Dan Decker Books

Lord of the Inferno - Chapter Ten

This week’s episode features a chapter from Lord of the Inferno, Volume Two of War of the Fathers. War of the Fathers is available as a free ebook if you sign up for the Dan Decker Newsletter. Here is an excerpt from the show:
The sun peeked out of the clouds and Adar relished the feel of it on his face. His clothes were soaked through, and he was chilled to the bone. He kept moving his wrists and alternating which hand held the blaster so that he didn’t become too stiff to respond to new threats. It didn’t help matters that he was tired and starving. He stumbled on a loose cobblestone and almost lost control. He was forced to skid to a stop.
The encounter with Isak’s men still had his heart pounding in his chest. The deadly efficiency of killing and wounding multiple men with one blast made him wonder again how things would change if the use of blasters became widespread.
Melyah. The only chance we have of making it through all this is to arm everybody that can handle one of these infernal weapons. What would happen afterward once the Hunwei had been dealt with?
He snorted. Even though he pretty much knew this was mankind’s last hurrah, he couldn’t help but hope that this wasn’t the end. Hope, even in the face of insurmountable odds, was the one thing that kept him going.
Things could change. The darkest night always had a sunrise. That was why he needed the tablet. The forgotten weapons of their fathers brought hope.
As Adar and Kura drew closer to the Arches, he noticed without surprise the dead tended to be men. Every now and then, they stumbled across a woman. Most of them Kura passed without comment, but there had been several where she'd stopped, forgetting the dangers that lurked all about them.
It had been a struggle for Adar to not say something that he would later regret, but his patience was stretched to the limit. Enough time had passed that the lone survivor from their encounter before would have found Isak. Tere could be half a continent away by now. Erro might come charging at him again like a wild man, determined to kill or die trying.
Adar gritted his teeth, furious that so many different things were all going on at once. On any given day, handling one of these issues would have been plenty, but to have all of them forced upon him in the same hour? He must have done something to piss off one of the gods.
Or perhaps they were testing him to see if he would be worthy to handle an even worse task.
“Hurry,” Adar said, glancing back over his shoulder. Kura's eyes were red as she gripped her blaster in an almost challenging way.
 

Lord of the Inferno - Chapter Nine

This week’s episode features a chapter from Lord of the Inferno, Volume Two of War of the Fathers. War of the Fathers is available as a free ebook if you sign up for the Dan Decker Newsletter. Here is an excerpt from the show:
Once Neare and Erro disappeared, Adar retrieved the blasters from the dead Hunwei turncoats and ducked into the home. He didn’t want to leave them lying around for Neare—or anyone else—to pick up. Neare had left before the stress of the situation had given him a chance to think about what he was leaving behind. Once he did, he would realize he’d missed an opportunity to pick up a blaster or two.
On the second floor, Adar found a bedroom and stuffed the extra blasters underneath the bed, careful to lift the blasters over the dust on the wooden planks, so it wasn’t obvious that something had been placed there. He looked around the room, wondering if there might be a less obvious place, but nothing jumped out at him. An old dresser would have fit the weapons and a dark corner beside a desk as well, but he figured that they were all natural places to look if somebody came in here hoping to find something.
I better hope they don’t come back right away, Adar thought when he looked back at the trail of water he’d left on the wooden floor, I should have stopped to kick the rain off my boots. The wood was untreated and would hopefully absorb his tracks quickly, but that would be cold comfort if the next time Adar saw Erro was down the wrong end of a blaster.
Adar had never thought he’d be glad that most of the burned Hunwei destroyed their own blasters. It hadn’t been too difficult to figure out how to get them to work, and Adar didn’t doubt that Neare or Erro would be able to figure it out given enough time.
He hesitated and stared at the bed, wondering if he should bring another blaster with him. He was down to one working blaster plus a spare and having extras kept coming in handy.
So does that ridiculous looking dagger, if I’d known what that Ou Qui was giving me, I’d have given him gold coins and tried to buy some more. The Ou Qui’s shorts swords hadn’t been covered with the black tar-like residue, but Adar didn’t see any reason why a sword that had been similarly treated wouldn’t work just as well. He wouldn’t do something like that to his Radim sword, but he wouldn’t hesitate to do that to a cheaper weapon. 
He had tried to keep count of the number of shots he got from a blaster, but he’d been unable to be exact. From what he could tell, they all appeared to stop working at random times. One blaster, he’d been able to use for a greater number of shots, the next had been far fewer. Perhaps they all had the same capacity, and it depended on how many shots the previous owner had used. That was something to think about.
He went back downstairs. He still had two blasters and carrying the additional one while also lugging around his sword was already a bit much, not to mention adding a couple of more. He would just have to return for these when he could. 
Because Neare and Erro might be watching the front of the home, Adar returned out the back door and moved from there out towards the street. He didn’t want them to think to look in the home for the blasters.
Who am I trying to fool? He wondered. Chances are good they will stumble across a couple of dead Hunwei with working blasters anyway. How many did it take for me? Five? Ten? He didn’t like the idea of having to keep an eye out for Neare and Erro as well as Hunwei, turncoats, and Tere, but a man did what he had to do. Adar wouldn’t put it past Neare to ambush him, despite Neare’s conciliatory words to the contrary.
Adar paused before coming out into the open of the street to check either direction. He had thought that Erro and Neare would have already disappeared, but they were several blocks away, walking in the middle of the street. Erro had stopped struggling, and they were moving quickly.

