Chosen Read online

  © 2007 by Ted Dekker

  All rights reserved. No portion of this hook may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articled without the prior written permission of the publisher

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc, books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising.

  Publisher’s Note; This novel is a work of fiction, Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or used fictitiously All characters are Actional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design by The Design Works Group, Inc, Page Design by Casey Hooper Map Design by Chris Ward

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dekker, Ted> 1962-Chosen / Ted Dekker

  p. cm. — (The circle series; bk, 1) ISBN; 978-1-59 5 54-359-2 L Title. PS3554.E43C47 2007 813h.54-dc22

  2007032976

  Printed in the United States of America 08 09 J 0 I] QW U 10987

  ur story begins in a world totally like our own, yet completely different. What once happened here in our own history seems to be repeating itself thousands of years from now, some time beyond the year 4000 AD.

  But this time the future belongs to those who see opportunity before it becomes obvious. To the young, to the warriors, to the lovers. To those who can follow hidden clues and find a great treasure that will unlock the mysteries of life and wealth.

  Thirteen years have passed since the lush, colored forests were turned to desert by Teeleh, the enemy of Elyon and the vilest of all creatures. Evil now rules the land and shows itself as a painful, scaly disease that covers the flesh of the Horde, a people who live in the desert.

  The powerful green waters, once precious to Elyon, have vanished from the earth except in seven small forests surrounding seven small lakes. Those few who have chosen to follow the ways of Elyon now live in these forests, bathing once daily in the powerful waters to cleanse their skin of the disease.

  The number of their sworn enemy, the Horde, has grown in thirteen years and, fearing the green waters above all else, these desert dwellers have sworn to wipe all traces of the forests from the earth.

  Only the Forest Guard stands in their way. Ten thousand elite fighters against an army of nearly four hundred thousand Horde.

  But the Forest Guard is starting to crumble.

  DAY ONE

  urong, general of the Horde, stood on the tall dune five miles west of the green forest, ignoring the fly that buzzed around his left eye.

  His flesh was nearly white, covered with a paste that kept his skin from itching too badly. His long hair was pulled back and woven into dreadlocks, then tucked beneath the leather body armor cinched tightly around his massive chest.

  “Do you think they know?” the young major beside him asked.

  Qurong’s milky white horse, chosen for its ability to blend with the desert, stamped and snorted.

  The general spit to one side. “They know what we want them to know,” he said. “That we are gathering for war. And that we will march from the east in four days.”

  “It seems risky,” the major said. His right cheek twitched, sending three flies to flight.

  “Their forces are half what they once were. As long as they think we are coming from the east, we will smother them from the west.”

  “The traitor insists that they are building their forces,” the major said.

  “With young pups!” Qurong scoffed.

  “The young can be crafty.”

  “And I’m not? They know nothing about the traitor. This time we will kill them all.”

  Qurong turned back to the valley behind him. The tents of his third division, the largest of all Horde armies, which numbered well over three hundred thousand of the most experienced warriors, stretched out nearly as far as he could see.

  “We march in four days,” Qurong said. “We will slaughter them from the west.”

  welve of the forests strongest and bravest young fighters crouched in their brown battle leathers at each end of the grassy stadium field, waiting for the command to stand and fight for the hairy ball sitting at center field. Five thousand spectators stood in the stands carved from the earth, holding their collective breath. Four squad leaders were to be chosen today, and each one given a house to own, the choice of any horse, and an emerald-handled sword—making them the envy of every man, woman, and child in the village.

  All of this would be decided by one man: Thomas Hunter, supreme commander of the Forest Guard.

  Johnis stood next to his father, Ramos, shivering a little. It wasn’t cold, but the breeze dried the sweat on his neck and made him cool. So he told himself, anyway.

  He had dark hair to his shoulders and, according to his father, a strong jaw that was sometimes best kept closed. His nose was sharp and his lips full, giving him the appearance that he was fourteen, not sixteen.

  He stared at the hairy Horde ball at center field. His mother, Rosa, had been responsible for that lump of Scab hair. Three months had passed since she’d been killed by the Horde at the forests edge while searching for a special plant, the catalina cactus, whose herbal power might’ve healed a fever that had come over Johnis. The Forest Guard had been to the north in battle, but she’d refused to wait for an escort while her boy suffered.

  His mother had always been like that, dropping everything on his account. Sweet Mother, with her long, dark hair and ruby lips.

  Mother, why did you go? Please forgive me, dear Mother.

  Johnis had thrown himself on the ground and wailed for the whole village to hear. His father had left the forest in a rage and returned with the long, tangled hair from ten Horde he’d killed that very afternoon—the makings of that hairy Horde ball on the field now.

  But nothing eased the pain in Johnis’s chest.

  Two weeks ago Thomas Hunter had announced the decision to lower the Forest Guard’s recruitment age from eighteen to sixteen. He was looking to boost the fighting force by one thousand. The forests had erupted in debate.

