Post by tyroctar on May 22, 2010 0:48:58 GMT -5
This is a short summary (kind of a backcover idea) and the prologue for a speculative novel I have been stewing on. I don't anything more than the prologue done considering I haven't done any character work, I just had a nifty idea. Plot, cool ideas, and a scary monster but no Characters to enjoy it with. Wah wah. Oh well, please read, critique, and enjoy to your heart's content. - Tyroctar
Abaddon:
Vengeance Rising
Terror strikes the Middle East. A killer ravages the region leaving a nothing but death in its wake. Its victims. Muslim Extremists bent on the elimination of Israel. No counter-terrorism unit takes credit for the gruesome assassinations. The Islamic nations are up in arms and their defenses on high alert. But nothing can stop this killer. With every kill more questions than answers rise from the shadows. Everything except its name. Abaddon. Written in blood at every kill.
Archaeologist Steven Kant barely remembers the events surrounding the suicide bombing near the temple mount that killed many of his team and his old mentor. But Kant remembers enough about the site. Kant fears he may know more about this killer then he may care too. In fact, he fears he may have unleashed it.
Kant tries to piece together the events of the bombing and the event directly after, lost in a dusty haze. While he does, Abaddon is killing the men responsible for the bloody attack. His trail is clear, heading for the very heart of Islam. But none can find him. None can stop him. Kant is dragged into the hunt by the Israeli government who is being blamed for the assassinations. What Kant finds in his search is bloody tale of revenge, involving not only Israel and Islam, but Egypt, even the heart of Europe. A tale of a vengeful killer that covers 4,000 years of Jewish history.
Prologue
The sand of the desert radiated a cruel, oppressive heat. Neferhotep kept moving iron shod foot after iron shod foot. The iron however had turned to an oven because of the deadly sun and the blazing sand. The flesh of feet was slowly being baked in his military boots. To stop was certain death and to remove the boots was to sentence his feet to a miles long walk on an endless landscape of burning coals. The nearest city was a day’s chariot ride from the sea.
Neferhotep removed his gold breastplate, shaped like outspread eagle wings, and dropped the hot metal to the sand. Neferhotep squinted at the endless sea of sand just as deadly as the sea that had swallowed his magnificent Egyptian army. Neferhotep had been lucky. His army refused to let their mighty pharaoh, their god in the flesh, to pursue the rabid Hebrew dogs into the Red Sea, torn through the middle by the power of the gods. Neferhotep followed shortly after to only be caught in the horror of the ensuing cascade.
His chariot, along with his finest steeds, sank to the bottom, as if dragged by a beast with an unquenchable hunger lying in the crushing depths. Neferhotep swam with his all his strength, fighting the spirit of the sea, seemingly lost in a wrath beyond the turmoil of the gods. Neferhotep had learned to swim in the Nile in his childhood, and understood the rage water could unleash, but never before had he faced such a maelstrom. The Red Sea seemed to churn with a deep set rage focused on Neferhotep and his obstinacy.
Hadn’t Moses warned them? Warned him? Let his people go or face the wrath of the Hebrew God. Neferhotep had been assured by his priests that the gods of Egypt were far mightier than this Yahweh from the desert. They copied the snakes and imitated the blood of the Nile. Moses and his brother however had the power to defy them all. The boils, the frogs, the locust, the darkness, the fire from heaven, the Destroyer…
Neferhotep kept marching, wondering, with every excruciating step, who had failed him. What had failed him? Neferhotep, the morning and the evening star, the descendant of the gods, formerly the most powerful man in the world, now lost in the desert. His army wiped away in the sea behind and a country decimated by the hand of the Hebrew God before.
A high shriek startled Neferhotep and a shadow swept overhead. Vultures. So Anubis’s servants have come to take me home. To disgrace amongst my fathers…
It must have been the gods. They must have failed. Or the priests. They told me Ra and his brethren could not be dethroned by a lonely God. The high priest of Ra would pay dearly for this. Yes, the blood of his eldest son will not be enough for his failure; no it would be the blood of his whole family spilled upon Ra’s altar.