Lord of the Inferno - Chapter Eight

This week’s episode features a chapter from Lord of the Inferno, Volume Two of War of the Fathers. War of the Fathers is available as a free ebook if you sign up for the Dan Decker Newsletter. Here is an excerpt from the show: 
Adar slid to a stop, wiping rainwater out of his eyes while gasping for breath as he put his back against the rough lumber of a shed. He brought up his blaster so it was ready in case Hunwei or turncoats or Tere stumbled into the backyard of the home he was cutting through.
The extra blasters Adar had slung over each shoulder cut into his back, and he eased up off the shed while still trying to take advantage of the lip of roof that stuck out overhead. It was the first opportunity he'd taken for shelter since killing the last turncoat, and the rain looked as though it was finally stopping anyway.
Figures, he thought. That's just about what I'd expect today. Now I just need a dozen or so turncoats to chase me and things will be right again.
Adar shook his head as he looked at the remains of several dead Hunwei. The tower had done its job well. He was more than a dozen blocks away from it and was continuing to find the burned out armored husks of the Hunwei.
He had no way of knowing the effective range of the tower. The further he got from the tower, the antsier he became. He hoped all of the actual Hunwei in the city had been killed, but he wasn't going to count on it.
The smell of charred flesh still hung heavy in the air and overpowered a nearby pigsty. The pig looked up at Adar and grunted pitifully. It's back was covered with water, mud, and bits of hay. The pen lacked even a rudimentary shelter. He figured the animal was typically kept in the shed at times like this. 
He would never have thought he’d prefer the smell of a pig manure over anything else, but he now found himself wishing for that unique sickly-sweet stench rather than the odor of the dead Hunwei. He'd hoped the smell wouldn't be as bad the further he moved from the tower, but from what he could tell, the distance hadn't made a difference. The smell was far better than having all the Hunwei alive, but that didn't make each breath any less unpleasant.
Movement at the corner of his eye drew his attention, he brought up his blaster.

Lord of the Inferno - Chapter Seven

This week’s episode features a chapter from Lord of the Inferno, Volume Two of War of the Fathers. War of the Fathers is available as a free ebook if you sign up for the Dan Decker Newsletter. Here is an excerpt from the show:
Neare and Erro’s path to the home had been blocked when a group of Hunwei marched through, herding people before them as if they’d been cattle. At that point, if it would have only been Neare, he would have ditched Thon and made a break for it. Instead, he and Erro had abruptly turned and gone the other way, dragging Thon behind them without regard to his condition. More than once Neare looked back over his shoulder, expecting that the Hunwei would be chasing after them, but he’d been surprised to see nothing of the sort.
Neare had lost count of the homes and streets they’d passed while they’d dragged the man away as fast as they could. At one point, he’d checked on Thon and decided that they were rescuing a corpse. Thon’s head hung, bouncing around whenever they dragged him over a rough stone, or one of them lost a grip on his hand.
Pulling to a stop, Neare had been about to prevail on Erro that Thon was dead when the man had moved, coughing and muttering something that Neare had been unable to hear.
Biting off a curse, Neare saw that they were alone and headed towards the closest structure, which turned out to be another home. It was made of red brick. A wooden bench on the porch had been smashed. Neare envisioned a Hunwei falling on it and figured that he wasn’t too far wrong. The door had been busted off the hinges and flung across the room.
He relaxed even further when he saw the disarray of the sitting and dining  rooms. The Hunwei weren’t going to walk past this house and think they needed to check it out again. Chairs were overturned, windows had been broken, and a bookshelf had been pulled to the floor. A fire burned on the hearth of the dining room, but it was low and hadn’t been tended to in some time.
A table not far from the fire had miraculously survived through all the rest of the damage. Neare considered placing Thon there until he looked down at the bleeding man and realized that even if he and Erro could lift him, his weight might break the table legs.
“Quick,” Neare said once they’d pulled Thon off to the side and out of view of the doorway. “Scour the house for anything we can use as a bandage.” Erro opened his mouth, but Neare stopped him with a growl. “Just go. Anything will do.”

