Into the Wild Read online

  INTO THE WILD

  Larry Correia

  Cover by

  GRZEGORZ RUTKOWSKI

  CONTENTS

  MAP

  WELCOME TO THE IRON KINGDOMS

  PART I: THE EXPEDITION

  PART II: THE LEADERS

  PART III: THE DESTROYERS

  WELCOME TO

  THE IRON KINGDOMS

  The world you are about to enter is the Iron Kingdoms, a place where the power and presence of gods are beyond dispute, where mankind battles itself as well as all manner of fantastic races and exotic beasts, and where a blend of magic and technology called mechanika shape industry and warfare. Outside the Iron Kingdoms themselves—the human nations of the continent called Immoren—the vast and unexplored world of Caen extends to unknown reaches, firing the imaginations and ambitions of a new generation.

  Strife frequently shakes these nations, and amid the battles of the region the most powerful weapon is the warjack, a steam-powered automaton that boasts great mobility, thick armor, and devastating weaponry. A warjack’s effectiveness is at its greatest when commanded by a warcaster, a powerful soldier-sorcerer who can forge a mental link with the great machine to magnify its abilities tremendously. Masters of both arcane and martial combat, these warcasters are often the deciding factor in war.

  For the Iron Kingdoms, what is past is prologue. No event more clearly defines these nations than the extended dark age suffered under the oppression of the Orgoth, a brutal and merciless race from unexplored lands across the great western ocean known as the Meredius. For centuries these fearsome invaders enslaved the people of western Immoren, maintaining a vise-like grip until at last the people rose up in rebellion. This began a long and bloody process of battles and defeats. This rebellion would have been doomed to failure if a dark arrangement by the gods had not bestowed the Gift of Magic on the Immorese, unlocking previously undreamed-of powers.

  Every effective weapon employed by the Rebellion against the Orgoth was a consequence of great minds putting arcane talents to work. Not only did sorcery allow evocations of fire, ice, and storm on the battlefield, but scholars combined scientific principles to blend technology with the arcane. Rapid advancements in alchemy gave rise to blasting powder and the invention of deadly firearms. Methods were developed to fuse arcane formulae into metal runeplates, creating augmented tools and weapons: the invention of mechanika. The culmination of these efforts was the invention of the first colossals, precursors to the modern warjack. These towering machines of war gave the Immorese a weapon the invaders could not counter. With the colossals the armies of the Rebellion drove the Orgoth from their fortresses and back to the sea.

  The people of the ravaged lands drew new borders, giving birth to the Iron Kingdoms: Cygnar, Khador, Llael, and Ord. It was not long before ancient rivalries ignited between these new nations. Warfare became a simple fact of life. Over the last four centuries periodic wars have been broken up by brief periods of tense but wary peace, with technology steadily advancing all the while. Alchemy and mechanika have simultaneously eased and complicated the lives of the people of the Iron Kingdoms while evolving the weapons employed by their armies in these days of industrial revolution.

  The most long-standing and bitter enmity in the region is that between Cygnar in the south and Khador in the north. The Khadorans are a militant people occupying a harsh and unforgiving territory. The armies of Khador have periodically fought to reclaim lands their forebears had once seized through conquest. The two smaller kingdoms of Llael and Ord were forged from contested territories and so have often served as battlegrounds between the two stronger powers. The prosperous and populous southern nation of Cygnar has periodically allied with these nations in efforts to check Khador’s imperial aspirations.

  Just over a century ago, Cygnar endured a religious civil war that ultimately led to the founding of the Protectorate of Menoth. This nation, the newest of the Iron Kingdoms, stands as an unforgiving theocracy entirely devoted to Menoth, the ancient god credited with creating mankind.

  In the current era, war has ignited with particular ferocity. This began with the Khadoran invasion of Llael, which succeeded in toppling the smaller kingdom in 605 AR. The fall of Llael ignited an escalating conflict that has embroiled the region for the last three years. Only Ord has remained neutral in these wars, profiting by becoming a haven for mercenaries. The Protectorate has launched the Great Crusade to convert all of humanity to the worship of Menoth. With the other nations occupied with war, this crusade was able to make significant gains and seize territories in northeastern Llael.