Neferhotep stumbled, falling into a roll down a sand dune. Neferhotep rose slowly, despite the scorching sand that burned at his skin. As he rose, his fingers wrapped around a loose gold necklace. The necklace bore the six-sided symbol of the Hebrews.
Moses.
Neferhotep’s anger swelled at the name. It was him! It was their fault! Those wretched, filthy people. Those Hebrews.
“Moses!” Neferhotep roared at the isolation of the desert, the circling vultures his only audience. “I will never forgive this! I will rise up again. I, Neferhotep, Pharaoh, the Morning and the Evening Star, will rise again like Ra at every new day. I will rise up a new army and I will hunt down you filthy Hebrews. Slavery will be too good for you then. Instead I will slaughter you all until the kingdom of Israel will be no longer draw breath and your God be humbled before the gods of Egypt!
I am Pharaoh and I will never let your people go!” Neferhotep turned away from the sun. He was going to bask in Ra’s silhouette as he made his last declaration, let the Hebrew God hear him and tremble.
“Yahweh! God of the Hebrews! Here this now you beast of the Divine! I will not bow to your power. The annals of heaven will not record you or your people. No only the legend of your fall at the hand of the Egyptian gods and their appointed Pharaoh!”
Neferhotep stood strong, resolute. He continued on with the boldness of a conqueror marching through a field of victory gloating over the bodies of the slain. He could see the slain bodies of Hebrews, smell the blood saturating the desert sand. He devoured the visions of merciless revenge, the fluid red blood flowing from Moses’ throat over Neferhotep’s mighty hand. The smoke of Hebrew bodies burning in tribute to the Egyptian deities who Neferhotep was sure were just as disgraced at he was.
Yes, he would destroy them. Destroy every last filthy one of the Hebrews. Moses had once been his brother, but it mattered no more than the bleating of a dying lamb mattered to a lioness.
A shriek, far fiercer and deeper than the vultures, pierced the air.
Neferhotep spun around only to have Ra’s fire blind him. His hands went up to block the sun. Pain ripped through his chest. Red blood made it slick. Neferhotep voice broke into a ragged yell. A rushing noise filled his ears and darkness covered his eyes.
The shriek tore through Neferhotep again, this time slashing through his calves. Neferhotep buckled, screaming in pain. His cries drowned out the noise of his attacker striking the sand dune to Neferhotep’s right.
Neferhotep had no weapons, all swallowed by the sea. His legs were useless. His chest tightened in pain. Breaths heaved into his lungs. His attacker came into his view.
By the gods…
Neferhotep was awestruck. He recognized the creature before him. A sphinx.
No. Not a sphinx. It was different, similar in a strange away, but different.
Neferhotep could see his blood on its fore claws and slowly turning the sand below him red. His eyes came to meet the creature’s own ebony eyes. What was this creature? What god did it serve? He recognized the parts of several different creatures but he just couldn’t—
“Abaddon.”
Neferhotep gasped. The creature’s voice growled from its throat like a lion. The long curved beak never moved. The words simply projected. Were the gods using this creature to speak to him? If so, with the blood flowing from his wounds, he greatly feared what the final message was going to be. “Abaddon? Is that what I call you?”
“No. You. Abaddon.” The creature opened its mouth in a large enough gape to take Neferhotep’s head in it.
“I…” Neferhotep choked on the blood filling his lungs now. “What is Abaddon?”
“You. Neferhotep. You. Abaddon.” The creature answered with a croak. Its glossy, ebony eyes never blinked.
“Why have you done this to me?” Blood drooled from
Neferhotep’s mouth. The strength was sapped from his veins; he could barely stay upright in his kneeling position before the creature.
