Stone to bind dred dixon.., p.1
Stone to Bind (Dred Dixon Chronicles Book 2), page 1
Copyright © 2021 by N.A.Grotepas
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Cover designed by Deranged Doctor Design
Version: 9.20.2021
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Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Acknowledgments
Water to Warp Preview
Introduction
Note: Some events referenced in Flames to Free (Dred Dixon Chronicles book 1) as well as Stone to Bind (Dred Dixon Chronicles book 2) occur in the free prequel short story. Please download your copy here.
1
You never want to find yourself in a commune full of half nude giants.
But, if you do, ask yourself which is better—half nude giants, or an entire nudist colony of giants.
At least they were wearing a sort of loin-cloth this time. Last time, they’d gone buck naked. I counted my blessings.
I stood on a pinnacle—a spire, if you will—of red stone that looked like it had been hewn straight from the heart of the earth. Iron in the soil gave it that brilliant reddish-orange color. The ground that cut into my bare feet was smooth, dotted with tiny curling fingers of sagebrush, gnarled scrub oak, and broken pieces of sandstone. One of the giants had placed me there, otherwise there was no way I’d have achieved such a height, nor was there any way I’d even want to be standing right there.
Winds soared through the canyon of this branch of the San Rafael Swell in eastern Utah, nearly blowing me off the top. Below me, my partner Hank Stone was in the process of completing his initiation.
My former partner Theo Scott and I had both done this, so I was already an honorary part of this clan. Hank needed to pass this outrageous test of character before this clan would let us sit in their circle and hear what the hell was going on.
What was going on was the reason Hank and I were even there at the moment. The Sprinter van—aka Large Marge—was parked a mile away outside the village and the clan’s sacred land. We’d slept there the night before. Dawn had just barely crept over the canyon. The sky overhead broke my heart with how blue it was, contrasting against the sheer, smooth red cliffs that floated above us.
The issue? Rock giants were vanishing. Four had already gone missing.
Giants were super hard to misplace. Something to do with their size. It’d be like misplacing a skyscraper. Or a house. Or, like a capital city.
They don’t simply disappear.
So something was happening.
I crouched as a gust of wind smashed into my back. It was hot as a furnace outside, but the minute sweat appeared on my skin, it was sucked up into the atmosphere, probably becoming a raincloud over Colorado at some point.
I squinted, watching Hank. Like the giants observing the ritual from vantages around the perimeter of the canyon, he was also stripped to his boxer briefs as he worked through the initiation.
Can’t say that I didn’t appreciate this fact—Hank, half-naked. I grinned to myself.
He’d already crossed a rope stretched across the creek running through this artery of the canyon, and cut a slab of sandstone from a wall using just his fingers and voice. Only two more trials to go.
I hissed as he slipped and fell, dangling from one hand that was clutching a hold on the cliff face. This was the rock climbing part.
Trust a clan of rock giants to include rock climbing in their initiation. I’d done it, but at least I had some experience in the sport.
Hank was a newbie. This was his first time attempting to climb. It couldn’t be boosting his confidence that he was in his underwear and barefoot.
And I was watching.
I was sure he wanted to shout something at me, like stop watching me, Dred, thank you very much. But the ritual required complete silence.
If Hank couldn’t complete these trials, then our last option would be for him to head back to the van and wait for me. I’d have to hear all about the clan’s issues alone, because they wouldn’t confess them to a non-clan member. It just wasn’t done.
“Your friend is weak,” the giant, Ueleet, said. Her face hovered near the edge of the plateau where I crouched.
“Not weak. Just inexperienced. He’s from New York City,” I said, rolling my eyes at the mention of the vain East Coast spot.
She nodded. “I’ve heard of this city.”
“What have you heard?” I cocked my head to the side.
“It’s power is well known here.”
“It thinks it’s powerful.”
“A city that thinks?” She arched an eyebrow at me.
I shrugged. “Villages are better.”
“I agree.”
She raised her chin in thought, considering Hank on the rock. “You, Dred Dixon, completed the initiation easily.”
“Well,” I shrugged and stood up straight, dusting my hands off, never taking my eyes from Hank’s figure as he resumed the climb. “I’m a woman. And women are stronger. And better at things like this, just in general.”
She laughed, a soft huffing sound that came out in powerful gusts that nearly sent me flying off the cliff like a ticket stub on the wind. “It’s true. I appreciate these things.”
