Rise of the Alliance IV

Sherwood Smith

Description

The climax to the Rise of the Alliance saga begins with Detlev's boys taking two prisoners as they retreat to their lair on Five, the sister world that has been lifeless for nearly five thousand years. Reviled by both sides, the one thing they can trust is their strength, their training, and each other. Or so it seems.Meanwhile, unknown to both Norsunder and the Sartoran mages, there are secrets living within that world that will change everything.The high-stakes hunt continues on two worlds as the surviving allies step into adult roles one by one, just to find themselves with greater challenges as the world hurtles inexorably toward war . . .

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Book View Cafe
• Date de parution: 22 février 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781636320250
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Rise of the Alliance IV
Nightside of the Sun
by Sherwood Smith

Book View Café edition February 22, 2022 978-1-63632-025-0 Copyright © 2022 Sherwood Smith bookviewcafe.com
Table of Contents
SARTORIAS-DELES MAP
SARTORIAS-DELES BOOKS
PART ONE
PRISONERS
1
Al-Athann, Aldau-Rayad
TEN YEARS LATER —PRESENT DAY
2
The Den (Norsunder Base), Aldau-Rayad
3
Al-Athann Cave, Aldau-Rayad
4
“The Den” — Aldau-Rayad
5
6
7
8
9
Al-Athann
10
The Den
11
Al-Athann
12
The Den
13
14
15
Al-Athann
16
17
The Den
18
19
Al-Athann
The Den
Al-Athann
20
The Den
Al-Athann
21
The Den
22
23
Autumn 4748 AF
Norsunder Base, Sartorias-deles
24
Hostel, Western Drael, Sartorias-deles
25
26
Norsunder Base
PART TWO
PRISON
1
Late autumn, 4748 AF
Eidervaen, capital of Sartor
2
Hostel, Western Drael to Mearsies Heili
3
4
Hostel, Western Drael
5
Norsunder Base
Mearsies Heili
6
Sartor
7
Outside Eidervaen
8
9
10
Everon
11
Sartor
12
13
Norsunder Base
14
Star Island Harbor
15
Dyavath Yan (New Year’s Week) 4749
Sartor
16
17
18
Marloven Hess
19
Sartor
20
Norsunder Base
21
Winter 4749 AF
Everon
22
23
Sartor
24
Early Spring, 4749 AF
Everon
25
Summer 4749 AF
Norsunder to Norsunder Base
26
27
Between Chwahirsland and a Northern Glade
28
29
Marloven Hess
Sarendan
30
Erdrael Danara
31
32
33
Sartor
34
Norsunder Base
PART THREE
MISPRISION
1
2
Geth-deles, Isul Demarzal
3
Geth-deles, Northwest Island, Boys’ Secret Bay near Norsunder Base
4
Main Island
5
Geth-deles, Northwest Island
6
Late Autumn, 4749 AF
Sartorias-deles, Sarendan and Sartor
7
8
Geth-deles, Main Island
Spring 4750 AF
Sarendan to Sartor’s Western Border
9
Geth-deles, below Norsunder Base
10
Norsunder Base
11
12
Sarendan and Sartor’s Western Border
13
Aldau-Rayad, Al-Athann Cave
14
Geth-deles, Northwest Island
15
16
Sartor
17
Between Sartor and the Northwestern Island on Geth
18
19
20
21
Geth-deles and Norsunder-Beyond
22
Delfina Valley
23
Bereth Ferian to Mearsies Heili
24
25
26
Autumn 4750 AF
Norsunder Base
27
Telyerhas to Marloven Hess
28
Spring 4753 AF
Dragon Peak on Border Between Sartor and Sarendan
29
Norsunder-Beyond to Norsunder Base
30
Mearsies Heili
31
Marloven Hess to Delfina Valley
32
Norsunder Base
33
34
Norsunder Base
35
Roth Drael
36
Norsunder Base
37
Sartor, Shendoral Forest
38
39
40
Sarendan
41
42
AFTERMATH
A village in Shingara
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Read a sample of The Wicked Skill Sherwood Smith
About the Author
Copyrights & Credits
About Book View Café
SARTORIAS-DELES MAP




Click here for a list of Dramatis Personae.
SARTORIAS-DELESBOOKS
All these are available at Book View Café :
HISTORICAL ARC
“Lily and Crown” Inda The Fox King’s Shield Treason’s Shore
Time of Daughters (two volumes)
Banner of the Damned
MODERN ERA
The CJ Journals
Senrid Spy Princess Sartor Fleeing Peace
A Stranger to Command
Crown Duel
The Trouble with Kings
Sasharia En Garde
And
THE RISE OF THE ALLIANCE ARC
A Sword Named Truth
The Blood Mage Texts
The Hunters and the Hunted
Nightside of the Sun
PART ONE
PRISONERS
1
Al-Athann, Aldau-Rayad
Before concluding this part of the alliance’s history (or asa particular Chief Archivist would grandly put it, the rise ), permit meto reintroduce the four human-inhabited worlds circling the sun Erhal:
The mysterious, cloud-obscured world of Songre Silde.
Sartorias-deles, which most of the Young Allies call home.
Aldau-Rayad, called by Norsunder “Five,” arid and lifeless,where Detlev of Norsunder established a stronghold.
Opposite Sartorias-deles, so that the two worlds areinvisible to one another, the sister world Geth-deles, known to its inhabitantssimply as Geth.
Geth’s complicated undersea life is far older than the humancivilizations on the island archipelagos, largely uninterested in humans andtheir airborne gibble-gabble—except as food to certain deep-water species. Thehuman settlers on Geth eventually met other world-gate travelers and refugees—includingthose fleeing the cataclysm Sartorias-Deles calls The Fall, and so theirculture evolved in the usual fits and starts.
There has in recent years been sporadic communicationbetween the four worlds. Not nearly what once had been, of course. At the time I’mwriting about here, Norsunder was most frequent in shifting between Five, theirsingle base on Geth-deles, and Sartorias-deles.
They had failed in getting a toehold on Songre Silde . . .so far.