It stared, and finally blinked, just once, the center of its ebony eyes lighting with a fearsome red glow as if they were coals taken from the center of Ra’s heart. It emanated one final word, so deep; Neferhotep could feel it rattle his chest before it lunged.
“Vengeance.”
The vultures landed to eradicate the beheaded corpse.
Abaddon:
Vengeance Rising
Terror strikes the Middle East. A killer ravages the region leaving a nothing but death in its wake. Its victims. Muslim Extremists bent on the elimination of Israel. No counter-terrorism unit takes credit for the gruesome assassinations. The Islamic nations are up in arms and their defenses on high alert. But nothing can stop this killer. With every kill more questions than answers rise from the shadows. Everything except its name. Abaddon. Written in blood at every kill.
Archaeologist Steven Kant barely remembers the events surrounding the suicide bombing near the temple mount that killed many of his team and his old mentor. But Kant remembers enough about the site. Kant fears he may know more about this killer then he may care too. In fact, he fears he may have unleashed it.
Kant tries to piece together the events of the bombing and the event directly after, lost in a dusty haze. While he does, Abaddon is killing the men responsible for the bloody attack. His trail is clear, heading for the very heart of Islam. But none can find him. None can stop him. Kant is dragged into the hunt by the Israeli government who is being blamed for the assassinations. What Kant finds in his search is bloody tale of revenge, involving not only Israel and Islam, but Egypt, even the heart of Europe. A tale of a vengeful killer that covers 4,000 years of Jewish history.
Prologue
The sand of the desert radiated a cruel, oppressive heat. Neferhotep kept moving iron shod foot after iron shod foot. The iron however had turned to an oven because of the deadly sun and the blazing sand. The flesh of feet was slowly being baked in his military boots. To stop was certain death and to remove the boots was to sentence his feet to a miles long walk on an endless landscape of burning coals. The nearest city was a day’s chariot ride from the sea.
Neferhotep removed his gold breastplate, shaped like outspread eagle wings, and dropped the hot metal to the sand. Neferhotep squinted at the endless sea of sand just as deadly as the sea that had swallowed his magnificent Egyptian army. Neferhotep had been lucky. His army refused to let their mighty pharaoh, their god in the flesh, to pursue the rabid Hebrew dogs into the Red Sea, torn through the middle by the power of the gods. Neferhotep followed shortly after to only be caught in the horror of the ensuing cascade.
His chariot, along with his finest steeds, sank to the bottom, as if dragged by a beast with an unquenchable hunger lying in the crushing depths. Neferhotep swam with his all his strength, fighting the spirit of the sea, seemingly lost in a wrath beyond the turmoil of the gods. Neferhotep had learned to swim in the Nile in his childhood, and understood the rage water could unleash, but never before had he faced such a maelstrom. The Red Sea seemed to churn with a deep set rage focused on Neferhotep and his obstinacy.
Hadn’t Moses warned them? Warned him? Let his people go or face the wrath of the Hebrew God. Neferhotep had been assured by his priests that the gods of Egypt were far mightier than this Yahweh from the desert. They copied the snakes and imitated the blood of the Nile. Moses and his brother however had the power to defy them all. The boils, the frogs, the locust, the darkness, the fire from heaven, the Destroyer…
Neferhotep kept marching, wondering, with every excruciating step, who had failed him. What had failed him? Neferhotep, the morning and the evening star, the descendant of the gods, formerly the most powerful man in the world, now lost in the desert. His army wiped away in the sea behind and a country decimated by the hand of the Hebrew God before.
A high shriek startled Neferhotep and a shadow swept overhead. Vultures. So Anubis’s servants have come to take me home. To disgrace amongst my fathers…
It must have been the gods. They must have failed. Or the priests. They told me Ra and his brethren could not be dethroned by a lonely God. The high priest of Ra would pay dearly for this. Yes, the blood of his eldest son will not be enough for his failure; no it would be the blood of his whole family spilled upon Ra’s altar.