  Those who had protested had cried in fear at the thought of their sons and daughters entering battle against the Horde. They all knew that the Forest Guard was outnumbered ten to one. They knew that every time the Guard went to battle, many died. They knew that the weakest, their sons and daughters, would die first.

  But the people of the forest also knew that the Horde had sworn to kill them all. All living followers of Elyon knew, whether or not they admitted it publicly, that the fate of the Forest Dwellers rested squarely on the shoulders of the youngest fighters now joining the Forest Guard.

  All sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds worth their salt had then signed up to be considered. With his mother’s death fresh in his mind, Johnis had been one of the first in line. The Guard had dismissed all but two thousand, from which they would select the final thousand fighters.

  Johnis was one of those who’d been dismissed. Too small, they said. He was just barely sixteen and still too wounded from his mother’s death. Maybe next time, if there was a next time.

  “What do you say, Johnis?” his father whispered. “Who is the strongest?”

  Johnis scanned the players in this game Thomas Hunter called football—a name that supposedly came from his dreams of another land. All twenty-four were already mighty fighters, even though none was older than seventeen. Roughly half were women, and of those Johnis thought maybe Darsal was the strongest. Not the largest, but the strongest. And very quick.

  She crouched fewer than fifty feet from where Johnis
stood on the sidelines. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the same three-foot fighting stick they had all been given. Muscles rippled up her arm, glistening with sweat. The side of her sleeveless tunic was stained with a little blood—it was, after all, a full-contact sport. Within thirty days the recruits would be swinging razor-sharp swords in full battle against the Horde. No one dared enter the Forest Guard fearful of a little blood when so much more was at stake.

  Her long, brown hair was tucked under a leather helmet and had been pulled back into a ponytail, showing a strong, smooth jawline to her ear on the right side of her face. A terrible scar marked her left—a burn that forced Johnis to stare and wonder what had put it there. It made her more fearsome than ugly. Whatever had caused the wound had also gotten her left shoulder, although her leather armor covered most of the scar there.

  The Horde had killed her father. Johnis could practically see the thirst for revenge in her squinting eyes. But something else had happened to make her stick close to Billos, another fighter in contention for the top spot today. They were from the same forest and were clearly very close. At first Johnis had assumed they were brother and sister, but no.

  “What do you say, lad?” his father asked again.

  “Darsal,” he said, in a whisper that sounded hoarse.

  His father grunted. “Now there’s a choice. Shed make any man a fine wife.” He glanced down at Johnis. “A little more muscle on those bones and you could make a play for her yet, boy. Though she seems a bit stuck on the other youngster.”

  His father nudged him, and Johnis gave him a weak smile.

  Father could not know that his frequent comparisons with those who’d been selected to try out for the Forest Guard bothered him. The honor of wearing the hardened leather breastplates, wielding the Guard swords and whips, riding the best horses, being watched by everyone else as you walked down the path on your way to battle—who wouldn’t trade his life for a chance to be called one of the Forest Guard?

  Who, besides Johnis? Truly, he wasn’t sure he would make a good fighter in bloody battle. In fact, he was quite sure he wouldn’t.

  Still, Father’s small comments made Johnis feel weak, reminding him that he stood on the sidelines because he wasn’t worthy. He shifted on his feet and crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself.

  Thomas Hunter paced across the field. There wasn’t a man or woman among them who wouldn’t be honored to kiss the commander’s hand. The Forest Guard had saved the forests many times, and Thomas Hunter was the reason for it all.

  He slid his emerald-handled sword from its metal sheath, filling the stadium with the sound of steel scraping steel. Perfect silence settled on the crowd.

  Thomas swung the sword absently, neatly cutting the grass at his feet in an arc.

  “Is this all I can expect from you?” his voice rang out. He jabbed the air with his sword. “I’m looking for four leaders to step forward and show they are worthy to stand by my side.”

  No one responded. What Thomas could be looking for that he hadn’t already seen was beyond Johnis.

  “Take a look around,” Thomas shouted. He slowly swung his sword across the stadium. “The fate of every man, woman, and child in this arena will be in the hands of the Forest Guard. And you say you want to lead that Guard? You are all either mad or complete fools, because I don’t see a leader in the lot.”

  He paced back to the sideline, studying the line of twelve on his right, then the line on his left. Behind him the ball of hair lay undisturbed.

  To win, one team had to run to the middle, pick up the ball, and cross the other team’s goal line. What seemed simple enough was made very difficult by the fact that the other team was armed with fighting sticks.

  The day had started with a hundred of the most promising recruits. Seventy-six had been dismissed, seventeen of them on stretchers.

  It was down to these two teams of twelve each.

  Thomas raised his sword high, then swung it down hard. “Go!”

  The two lines of recruits silently bolted from where they crouched and raced toward the ball on a collision course.

  or a count of five, the only sound Johnis could hear was the thudding of feet as the two lines sprinted for each other. Silvie, the wiry fireball with short blond hair, was the first to reach the ball.

  She’d just scooped it up when the lines collided with a tremendous thud. Then the sound of sticks smashing filled the stadium with bone-jarring cracks.