“Me too.”
Giant clans were matriarchal, which really warmed my heart. Males in the clans weren’t necessarily weak, however the clan recognized that without the female, there’d be no clan. It was a balance. What I appreciated most was how the females never seemed to belittle the men and heard and honored their voices as well.
“Woman,” a male giant whispered, suddenly appearing near my companion. Though he whispered, it was quite enough to almost deafen me. I glanced at him, taking in his lowered brow. For being giants, they moved with surprising stealth. “This initiation is taking too long. He has failed and cannot be admitted to the clan.”
She rolled her eyes and gave him a placating nod. “That is for me to decide. And the other elders.”
“Admitting weak humans into our order weakens the entire clan.” He folded his arms across his orange chest, which evoked the sheer stone of the cliffs around us. Flat planes with straight edges as though he was also cut from rock.
They kind of were, these rock giants. Though my understanding of the history of their origin was still spotty.
“Say what you will. The elders make the final decision.” She caught my eye and shook her head in a way that suggested exasperation.
Still, despite the female chiefs hearing all clan voices, they didn’t simply roll over when a male told them to. I held back a laugh at her antics, surveyed the valley below, and found Hank, again glued to the rock like his life depended on it.
Not an understatement.
I bit my lip as I watched his toe slip on a hold. He caught himself with his hand as it reached for a hold above him and held fast to rock.
Nice.
His feet connected with the rock again and he resumed the climb. Soon I realized that my heart thundered in my chest, a gong against my bones that got louder and louder the higher my partner rose on the wall.
It was the same route I’d done for my initiation. The same one Scott had done. And I knew that it wasn’t a beginner’s climb. Nor was it one a person should be soloing, like Hank was doing right now—no safety ropes, no shoes, no harness. What was the objective?
My thoughts raced as I considered everything I knew—the rock giant clan were allies, of sorts. But, they were also secretive, as their methods to protect themselves showed. I couldn’t blame them for requiring proof of worthiness to enter their sacred ground, see them in their humanesque form, and be included in diplomatic talks about what was happening.
And whatever was happening, was something serious—if four members had vanished already, that told me this had been going on for days. Perhaps they’d even tried to work it out alone, but they’d reached a tipping point of tolerance and desired extra assistance.
I wanted to know and wanted to help.
But did I w
The partnership bond was as sacred as the rock giant clan’s land. I’d already lost one partner—something that I still struggled to stare in the face at. It haunted me. What could I have done differently? How could I have saved him? Why had it been Scott and not me?
It also gave me pause when it came to standing aside as danger rained down on us.
Hank half-nude climbing a rock wall wasn’t danger raining down on us. It was ballet on a cliff face. A dance with the earth that a person saw nowhere else. There were many metaphors for what rock-climbing was, all of them illuminating in their own ways. But ultimately it was rife with danger, potential death, and other forms of gut-wrenching aches should he fail.
And it wasn’t just Hank who could fail.
The rock held its own secrets. One of the earlier trials illustrated that—cutting a slab of sandstone away with just his hands and voice was enough to remind me that these gorgeous formations were riddled with weakness and fissures that could fail beneath his weight and let him plunge to his death.
I bit my tongue. He’d ascended to twice his height. That was nearing a level where if he fell, we could say goodbye to healthy leg bones. At this point, each foot he raised himself introduced new variables to what he could lose with a fall.
It was senseless.
I’d done it. Yes. But I spent time in the local climbing gyms and had occasionally hit the routes with Scott. And neither of us had dared to back down when the trials had been presented to us.
In short, we were stupid. I saw that now.
There’s nothing like death to instill a deeper respect for life into a person’s heart.
If Hank fell…
…I wasn’t sure it was a personal hell I’d return from.
I glanced at the rock giant chief next to me. Her eyes lazily watched Hank.
They weren’t so different from humans that I couldn’t interpret the fairly casual disregard for Hank’s life written on her face. She wanted our help, but she had nothing to lose were she to lose Hank.
Or, perhaps I was being swayed by my fear of losing him.
I didn’t want to lose him.
That wasn’t a crime. That wasn’t bad or weak of me.
That was why he was my partner. I was there to make sure the fool didn’t get in over his head.
And the chief had no clue what he was made of.