This last chapter in the Rise of the Alliance will begin witha brief jaunt ten years back, which on Sartorias-deles was a couple years afterSartor had emerged from its enchantment beyond time and was struggling to catchup with the rest of the world.
Unknown to any of them, the forgotten world Five hosted notonly the Norsundrian stronghold, but hidden deep in one of its mountain ranges,survivors of that long-ago Fall.
We’ll begin with those survivors as the last sands slippedfrom the massive time-measure canister, marking the end of one round and thebeginning of a new, “rounds” being the designation for what had once been days,a concept blurred by centuries of cave living. The Elder in charge of swinging thecanister upright again and ringing the wake-time bell stood patiently by asfive children pattered past him, up the smooth rocky path to the highest cavebelonging to the mage Dom Hildi.
Leotay was the first of the ten-year-olds to reach the ledgeoutside of Dom Hildi’s cave. Several other children joined her there, includingLeotay’s friend Satya. Familiar with one another, they knew that there were noother ten-year-olds due, but still Dom Hildi did not open her tapestry.
“Did you call?” asked the last arrival.
“Yes,” Leotay said, for the fifth time.
“We were supposed to be here at Blue,” Satya pointed out.
Everybody had come early, before the start of the new round.
Moonbeam, the tallest of the boys, hopped to the edge of theledge and peered down into the big cavern. “Elder Amau is waiting for the lastof the sands to drop,” he reported.
His words were unnecessary—no one had heard the Change bellring —but still the others thanked him with somewhat nervous politeness. WhenDom Hildi said that they were to be there at the Blue, that meant precisely whenthe cannister had been swung around and sand began flowing into the lowestlevel, marked with a blue stripe. No one wanted to find out what happened tolatecomers, so they’d all sidled up during the end of the last sleep-stripe.
They knew that they were to hear The Story this round, butanything more than that (though they’d never tired of speculating) was unknown.Adults, and older cousins and siblings had been disgustingly smirky andteasing, but most repeated tiresome variations on, “We waited until we turnedten, and so will you.”
Leotay got up and stared down into the vast bowl of the maincavern, at the familiar glow-globes along the ledge walkways outside thesmaller, tapestry-covered caves in which families dwelt. She knew that TheStory was supposed to be about the Past, but how was the Past different fromthe present? She couldn’t imagine anything different than the family caves alongthe ledges, the big terrace opposite Dom Hildi’s cave with the massive stripeddouble-canister that measured out their awake-times and sleep-times in thecontinual flow of soft sands, or the people she’d always known.
She turned around, her toes rubbing on the stone smoothed byhundreds of years of ancestors. Hundreds and hundreds . She gazed at Dom Hildi’sbeautiful blue-and-gold embroidered tapestry. As befitted the most respectedperson in the cavern, she had the best tapestry. Somehow the patterns in theweave seemed to indicate mystery: why were the shapes made this way or thatway?
They would find out soon. The thought made her wriggle withimpatience.
“Blue!” a boy sang out a heartbeat before Elder Amau hauledthe rope that turned the canister, then struck the brass bell down in thecavern to announce the last of sleep-time.
“Ah!” a sigh went through the youngsters on the littleledge.
Don Hildi’s tapestry moved aside.
A wrinkled old face peered out, the eyes sharp but the skinaround them crinkled in good humor. “Come in, children.”
They walked single file past the familiar figure with herwhite hair tied back into a thin braid. Her outer chamber was plain, much likeanyone else’s: a few mats, a low table made of silk-tree wood, a patterned weavingon the cave wall. Leotay hoped they wouldn’t have to stay there, though thiswas usually the room where people kept company. Somehow, she expected somethingdifferent of Dom Hildi.
They weren’t disappointed. The old lady pushed aside anothereven more fantastically embroidered tapestry, one tattered with age, and theyfiled inside the inner cave. Their gazes passed indifferently over the two lowtables with books on them, to the walls where hung several ancient-lookingembroidered cloths, these ones not with patterns, but with pictures. The onlythings recognizable about the pictures were people, though the clothes theywore were as fantastic as the backgrounds. Who were those brown people in theirodd clothes? Why did they cover their feet and heads?
Finally, in a jagged corner between two striated slabs, hung. . . the Black Tapestry. Like The Story, it had been whispered about most bythose who had not yet seen it.
“Sit down, children,” Dom Hildi said, smiling. She pointedto where six guest mats had been set in a half-circle on the floor, and shesettled onto her thick one, so much easier on old bones.
“So how much have you heard about The Story?” Dom Hildisaid, her brows raised.
The youngsters looked at one another. No one was willing toadmit how they’d done their best to get hints