The Alorian Wars
Books 1-5 Plus a Prequel Novella
Drew Avera
Copyright © 2019 by Drew Avera
All rights reserved.
www.drewavera.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
ORBITAL DECAY
1. Deis
2. Crase
3. Malikea
4. Crase
5. Deis
6. Crase
7. Malikea
Epilogue: Neular
BROKEN WORLDS
1. Anki
2. Brendle
3. Anki
4. Brendle
5. Anki
6. Brendle
7. Anki
8. Brendle
9. Anki
10. Brendle
11. Anki
12. Brendle
13. Anki
14. Brendle
15. Anki
16. Brendle
17. Anki
18. Brendle
19. Anki
20. Brendle
21. Anki
22. Brendle
23. Anki
24. Brendle
25. Anki
26. Brendle
27. Anki
28. Brendle
Epilogue: Anki
DEADLY REFUGE
1. Crase
2. Anki
3. Crase
4. Anki
5. Malikea
6. Crase
7. Anki
8. Brendle
9. Crase
10. Anki
11. Crase
12. Brendle
13. Anki
14. Crase
15. Malikea
16. Crase
17. Anki
18. Crase
19. Malikea
20. Anki
21. Crase
22. Brendle
23. Malikea
24. Crase
25. Brendle
26. Crase
27. Anki
28. Brendle
Epilogue: Ilium
MUTINY RISING
1. Ilium
2. Anki
3. Carista
4. Ilium
5. Brendle
6. Deis
7. Ilium
8. Deis
9. Anki
10. Ilium
11. Deis
12. Brendle
13. Anki
14. Ilium
15. Carista
16. Deis
17. Anki
18. Ilium
19. Deis
20. Brendle
21. Anki
22. Ilium
23. Anki
24. Brendle
25. Ilium
Epilogue: T'anoi
SHADOW EMPIRE
1. Ilium
2. Hespha
3. Anki
4. Ilium
5. Brendle
6. Hespha
7. Anki
8. Ilium
9. Brendle
10. Hespha
11. Anki
12. Ilium
13. Brendle
14. Hespha
15. Anki
16. Ilium
17. Brendle
18. Hespha
19. Anki
20. Ilium
21. Brendle
22. Anki
23. Hespha
24. Ilium
25. Brendle
26. Anki
27. Hespha
28. Ilium
29. Brendle
30. Anki
31. Hespha
32. Ilium
33. Brendle
34. Anki
35. Hespha
36. Ilium
37. Brendle
38. Hespha
39. Ilium
40. Brendle
41. Ilium
42. Hespha
43. Ilium
44. Brendle
45. Ilium
46. Hespha
47. Ilium
48. Brendle
Epilogue: Hathlene
REGIME CHANGE
1. Gen-Taiku
2. Brendle
3. Crase
4. Ilium
5. Gen-Taiku
6. Brendle
7. Crase
8. Brendle
9. Gen-Taiku
10. Brendle
11. Ilium
12. Crase
13. Gen-Taiku
14. Brendle
15. Ilium
16. Crase
17. Gen-Taiku
18. Brendle
19. Ilium
20. Gen-Taiku
21. Brendle
22. Ilium
23. Crase
24. Gen-Taiku
25. Brendle
26. Ilium
27. Crase
28. Gen-Taiku
29. Brendle
30. Ilium
31. Crase
32. Gen-Taiku
33. Brendle
34. Ilium
35. Crase
36. Gen-Taiku
37. Brendle
38. Crase
Epilogue: Emperor Direla
Next in the Alorian Wars
About Drew Avera
Also by Drew Avera
ORBITAL DECAY
1
Deis
The howling echoes of torture reverberated through the corridors of Lechushe’ as Deis’s eyes flittered in and out of consciousness while two guards dragged his dangling body back to his cell. For weeks he endured pain and suffering at the hands of uncaring men seeking financial reward for his eventual slavery. Deis wanted to die, but instead, he held onto hope that one day he and his husband, Malikea, would be saved.
But hope was a mockery, and he spat on the notion of faith despite his upbringing into the priesthood.