Lord of the Inferno - Chapter Six

This week’s episode features a chapter from Lord of the Inferno, Volume Two of War of the Fathers. War of the Fathers is available as a free ebook if you sign up for the Dan Decker Newsletter. Here is an excerpt from the show: 
The woman rolled over towards the short man, tossed her head to move her blonde hair out of her face, and kicked her bound bare feet into his groin. He clutched at his crotch, screaming as he doubled over.
She squirmed up into a sitting position. A bruise was starting to form on her cheek and Adar had caught a glance of a bloody leg underneath her dress when she had made contact with the short man. She scowled and yelled something Adar didn't understand.
Adar stepped back from the bed and hoped that the woman didn't try to attack him as well. She might be afraid that he had saved her while planning to take her for himself. That sort of thing was known to happen, and any careful woman knew to expect it. Distance should discourage any fear she might have of that possibility.
He turned to the door as it swung open.
So much for hoping to have the situation resolved before the turncoats found me, Adar thought, as he pulled up his blaster and pointed it at the Hunwei turncoat in the doorway. The human eyes stared back at them through the visor of the Hunwei helmet. The turncoat's blaster was pointed at Adar.
Adar pulled the trigger of his own blaster while dodging to the side. He should not have bothered. The Hunwei had been focusing on the woman with a hungry look in his eyes and now looked down in surprise when the blast tore through his abdomen. A scream escaped from the man's lips, and he grabbed at the spot where he'd been hit, his gloved hand unable to cover the large hole that had formed there.
It was the first noise that Adar had heard come from a turncoat that sounded human.

Lord of the Inferno - Chapter Five

This week’s episode features a chapter from Lord of the Inferno, Volume Two of War of the Fathers. War of the Fathers is available as a free ebook if you sign up for the Dan Decker Newsletter. Here is an excerpt from the show:
Adar must have surprised the Hunwei turncoats when he stood up wielding one of their own blasters because all three of them froze. They weren't used to people that fought back, much less those that used their own weapons against them. From where Adar stood, he could make out the body of the last turncoat that he’d shot. The blast had taken the man in the head and then moved through the top of his back. The ghastly sight caused a small whisper of remorse that he pushed out of his mind. It wasn't his fault the Hunwei had raised a generation of humans who fought for them.
It wasn’t the fault of the turncoats either.
Raindrops hit his face as he looked back at the Hunwei turncoats, blinking through water that trickled down his forehead and into his eyes. It hadn’t been raining before he’d come out of the alley. It must have started right after he spotted the turncoats. The action had kept him from noticing the rain, and he was surprised to realize that he was already quite wet.
The all too human eyes that stared back at him from the alien armor caused him to growl quietly. It was wrong, very wrong that he was fighting humans that were armed like Hunwei. The moment lasted for several heartbeats as they all stood looking at one another. In the next, everybody moved.
“Bloody Melyah!” Adar muttered as he twisted, running for the closest building, a two-story home that was less than ten feet away. He ground his teeth when he realized all of this was getting in the way of him catching up to Tere. The hesitation of the turncoats was gone, and blasts from their weapons tore through the spot where he'd been mere moments before. One of the Hunwei must have anticipated where Adar was heading because a blast flew right by his face, the heat of it burning his nostrils.

