Wolf soldier, p.1
Wolf Soldier, page 1
part #1 of Lightraider Academy Series
Acclaim for
WOLF SOLDIER
“Wolf Soldier does not disappoint! Hannibal delivers an action-packed quest through a world of fantastical creatures and unexpected friendships. A journey of faith and freedom from start to finish and an epic beginning to the Lightraider Academy series!”
—Lauren H. Brandenburg, award-winning author of
The Death of Mungo Blackwell
“From the gorgeous world-building to the delightful characters and surprising plot twists, Wolf Soldier thoroughly captivated me. James R. Hannibal has crafted a remarkable adventure that is sure to sweep readers away.”
—Lindsay A. Franklin, award-winning author of
The Story Peddler
“James R. Hannibal creates superb stories. His imagination and creativity are literally out of this world . . . Exciting and suspenseful reading!”
—Dick Wulf, creator of DragonRaid
Wolf Soldier
Copyright © 2021 by James R. Hannibal
EPUB Edition
Published by Enclave Publishing, an imprint of Third Day Books, LLC
Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
www.enclavepublishing.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, digitally stored, or transmitted in any form without written permission from Third Day Books, LLC.
Scripture quotations have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-62184-195-1 (printed hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-62184-197-5 (printed softcover)
ISBN: 978-1-62184-196-8 (ebook)
Cover design by Emilie Haney, www.EAHCreative.com
Typesetting by Jamie Foley, www.JamieFoley.com
Printed in the United States of America.
For Dick Wulf.
From all of us who fell in love with the world you created.
From all those whose lives you touched for His glory.
Thank you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Acclaim for Wolf Soldier
Half-Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Map
Foreword
Prologue
PART ONE: BREACH
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
PART TWO: A SPARK IN THE SOUTH
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
PART THREE: ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
PART FOUR: THE LOYALTY OF WOLVES
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
About the Author
FOREWORD
There is a lot of evil in this world and we need to fight it. What you are about to read is a fantastic story. But, if you understand the deeper truths hidden in Wolf Soldier, you can become a lightraider in the real world—complete with the real supernatural spiritual power of the Holy Spirit.
For example, in Wolf Soldier, the characters are protected by a supernatural shield when fighting goblins and orcs. In this real world, I have been protected by such a shield of faith. One example of many was when I was trapped in a room with no way of escape by eight of the most dangerous prisoners in the maximum security prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas discussing how they might kill me and get away with it. But God saw me through with His protection. I could give you many more real-life examples, and I am sure that James R. Hannibal could also. So, ask yourself to look for the secret to this protection from evil when you read Wolf Soldier. From where or whom does real power and protection come?
The lightraider world is also about togetherness and teamwork. So much in our culture tells us to pursue being a hero alone. Learn in this story how very wrong that can be. So much more can be done to battle evil by small groups of people working together as a team. Note how each character in Wolf Soldier needs the others. Then, determine to face life with others to deal with trouble and evil.
In 1983 when I invented the game DragonRaid, upon which the world of this story is based, I wanted to develop strong, brave, and courageous soldiers to fight evil. In addition to reading this story, you might want to gather a few friends and play that game or new games from Lightraider Academy. Over the years DragonRaid has transformed many players into soldiers of the cross in one way or the other. It would take pages and pages for me to tell you all of those stories.
I am thrilled to have given DragonRaid and its world and allegorical ideas to James R. Hannibal. He will carry Lightraider Academy forward and see that more and more people are becoming lightraiders in real life.
Read Wolf Soldier and then join us in making this world a better place by facing down and defeating evil.
Dick Wulf
PROLOGUE
A jagged block sheered from the granite wall and split in two at Malid’s feet, inches from his claws. He paused in his work to hiss at the underling beside him, flecks of spittle escaping between yellowed fangs. “If we should delve deep enough to reach the white core, cousin Gorid, take care not to touch it. Yes, take care. Take care.” The goblin mine boss set his pickaxe down and thrust a gray-green hand into the lantern’s glow, showing off a mottled scar. “It burns.”
Malid’s crew hauled away debris behind him and shored up the passage. They’d channeled a good deal south from the northern foot of the monstrous peaks. Most feared to tunnel there, afraid the unnatural mountains might come crashing down on them. But Malid’s crew feared his wrath more than cave-ins.
Seeing his chief resting, Gorid upended his pickaxe and leaned a pair of wiry forearms on the handle. “The dragons will be pleased with us, cousin. Yes. Pleased. Pleased, indeed. No one has come this far before. No one.”
Weak, Gorid was, and lazy—a sniveling toadstool-kisser.
“Who told you to stop working?” Malid kicked the axe handle and sent his cousin tumbling to the ground. “Now pick yourself up and get to it. Get to it!” He added a second kick for good measure, letting his claws stab into the smaller goblin’s fungal flesh.
The others laughed.
Gorid recovered his pickaxe and swung with new fervor at the solid black granite. Each strike bounced off with a disappointing clink.
“Useless cur!” Malid let the rage, the black fire of his people, surge. He spun Gorid by the shoulders and shoved him against the wall. “Useless, useless!”
The cackles of his crew fed his frenzy, and Malid pounded Gorid’s skull against the rock. “Perhaps . . . if you used . . . your head . . . cousin.”
With a crunch of brittleknit bone and a crack of granite, a chunk of wall broke
A thunderclap sounded within the mountain.
A crewman snorted. “It worked. Using his head worked.”
“Shut up, you. Shut up. Be quiet.” Malid let Gorid slump to the floor and stared at the exposed face.
The core.
He crept forward, stepping upon his groaning relative to get a closer look. The white stone had always been as smooth as polished glass. No tool of goblin or dragon design could ever mar it. Yet a web of spidery cracks sparkled in the lantern’s flicker. This little patch of the Southern Overlord’s impossible barrier looked as fragile as eggshells.