He was strong, loyal, and dedicated. But he was also too proud to admit that he had zero ability to engage in a climb of finesse like he was trying.
One look at his technique and I knew that. He was trying to muscle his way up the route entirely with his upper body. That would only work so far. And then he’d need to rely on his legs as much as his hands and arms.
But if I stopped the trial now, I’d have a pissed off Hank to grapple with, and an irritated clan of rock giants who might assume I didn’t respect their traditions.
I was caught between a rock and a hard place, so to speak. Ha!
I bit my knuckle. I felt the sun hot on my forehead. An eagle screeched somewhere in its hunt and the wind whistled across my ears. Beside me, the chief had shut her eyes and began to fade into another state—the hoodoo state. Her features faded. Her chest turned into the smooth surface like the canyon walls around me. She was dozing in the morning light.
“Ahem,” I cleared my throat, then coughed. Her eyes flashed open and she again looked like a giant human made of rock.
“Do you think, Dred, that he will make it?”
An opening! “I don’t know. But I know he won’t give up. Either a slab will break free and he’ll fall, or he’ll make a mistake and fall.”
“You don’t sound like you believe in him.”
“No, no. I do. I trust him with my life.”
She nodded, quietly considering this. “And is he safe entrusting his to you?”
Bitch-slap. I blinked. My mouth was open to answer, defensive-like, but Hank fell before I had the chance to say anything.
2
Hank was falling. My heart was crashing into my toes. An entire branch of my imaginary life played out before me in those seconds—he died, I quit the Flamehearts and retired into hermitage and never did another thing, because no one, not even I, could trust me.
Because of my pride. Because of Hank’s pride.
The world had never been clearer than in those moments that I believed I’d lost Hank, that bastard.
He dropped three feet, gaining momentum, then suddenly latched onto the wall again like a cockroach.
I heaved, nearly losing the Clif bar and coffee I’d downed for breakfast.
“I take back all my thoughts about what your new partner is made of, Dred. He is resourceful and committed. Traits I admire in humans.”
A grunt was all I could manage.
She gazed at Hank, her eyes flashing deep beneath the rocky outcropping of her brow. “An attractive human, indeed.”
“He’s a princess, you wouldn’t like him,” I said, surprising myself. I hadn’t realized my voice had come back.
“Truly?” She asked.
My shoulders sagged. “No, he’s pretty great. You have a firm grasp on character if you appreciate a person like him.”
I barely caught her signals to the other clanswomen.
Soon they had gathered around Hank and were helping him down off the route.
“He has passed this trial. He has proven his dedication, bravery, and strength. With these aspects of his character, our clan would be safe with him.” The chief said to me. “Now for the next, and final trial.”
This one would be easy.
Or at least, not rife with near-death experiences.
Soon I was on another perch, watching Hank bent over a space of cleared earth. He’d seen a demonstration from one of the giants, who illustrated to him how to do a sand painting, and then they set him free to do his own.
Hank wasn’t an artist, as far as I knew. Watching him consider what he needed to do was like watching paint dry, but still tense and stressful as I wondered if he’d know what to do, if he could make something worthy of their trial during their time frame.
He only had till sundown.
Which, in my opinion, defeated the purpose of this particular trial, since it was all about teaching him patience, inner peace, and attention to detail, while also showing him the larger picture.
Each grain of colored sand contributed to the whole, but, like everything, the sand painting blew away and became dust on the wind, returning to its natural state, leaving behind that momentary contribution to something larger than itself, something beautiful.
Though it was a loaded concept, I had a secret hope that it would give him some insight into the Fabric, a common source of tension between us—apparently, they hadn’t cared about it much in New York City, and so convincing Hank to care now was a bit of a battle.
As Flamehearts, we were concerned with the Fabric, a metaphysical tapestry connecting all life together, as one source of energy and interlaced lives. When someone or something died, their thread disappeared from the Fabric, creating a ripple affect that usually couldn’t be predicted. But death was normal, so the Fabric quickly compensated.
However, if too many threads vanished at once, then problems arose.
Wanton killing was a problem. Just all out slaughter, even of lives belonging to creatures that were undesirable, such as vampires or demons, resulted in drastic repercussions through the tapestry of interconnected lives.
I sat down and watched. Ueleete shifted beside me and the earth shook slightly. The repercussions of motion moved like a tremor through the pinnacle I rested upon.