Lord of the Inferno - Chapter Four

This week’s episode features a chapter from Lord of the Inferno, Volume Two of War of the Fathers. War of the Fathers is available as a free ebook if you sign up for the Dan Decker Newsletter. Here is an excerpt from the show:  
Soret cried out when the doorway of the arch reappeared, cutting her off from her father, Barc. The door had opened out into an alley in Zecarani, now it was just a wall of brick.
Even though the Hunwei had been rushing towards the door moments before, she tried to push towards the arch. She intended to learn if swiping her thumb across the top would open the door for her. She couldn't just leave her father behind without trying something.
Karn got to her first and held her back.
“What are you doing?” Karn was usually a quiet and even-tempered man, but his voice was strained and had an edge to it. His tone gave her pause. “Have you lost all sense? Or just gone suicidal?” His voice rose as he spoke and while it barely approached above a loud conversation for somebody else, for him, it was as good as yelling.
“My father’s out there still!” Soret said. “We have to get him.” Even as the words left her mouth, she realized the futility of what she was saying. The Hunwei would be on the other side of the doorway now, trying to figure out how to get to them. There hadn’t been much space in the rock where the door had been located on the Zecarani side, so she supposed that they were miles away by now, if not on the other side of the earth.
Or in the middle of it, she thought.
She shivered, goose flesh running up and down her arms as a cold sweat broke out all over her body.
“The man that stabbed Jorad in the back. That was your father?” The disdain in Karn’s voice was evident, and she arched her neck, intending to stand up for her father. Barc had been in a difficult position. It killed her that despite Jorad’s actions, she had had no other choice but to stick close to him because of the Hunwei. She’d tried to get her father to see reason but hadn’t been able to prevail.
Karn stared down at her, and she became afraid that he would hurt her. His stoic face was pulled back in a small frown, and his eyes had narrowed slightly. He held her gaze, his jaw working.
Your precious Jorad just killed two boys I grew up with, she thought, but couldn’t force herself to say.

Lord of the Inferno - Chapter Three

This week’s episode features a chapter from Lord of the Inferno, Volume Two of War of the Fathers. War of the Fathers is available as a free ebook if you sign up for the Dan Decker Newsletter. Here is an excerpt from the show: 
Adar let out a sigh as he left the dead Hunwei turncoat, he had waited until the boy had stopped breathing before turning away. When his eyes rested on a nearby group of Ou Qui, he frowned. He had entered into a truce with one of the Ou Qui chiefs, but he wasn't certain the truce extended to the other Ou Qui tribes.
As they disappeared, he wondered if all the Ou Qui here in Zecarani represented just one tribe or many. He was hesitant to approach them because it was difficult to predict how they would react.
He was glad they were more concerned with killing the Hunwei than doing anything else. Based on what he knew of them, if the Ou Qui wouldn't have had the Hunwei to deal with, they would have been fighting one another.
He tried to locate an Ou Qui chief, but their method of disguise left little with which to distinguish them.
They all looked like walking bushes.
There were some subtle differences in their camouflage, but he wasn't sure if it meant anything. Markings on a face here, feathers on hands there. It was probably clear as day to the Ou Qui, but he couldn't make any sense of it. He made as if to head over to the closest group but came to a stop when he saw they were now heading the opposite direction. He considered trying to catch up to another group, but it was preparing to leave as well.
As he looked over the grounds, he realized there wasn't a metalman in sight. He had only seen them when they'd hurled themselves off the roof of the town hall, but he'd been too preoccupied at the time to spend much time studying them. What he wouldn't have done to get a closer look. It annoyed him to think that the Ou Qui had had metalmen in their midst all this time.
He shook his head and hoped that the forgotten secrets of their fathers would be enough to defeat the Hunwei, or at least, make them leave again. Assuming they could figure all of the secrets out, of course.
He didn't go far before he stopped to collect another blaster from the remains of several dead Hunwei and was surprised that he could see blackened skulls inside of their helmets. He had expected that at the temperature the Hunwei had been burning there would be nothing left. He hadn't been able to come within twenty feet of them when they had been on fire.
It was a wonder the Hunwei armor appeared to be unaffected, but that might have just been an illusion caused by its dark color. When he had a chance, he would see if the armor had maintained its integrity. It wasn't a good time investigate because he could still feel the heat emanating from the armor as he leaned over one of the bodies.
The Hunwei's blaster was underneath the remains, and it broke in half when Adar tried to kick it free. The place where it had been touching the Hunwei had melted. The blaster of the other Hunwei had melted as well and was almost unrecognizable.
Cursing, Adar moved to the next group of dead Hunwei and went from body to body until he finally found a blaster that had fallen far enough from its owner that it hadn't been destroyed.