Star-Torn Sky

Anna Hunter

Description

Star Torn Sky was planned in intricate detail from its history to its people. It’s taken over twenty years to mature and cultivate this world. The story and characters have grown and have depth and complexities. Discover the life’s work of this creative storyteller.

Sujets

• Anna
• Anne
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 12 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669869283
• Langue: English

Extrait

STAR-TORN SKY
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Anna Hunter
 
 
Copyright © 2023 by Anna Hunter.

Library of Congress Control Number:
           2023904089
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-6930-6

Softcover
978-1-6698-6929-0

eBook
978-1-6698-6928-3
 
 
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 copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,
and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 03/10/2023
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
851085
CONTENTS
Prologue
Festival of Lights
A Reverent Sanctuary
Pollen of the Ryen
Strong Like a Hylenthian Woman
Mist of the Domlo
The Last Vial
The Lost Herd
Lair of the Banished
Child of Arcos
Bsnevian’s Bastard
The Feather Bed Jig
Innocent Snow Gazelle
Nothing Left to Fear
Forlorn Journey
Marshlands of Datace
Fragments of the Coast
The Cursed Brothers
Seed of Meratton
About the Author
Glossary
Afterword
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To the memory of Leigh Ann Morgan
PROLOGUE
Crazed cattle fled burning fences in a stampede. No stars were visible through the haze of ash. The fumes of sizzling tree sap and steaming earth were heavy on the air. Over the mountains, the fire blazed like an ominous storm. Red smoke filled the valley with blood and flooded unassuming farmsteads. In the southern mountains sat a manor, the only audience to this terrorizing display. Yellow and orange fires freckled the homes and overtook the land. Flames engulfed the valley.
Many silhouettes ran but were halted by falling trees.
Blood and ash churned in the dirt.
In the valley, the ground crumbled and shattered apart, and a fountain of liquid rock and metal surged out. Water screamed as the magma slammed into the frozen ocean, and the ice shattered in all directions. Muddy water boiled and oozed over the ground like oil. The steam had the acrid stench of copper and sulfur, and the heat dancing in the sky looked ghostly. Chunks of rock and fire flew through the night sky, and entire forests became an army of torches in the night.
Far from the flaming storm stood the manor, defiant on the opposite mountain range. Within these walls, chaos churned like a roaring audience. Soldiers and civilians alike lost all sense of reason and bravery. Weapons were discarded and shields would serve no protection. A crack raced up the mountain and stopped short of the manor. Those who were too frightened to run hid instead. A child curled into his mother’s embrace behind the stone barricade. Everyone coughed from the acidulous smoke, and their eyes were red. A maid brought buckets of water to nurse the soldiers’ burns and wipe their eyes clean. Rubble was pulled away in a futile attempt to help the motionless bodies beneath.
A soldier emerged from within the manor castle and removed her decorated helmet. Beneath she revealed red hair tightly braided and wrapped around her head, both disheveled from the chaos and damp with sweat. She realized the number of civilians taking shelter could be counted on her hands. Her heart squeezed with pain. She looked over the survivors and longed to see a different, more familiar face, to no avail. Tears streaked down her ash-stained cheeks. Whether those tears were from the ash, sadness, or horror, she wasn’t sure. She covered her face with a wet rag as a wave of black smoke wafted through.
“Oh, Gabien . . . this is a nightmare.” She coughed.
“Capstone Sunai,” a soldier called. It was a young soldier with a black braid behind his ear and a cloth wrapped around his bleeding brow.
“I hear you, Delling.” Capstone Sunai wiped her face to hide her tears, but only smeared around soot instead. Through the smoke and the flames, she saw something in the ocean of liquid fire. From within the bubbling mass of lava, there was movement, like that of a whale shifting just beneath the swells of the sea.
“Did anyone see that?” the capstone asked.
“See what?” Delling echoed and rubbed soot from his red-ringed blue eyes.
“I saw . . .,” she stammered. “I saw . . .”
“It’s the beast,” shouted the woman holding her boy. “Oi saw it . . . Oi