  The crowd erupted in a roar of support that smothered the grunts of the contestants. The leafy trees surrounding the oval amphitheater seemed to shake on all sides, sending birds scattering for cover. Possums, lizards, rodents, and smaller animals of all shapes and sizes ran into their holes as if they knew that their future, too, was at stake in this game.

  Silvie ducked under a vicious swing from a fighter named Jackov, the largest and clearly the strongest one on the field. She came up under his extended arm with her own stick, but Jackov was too skilled to be fooled so easily. He deflected her weapon with the shield on his left arm and knocked the ball loose with his knee. The football flew high, then landed in the tangle of bodies, lost from sight.

  “Think!” Thomas screamed. “Use your heads! For the sake of Elyon, use your heads!”

  If the players on the field were not all highly skilled at deflecting blows with their leather-wrapped forearms, they would undoubtedly all be dead, Johnis thought. They would at least be a pile of broken bones.

  “Better to break an arm here among friends than have your head cut off in the desert,” Thomas cried to all who protested the brutal fighting. These were desperate times, and they called for desperate measures.

  Billos, the seventeen-year-old snake-quick fighter who was known as “the bulldog,” slid out of the mess and ran around the sparring teams, searching for the ball.

  He darted in, snatched something near Darsal’s feet, took two steps toward the opposite goal, and came face-to-face with Jackov. The big boy swung his stick at Billos’s chest. The wood landed with a blow that rose over the crowd noise.

  Thud!

  Johnis winced. The stadium fell silent except for a few clacking sticks.

  Billos stood his ground, stunned, ball gripped in his left fist.

  Seeing Billos hurt, Jackov dove in for the kill.

  “Head butt!” Darsal screamed.

  Instead of dodging, as Johnis expected him to, Billos tossed the football in Darsal’s direction, lowered his head, and stepped into the onrushing opponent.

  But Jackov sidestepped Billos’s helmeted head and snatched the flying ball from the air before it reached Darsal.

  Billos flew past him, hit the ground, and rolled to his feet.

  Before Jackov could head for the goal line, Silvie grabbed his right ear from behind. She yanked back, slamming the boy on his back.

  Then twenty-four bodies dove at the loose ball. They were all so bunched up, so tangled and intertwined, that no one had room to swing, much less take the time required to think through any strategy.

  And the ball was lost in that pile.

  Thomas paced like a lion and let them fight, but he wasn’t happy. And no wonder: a fight like this with the Horde would get them all killed.

  Some said the only way the Forest Dwellers could survive would be to make peace with the Horde, but they said it in a whisper because such cowardly talk could get a person killed. Only traitors would dare say it publicly.

  But watching the mess on the field, Johnis wasn’t sure a battle led by any of these sixteen- or seventeen-year-old fawns would be better than surrender. They looked like one huge ball of hair themselves.

  Something shot out from the pile and bounced across the grass toward the sideline. It was the ball of Horde hair, the football.

  All would have been fine if the ball had stopped on the field. But it didn’t. It kept rolling. Toward Johnis.

  He was sure it would stop as it passed Thomas, but it kept rolling.

 
Still toward Johnis.

  Every eye in the stadium followed the lumpy brown sphere. Johnis glanced up at Thomas and saw that his eyes, too, were on the ball. When he looked back down, the football had stopped. At his feet.

  One look at the field and Johnis saw that the fighting had only intensified.

  “Fools will get us all killed,” his father said, bending to pick up the ball. He grabbed it with a thick, cracked fist, lifted it, then stopped.

  “Throw it out,” Johnis said. “Hurry!”

  Instead, his father dropped the ball. It bounced once and landed on Johnis’s left foot, where it rested.

  “What are you doing?” Johnis asked, glancing up at his father. But Ramos’s eyes were on Thomas.

  Johnis looked down at the ball. A picture that had haunted his dreams flashed through his mind: an image of ten huge Horde warriors—“Scabs,” as the Forest Guard called them— killing his mother. This was their hair! It made him suddenly sick. He froze.

  “Stop!” Thomas Hunter’s voice roared above the sounds of fighting. “On your feet!”

  Jackov was already standing, storming toward the crowd at Johnis’s right. He was hunting for the ball, Johnis realized. The boy’s face was red from fighting, and his eyes glared with anger.

  “Give it up,” Jackov growled, eyes scanning the crowd.

  Whether it was the image of his mother or the sight of the furious Jackov, Johnis didn’t know, but he moved without thinking. He slipped his foot around the ball and eased it behind his heels so that it was hidden from view.

  “Give it up!” Jackov thundered, pacing along the sideline closer to Johnis. The other fighters had stood and were watching.

  “You’ve lost the ball and you think a few words will bring it back?” Thomas called.

  Johnis’s heart thumped. He almost kicked it out then. But he didn’t.

  “Use your head!” Thomas said, facing the others. “All of you, listen to me. How many times have I told you that you must defeat the Horde with what’s in your head and your heart before you defeat them with your muscle? They outnumber us! They outmuscle us! They are stronger, but we have more heart. So think with your heart!”