  Other powers have been drawn into this strife, either swept up in events or taking advantage of them for their own purposes. The Scharde Islands west of Immoren are home to the Nightmare Empire of Cryx, which is ruled by the dragon Toruk and sends endless waves of undead and their necromantic masters to bolster its armies with the fallen of other nations. To the northeast the insular elven nation of Ios is host to a radical sect called the Retribution of Scyrah that is driven to hunt down human arcanists, whom they believe are anathema to their gods.

  The savage wilds within and beyond the Iron Kingdoms contain various factions fighting for their own agendas. From the frozen north a disembodied dragon called Everblight leads a legion of blight-empowered warlocks and draconic spawn. The proud, tribal race known as the trollkin work to unite their once-disparate people to defend their lands. Deep in the wilds of western Immoren, a secretive order of druids commands nature’s beasts to oppose Everblight and advance their own various plans. Far to the east across the Bloodstone Marches, the warrior nation of the Skorne Empire marches inexorably closer, bent on conquering their ancient enemies in Ios as a step toward greater dominion. Shadowy conspiracies have arisen from hidden strongholds to play their own part in unfolding events. These include the Convergence of Cyriss, an enigmatic machine-cult that worships a distant goddess of mathematics, as well as their bitter enemies the cephalyx, a race of extremely intelligent and sadistic slavers who surgically transform captives into mindless drudges.

  The Iron Kingdoms is a setting whose inhabitants must rely on heroes with the courage to defend them using magic and steel, whether in the form of rune-laden firearms or steam-driven weapons of war. The factions of western Immoren are vulnerable to corruption from within and subject to political intrigue and power struggles. All the while, opportunistic mercenaries profit from conflict by selling their temporary allegiance for coin or other favors. It is a world of epic legends and endless sagas.

  Enter the Iron Kingdoms, and discover a world like no other!

  PART I:

  THE EXPEDITION

  Fall, 607 AR

  The surviving Cygnaran rangers ran through the darkness, crashing heedlessly through the thick underbrush. Though they were experts at negotiating the wilds, they were going too fast for caution now. Slowing for even a second meant certain death.

  Thorn bushes tore at her skin, but she was too afraid for the pain to register. Her face and arms were crisscrossed with deep scratches. Thankfully, she burst through the thick brush and into a rocky clearing. Once in the open, the ranger pushed on as fast as she could find footing on the treacherous ground. The muscles in her legs were on fire; her lungs burned from the exertion.

  The things were right behind them.

  Most of their patrol was dead, picked off one by one. There were only three of them left, terrified, cut off, and lost in the deep woods.

  Just ahead of her, Corporal Sutton tripped over a root and fell hard, rolling and crashing down on the rocks. He smashed into a boulder and screamed. Desperate, he scrambled back up but bellowed in pain and toppled over again. “My leg!”

  Novak slid down toward her comrade. Already she coul
d tell it was no mere twisted ankle. Even in the weak moonlight, she could make out a glistening red shard of bone sticking out of Sutton’s pant leg. It was a terrible break—a horrible wound even in a decent situation. A death sentence here.

  Sergeant Rutherford had made the same assessment. “Leave him!” Their squad leader ran past her, jumping from rock to rock. Only the most experienced woodsman could move so quickly through such difficult terrain in such dim light and not break his neck. The sergeant stopped at the top of the next rise and shouted at her. “I said leave him. Come on, Novak!”

  She followed because that’s what a soldier did when given an order, but then Novak froze, torn. She looked back at Sutton, who was desperately crawling across the broken ground. He was doomed. The things were too fast, too deadly. All the Cygnarans were probably going to die anyway, but trying to carry a wounded man meant none of them would escape. Sutton reached out one bloody hand toward her, begging.

  “Help me, Arabella. Please.”

