Ragnarok Rising Read online

  Ragnarok Rising:

  Redemption

  Book Four of

  The Ragnarok Rising Saga

  By

  The End is only

  The Beginning

  Ragnarok Rising: Redemption

  Book Four of the Ragnarok Rising Saga

  By D.A. Roberts

  First Edition © 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please refer all pertinent questions to the publisher. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design and Interior Images by Phil Morrissey

  Typeset and Layout by D.A. Roberts

  Editing by D.A. Roberts and Annette M. Roberts

  Author Bio Photo by Annette M. Roberts

  Interactive Map by Kate Hughes

  Check out the interactive map for a new level of experience in reading. See the actual locations from the book, as you read it.

  Find the map on my website and Facebook pages.

  Published by D.A. Roberts

  Springfield, MO

  ISBN-13: 978-1502433954

  ISBN-10: 1502433958

  Acknowledgements

  I would be remiss if I didn’t take the time to thank everyone who has contributed to this project. I will try not to forget anyone, but the list of people who have given of their time and energy is long and distinguished. I’ll do my best to mention everyone. If I miss someone, please forgive me. It wasn’t intentional.

  First off, to my wife and sons: You’ve all been there from the beginning, watching as this dream of mine slowly became a reality and took on a life of its own. Not only did I publish a book, I’ve turned it into a series. Now, four books into the saga, I am only just beginning to feel like a “real author.” I’m still in shock at how far this has come in such a short amount of time.

  Annette, to you went the honor for first read through, first round of edits and first look at the concept. You encouraged me when I needed it and kept me on task. You even told me the things I needed to hear, even if I didn’t want to hear them, at the time. Thanks, babe. I love you.

  Nathan, Nic and Noah: You are my inspiration and my legacy. I wrote these books for you guys. Long after I’m gone, you’ll be able to show these to your kids and grandkids and say, “My dad wrote these for me.” I love you guys, more and more every day. If I don’t say it enough, I’m so very proud of the young men you’ve grown into. Continue to reach for your dreams. I never gave up on mine and you’re holding the proof of that in your hands. Reach for those stars, boys.

  Next to my cover artist and friend, Phil Morrissey: What can I possibly say to you but thank you? Without you, I would still be struggling to re-launch the series. You made it possible for me to become a self-published author. Your talent, encouragement and friendship made this all possible. You’ve gone above and beyond anything I deserve. I’m proud to call you my friend.

  To my beta-readers and editors, I will give my utmost thanks. You guys read, suggested and encouraged this poor author in ways that I can never truly repay. You are awesome. So, to Mike Mello, Brian Forrester, Katie Hughes, and Jonathan Drake…thank you all. You are awesome beyond words. Thanks for the input, the ideas and the time you invested to make this a better book. Thank you all.

  To Christina and Jason Ludlum: Thanks for the Zombies!! You guys are awesome. I really appreciate the help and friendship. You guys rock!

  To the men and women in uniform: Thank you for all you do. It has been my honor to serve alongside some of the finest men and women I have ever known. Those who serve know the meaning of sacrifice and honor. The very qualities I have tried to instill in Wylie and the others. You are all my inspiration, my brothers and sisters. Thank you for all you do.

  Ordinarily, I would put in a special thanks to the men and women of Alpha shift at my department, but things have changed. I was promoted and moved to Charlie shift, but I still consider the officers of Alpha my family. So, to the men and women of both Alpha and Charlie shifts, you are amazing. Thanks for the support, the encouragement and the inspiration. You are all my family and I love you all.

  And to the Ragnarok Fans: You are all incredible. Thanks for the kind words, the support on facebook, twitter and at conventions, and for all the encouragement. Thank you for reading my work and sharing my vision. This journey that has been Ragnarok Rising has been long and full of interesting experiences. It is to you, the fans, that this work is dedicated. Thank you, all.

  So, now…I present to you…Ragnarok Rising: Redemption. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

  - DA Roberts

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One - Phoenix Down

  Chapter Two - Through the Fire

  Chapter Three - Huckleberry

  Chapter Four - To Each Their Own

  Chapter Five - Chosen

  Chapter Six - Supply Run

  Chapter Seven - Moonshadow

  Chapter Eight - Mass Exodus

  Chapter Nine - Difficult Choices

  Chapter Ten - Wygliff the Warrior

  Chapter Eleven - Dark Waters

  Chapter Twelve - Gateway

  Chapter Thirteen - Take Me Out to the Ballgame

  Chapter Fourteen - Batting Clean-up

  Chapter Fifteen - The Wolves

  Chapter Sixteen - The Chosen Ones

  Chapter Seventeen - The Bison

  Chapter Eighteen - Showdown

  Chapter Nineteen - Death’s Ride

  Chapter Twenty - Desperate Times

  Chapter Twenty One - Under Siege

  Chapter Twenty Two - Face-off

  Chapter Twenty Three - Blaze of Glory

  Author’s Bio: D.A. Roberts

  Also By D.A. Roberts

  Coming Soon!