He swung his pickaxe. The fragile shell chipped. Malid swung again, and then again and again. Sparks flew. White dust surrounded him. The tough, fibrous skin of his face and arms sizzled. Gorid screamed at his feet. Then fragments exploded from the patch in a sudden torrent of cold air.
Pain.
Agony, yet not from the burning. Malid feared his head might burst. He dropped his axe and doubled over, clawing at his temples.
“Boss?”
“I’m fine.” His voice. Not his voice.
“But boss, your skin is burning—burning still.”
Malid struck the worried crewman across the mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m fine. Fine, I say.” The pain in his flesh was welcome fuel for his rage, and the pain within his skull had fled as quickly as it came, leaving him stronger than ever before. Stronger. Yes. Wiser. Malid knew things. Ages of understanding poured into his mind. He couldn’t shut it out. He didn’t want to.
All settled to silence, save for Gorid’s dying moans. Malid’s attack had hewn a hole the size of an oak mocktree’s knobby head through the white core, joining his mine to some ancient tunnel dug from the other side. The torrent of wind had dropped to a mere breeze, and the air carried with it a foul smell that hadn’t affronted Malid’s nostrils for decades. No. Not Malid’s nostrils. The memory was not his. It belonged to the ancient spirit filling his mind, and the ancient spirit knew that stink—the unmistakable stench of the Keledan.
PART ONE
BREACH
“Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”
Ephesians 5:15–16
1
“Seventeen, eighteen.” Connor Enarian sat on the low stone wall of a hillside pasture, letting his tehpa’s sheep brush against his crook as they passed through the gate, out into the road for the drive home. The hunters of the southern forests and the farmers of the central plains counted sheep as a cure for wakefulness, or so he’d heard. Yet the Enarians and the other hill folk had managed to make a living of it. Connor counted forty-eight sheep four times a day, give or take.
“Twenty-five, twenty-six.” He didn’t bother watching. He merely felt the bump of each ewe waddling by. They knew the routine. Nor did he watch the flock waiting in the road, baaing and bleating in a mindless chorus he’d long since learned to ignore. Connor kept his gaze fixed north. The winds were picking up high in the Celestial Peaks, and he didn’t want to miss the spectacle.
Evening. The best part of Connor’s day, and not only because the scent of a dozen dinners wafted up from the village. More than the scent of bread and pork, he loved the view.
Icy swirls blew among the countless summits of the Celestial Peaks, colored red by a sun about to fade. Before the next tick of Stonyvale’s fountain clock, the perpetual storm hanging to the Western Sea would hide its fire. Together, the peaks and the Storm Mists formed the Rescuer’s barrier, a giant wall defining the edges of Connor’s world. There were points beyond. But the Keledan no longer ventured there. The Assembly had forbidden it.
Connor’s tehpa—his father in the high-mannered diction of the coastal cities—agreed with them. Often, Tehpa had warned Connor about the horrors north of the barrier, evils no Keledan need ever face. His stories were enough to wither all but the lightest fantasies of daring adventure a shepherd boy might harbor in his heart.
“Forty-seven, forty . . . eight.” Connor’s crook clacked against the stone wall. He poked around with the butt of it, still mesmerized by the mountain swirls. “Forty . . . eight,” he said again, as if repeating the number would make a ewe magically appear. The crook stabbed empty air. He blinked and glanced down. No ewe.
Connor looked to the flock waiting in the road. They stared at him, bleating out a collective I told you so. He counted them again. Forty-seven.
Not once in the eight years since his tehpa first bestowed on him the dubious honor of grazing the flock had he lost a sheep. How could this happen? The sheep weren’t clever enough to breach the trees at the top of the pasture. More than one wolf pack lived in Dayspring Forest, and autumn was their season, but they rarely ventured into the light to disturb the flocks. Connor swallowed. Rarely.
“Stay.” He pointed his crook at the flock as he hopped down and closed the gate. “All of you.” He raced up the hill and blew a shrill note on the reed whistle hanging from his neck. No ewe came running. Down below, the rams bucked at the gate, trying to obey the call. Using the whistle again risked putting them into a frenzy, but Connor couldn’t go home to Tehpa shorthanded. He drew another breath.
A wilting cry from the boulders at the forest’s edge stopped him. Connor knew the boulders well. He often passed the long ticks of the day running up their sides to reach the tops or leaping from one to the other. There were no drops or sharp edges between them to hurt a ewe—no narrow gaps where she might get stuck. He slipped a stone into his sling and shielded his eyes against the setting sun. “Ho!” he shouted, as Tehpa had taught him, lest he catch a feeding wolf unaware. “Ho!”
He felt ridiculous.
A second cry led him to a shadowed hollow in the largest boulder. Before his eyes adjusted, his head smacked against a low-hanging shelf.
The ewe bleated at him.
“You think this is funny?”
He said it to calm his own nerves. Far from laughing, the ewe cowered in the hollow, trembling. Connor rubbed his aching head and frowned. Sheep had no imagination. They didn’t conjure up predators where none existed. Something real—wolf or otherwise—had terrified this ewe. With a troubled sigh, he gathered her into his arms and carried her out into the failing light.
“Oi! Connor Enarian!” A booming voice rolled up the hill. Barnabas Botloff waved to him from the thickly padded seat of a wagon filled with bundles and burlap bags, a half-eaten loaf in his hand, his reins in the other. “Are you plannin’ to move this flock along, or shall I return to Pleasanton to spend the night?” The parcelman showed no real sign of impatience. His horse, however, gave Connor and the ewe a look that could peel the paint off a barn door.