  One of the pursuing creatures howled. The sound pierced the night and turned Novak’s blood to ice. It was less than a hundred yards behind them. A dozen other howls answered the first.

  She turned and ran for her life.

  Sergeant Rutherford was already heading down the mountainside, sliding wildly across loose shale. It was extremely steep, but with no other choice, Novak went after him. Rangers were physically fit, but her body had already been pushed far past exhaustion. They’d forded a stream earlier in the hopes that the water would mask their scent and shake their pursuers, but all it had done was soak their clothing. Now her boots were sodden, squishy, and heavy. It made descending such an unforgiving slope even more dangerous.

  Behind her, there was a single gunshot as Sutton fired on the creatures. Then the screaming began as they fell upon him and ripped Sutton apart. Novak’s ears were filled with the horrible sounds of tearing flesh and snapping bones.

  “Don’t think about it! Keep moving!” Rutherford ordered.

  Novak’s rifle was slung over her shoulder so she could use both hands, and she grasped at rocks and branches, trying to slow her descent. She tried not to listen as Sutton’s screaming went on and on, but it was impossible to ignore. The trees were thicker here, and she lost sight of her sergeant in the darkness. It was too steep. She nearly managed to keep her footing as she descended far too fast, but as she crashed through some heavy brush, she struck a tree. Bark scraped against her face, one boot slipped on a smooth rock, and then she was tumbling down.

  She rolled, rifle clanking around her, until she fell into a mud puddle with a splash.

  Everything hurt, but she had no time to dwell on it. The things would be cresting the ridge, and from what Novak had witnessed earlier, they could see in the dark. She needed to find cover fast. Panting, crawling forward as quickly as she could on her battered hands and knees, she tried to get out of sight. There was a shallow ravine covered in soft dirt and pine needles, so she crawled inside, pulling her dark hood up to hide her face, and hunkered down, gasping for air.

  After several seconds, the pounding of her heart had slowed enough that she didn’t think it was going to explode. She couldn’t see the only other surviving member of her patrol.

  “Sergeant?” she whispered, but there was no answer. Rutherford had made it down without falling, but she couldn’t tell which way he’d gone.

  It took her a moment to realize that Sutton had finally fallen silent. His screaming was gone. Novak lay there, breathing hard, trying to orient herself. The trees were taller here; she realized she couldn’t see the moons. The shadows were too thick. She knew it was a good thing she’d stopped when she did because the ravine she’d crawled into terminated a few feet away. On the other side of that ledge was a steep drop into who knew what. She was desperate enough to go over, but she also knew she’d probably shatter a bone in the fall and then be devoured at the creatures’ leisure.

  The wind rustled through the trees. There was a sound that might have been the brushing of fur against bark, but she couldn’t be sure. Then, twenty feet away, a branch snapped. Whatever made the noise froze, and the forest became too quiet.

  There was nowhere left to run.

  Slowly—oh so slowly—Novak tried to unsling her rifle without making any noise. Once the weapon was in front of her, she put her cloak over the military rifle’s receiver to muffle the sound of metal on metal, and levered the action open. Earlier, she’d plugged one of the creatures, dead center, but the thing had just shrugged it off and kept coming. Rangers were good shots, and her squad had surely scored more hits during the ambush, but she didn’t think their bullets had felled a single one of them.

  Fingers trembling, she got a new paper case into the rifle’s chamber, closed the action, and slowly pulled back the pin loop. The creatures had yanked out Yardley’s guts before tossing him off a cliff. They’d eaten parts off Blanchard while he was still alive—he’d kicked and thrashed and screamed as they’d torn off his limbs and stuffed them in their mouths. She could still hear the chewing and the crunching. If they found her, Novak wasn’t sure yet if she’d waste this bullet on them or use it on herself.

  A nearby bush shook. She heard a new noise, barely audible over the thrumming pulse in her ears. Something was above her at the top of the ravine, and it was inhaling. Somehow she knew it could smell her fear.

  “Caradoc.”