  Earth sinks in the sea, the sun turns black,

  Cast down from Heaven are the hot stars,

  Fumes reek, into flames burst,

  The sky itself is scorched with fire.

  I see Earth rising a second time

  Out of the foam, fair and green;

  Down from the fells fish to capture,

  Wings the eagle; waters flow.

  At lda's Field the Aesir meet:

  They remember the worm of Middle-Earth,

  Ponder again the great twilight

  And the ancient runes of the high god.

  Boards shall be found of a beauty to wonder at,

  Boards of gold in the grass long after,

  The chess boards they owned in the olden days,

  Unsown acres shall harvests bear,

  Evil be abolished, Baldur return

  And Hropt's hall with Hod rebuild,

  Wise gods. Well, would you know more?

  - The Voluspa

  Prologue

  “The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is

  an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.”

  - Pliny the Elder

  A desperate battle to save our new home from the dead was unfolding high atop the Lake of the Ozarks Bagnell Dam. We found ourselves facing down the Stalkers as we tried to set off the explosive charge that would open the spillways. Blasting open the gates would lower the water level enough to prevent future flooding within the new camp. A lower water level would also make it difficult for the Stalkers to reach us.

  I primed the device and the detonator came alive. With a final prayer to Odin, I hit the switch setting off the C-4 charges. The center of t
he dam vanished in a crimson fireball sending the spillways and most of the Stalkers into the churning river. Heavy chunks of concrete and splintered masses of steel rained down all around us. The explosion threw us around like rag-dolls, knocking us to the ground and leaving us badly disoriented. When I could see again, I was bleeding from a wound on my face but was otherwise unharmed.

  Snake was the first to his feet but Spec-4 seemed to have taken a bad fall. I could tell that she was badly shaken. She was fighting to get up, but had only made it to her hands and knees when the nausea set in. I looked over Snake and Spec-4 to find that three of the Stalkers had made it across before the center of the dam completely disappeared in the explosion. What was worse was that they were getting to their feet and searching for prey. Unfortunately, we were the menu.

  Snake roared to life and immediately locked himself into a deadly dance as the first of the fierce creatures approached. Using only the hammer that we had named Brjótanir, Snake prepared for one last stand. The engagement would only end when one of them fell. If the Stalker won, it could mean the death of us all. Snake and the Stalker began to circle each other, waiting for the opening that would end the fight. The stakes were too high to lose and Snake understood the consequences.

  The remaining two charged directly at Spec-4. I drew the old Colt from her resting place and fired as fast as I could at the nearest creature. The Stalker took a round directly to the face sending it sprawling towards the ground to rise no more. The last Stalker leapt forward with astonishing speed. Spec-4 was desperately trying to get back on her feet. I saw that she had her back towards the last Stalker and knew that the unstoppable fury would reach her before she would recover. The Stalker was bearing down on her like a freight train. What was worse was she didn’t even know it was coming for her. Spec-4 would never see it in time. I had to save her, no matter what the cost.

  Firing wildly, I emptied the old Colt but none of the rounds proved to be fatal. I had only one choice remaining. Dropping the pistol, I charged the creature and drove my shoulder into its side. I felt something give when I hit and I sincerely hoped it wasn’t my shoulder. I could hear bones crack and hoped that they weren’t mine. The force of the blow slammed us into the railing with a few hundred pounds of momentum. Unfortunately, the railing was already weakened by the explosion and was unable to hold. The rail gave way and we both slid over the side of the dam.

  I instinctively threw out my hand in a futile effort to save myself from plunging further off the side. I managed to secure a grip on the edge and a searing pain flooded every nerve ending from head to toe. The Stalker had secured his grip with his claws in my legs. I fought to hang on despite the combined weight of us both. Lashing out furiously, I tried to kick the beast off of me but the Stalker held fast. Then, as if the pain couldn’t get any worse, I felt its claws and teeth further rending into my flesh. I knew that the claws were bad but it was the bite that would be my downfall. The realization struck me like a hammer. It meant that I was now infected with the Reaper Virus.

  Spec-4 grabbed my arm but there was no way to save me. She didn’t have the strength to pull me up in her weakened state. Even if I didn’t fall, the virus was now coursing through my veins. It would inevitably turn me into the very thing that destroyed civilization. I was going to turn into one of those things. The realization struck my like a physical blow, making me screw my eyes shut in agonizing pain.

  The Stalker saw Spec-4 and began climbing up my back to reach her. If I held on, I was going to condemn her to death. I could not allow the creature to take her too. I knew what I had to do. There was only one choice left for me. Tears filled her eyes as I stuck the Sheriff’s badge to her sleeve. I looked into her eyes and with a final smile let go. As the Stalker and I fell, time slowed to insignificance as the distance between Spec-4 and I steadily grew. I fell towards the raging waters below while watching Spec-4’s anguished face as I fell. With a splash, the water took me. I closed my eyes and accepted my fate. So, this is how my legacy was going to end.

  I was wrong.

