Ironclad

  Ironclad

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, dialogue, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual situations, locales, or persons, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © Daniel Foster

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, scanning, uploading, or electronic sharing without written permission from the author and/or publisher, with the exception of using brief quotations for online review purposes. Please contact daniel.s@whitetidepublishing,com for inquiries.

  www.danielfosterauthor.com

  Published by White Tide Publishing

  Edited by Joseph Foster

  Photo of the author by Robin Foster

  fosterphotography.com.au

  Book cover and interior design by

  Divine Michelle of Yonderworldly Design

  ISBN 978-1-941842-08-9 (eBook Edition)

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,

  For want of the shoe, the horse was lost,

  For want of the horse, the rider was lost,

  For want of the rider, the battle was lost,

  For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost,

  All for the want of a horseshoe nail.

  – Unkown

  More awesome fantasy by

  Daniel Foster:

  The Iron Legacy Series (fantasy)

  Brimstone, book 1

  Ironclad, book 2

  Skyline, book 3 (coming 2019)

  Paan’s Rising Series (fantasy)

  The Dark Heart (coming 2019)

  The Halcyon Files (thriller/suspense)

  Sidewinder

  Vertigo (coming 2019)

  Though it hides behind a thousand different faces,

  the enemy is always fear.

  Prologue

  november 1913, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard

  Autumn had touched Philadelphia lightly that year, wooing the city towards winter. It began with cool breezes and the rustle of drying leaves. There were no cold snaps to slap people out of their light summer dress. Neither were there any sudden flurries to warn old folks of the joint aches that would follow.

  On the east edge of Philadelphia, adjoining the Delaware River, sprawled the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Dozens of warships clustered in the dark, or basked in the glow of their own strings of electric lights. Men bustled here and there, moving from one building to another on late night errands. Though Philadelphia slept, the United States Navy never did. Across the bay, a drill sergeant yelled at a band of fresh recruits who were still struggling with the concept of a straight line.

  On the edge of the shipyard, warm light poured from the windows of a low brick building. Behind the glass panes, a navy band was playing, boisterous and brassy. The song ended with clapping, followed by laughter. From outside, it was impossible to see what they were laughing at because the windows were fogged by the throngs of people and the steam from countless turkeys which had once been stuffed with all the trimmings. Now they were dismembered frames with shreds of meat clinging to them.

  At the back of the building, a door opened, venting the last of the laughter into the alley. The door closed, and a small sound became audible in the night. It was a child crying. She was perhaps four or five years old. She was cranky, up far past her normal bedtime.

  There was no electric illumination in the alley behind the building, but the moon provided just enough light to reveal a Ford Model T—a Tin Lizzy, as they were called—parked in the alley, and a mother who was kneeling in front of the crying child. The child wailed something about not understanding why she couldn’t have another piece of pumpkin pie when Jenny got one. Those were her last words.

  The Tin Lizzy exploded, rupturing the night with a ball of flame and a whomp that blew out every window on the back side of the building. The woman and her child were killed, their lives snuffed out for no reason other than terrible timing.

  The reverberations hadn’t settled before people inside the building were screaming, both from fear and injury. Many of them had been cut by the flying glass from the blown windows. Men in naval dress uniforms began pouring from both the front and back door to the building, demanding answers that no one yet had, and issuing orders even before they’d found people to obey them.

  The Thanksgiving party had begun with a band, but it ended with cries of fright and pain. And Garret Vilner, who was five hundred miles away, was just starting to drift off to sleep with his wife, Molly, in his arms. He would never have dreamed that the explosion of a Tin Lizzy in Philadelphia would change the course of his life.

  Chapter 1

  January 1914, the Appalachian Mountains

  Garret flung his body through the air, his lips peeled back from his wolf teeth, all four legs tucked under his body. It was one of those rare days in winter when the sky was perfectly clear and the sun shone like a distant deity—bright, but giving no warmth. Garret flew beneath it, muzzle first, ears back, fur streaming in the cold air: a grey arrow of teeth, hot blood, and death. The deer ahead of him was foaming, staggering. It stumbled into a patch of half-melted snow and slipped. It hit so hard that Garret heard something tear loose in its shoulder.

  Garret ate up the rest of the ground between them and pounced. He snapped his jaws closed around its throat, crushing. He twisted, jerking with all the powerful muscles in his neck. All kinds of things ripped and popped in the deer’s throat. It flopped in the snow and tried to roll, flinging slush, all four of its legs waving madly in the air. Garret was growling, worrying at it, his wolf body burning with the heat of the hunt. With a wet tearing sound, Garret ripped its throat out.

  Still the deer did not die instantly. It convulsed, blood spurting from its ruined neck and dappling the white and grey slush beneath it. It opened its mouth in a mute bawl. He tore into it again. The waving of its legs ebbed away. It died.

