The War for Mare (The Fall of Man Book 3)

War for the Mare

The Fall of Man

Book Three

Jacqueline Druga

A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

Published at Smashwords

ISBN:
978-1-68261-017-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-68261-018-3

WAR FOR THE MARE

The Fall of Man Book 3

© 2015 by Jacqueline Druga

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Quincy Alivio

This book is a work of fiction. People,
places, events, and situations are the product of the author's
imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or
historical events, is purely coincidental.

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 and publisher.

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ONE – VALA

TWO – TANNER

THREE – NITO

FOUR – VALA

FIVE – TANNER

SIX – NITO

SEVEN – VALA

EIGHT – TANNER

NINE – NITO

TEN – VALA

ELEVEN – TANNER

TWELVE – NITO

THIRTEEN – VALA

FOURTEEN – TANNER

FIFTEEN – NITO

SIXTEEN – VALA

SEVENTEEN – TANNER

EIGHTEEN – NITO

NINETEEN – VALA

TWENTY – TANNER

TWENTY-ONE – NITO

TWENTY-TWO – VALA

TWENTY-THREE – TANNER

TWENTY-FOUR – NITO

TWENTY-FIVE – VALA

TWENTY-SIX – TANNER

TWENTY-SEVEN – NITO

TWENTY-EIGHT – VALA

TWENTY-NINE – TANNER

THIRTY – NITO

THIRTY-ONE – VALA

THIRTY-TWO – TANNER

THIRTY-THREE – NITO

THIRTY-FOUR – VALA

THIRTY-FIVE – TANNER

THIRTY-SIX – NITO

THIRTY-SEVEN – VALA

THIRTY-EIGHT – TANNER

THIRTY-NINE – NITO

FORTY – VALA

FORTY-ONE – TANNER

FORTY-TWO – NITO

FORTY-THREE – VALA

FORTY-FOUR – TANNE
R

FORTY-FIVE – NITO

FORTY-SIX – VALA

FORTY-SEVEN – TANNER

FORTY-EIGHT – NITO

FORTY-NINE – VALA

FIFTY – NITO

FIFTY-ONE – VALA

FIFTY-TWO – VALA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The wedding ring
didn’t seem to just rest on my finger, it almost embedded itself in
my flesh, a marking of ownership. One set in stone and blood.

What had I become?

My entire short life was a rollercoaster of
information, and I was led to believe one thing, only to find it to
be the complete opposite.

A great plague had swept across the globe; a
pandemic like none the world had ever seen. This bred fear and
chaos, war and destruction. While man was buried in the ashes,
they
rose from the shadows, rebuilt, and in essence gained
control.

They were simply known to humans as the
Sybaris. A being of this Earth that needed the blood of humans to
exist. Not much, but enough that humans were a commodity they
couldn’t chance losing again.

Our human blood kept them young, and
sane.

Thousands of years before, the Sybaris ruled
the Earth, building golden cities with statues to the Gods of their
world. They enslaved the humans, making them work, while using them
as a source of food.

Wanting their freedom, the human race fled,
leaving the Sybaris to starve. They sunk into the shadows, living
for thousands of years hidden, catching what they could of human
blood just to stay alive, while they withered into grotesque beings
that dared not emerge from underground.

The humans then ruled the Earth until
disease and war defeated mankind.

The Sybaris seized their chance, they fed
from the dying. The plague did not affect them, and the Sybaris
regained their strength and their form.

Some, though, did not. Those who had starved
too long became Savage beasts that even the civilized Sybaris
feared.

Seizing the moment to reclaim their reign,
the Civilized Sybaris, called The Ancients, corrected the mistakes
of their past and rebuilt towns and farmlands. They offered safe
haven, shelter, and life to the humans. I lived in a community
called Arkana in a region known as the Esperanza Straits.

In exchange, the humans were to be a source
of food.

Tired of war and suffering, scared of the
Savages, many humans took this offer.

Many did not. The ones who did not enter the
land of the Sybaris became the rebellion, bound and determined to
take the world back.

