huntress focused on the gate her opponent would soon come through. All she knew was its name: the twin snake.

The gate opened up with a deafening and rustic croak. All was silent now—all but the scaly slither of a limbless monster. The trees and plants were soaked with dew, dripping as if it had just rained, and the mud allowed the creature to slide its massive body around with ease. The Huntress watched it enter, then watched it rear a good forty feet high from across the artificial jungle. A pair of large yellow eyes with white slits locked her in place, like Medusa’s curse. She stared at it, curious.