  Garret’s pack—his wife and brother—would need food as well, but there was plenty, so he could indulge a little while it was fresh. He ripped off chunks of muscle, skin, and fur, downing it all. Hot blood and meat, consumed in cold winter air, nothing else was so satisfying.

  It was what he was supposed to do. It was what he was.

  Another sound caught Garret’s ears. They pricked towards it automatically, but the hot wash of blood in Garret’s mouth overrode his ears’ request for attention. The noise they’d heard was one of man’s noises anyway. Men made such ridiculous, pointless sounds.

  Garret bit into a smaller muscle along the deer’s leg and ripped it loose, long white tendon and all. He paused with it still in his mouth. The sound had come again. It wasn’t a man, it was a woman. A young woman.

  A human thought awakened in his wolf mind, a single word: Molly. Garret the wolf breathed in deeply and blinked a couple times. He dropped the chunk of meat into the leaves and trotted to the top of the nearest rise. He sniffed deeply. The wind was blowing the wrong direction. He couldn’t smell anything but the icy tang of snow and the richness of the blood pooling beneath his meal at the bottom of the hill. Or maybe it was the blood smeared all through his fur.

  Garret looked down his canine flank at it. He whined because another human thought had solidified. She shouldn’t see me this way. This was always awkward enough as it was. Well, either way he had to find her. He trotted in the direction of the last sound she’d made. As he did so, his human mind geared up some more. His thoughts became connected.

  He look
ed up at the sun and around at the bare trees, the color of their bark drained by the depth of the winter. What is she doing out here? He increased his pace. He was almost back to their cabin from his night’s roamings, but not quite. That meant she’d come more than a mile into the woods.

  What does she think she’s doing out here like she is? Finally, his human mind came fully awake. Oh Jesus, she’s eight months pregnant! What is she doing?!

  Panicked, Garret raced forward and howled to let her know where he was. His wolf body was much faster than his human body, so he stayed on four legs, but he pushed a partial shift through his throat and lungs.

  “Molly!” he yelled. It was twisted and decidedly wolf-like, but at least it was her name.

  “Garret…” the response came from over the next rise. Her voice was contorted. She was in pain.

  Oh God no!

  Garret shot up over the rise, threaded between a boulder and a crooked tree and almost bowled into Molly. She’d made it halfway up the slope, but was squatted awkwardly around her swollen belly. Ribbons of ice clung to the leaves around her. She was panting.

  “Molly!” Garret sat and slid to her on his rump. He rammed the transformation as fast as it would go. A couple of his joints made an unhealthy crackling sound. He came to his haunches as a naked young man with the wolf strap around his chest. He slid to a stop beside her.

  Tears of anger, pain, and worry traced Molly’s cheeks. “Garret… where… were… you….” she gasped.

  “I’m sorry Molly,” he said, reaching out, not sure how to hold her. “I just went out for my night run.”

  “It’s almost… noon… Where… were you?”

  Noon? Garret glanced around at the day, truly seeing it for the first time. Oh my god. He’d been gone all night and half the day. He’d forgotten about everything. She must have thought he was—

  “Molly, you shouldn’t have come out here.” Guilt was making him sick, as well it should have. “Come on, we’ve got to get you back to the house.”

  She gasped. Her back tightened as if in spasm. “Garret… the baby… it’s too soon.” Molly was starting to panic. Garret was well beyond panic. Christ I’ve sent her into labor. She’s going to have the baby right here in the leaves. He grabbed her, scooping her up in his arms in a posture that had to be supremely uncomfortable.

  She cried out in agreement.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said holding her tightly. “Molly, this is probably going to hurt.” Then he ran as he’d never run before.

  Chapter 2

  At long last, the midwife, Molly’s overbearing mother, and everyone else had gone. Molly was sleeping deeply, exhausted and beautiful. Garret stooped and slid his hands under the tiny bundle which Molly had tucked close at her side. He had sort-of planned to recline beside Molly and lay the baby between them so they would be a family for the first time, but as soon as he lifted the baby bundle to his chest, he forgot everything else.

  His son was so small, several weeks premature, thanks to Garret. Only his little face showed through the ball of blanket. Garret had held his son about an hour prior, but the labor had been difficult and he’d been terrified for Molly through most of it, so this was, emotionally, the moment of introduction between father and child.

  Garret walked to the table and sat so he could see his baby in the lamplight. “I have a son,” he whispered to the cabin. “This is my son.” The ball of baby was small, but fiercely warm against Garret’s arms and chest. He tucked his son closer and looked around the dark corners of the cabin, as if daring a draft to come near his baby.

  Suddenly Garret understood. He knew who this child was, and the connection was forged between them. It erupted in Garret, through him and around him: a ferocious flood of feeling, overpowering.

  The old cabin, Garret’s life as a blacksmith, suddenly, it all meant nothing. But this—he touched his son’s face, held him closer—this meant everything. For the first time in his life, Garret was fully human, fully wolf, and both of them were of one heart.

  This was Garret’s ultimate responsibility and his ultimate treasure. This was what he was meant for.

