The Godgame (The Godgame, Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

militia? I hadn’t even considered that.”
    “You could stay close to Ash, keep him safe.”
    “But you’re sick. Who will take care of our daughters?”
    “I’ll find others in town to help. We’ll be okay.”
    Josef looked at his wife closely. He sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
    “Good,” Lena said. “We have to protect what we’ve built here. They were supposed to leave us alone. We can’t let them destroy it all now.”

 
     
     
     
     
    ASH
     
    He is in an empty field, stretching flat in every direction. At the furthest reaches of his vision, there is a darkness that seems to move, pulsing, wriggling, as if large things lurk just beyond the reach of his eyes. He can feel the grass beneath his bare feet, damp, and the air is thick with moisture against his skin and heavy in his lungs. He turns and there is a lone chair of simple wood standing not far from him. He begins to walk toward it... And then he is climbing a tree and looking up through a tangle of branches and he really wants to see what’s in the sky, needs to see it, something flying high above… And then he is standing alone in a blackened crater and there is a towering pile of dead things burning and the smell… And then his feet are padding through soft powder like snow, but it’s not snow; it’s warm and puffs up in little clouds with every step. All around him are windowless buildings smooth and gray and there is something coming toward him and it has no face…
     
    ~
     
    In the morning, Ash could not remember his dreams. They had been strange and dark. He usually dreamed about adventure, about cutting his way through dense forests to discover forgotten caves or ancient cities filled with treasure. He sometimes dreamed of building tree houses, ones with many platforms and walls and windows. He’d dreamed once that he was a captain of a ship sailing across the ocean to rescue his sister who had been kidnapped. Sometimes he had scary dreams—running from lumbering beasts with claws or men with large smiles and shiny knives—but nothing like the shadowy ones he’d had last night. Last night he hadn’t felt scared, only uneasy, the danger looming and still far away, but getting closer and closer...
    A shudder ran through his body as he pushed himself out of bed. He stood, stretched, jumped up and down a couple of times, and felt better. He didn’t have to go to school and that thought made him excited. School had been cancelled all week.
    The rifle!
    His pants from the day before were crumpled at the foot of his bed and he hurriedly pulled them on. He slipped into his shoes, tore open his dresser and grabbed the first shirt he saw.
    Everyone else was still asleep, so he burst through the front door without being seen and ran around the house and toward the beach.
     
    ~
     
    There was a battered open-topped buggy parked in the dirt in front of his house when he returned a little while later. Ash ran up to it. It had rubber wheels and was made of metal, painted an earthen green color. He brushed his hand over its rough surface. He ran around to look at its engine, mounted at the back, a complex hulk of gears and pistons. “Cool,” he said. He found the cap where the slurry, which fueled the engine, was poured, caked with dark, congealed smears.
    He skipped up to the house, opened the door.
    “No,” his dad said. “Go away! Ash, get out of here!”
    “Dad? What’s going on?”
    There were two strange men standing in the living room and he knew immediately what they were by their uniforms—plain navy, nova tree badges: soldiers from the Novan army. Their rifles were leaning in the corner and the bearded one—smiling at him—had a pistol clipped to his belt: an officer of some ranking.
    The bearded officer bent a little to look at Ash. “Ash, is it?”
    Ash’s heart was pounding. “Yeah—I mean, yes, sir!”
    The bearded officer smiled.
    “No,” his dad said again. “He’s too young.”
    Ash snatched a bread knife