Neferhotep stumbled, falling into a roll down a sand dune. Neferhotep rose slowly, despite the scorching sand that burned at his skin. As he rose, his fingers wrapped around a loose gold necklace. The necklace bore the six-sided symbol of the Hebrews.
Moses.
Neferhotep’s anger swelled at the name. It was him! It was their fault! Those wretched, filthy people. Those Hebrews.
“Moses!” Neferhotep roared at the isolation of the desert, the circling vultures his only audience. “I will never forgive this! I will rise up again. I, Neferhotep, Pharaoh, the Morning and the Evening Star, will rise again like Ra at every new day. I will rise up a new army and I will hunt down you filthy Hebrews. Slavery will be too good for you then. Instead I will slaughter you all until the kingdom of Israel will be no longer draw breath and your God be humbled before the gods of Egypt!
I am Pharaoh and I will never let your people go!” Neferhotep turned away from the sun. He was going to bask in Ra’s silhouette as he made his last declaration, let the Hebrew God hear him and tremble.
“Yahweh! God of the Hebrews! Here this now you beast of the Divine! I will not bow to your power. The annals of heaven will not record you or your people. No only the legend of your fall at the hand of the Egyptian gods and their appointed Pharaoh!”
Neferhotep stood strong, resolute. He continued on with the boldness of a conqueror marching through a field of victory gloating over the bodies of the slain. He could see the slain bodies of Hebrews, smell the blood saturating the desert sand. He devoured the visions of merciless revenge, the fluid red blood flowing from Moses’ throat over Neferhotep’s mighty hand. The smoke of Hebrew bodies burning in tribute to the Egyptian deities who Neferhotep was sure were just as disgraced at he was.
Yes, he would destroy them. Destroy every last filthy one of the Hebrews. Moses had once been his brother, but it mattered no more than the bleating of a dying lamb mattered to a lioness.
A shriek, far fiercer and deeper than the vultures, pierced the air.
Neferhotep spun around only to have Ra’s fire blind him. His hands went up to block the sun. Pain ripped through his chest. Red blood made it slick. Neferhotep voice broke into a ragged yell. A rushing noise filled his ears and darkness covered his eyes.
The shriek tore through Neferhotep again, this time slashing through his calves. Neferhotep buckled, screaming in pain. His cries drowned out the noise of his attacker striking the sand dune to Neferhotep’s right.
Neferhotep had no weapons, all swallowed by the sea. His legs were useless. His chest tightened in pain. Breaths heaved into his lungs. His attacker came into his view.
By the gods…
Neferhotep was awestruck. He recognized the creature before him. A sphinx.
No. Not a sphinx. It was different, similar in a strange away, but different.
Neferhotep could see his blood on its fore claws and slowly turning the sand below him red. His eyes came to meet the creature’s own ebony eyes. What was this creature? What god did it serve? He recognized the parts of several different creatures but he just couldn’t—
“Abaddon.”
Neferhotep gasped. The creature’s voice growled from its throat like a lion. The long curved beak never moved. The words simply projected. Were the gods using this creature to speak to him? If so, with the blood flowing from his wounds, he greatly feared what the final message was going to be. “Abaddon? Is that what I call you?”
“No. You. Abaddon.” The creature opened its mouth in a large enough gape to take Neferhotep’s head in it.
“I…” Neferhotep choked on the blood filling his lungs now. “What is Abaddon?”
“You. Neferhotep. You. Abaddon.” The creature answered with a croak. Its glossy, ebony eyes never blinked.
“Why have you done this to me?” Blood drooled from
Neferhotep’s mouth. The strength was sapped from his veins; he could barely stay upright in his kneeling position before the creature.
It stared, and finally blinked, just once, the center of its ebony eyes lighting with a fearsome red glow as if they were coals taken from the center of Ra’s heart. It emanated one final word, so deep; Neferhotep could feel it rattle his chest before it lunged.
“Vengeance.”
The vultures landed to eradicate the beheaded corpse.