  Chapter One

  Phoenix Down

  The army of the dead arrives, Heimdal blows his horn,

  Calling Gods out to die, before the world can be reborn.

  - Amon Amarth

  - And Soon The World Will Cease To Be

  Through the violent churning of the water, I suddenly realized that I was still alive. Only the vaguest of sensations remained of which direction was up or down. I had been tossed and tumbled in the roaring current so much that any hope of steadying myself was gone. Only the burning pain of my straining lungs told me that I was still in the world of the living instead of riding the current of the river of the dead.

  Just when I felt my lungs couldn’t take any more, I struck a boulder in the water and bounced away. The force of the impact knocked the air from my already straining lungs and I felt the cold water rush in to fill the void. I tumbled and spun before striking something solid and coming to an abrupt stop. The force of the water had shoved me into a narrow inlet and onto the shore. I was face down on solid ground with my legs still floating behind me in the water.

  Wracked with body-wide spasms, I violently spewed out water from my mouth and lungs ending with the contents of my stomach as well. I heaved and spat out water, bile and blood before the spasms subsided, leaving me exhausted and weak on the muddy shore. I collapsed with my cheek in the thick, dark mud breathing in massive gulps of air. Against impossible odds, I was alive and out of the escaping waters that were churning from Lake of the Ozarks.

  My thoughts swam through my head in lethargic waves, recalling both distant and recent memories with equal clarity. I remembered learning to bait my own hook with my father on this very lake. I remembered the explosion that breached the floodgates of Bagnell Dam, reducing the once passive Osage River to a white-capped surge of raging water and debris. I remembered teaching my children to swim along the shores of the lake near the ruins of the old Ha Ha Tonka castle.

  Then the pain began as I remembered what happened after the dam exploded. It wasn’t a warrior’s death. It was a straw death. There would be no Valhalla for me. There would only be a death worse than death as I turned into one of them; into one of the walking corpses. What the ancient Vikings had referred to as the Draugr.

  Only I didn’t die, at least not right away. Not only had I survived the fall and the raging torrent of the river but now I lay here on the shore, panting and gulping down air with primal urgency. Painful realization filled my mind as I also remembered the most terrible part of the ordeal. I was infected and it would only be a matter of time before I turned into one of the living dead. In my already weakened condition, I knew my time would come soon. The Reaper Virus was going to take me. I knew this as sure as I knew the sun would rise in the morning.

  After several agonizing moments, I dragged myself out of the water and up onto the shore. I couldn’t get to my feet so I crawled on my stomach, inch by excruciating inch. My vision danced and swam, but refused to clear completely. My left eye felt thick and caked with something, and I was unable to see out of it. My right eye was stinging and my limited vision only allowed me quick glances of the world around me. There wasn't a single inch of my body that didn't hurt.

  Crawling to a large rock at the edge of the trees, I turned and lay back against it. Despite the rough surface, it felt good against the skin of my neck and head. The cool touch of the rock was soothing to my aching skull. The bulk of my weight rested against the rucksack that was somehow still on my back, but my head was pillowed against the rock. The world around me continued to swim in and out of focus as I fought to stay conscious. What limited vision I had was blurry and tinged with red at the edges. It seemed like the world would not hold still.

  I don’t know how long I lay there, trying to regain some semblance of my strength. Eventually, I lifted my head and began to take stock of myself. My left eye still refused to work, but my right eye was beginning to clear but still ha
d a tinge of red to it. Through the shimmering images that filtered through my right eye, I began to search myself to see what had survived the trip down the river with me.

  My M-4 was still attached to me by the strap, but would be mostly useless until I dried it out and cleaned it. My silenced PMR-30’s were still secure in their holsters attached to my interceptor vest. The big Army Colt was gone. Only the empty holster remained. I had dropped it on the dam when I ran for the Stalker that was going for Spec-4. I managed a slight smile when I thought of the gun, now hopefully in her hands.

  I knew that my rucksack contained enough food, water, supplies and ammunition to last me several days. Even my Keltec Shotgun was still firmly stuck to the side of my pack. Somehow, I had managed to come through the raging hell of the river with all of my weapons. Although they probably weren’t going to do me much good, considering the virus that was coursing through my body. However, whoever found my corpse would be in for a treat.

  Then I did the part that I had been dreading. I examined the wounds on my legs to find out just how extensive the damage was. Not that it really mattered. Even a small bite would still be the end of me. As I lifted the torn shreds of my tattered pant legs, I could see the savage wounds to both lower legs. In one of the wounds, two of the beast’s claws were still protruding from my torn flesh. With a grimace of pain, I pulled them free and threw them into the river. They struck near the edge, leaving a bloody cloud in the water where they hit.

  The bite wounds were the most worrisome to me, though. I didn’t know whether or not you could be turned by claw wounds, but the bites were an absolute certainty. They were a death sentence and the clock was already ticking away rapidly. The problem was that I had no idea how long it would be before the countdown reached zero. There was really no way to know for sure, since it was different every time. I could already feel the beginnings of the fever taking hold of me.