Trackers (The Birthright Project, Book 2) (Paperback)

by Kathryn Mackel (Author)
Key Phrases: master sorcerer, short blade, Brady of Horesh, Baron Alrod, May the Lord (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Far from home in a ravaged world, the Birthrighters struggle for survival.

Raised in a new ark beneath polar ice, delivered by whales to a blighted surface, the young men and women of the Birthright Project have pledged their lives to a risky and redemptive mission--perserving God's original creation from the ravages of the Endless Wars and human depravity.

They've roamed the earth tracking original species. They've successfully battled sorcerers, warlords, and armies of mutants. But now a twisted new enemy is on the march. An explosive old secret lurks beneath the glitter of a decadent city. And the mysterious darkness that swallowed a mountain spreads toward an innocent mill town.

Before they can prevail, the Birthrighters must confront their most difficult challenge: overcoming their individual desires that threaten to betray the group.

The adventure draws to a dramatic close in Book Two of Kathryn Mackel's imaginative and absorbing Birthright Series...a fantasy thriller with a heart of faith.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

TIMOTHY CROUCHED IN THE GRASS, HIS HEART hammering as he crept toward the Wall of Traxx. His attention was fixed on danger, but his heart was intent on Dawnray, the lovely village girl on the other side of the wall--held captive in the royal palace. He was ready with a plan and had almost accumulated what he needed to make it all happen.

One thing stood in Timothy's way, and it wasn't the deadly wall of thorns that surrounded the stronghold. The voice of his camp leader, Brady, who was off somewhere with fellow outrider Niki, nevertheless nagged at him in his head. What most annoyed Timothy was not that the outrider's voice was imaginary, but that it told the truth.

What're you doing, mate? Can't go off on your own like this . Timothy argued in his mind. But Alrod's holding her prisoner, and he intends her for his own use. You know what that use is, Brady. She needs help.

We can't rescue everyone, Tim.

But we save some. That's part of why we're here. You've led countless rescues, and you've taught me how to do it.

Why this girl and not some other? Is it because she's lovelier than the serving lass in Alrod's kitchen?

"It's because I love her," Timothy whispered, more to assure himself than to convince the voice in his head. Easier to sneak through a wall thought impassable than to deal with a leader who wasn't even here.

A patrol of Alrod's strong-arms approached, and Timothy ducked out of sight, though the strong-arms never looked his way. Two of these patrols guarded the wall, riding its perimeter from opposite sides, but Timothy knew they spent more time trading barbs and spiced rum than searching out intruders. They assumed that no intruder would dare try to breach the dreaded Wall of Traxx. But Timothy knew the wall wasn't impassable.

He'd been through it several times just this past week. Twenty paces high and a hundred deep, the Wall of Traxx ringed the stronghold with a vast stretch of flowers and thorns. The flowers bloomed on the outside--tiny but profuse blooms of roses, lilies, sunflowers, daffodils, and flowers even an experienced tracker like Timothy couldn't name, all infused with intoxicating fragrance. But beyond the blooms lay a maze of thorns the size of a strong-arm's lance and briar thickets that a mugged rhinoceros couldn't pass through. Many men--indeed, full armies--had been fooled by the wall's enticing exterior, only to be impaled by the thorns and die tangled in the briars.

Timothy waited until the patrol was out of sight, then ran up to the wall and began to sing.

Can you hear the distant thunder?
Can you feel the tremble of the earth?

In response, a bent-over creature shuffled out of the flowers, black eyes staring out of a leathery face. Timothy's heart ached for the little fellow--born as a man, but transmogrified by the sorcerer's potions into a turtlelike slung, destined to spend his life inside this wall. Like his many brothers, he feared open spaces and had only one love--music.

"Bask! Thanks for coming." Timothy sang the words, and the little creature's eyes narrowed with pleasure at the sound. "May I enter?"

The slung's answer was to turn and push into the flowers. Grabbing the back of Bask's rock-hard shell, Timothy followed him, singing the whole time. To stop singing was to be abandoned among the thorns.

To be abandoned here was to die.

Within three paces, the flowers gave way to woody growth. With ease, the slung broke thorns twice his size and flattened tangles of bramble that could kill any invader foolish enough to try to breach this wall. Timothy ducked low and followed closely, feeling new thorns and brambles already growing in behind him, lingering occasionally to fill his bag with globs of sticky resin that dripped from the thorn vines. The slung didn't seem to mind, just pressed on steadily. Timothy followed through malodorous muck that sucked at his boots and offended his sensitive tracker's nose--it was always a challenge to keep singing but not gag at the smell.