  He raised the precious bundle to his face and kissed his son as lightly as he could on the forehead. I love you, he said. It was so ridiculous, so laughably inadequate compared to what he felt, to what he knew he would always feel for this babe. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep this child safe and happy.

  He looked from the child in his arms, to his beautiful wife, asleep on the bed. Despite the leaks and the drafts in the cabin, he realized that he was not poor.

  I am the richest man in the world. I have everything I could want.

  Wrapped inside of peace, Garret crawled into bed next to his wife and cuddled them both. The cabin was drafty and cold, but he would soon set that right.

  Because it was all right. Everything was right with the world.

  Chapter 3

  January 1914, the Appalachian Mountains

  “Gar, we really should think of a name for him.”

  Garret smiled and shifted the bundle in his arms to what he imagined would be more comfortable for the baby. “How old is he now?”

  Molly rocked her chair. It creaked pleasantly. “Nine days.”

  The morning was cool. Garret had fixed breakfast, eggs and sausage. He’d worked hard on the sausage, trying to get it crisp on the edges, but still tender on the inside as Molly liked it. While obsessing over the sausage, he’d burned the eggs. Twice. Molly was nice about it, though. Now they sat together outside the cabin in the early morning. The clearing around the cabin was small, and towards the edges, rotten stumps still dotted the dirt where old Mr. Jamison hadn’t gotten around to removing them. At least he’d boarded up the entrance to his hand-dug coal mine. That was nicer than having a gaping black hole in the side of the hill.

  The cabin and its clearing sat on a large bench near the top of the mountain. It was high enough that it felt isolated and unrestricted. The air was always thin and crisp in the mornings, but the evergreens around the clearing rose just tall enough that it felt protected at the same time. The sun reached through the boughs and the mist that still clung. It fell in bars and blocks of gold on the dirt, the cabin, and on Molly and Garret. They weren’t going to live here for long, though. Molly had made it clear she wasn’t going to raise their baby in a drafty cabin a million miles from town. So Garret was looking into real houses.

  “Gar. Our son needs a name.”

  “Trying to move those kegs by yourself was foolish,” he said archly. He hadn’t used words like “foolish” before, and it made him feel very adult to say it to someone. “You could have hurt your back.”

  “Uh huh,” Molly said. “But of course when I woke up and found out that my husband had filled our house with dynamite kegs that he found in the back of the old mine shaft, that wasn’t foolish at all, was it?”

  “It’s blasting powder,” Garret offered weakly. “I thought we could sell it.”

  “I don’t care. Get it out of the house. Today.”

  “Okay.” How did she know what was in the barrels?

  “Garret,” she sighed, “I know what a blasting keg looks like.”

  Garret squinted at her. “Do I… think too loud, or something?”

  Molly rolled her eyes.

  The kegs did need to be away from the baby. Garret looked down at his son, who was looking back at him. His blue eyes were barely open, but he was watching Garret, and not doing anything else. That was unusual. He spent most of his time sleeping, eating, screaming, or pooping. Garret didn’t mind, though.

  He stopped rocking and handed their son to Molly. Garret stood to go roll the blasting powder kegs out of the house.

  “Gar, wait,” she said. “Name first.”

  Garret grinned. “I didn’t have a name until I was almost a month old.”

  “What?”

  “Ma and Pa couldn’t stop fighting over it.”


  Molly gave him an appraising look.

  Garret held up his hands. “As near as I can figure, it was the last time Pa ever tried to fight her on anything. He wanted to name me after himself and Grandpa and Great-Grandpa, and Great-Great Grandpa, and Great-Great-Great grandpa, and—”

  “I get the idea, Gar.”

  “Okay, so Ma was okay with Garret, but not Garrett.”

  “Did I miss something?”

  Garret shrugged. “My name’s not spelled the same as Pa’s.”

  “Your parents argued for a month over how many ‘t’s to put in your name?”

  That wasn’t exactly true. Shit. Garret faltered, but held up his hands again. “I never said we were the smartest family.”

  Molly caught his falter, like she caught everything, but after a split second’s consideration, she let it go.

  “Most stubborn family,” Molly groused, tucking the blanket in around their baby’s face, who had just drifted off again.

  Garret stretched in the cool air and then headed for the cabin door.

  “Garret,” Molly hissed, trying not to wake the baby. “Name. Get back here.”

  “Artaxerxes,” Garret called over his shoulder, pulling the most ridiculous thing he could think of from a long-dimmed Sunday school memory. “That’s the best I’ve got.”

  “Garret!”

  Garret entered the cabin and shut the door, still grinning.

  W

  March 17th, 1914

  Garret was fuming. “I’ve got it Molly! I know what I’m doing.”

  “No, you don’t have it, Gar! You could have killed him.”

  Garret leaned on the kitchen prep table between them, trying to lean his weight into the conversation. One of the table legs popped under him. “Molly, I’ve got it.”