After the Storm: The Assonans Book Two

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: 1 (800) 839-8640

© 2020 Jerome D. Kerns. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/07/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-4377-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-4376-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020901447

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty - One

Chapter Twenty - Two

Chapter Twenty - Three

Chapter Twenty - Four

Chapter Twenty - Five

Chapter Twenty - Six

Chapter Twenty - Seven

Chapter Twenty - Eight

Chapter Twenty - Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty - One

Chapter Thirty - Two

Chapter Thirty - Three

PROLOGUE

T he great ponderous ship floated high above dark grey and black clouds that were hundreds of miles across.

Captain Straaf Norlund was once again piloting the scientists’ ship Garian Explorer, and every monitor aboard showed the same basic scene. Behind them, before them, to both sides, massive roiling storm clouds with flash after flash of lightning, some parallel to the ship, but most reaching downward, disappearing out of sight to rake the ground far below, where the humans could not see the devastation.

Remembering the last of the three storms they had been caught in before, while based on the surface of the planet they knew nominally as Assona, and some of the ones that their old home, the planet Earth had suffered, they could readily see that this one was far worse.

There was not, however, any similarity to hurricane or cyclone, no swirling light grey clouds, no central eye, just terribly huge, menacing storm clouds that had slowly flowed over the north pole to devastate the western hemisphere, as they had designated the area where they had settled in their silver shuttle, and had roamed outward from, mostly with three atomic-powered rovers.

One of these, though, had failed catastrophically, they had had to abandon it after towing it on the longest cable and rope combination they could rig up, and letting it roll down into a bog, away from the camp and any of the Assonans’ trails or buildings.

While Bill Chalk was still in the autodoc with very serious radiation burns and poisoning.

Nadine Simpson was now out, but still required regular treatments, from where she had handled Bill, dragging him away from the afflicted machine, saving him from even worse danger.

In some areas, near the edge of the flooding, they observed faint diffused glows, mostly greens and pinks, here and there. This was attributed to bio-luminescence from phosphorous and possible other natural chemicals of compositions unfamiliar to their earthly science. But they also noted a fair number of pin points of yellow light, very likely camp fires or such, indicating more sentient life, if not, indeed, other civilizations.

Katey Eckso wondered aloud if they should land somewhere, most of these light sources seemed to be on high points of land. If there was a sizable concentration of native life, such as the many three foot tall military types who called themselves Assonans, further investigation could be quite interesting. If there had been a large concentration, Norlund said, they probably would land, but the light sources seemed to be so widely scattered as to make contact of pretty limited value. Then Eckso ventured that they could unship a rover, if they did land, and ‘make the rounds.’ Norlund just shook his head.

As they passed over one large lake, nearly concealed by the blanket of angry storm clouds, Ben Giles noticed about a dozen or more huge grey forms nearly submerged close to shore. When Norlund slowly swooped back around and magnified the image, these were seen to be moving into shallow water, so they appeared to grow even larger. The higher magnification revealed them to be something like elephants, but with small heads and no trunks. The humans all stared at the monitors, as the scale indicator at the bottom of the screen showed the animals to be at least thirty feet long, and they were now accompanied by another dozen or more juveniles that must have been swimming underwater when the huge adults were first spotted, and had now surfaced.

CHAPTER

ONE

M osol heard the savage wind pummelling the little stone house, felt the rain coming in through the windows and ravaging the interior. Then the old wooden door finally gave way and was blown across the living space, to slam up against the table that Mosol had pushed over onto its side and swung against the back wall, legs first.

This wall had no window, so less rain blew in on top of Mosol, the old shaman, and Kinto, the young offspring of the ‘real Assonans’, as they called themselves. Between them, they managed to grab the solid wooden door and throw it up onto the two upper legs of the table, as it lay on its side.

As soon as the storm had hit, they unhitched the almost armor-less Evi and he immediately curled up into a big ball. But Mosol and Kinto had managed to get him opened and drag and boot him into the house. He just barely squeezed through the doorway, then he curled up again, right behind the door.

Even that was not enough reinforcement, the door had kept slamming against him, until he moved back a bit, then the wind blew a great gust, and the door went tumbling right over him. There was no room under the table for him, so he just hid beside the doorway, as rainwater, dust, plants, and the occasional half-dead esti came boring in against their make-shift barricade.

The black clouds hid almost every bit of sunlight, but just before it failed completely, and went pitch black, a huge, dark form came barrelling through the doorway and slammed up against their shelter, with a hideous roar.