All day and all night, the slungs lugged in buckets of manure and moldy vegetables to feed the living wall--and it was said that Baron Alrod fed this wall with the guts of his enemies as well. Sheltering behind the slung and longing for the moment he would break through into the fresh air and sunlight, Timothy sang to survive. But when he finally reached Dawnray's window, Timothy would sing his love . . . and more.

Dark thoughts. A place where the master sorcerer of Traxx was quite at ease. But today a void haunted Ghedo's mind--a dream he could not achieve, an accomplishment beyond his grasp. Anyone could wreak death. All it took was a sword, a knife, a rock, even a hard fist or an iron skillet. Slash, jab, slam, whack, and death had its way. Death was simple. But how long would the secrets of life elude him? As he trailed after his warlord employer, Baron Alrod, even this glorious day mocked him. The plains of Traxx were lush with summer grasses and blooming wildflowers. A profusion of life that came in its course whether Ghedo willed it or not.

To speak birds into flight and to call men back from the dead was surely not out of the reach of the greatest sorcerer who had ever lived. But how could he grasp the goal when the baron kept wasting his best efforts? On these plains, for example, Ghedo's greatest achievement now rotted for all to see. He had finally succeeded in transmogrifying cobblers and farmers and fishwives into great, hulking gargants--an unstoppable army of giants. Just a few weeks ago, he'd presented his gargant troops to Alrod, who quickly turned what should have been an amazing triumph into a military debacle. The gargant corpses now lay scattered for leagues, their limbs almost picked clean by buzzards and their bones bleached white by a blinding sun, a ghastly memorial to Ghedo's prowess and Alrod's folly. And Alrod, ever resourceful, now used the massive rib cages as gallows, stringing their ribs with his own failed strong-arms as easily as a woman might adorn her ears with dangling jewels. Rather than hanging them from their necks, the baron had ordered them bound tightly around the chest. They would bake in the hot sun for days until death finally came.

Cloaked and veiled, Ghedo was forced to stand with Alrod and watch the hangings. In his thirst for vicious revenge, the baron had not grasped this irony: by executing what was left of his army, by hanging them inside the remains of a greater army, he was advertising his monumental defeat for all to see.

After the last strong-arm had been strung up, Alrod walked briskly to the command tent, a good league away from the killing fields. Ghedo followed, breathless with the exertion. He preferred his underground lair to the open sky. His gifts were not of a physical nature. The baron was the warrior. His lean frame was muscular, his jaw hard, his eyes hungry. That his hand rested on his sword told Ghedo that the execution had not slaked his thirst for revenge.

Alrod's valet Sado met them with mugs of mulled cider. An holdover from Alrod's grandfather, the ancient retainer was bent and gnarled, with a constant moist wheeze that set Ghedo's nerves on edge. As with a beloved dog, Alrod would not put him out of his misery.

"I need meat, Sado," Alrod said. "Spiced and roasted, but with the juices still running."

The servant shuffled out. Ghedo locked the door behind him. He slipped off his cloak and veil so he could breathe freely. Only Alrod had ever seen him without the cloak--or had even seen his face. Ghedo avoided the entanglements of the flesh that the baron thrived on. Celibacy had its virtues--a clear mind among them. And the cloak was a key to his power--almost as important as his cache of transmogrifying potions. The purple cloak was the most feared--and thus revered--symbol in the stronghold. When Alrod ascended the throne, Ghedo had seized the cloak of the master sorcerer from his father. It was now embroidered with entwined snakes, fangs ready to strike. One symbolized his late grandfather, the other his deceased father.

There would never be a third snake--another memorial to a deposed father by an upstart son. Ghedo had no sons, no need for the kind of immortality men seek by fathering children. He had successfully transmogrified the wall of thorns so that it could regenerate itself immediately, and he had recently achieved similar results with a worm. Surely the regeneration of human life--even his own self--was within reach.

If he could keep his energy up. Ghedo was bitterly tired of cleaning up after a man who could not control his fury. "Alrod."

The baron slumped onto a stool and tugged off his boots. "What?"