“Open block eighteen,” one of the guards said, his voice muffled by the mask on his dark face. In Deis’s nightmare, the mask was a representation of the demonic beings torturing him daily. But being awake did little to mar the wicked portrayals which haunted his dreams. These were not men, they were Kelah Wa: demons.
The clanking sound of metal shifting slowly on rusted rollers filled Deis’s ears. The screeching resonance pierced into his mind as the ritual of his return from the daily meeting ended. Before him lay two more of his kind: his husband, Malikea, and their cellmate, Neular. Malikea looked as battered as Deis felt, but Neular squatted in the corner, fear fixing his face into a grim, pale stupor. He was next, and he knew it.
The guards dropped Deis unceremoniously to the ground. His head landed hard on the stone floor, the metallic taste in his mouth returning, along with the familiar sense of nausea he’d grown accustomed to through the beatings he endured at the hands of faceless aggressors.
“Let’s go,” a guard said, as he reached down and grabbed Neular by the arm. The gray man clawed at his oppressor, his voice raspy as he screamed incoherently. Deis looked at his cellmate, their eyes locking momentarily in mutual pain; the one coming and the one going.
“Just knock him out and let’s go,” the other guard said, handing a baton to the one struggling with his prisoner. “The boss doesn’t care what condition we bring him in anymore. He’s too sickly to be sold, anyhow.”
The dismissive tone of the man’s voice was not lost on Deis. He knew the chains of slavery awaited them all, or death. It appeared for Neular, it would be the later.
The dull thud of a baton striking Neular
filled the small prison cell, further causing the bile in Deis stomach to reach his throat. The sound of the strike was less of a knock and more of a soggy thud and Deis knew they fractured his friend’s skull with the blow. Gods help us, he thought before feeling ashamed to call upon his dying faith.
“I told you, it’s easier this way,” the guard said as they reached down to grab Neular’s arms and drag his limp body across the stone floor and out of the cell where Deis and Malikea were left in darkness. For the first time in Deis’s life, darkness was a welcomed retreat from reality.
In the quiet, he felt a hand touch his. He did not have to turn his head to know it was his husband meekly taking hold of him. “How bad was it?”
Deis fought back a choke as he heard the fragile sound of his lover’s voice. “Worse than yesterday,” he answered, not wanting to embellish, but refusing to lie.
“Same,“ Malikea replied, his voice sounding more like a groan than anything else.
“Someone will come for us,” Deis said, breaking his resolve to not lie. Without hope, what do we have?
“No one knows we’re here,” Malikea said, but not accusingly. At least not to Deis’s ears. Though he doubted either of them had the energy to argue.
“Maybe a miracle will happen then,” Deis said after a moment, but he noticed a sound coming from Malikea before he could improvise a story. That sound was his husband choking on something and the iron scent of blood wafting in the air around them.
“Mal,” Deis said, the urgent sound no more than a whispered moan as he struggled to shift his body closer to Malikea. He struggled to turn the other man’s body, to allow an unobstructed airway through which Malikea could breathe, but the man was too heavy. Crying through pain, Deis forced himself onto his knees, trying to leverage as much strength as he could to help his love. “Mal, I’m here, just help me turn you over,” he pleaded as the sharp stone dug into his knees while he fought to roll the choking man. But Malikea was not responsive.
“Mal!” Deis screamed, his voice cracking as his body strained to lift his husband’s upper body and get him into a position so he could breathe again. Deis cleared Malikea’s throat and squeezed him tightly, trying to support the weight as best he could to keep from dropping him. “Come back to me,” he whispered.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Malikea croaked. His voice was weak, but present, and Deis let out a sigh of relief as he held his husband in the dark hell they were forced to endure.
“Thank the gods,” Deis said, lightly kissing the side of Malikea’s face as he rocked back and forth, grimacing from the pain of sharp rock digging into his ashy flesh. “Thank the gods.”
Malikea lifted a hand to Deis’s, where it sat under his chest and he whispered, “The gods had nothing to do with this.”