As a child, I had experienced the vicious
attacks of the Savages, those haunting memories stayed. My mother
wanted only to protect me, left the rebellion, and sought sanctuary
with the Civilized Sybaris for me and my sister.

My baby brother was the ticket in. The rite
of passage. The gatekeepers accepted her offer and wasted no time
devouring him. That memory, stayed with me as well.

I grew up believing the Civilized Sybaris
were no different than the Savages. They just were prettier and
dressed better. They sheltered us from the world, and we learned
only what they taught us and nothing more.

A part of me, still clinging to the past,
knew when a human was chosen during the monthly ritual, the human
was probably drained and killed as quickly as my baby brother.

I wanted to be part of the rebellion, to
live the life my mother had before the world came to an end.

After fleeing my home in the Esperanza
Straits, I made my way west to Angeles City where I joined the
rebellion. I was gifted with many abilities and knew that the
rebellion’s best chance was my infiltration of the Ancient City. I
had to get in there so the rebels could invade. Once inside,
however, I learned quickly that things were not what I believed, or
what the rebellion believed.

As the wedding ring was embedded on my
finger, so was I embedded into the Ancient Sybaris world.

My original plan was to lead the rebellion
into the City of the Ancients and engage in the ultimate invasion
and battle. To save the life of my sister, I had to do more. I had
to sacrifice my life in a different way.

Visions of war quickly escaped me. No longer
could I think of ways to kill them. I couldn’t; I had to keep my
sister alive. She had become a Sybaris, and I was no longer the
great hope of the rebellion. I became nothing more than the
enemy.

Vala looked
beautiful. Although it didn’t matter to me what she was wearing, or
how she had her hair, seeing her in person took my breath away.

Then hearing that she had married Iry
stopped my heart.

When had that become part of the plan?

Vala had escaped her home, we took her in
and trained her. Then in some self righteous move, she left us in
order to push the rebellion. It was for the better of us all, she
said. I was even told that if she didn’t return, they would kill
me. Not like I cared. I didn’t. I wasn’t even worried. In my mind,
in Davis’ mind, and everyone else that knew her, we all believed
she was doing it to help us.

So what happened? To say I felt like a fool
was putting it mildly.

It broke my heart when she left. I begged
her not to go. I put myself out there, and was angry at first,
flawed. Then after Davis told me of her supposedly chivalrous
motivation, I lost the anger and only wanted to get her back.

We had two big threats: The Savages and the
civilized Sybaris.

Vala was taking care of the civilized ones,
so I decided to aim for the deadly ones. Taking out the ones that
attacked us nightly would put us at an advantage. After all, the
Civies were just as scared of the Savages as we were.

We had to find them, and destroy them. They
were the more deadly of the enemies. Once the Savages were gone, at
least in our region, the Civies would be easy to defeat.

I followed them, searched them out, and
located them.

Davis, our leader, loved my plan. Granted, I
was well aware that there were probably more Savage camps, but I
found the one closest to us. It was huge; a city overgrown and
overrun with the stench of the Savage Sybaris. It was absolutely
disgusting. There had to be a thousand of them, if not more.

Marie, a great lady, once told me she
believed there were close to twenty-thousand Sybaris at one point
in time, before the humans defeated them. There weren't that many
Civies at the close camp, though, so the ones that didn’t die
turned Savage. They outnumbered us all. Not only did we need to
defeat them for our own safety, we had to do it for the existence
of the human race. If they kept attacking us, before long, there
would be no humans left at all.

It was now time to get Vala and save her
from her undercover hero work.

With Snake at my side, we went to the
Straits. The hideous gatekeepers were under attack by Savages. We
saved them and they granted us passage to the City of the Ancients.
Even better, because we had been looking for that place for a long,
long time.

The Sybaris used man’s technology, cars,
airplanes, and took over the golden city in the desert. It was the
only city that had remained unscathed. It shimmered in the sun. The
streets were clean, and it was just short of paradise.

We were led to the palace of the king, which
contained the civilization court. When we landed, we learned that
Vala was getting married.

There was no way I could allow that to
happen. Under what pretense would it be a good idea? It was a mind
game, or so I thought until I arrived at the door, where I was
greeted by Iry and he told us they were already married.