"The army is running thin. We need every strong-arm that still breathes just to protect our borders. I'm speaking to you as a friend--perhaps you could cut those men down after a couple of days and restore them to the army. Your anger is understandable, but perhaps you would be wise to vent your frustration on the commoners."

Alrod was on him in a flash, the tip of his dagger against Ghedo's throat.

"Perhaps I could spare the commoners and vent my wrath on the friend who betrayed me."

Ghedo held himself motionless. "How have I betrayed you?"

"By your incompetence."

"I would die for you."

"Perhaps you should."

"After all these years? All I've done for you? After all we've done together?"

"If you continue to disappoint me, what choice will I have?"

Alrod's voice cracked as he lowered the dagger. "I need a sorcerer with the skill to match my ambition."

"I am that sorcerer, as I always have been. You know that."

"Do I, Ghedo? Do I really?"

The bell clanged. Ghedo shrugged on his cloak and pulled his veil into place before he freed the latches to let Sado in. A sudden burst of light...

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595540407
• ISBN-13: 978-1595540409
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,200,935 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Internal and External Battles, A Vivid World, Heroes and Villains--a Great Read!, December 13, 2006

By	Mir (North Miami Beach, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

WARNING: This review contains spoilers for the first novel in the Birthright Proeject--OUTRIDERS. If you plan to read OUTRIDERS, but haven't yet, you'll want to skip the first part--or all--to be safe.


"But why?" Anastasia said. "Why do this to another human being?"

"Because they want to be God, that's why." --from TRACKERS

Humans playing God is a dominant theme in the Birthright Project. The mogs--transmogrified creatures--are the prime metaphors for expressing the urge to be Creator and Lord over all. Conversely, submission to true and proper authority is also a theme. When people try to do things their way, rather than the wise and obedient way, or the way the Spirit leads, trouble follows.

So, we've come from the first novel, OUTRIDERS, in a future world damaged by the Endless Wars. Birthrighters--those who survived the wars by building an Ark that is under the arctic ice, full of spiritual maturity and scientific know-how--send outriders topside. We met the Horesh community birthrighters--the outriders, trackers, weaver, etc. It's just one enclave assigned to collect "natural" specimens of flora and fauna, those not tainted by genetic meddling. They also protect life and uphold goodness however they can without endangering theihr mission in a post-apocalyptic world fallen back into some sort of semi-medieval status. Brady is leader. Niki is our strong warrior-woman who came face to face with darkness and acquired a wolfen companion. We've gone with the birthrighters through trials in the fortified cities and out about the damaged, but not utterly destroyed, land. Dangers and a major battle left them battered and down one original outrider. Worse, one entire outrider community has been engulfed in a terrible, dark void. Disobedience by the weaver/teacher, Ajoba--who was seduced by a demon in guise of an angel--has left the group without a maker of shroud, the miracle substance only the chosen can create. Shroud is crucial to their defense, as it offers camouflage and armor, and to their word, as all specimens must be wrapped in shroud before being sent down to the underground second Ark. (Shroud is fabric that on one side is, well, fabric, and on the other is "out-of-time.") The weaving of it is a spiritual gift, as are the abilities to have visions and communicate with creatures and discern the transmogrified via a green glow. And the growing needs of the heart threaten the peace of more than one birthrighter who has vowed celibacy.

TRACKERS begins with Timothy, one of the birthrighters, heading into the great city of Traxx--using his gift of song to charm the "slungs" that guide him through the Sleeping Beautyish thorny hedge with the Siren flowers. Traxx is the city of Alrod, a baron of great evil and ruthless ambition and a powerful reach, whose right arm is the dark sorcerer Ghedo.

Timothy is out to rescue the girl he loves, a good-hearted non-birthrighter who has been selected by the baron and baroness as the "lolly" to bear a royal heir. The vanity of the baroness has resulted in barrenness. Alrod wants an heir and to rule all the lands. Ghedo wants to rule Alrod, and more, but he's lost some favor with his old pal the baron given the lousy outcome of the battle in book one.

But a new sorcerer with the ability to bring fresh and magically powerful troops into Alrod's service begins the spread of a new darkness across the world, one that threatens everyone, including the birthrighters, who are licking their wounds from the first novel's battles.

The fall-out from book one has lots of birthrighters on edge. The issues of honesty, loyalty, obedience, and forgiveness come to the fore. And the loss of a birthrighter enclave brings extra work to the folks of Horesh. Tensions are mounting there.