I think that is probably a fenji, Mosol yelled into Kinto’s ear. The youngster didn’t really hear what Mosol said, but he leaned back and pantomimed fierce teeth and slashing claws.

Mosol nodded.

Soon the dark animal regained his equilibrium. Now it was too dark to see anything, night had fallen, but he knew he could smell another creature within the confines of the small cabin.

The two Assonans could hear him knocking about, trying to find what his nose had detected. Several times he bumped against the table, but Mosol clapped his hand tightly over Kinto’s mouth. The huge beast thrashed his way through the little bit of furniture that had been left by former tenants, a pallet, a chair, they crumbled under his onslaught, but then he butted up against a solid object that gave way, just a little as he pushed it with his nose, then gave it a solid head-butt.

Two more head-butts had elicited a grunt, then a loud ‘erk’, from the Evi, so the Fenji thought he was on the right track, until suddenly the wall began to give way, and part of the roof caved in on top of the two of them.

Now wind and a solid flow of water came pouring in, and the fenji was actually smart enough to stop destroying his only shelter.

All through the night, the four fugitives sheltered from the terrible storm, although not in safety, not in comfort.

To take his mind off the problem of being trapped in a small collapsing building with a wild and savage animal, Mosol began to think about the little prince, his objective, and what he could do when he found Milsa and her offspring, what they would say when he confronted them, would they believe him? Would they allow Mosol to return the prince to his rightful, what, ‘subjects’?

His internal deliberations only filled his mind with a myriad of possibilities, each with its own set of questions. Then he began to review what he knew of the history and lineage of his own family and the others associated with the family occupying the old stone edifice known as ‘tower high’.

He cast his mind back past Milsa’s ancestors to where his own and Dadock’s had all been part of a huge tribe far to the south. He knew the stories of the digging of the canal from the lake at the bottom of their cliffside, of building barges that the current would push to the south, usually empty, then crude square sails would pull them back north, aided by poles wielded against the banks. The current in the canal was gentle, but the barges were usually laden with goods and food, and needed a lot of effort to come back into the lake that they called, ‘The Mourn.’

At first this was hard on the banks of the canals, so their workers would line the sloped banks with stones, the work being performed largely by slaves from the south, who were captured out past the mountain ranges, then marched back under rope bonds.

Once the canal was shored up, most of the slaves were allowed to leave. As if they had anywhere to go! But a few did return back over the high mountain passes and across the desert, even back to the jungles they had been stolen from.

The ones that stayed, however, made reasonably good citizens, they were industrious, with longer fur, hairy faces, quite protruding eyes, and could build almost anything. Some stayed at this fort / castle, on the plateau halfway up the huge face of the mountain, others took the Assonans’ advice and roamed north, eventually coming to another castle, seat of the flatlanders’ domain, and settled nearby. Through many cycles’ time, most became troopers or castle workers, although, to this day, none were including in the governing class.

Sudden movements, noises, and growls roused Mosol and Kinto. It was still pretty dark, the storm held sway yet, but now the fenji could just see the Evi. He seemed to realize this animal was not armored like the ones he had attacked before, out in the grassland, but it was fur covered, and he stomped over to it. When he could just make out one eyeball peering at him from the big furry ball, he reached out and took a savage swipe at it.

His claws dug grooves across the Evi’s head and gouged at the eye, causing the poor animal to spring out of his stupor, and swing both front legs at the fenji’s head, one on each side. His claws, nearly as formidable as his opponent’s, dug right in, and he leaned side-ways, tearing the predator’s pelt, then he leaned back the other way, to do the same again, on that side.

Now the fenji went into paroxysms of rage and blood lust. Ripping loose from the Evi’s grasp, he tore into the poor animal with a savage fury, clawing at the throat, biting chunks right out of the other’s shoulder. All the while, both animals were roaring and shrieking at each other, scrambling around inside the little cabin, ripping through the pieces of the roof that had fallen in.

Mosol and the young offspring were both terrified by the savage battle, especially Kinto, he was sobbing in the darkness, and Mosol wrapped both arms around him to offer what little comfort he could. It seemed to take a terribly long time, but at last the battle subsided, then they could hear the crunching of bones, the tearing and chewing, and eventually even the plaintive cries of the poor Evi were no more.

On and on, the fenji ate his fill, until at last he was done. The two Assonans dared not leave their hiding spot. There they stayed the rest of that terrible day, and into the next night, although it was hard to tell one time from another.

When at last the storm had weakened considerably, and a pale light found its way into the little house, they heard the fenji feeding again, then it burped, took a long dump onto the