I know, Deis thought, but he couldn’t bring himself to utter the words out loud. “Just rest,” he replied as time ticked slowly on, drawing them closer to eventual death.
“Deis?”
“Yes?”
“I wish we had never come home.”
Deis drew in a deep breath, having thought the same since their capture but not wanting to say it. There are too many things left unsaid, but I haven’t the energy to vocalize them. “This isn’t home—this is hell.”
Deis felt Malikea chortle ever so softly. “It is, isn’t it?”
In the cells around them, Deis heard the crying and wailing of the others captured by their anonymous oppressors. The sounds of women and children suffering caused his heart to beat rapidly and his anger to swell. Despite his weakened state, his capacity for rage grew uninhibited. “We have to get out of here,” he said, his voice low.
“But no one is coming for us, Deis. We cannot escape unarmed.”
Deis’s eyes narrowed and the small pinholes in the cell door allowed enough fragmented light to come into the cell for him to make out his husbands face as he looked longingly up at him. ‘We must make our own way,” he replied.
“How?”
“We fight when the guards return.”
“We’ve tried that,” Malikea said, desperation painting his words into a tearful plea.
We fight until we die, Deis thought coldly, but his husband shivering in his arms drew his attention away from the darkness of his mind. “Are you all right?”
“I will be,” Malikea answered, “once we get out of here.”
Deis felt his pride swell as his husband agreed with his undefined plan. “As soon as we hear the footsteps approach,” he said, “get ready to attack the guard closest to you. We may not get another chance.” Deis felt a pain in the back of his head and touched it with a shaky hand, pulling it back warm and sticky.
“What’s the matter?”
Deis looked on, wide eyed as the blood oozed down his arm. “I’m bleeding, and I hadn’t noticed until now.”
Malikea sat up with his own strength and looked at Deis with a worried expression. “How bad?”
Deis showed his hand to his husband as his vision blurred. “Oh, no,” he said, slumping forward, his head barely missing the floor before Malikea stopped it.
“Deis, stay with me now,” Malikea said, holding Deis’s head in his hands as blood seeped from a spot just behind where the reddish phoenix tattoo on his head came to an end. The phoenix was a symbol of their people, rising from the ashes of destruction into a new existence and prosperity. An ideal that did not match their current predicament. If anything, they felt closer to extinction than ever before.
Deis lay motionless, his breathing shallow as Malikea watched over him, his yellow eyes straining to see in the dim lighting of their prison. Malikea hummed a soft tune from their first meeting in the ceremonial court. It was where he first met his betrothed and, despite the arranged marriage, eventually fell in love with him. As was the tradition, they wed in that court as well, but it was the song playing softly on the night of their initial meeting that he now gave a melancholy tone. It was the only thing he found comfort in after their capture. That and the warm touch of his husband when they had the strength to endure another day.
A tear ran down Malikea’s face as he watched his husband shudder. He knew the pain his love felt, but what were they to do when their oppressors were armed and dangerous? Lechuns were a peaceful people, not reared in the ideals of war. The battlefields of their world were developed by foreigners, traipsing the dirt of their planets with unholy indignity. Blood spilled on their planet was a disgrace to their gods, yet their gods did nothing to protect them. It was enough to make anyone lose faith, much less a man wed to a priest who was raised to uphold the teachings of their faith and display it for the next generation. If a priest was targeted and unprotected by the gods, then what of the faithful they served?
“Deis?”
“Yes?”
“I’m just making sure you are still with me.”
”Where would I go?”
Malikea grimaced as he considered the answer to that question. Death was not what he welcomed, but then, neither were the men holding them captive. It seemed to Malikea that life was beyond their control. He feared their crisis of faith might be to blame. “Why don’t you rest, and I’ll keep watch over you?”
“And who will keep watch over you, my love?”
“The gods,” Malikea answered coldly, not allowing himself to believe it because a god who would allow this to happen to them was not benevolent but a traitor to those who loved them.
“I’m afraid the gods are dead,” Deis said.
Better them than us, Malikea thought before trying to shake the idea from his head, but it wasn’t going anywhere.
2