Of course, temptations and trials come and complications ensue. And everybody has longings and secrets, especially secrets. Alrod is willing to torture and kill to learn one particular secret, and his obession is bolstered mystically by Simon, the new and vicious and revolting chief sorcerer, whose power is fearful and whose appearance is chilling.

The birthrighters will, it seems, have to face a more powerfully allied & equipped Alrod.

The subplot I most enjoyed included a female rook (a new outrider) and a deformed teen boy who serves the dreadful Ghedo in his underground laboratory, a place full of mogs and potions and prisoners and horrors. The grace of God shines in this subplot--in all the plotines, really--and it's a joy to see how it plays out. Plus, hey, exciting stuff!

The stakes are higher. The opposition deadlier. And the birthrighters must make sacrifices of all sorts. And some had me teary-eyed, others sad, but all quite proud of the indomitable spirit of those full of His Spirit.

Some criticisms I've seen are correct: The conversation at the gates of Traxx seemed totally careless and out of character. A simple explanation that they were speaking in a silent code would have cleared that up.

I also find that the emotional turnabouts of the baroness seemed to come out of the blue, but that might well be explained by what was done to her by Ghedo.

And characters explain the whole birthrighter thing maybe one or two too many times. This may make it easier, however, for people who read only TRACKERS. I found it mildly intrusive, but it did not dilute my reading pleasure by more than by a few drops. You might think it a plus!

Overall, I think this was a rollicking good tale. Unlike some other reviews I've seen, I take no issue with the multiple and changing points of view. I enjoyed that. Made the pace hum for me. And this is quite a fast-paced, action-packed, drama-filled, spiritual story. I highly recommend it.

I enjoyed it more than OUTRIDERS, but then, the emotional content was stronger and the suspense was palpable. Book one had to do its introductory duty--characters, places, conflicts--which this novel can just run with.

If you want your science fiction (or science fantasy, as the case may be) woven through with spirituality and strong conflicts, this novel may be for you. Try it.

Mir

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Story that Resonates, December 2, 2006

By	Eric Wilson "novelist" (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

Since Tolkien and Lewis popularized modern Christian fantasy, the power of symbolism and storytelling have proved to be a potent mix. Unfortunately, those who follow in their footsteps often recreate the same ideas, concoct shallow new worlds, or use shoddy writing.

Mackel gave us a wholly original start to this series with "Outriders." Although it took a little bit of time to set the groundwork for her vast but memorable set of characters, Mackel then plunged us into a story that resonated with practical truths and spiritual lessons--all in the framework of a vibrant and sometimes horrific world. The tale took place in Earth's future, where war has decimated the landscape and destroyed most technology. Once again, people turned to magic and sorcerers for guidance and strength. Standing against the rising evil, the Outriders faced transmogrified creatures, beings polluted through sorcery and genetic mixing.

In the second Birthright Project book, "Trackers," we meet up again with characters such as Niki, Brady, Ajoba, Merihanna, Timothy, Ghedo, and others. There are surprises, heartstopping moments (that include giant ticks sucking blood), and glimpses of victory. Some characters make noble choices, while others make selfish ones. By the end, the cause of the trackers and outriders is completed, but with the late introduction of a scout, it seems this series could keep going.

And in fact, it should. This is one of the best fantasy series I've read in a while. I hope others discover the richness of these books and buy enough copies to encourage the publication of a third in the series. I'll be first in line to pick it up.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More! Give Me More!, December 16, 2006

By	Gene Curtis "-Seventh Mountain-" (VA) - See all my reviews

You're going to be disappointed if you read the first 2 books in this series. You might notice that I gave both of these books 5 star ratings and wonder why I'd say this. Well, WestBow Press, at the time I write this, has elected to not publish the 3rd and final book in this series. You're going to be disappointed in the light that Outriders and Trackers are so good that you'll feel a certain emptiness knowing that book 3 is unlikely (not impossible) to be forthcoming.

I love the post apocalyptic sub-genre of mainstream science fiction as well as Christian science fiction in general and this series falls into both of those categories. It exceeded my expectations in terms of plot and character development to the extent that I've actually caught myself daydreaming about the story. Off hand I can only recall a couple of stories that have had that effect on me, "The Stand" by Steven King, and "The Time Machine" by H. G. Wells. "Outriders" and "Trackers" are definitely well worth reading even knowing that the story may never be finished.