saw it move. It broke apart the ground. There’s something in the fire. It’s a monster!”
“Are you sure that’s not soot in your eye?” Delling asked.
“Aye, it’s there. I saw it too,” came a gruff voice that came from a huge soggy man wearing heavy furs with a wounded man over his shoulder. He rolled the wounded one onto the ground with the others. “Fished this one out of the river.”
“The Boehob River?” Delling asked.
Capstone Luzja Sunai felt her heart stop as she recalled something. “Mam told me a legend about a creature that slept in the womb of the earth . . . it’s just a story to tell bad children,” she trailed off.
“Oi’ve heard the story too. Oi even told it to my boy . . .” She looked down at her child, but he was inconsolable and clinging for dear life.
“I see it too,” said Delling, “an immense creature moving in the flames.”
“Capstone Sunai!” another soldier approached. He had blond hair and a bushy beard. He held a sheathed sword. “This is the commander’s sword.”
“Where is he?” she asked.
“I don’t know. No one has seen him.”
“Thank you, Reserve Myrddon. What of Instructor Dorhedyn?”
“We found him under the rubble. He’s done for, Capstone. The rocks crushed him. Specialist Shul couldn’t even heal him.”
“But isn’t that Instructor Raide? The Lapola Bear of the Lhydawn Army! Muriche’s Mercy!” Reserve Myrddon sighed.
“Don’t look at me, I retired,” he retorted.
“Coward!” the mother holding her child said.
“Aye, I’m a wolf running with his tail between his legs! Have you seen that thing?” Raide’s blue eyes were alight with rage and fear. “The Lhydawn lost the war! The Datactyns and Domlo win! We had an arms contest, and they whipped out that monster. Who in the right mind would fight them now?”
Reserve Myrddon had no fear of the tribeland Noren. “It killed Lhydawn, yes, but the Datactyn and Domlo burned just as easily in its flames. They might be thinking the same thing about us.”
“There’s no one else,” Delling said. “It’s just Capstone Sunai and the two specialists, Leoiel and Shul.”
The argument halted when the capstone gestured for their silence.
“I would still fight them,” Capstone Luzja said.
“But Capstone . . .”
“Let Raide enjoy his retirement, whatever’s left of it.” Capstone Luzja took the commander’s sword from Myrddon’s clawed hands. “I will accept the responsibility for the last of the Lhydawn. I am of the right mind to fight the Domlo and the Datactyns. Will you follow me?”
“Hail, Sunai!” Delling called.
“Aye, Commander Sunai. We will follow you!” Reserve Noleen cried.
“All hail the new commander, Luzja Sunai!” Reserve Myrddon called loudly.
FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS
Manor Dtsi sat in the northeastern part of the country called Datace. It had been mere days since the Great Fires and the manor had yet to discover any of their Lhydawn brothers and sisters in that time. They found hostile Datactyn clans, the native drake-people of the Kingdom of Datace, and a single nomad named Etole, who braved the broken world without fear.
War brought the Lhydawn to these shores and the Great Fires kept them here. The Lhydawn fought two armies in the capital city of Ziloime and triumphed. The armies that fought were Datactyns and the Domlo of Myrinten, an allied empire to Datace. Not long after, all were battered with bitter backlash. It was a sick twist of fate that the Lhydawn now sought refuge in the place they sought to destroy.
Commander Sunai vaulted into a riposte. Her boots moved tactically and frozen leaves crunched like glass under her as she whirled. Memories darkened her mind, and visions of the ground cracking like an egg and geysers of lava haunted her.
It had been three days since the falling star hit, and the sky was still darkened with vapor and soot. After impact when the fires dimmed, the world grew frigidly cold. The first snow polluted the ground with a blanket of blackness. Things had changed drastically, and snow was no longer white. The sunset was no longer golden, and the sky was gray instead of blue.
She still saw the liquid fire in her nightmares and waking life. She could still see it meld with the dirt and turn ice into steam. The image of pine needles floating away like glowing hairs on the wind stood out among the others.
Luzja’s heart slammed into fearful tremors, and despite her rational mind. Luzja lost her footing and scrambled, as if fire stained the ground. Her mind sped away from her, and the memory of the heat on her heels and the stinging crackle of fire was too real. Luzja tore at the ground with desperate fumbling hands.
With a blink, the visio