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    The Fall Gauntlet: BEAR: The Fall Gauntlet, #1
    The Fall Gauntlet: BEAR: The Fall Gauntlet, #1
    The Fall Gauntlet: BEAR: The Fall Gauntlet, #1
    Ebook68 pages53 minutes

    The Fall Gauntlet: BEAR: The Fall Gauntlet, #1

    By J. A. Merkel

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Benji and Soren will do anything to save their family, but the Crown isn't going to make it easy ...

    Ten years after his mother was thrown into her off-world prison, Benji finally has a chance to save her. All he has to do is win the Fall Gauntlet, a fight-to-the-death tournament on the planet of Calypso, designed to please the gods and goddesses and keep them at bay. Benji's success will usher in a new era of science and innovation, and he's come too far to lose now.

    But the Crown is three steps ahead. They've orchestrated every move, pushing Benji to the victory that will serve their own agenda. Winning the deathmatch will grant his wish to save his mother, but the Crown has other plans and won't let go of Benji so easily.

    As Benji learns the truth about the Crown's desires, he is forced to make impossible choices, especially when he learns that his final opponent—the hulking young man behind the bear mask—is his brother, Soren.

    J. A. Merkel's Bear is part of The Fall Gauntlet, a collection of dystopian sci-fi short stories about Benji and Soren's misadventures to outsmart the Crown and save a family lost to them, all while learning how to be brothers again.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJ. A. Merkel
    Release dateJul 23, 2023
    ISBN9798224295739
    The Fall Gauntlet: BEAR: The Fall Gauntlet, #1

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      Book preview

      The Fall Gauntlet - J. A. Merkel

      The Fall Gauntlet: BEAR

      Book One

      J. A. Merkel

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Also by J. A. Merkel

      BEAR

      ONE

      TWO

      THREE

      FOUR

      FIVE

      SIX

      SEVEN

      ONE

      Also by J. A. Merkel

      The Fall Gauntlet: RAT

      The Fall Gauntlet: CHRYSIX

      A bear made out of dollar signs Description automatically generated

      Copyright © 2023 J. A. Merkel

      Edited by Jean McConnell

      Cover design by Roderick Brydon

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Reviewers may quote brief passages for the purpose of a review.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be resold or given away to others. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

      For Jude,

      No matter which universes we find ourselves in, I know time and time again, we'll be brothers every time

      BEAR

      It is said that the bear disappeared from Calypso before many of the first animals; that among all the Originals, it sought out wisdom from the gods and goddesses before all others.

      Would it be impossible to imagine that a creature so carefully crafted by the Dei would eventually seek out its creators? Or was the bear searching for something else?

      Totem scholars believe that the bear never left our planet, that it is sleeping within the hollow of a great tree, waiting for its human champion to wake it from its slumber and bring protection to the land.

      When the bear appears to you in a dream, listen to its steady breathing. Feel the beat of its one true and vicious heart. Learn the location of its sacrifice.

      That is when the bear will awaken. That is when the bear lives inside you.

      From the Book of Totems, Bear

      ONE

      In my nightmares, Soren and I are running. We’re always running, but it’s never fast enough. No one in my family can ever run fast enough.

      On the morning of my final match, D rushes down the tunnel leading to my holding cell with the decisive and energetic footsteps I’ve come to know so well. She isn’t supposed to be here, especially at five in the morning hours before my match, but I’ve stopped trying to figure out the Crown or anything about how the gods and goddesses work.

      I put my lynx mask down on my desk and meet her at the door as her echoing steps die to nothing. She’s out of breath, more hurried and rattled than I’ve seen her. Has something happened? Am I still supposed to fight today?

      Pre-dawn light filters through the one barred window and casts deep shadows on her pale face as our planet tilts and opens itself to our star for the day. Another day of judgment. Her emerald-green eyes are hot with some unspoken pain, but her words are like ice. She is the one to carry the news of my brother, Soren, to me. 

      He’s been training for the Gauntlet, Benji, D says, catching her breath. He’s the one you have to fight.

      Now I’m the breathless one.

      Sometimes, you train for the better part of your life so you can save your mother from her off-world prison, and other times, you have to fight to the death against your own flesh and blood to free her.

      I always thought Mom being arrested for treason and taken away was the beginning of the end, but in time I learned we would all pay for our sins: Dad, for the medicines we’d stolen to heal his infected and rotting leg from his accident at the mines; Soren, for breaking the leg of the Crown; and me, for orchestrating the heist.

      That’s the Crown for you—just when you think they’ve taken everything, they take more. And now they’re doing it again.

      Dad used to say that the Fall Gauntlet tournament was the Crown’s way of maintaining public order by having people fight for what they believe in, while also pleasing the Dei, our all-knowing gods and goddesses—wherever they’re supposed to

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