  The creature above her lifted its head as if it had been summoned by that sound. From the shadow it cast, this was the biggest creature she’d seen so far. Yet the voice had come from across the forest, guttural and deep. More sounds followed, but Novak couldn’t make sense of any of them. At first she thought it was just hisses and growls, but then she realized they were actually words.

  “Tehok Ivor,” the thing above her rasped as if it were issuing orders to the others. She slowly moved the muzzle of her rifle toward the creature and placed her finger on the trigger.

  Then came an angry shout fifty yards to the side. “Come on, you hairy bastards!” Sergeant Rutherford bellowed. He fired his military rifle, and one of the creatures let out a surprised yelp.

  The thing above her snapped its head around and snarled. For just a moment Novak caught a glimpse of sharp white teeth, and then it was speeding off toward her poor doomed sergeant.

  “If you can hear me, Novak, run! Run!”

  She raised her head over the side just in time to see Rutherford struggling through the brush, only to be tackled and crushed beneath several hairy bodies. Claws flashed as they lit into him with unbelievable savagery.

  The leader of the beasts had spotted her. It turned back, growling. “Seeeeg-Naaaar.” Rows of razors appeared, a sick parody of a smile.

  Novak leapt off the cliff.

  “Lieutenant Kelvan Cleasby, reporting as ordered,” the young soldier declared as he presented himself before Lord Professor Conrad Wynn.

  The nobleman sat behind an old, cluttered desk that took up one corner of the old, cluttered office. From what Cleasby had seen so far, everything inside the Royal Cygnaran University seemed to fit that same description—old and cluttered—including the people. Despite that, Cleasby was excited. He loved this sort of thing. The smell of ink and paper—it smelled like knowledge.

  The professor ignored Cleasby and kept writing. His ornate scholar’s robes were stained with wine spots and food bits. The professor was totally bald on top, and what hair remained on the sides of his head was trying to make up for it by being puffy and unkempt. His beard was grey, long, and sprinkled with crumbs.

  Cleasby loudly cleared his throat. Perhaps the professor was deaf? Then he held out his new orders and waved them back and forth a bit, hoping to catch the other man’s attention. “I was told that you requested my presence. I’m the commanding officer of the 6th platoon, 47th Storm Knights.”

  The professor didn’t bother to look up from his paperwork. He just kept scribbling rapid notes as he asked, “The 6th, was it? That’s the bunch
known as Madigan’s Malcontents?”

  “That’s correct, my lord.”

  “Uh huh.” Scribble, scribble, scribble.

  Cleasby stood there awkwardly as Baron Conrad Wynn, head of the archeology department of the Royal Cygnaran University, simply kept writing. Part of him had been hoping the professor would recognize his name from the application letters Cleasby had recently sent to the faculty, but since he didn’t, Cleasby decided to keep this professional rather than personal. Cleasby’s term of enlistment wasn’t up for a few more months, after which he’d be able to return to his scholarly career, but until then the army owned him.

  The professor was a very important man in the capital city. The Wynns were an influential, wealthy, well-connected family. This Wynn in particular had been blessed with a brilliant scholarly mind, sufficient to become one of the most respected senior academics at Cygnar’s greatest university. Cleasby had been warned that the baron could be a bit eccentric, but Cleasby—an educated man himself—knew you had to grant allowances to truly brilliant minds when it came to matters of social niceties. His own lack of a filter between his mouth and his brain had gotten him into trouble a few times, so he tried to be forgiving.

  “Would you like to see my orders?” Cleasby stuck them out a little farther in the hopes they’d be noticed and accepted. Baron Wynn reached out without looking, but rather than take the paperwork, he took hold of a half-empty bottle of wine instead. He pulled the cork with his teeth, spit it out, and with a horrible slurping noise drank straight from the bottle. As the professor didn’t seem interested in looking at his orders, Cleasby returned them to the pocket of his blue uniform coat for safekeeping before continuing. “I was informed that one of my squads is to provide a military escort for one of your archeological expeditions.”

  “And I was informed that Madigan’s Malcontents are the ones who saved Caspia from being blown up by a traitorous madman.”