Sardaron

Anna Pattle

Description

'We are forced to fight a war with no cause and no escape. A war that leaves no victors, and no survivors; one which breeds hatred where love should spark.' After they are forced to pay retribution for their father's deal with a dark god, twins Kai and Amber are abducted from the security of the English countryside into new warring worlds of Near and Zio. Confused and alone, they struggle to cope with their bizarre new position and the people they meet along the way. In a realm where death fuels Sardaron's corruption, a curse that he created forces the armies of the two worlds to endlessly battle one another. The war has gone on for as long as time itself, but the twins may have discovered a way to halt it. Kai becomes convinced that defeating Sardaron is the only way to save them, and the teenage heroines are willing to risk everything to break his curse - even if it means going against this new world which is now their only home. Their crusade is raging with action, tragedy and suspense as their journey unfolds. Their father's mistake has cost them their freedom - but can they save their people's?

Sujets

• Croisades
• Children's

Informations

• Publié par: Brown Dog Books
• Date de parution: 25 janvier 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785453632
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published 2018
Copyright © Anna Pattle 2018
The right of Anna Pattle to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Published under licence by Brown Dog Books and
The Self-Publishing Partnership, 7 Green Park Station,
Bath BA1 1JB
www.selfpublishingpartnership.co.uk
ISBN printed book: 978-1-78545-362-5 ISBN e-book: 978-1-78545-363-2
Cover design by Kevin Rylands Internal design by Andrew Easton
Printed and bound in the UK
Dedication
To Glendower Preparatory School for giving me the assignment in year 6 that inspired the first words of this novel.


Proceeds of book sales for Sardaron will go to World Reader, a global nonprofit whose mission is to help the world read. The organization provides students and their families with a free digital library available on e-readers and mobile phones, complemented with a suite of reading support programs. Since 2010, over 10 million people across 49 countries have read from their digital library of over 35,300 local and international e-books. www.worldreader.org
Contents
Prologue
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14
15
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24
100 Years Later
Epilogue
About the Author
.PROLOGUE.
Nevan
I stared dully down at the corpse.
The corpse of Eimana, her clothes shredded, face set in a furious expression of anger and passion. I was kneeling, my sword slipping out of my belt. I carefully adjusted it without moving my eyes from the woman’s face, watching for any movement on her part. As if some small, desperate facet of my mind still believed that she was alive.
Her skin was lined with dirt and crusted with blood – it was sallow, the colour already fading out of it. Her hands were clenched shut, one holding a small dagger that gleamed silver in the fading light of the evening.
I could do nothing but stare down at her, feeling emptiness in my mind. Silence, as I tried to process what had happened.
A wisp of flame, spreading slowly upwards from the woman’s arm, was the only sign of life. I stared at it as it slithered up her arm, leaving behind the smell of burning flesh and charcoal. Where it had moved, a black line marred the smooth skin of her forearm. It snaked upwards, heading towards her head, trailing ash and puffs of smoke. The flame was not controlled by her, but by the remnants of an enemy’s power.
I simply watched as it slid onto her face, cracking and burning the skin that lay there. Furiously, I stared at the flame as it devoured her features. The flicker grew, engulfing her nose, mouth and eyes, until her face was a ruin. In my mind, there was only an imprint of what she had looked like. The only image I now had of her.
I stood, taking a deep breath, watching as the flame moved further and further along her body, leaving behind seared ashes. I watched, until there was nothing but a decomposing heap of ash and burning meat left. Around my fingers cruel wind whipped, ice begging to be unleashed on the flame. Begging at least to try to preserve the woman’s body.
I clenched my fingers together, shutting out the urge I felt in my blood. The instinct to destroy the flame in front of me.
I stepped back, averting my eyes, knowing that I shouldn’t be watching the flame, lest I give in to my temptations. What was done was done – there was no point in trying to fix it. Trying to fix her.
A sudden hand on my arm made me turn, startled. Remas, my second-in-command, stared at me apologetically, his hand now resting on my shoulder. The sight of his face made the first of the tears start to trickle down my face.
‘I’m so sorry, Nevan,’ Remas said softly. ‘More than you can imagine.’ I nodded weakly, brushing my eyes. I glanced once more at the corpse, sparking fresh tears to trail down my face.
My voice cracked, face crumpling, as I whispered, ‘I loved her so much.’
Remas said nothing, eyes searching my face. ‘I know you did,’ he uttered at last, taking a deep breath. I longed for it to be someone else comforting me, for Eimana to have her hand wrapped around mine once more. I stared at her corpse, the flame finally extinguished. The corpse of my loved one.
‘Come. It’s not safe here. That flame might have come from one of the Firborn.’
I stared at him silently, wondering how he could be so crude. His face was twisted away slightly, eyes awkwardly darting between mine and the ground, the position of his body uncomfortable on the ground. I realised that with none of his family killed, he didn’t know what to say to me that would make anything better. He didn’t understand.
I said nothing. He took my silence for agreement and slowly led me over to our side of the battlefield, footsteps squelching through the blood and gore that decorated the sodden ground. The safe side.
For it was war we were fighting, a brutal battle that had led carnage to rage for centuries. Two opposing immortal sides, both fighting against each other in their desperation for survival. The Falcords – myself, my people, and my beloved Eimana, who were woven with the crisp wind at our heels and ice adorning our fingers – and the Firborn. The opposing people, ones that ruled with fire and merciless heat. Who had killed my family – and my friends.
The war was a desperate attempt by each side to win survival for their people – each side ferociously, viciously, determined to win.
For the people who lost… they were left with nothing but the scarce game that wandered their land – for the Falcords, just a few species of woodland mammals. The extreme environment we lived in, snow-covered mountains that embodied the spirit of our gifts, was cruel in its beauty, allowing only a few survivors to nourish themselves from its bounty. A bounty that was growing increasingly small as the population grew and wars were lost. Two, in fact, was the precise number of battles in which the Falcords had succumbed to the Firborn. Two battles set a hundred years apart – once a century the two sides converged to fight battle and then returned to their own lands.
The people who won the wars were gifted with supplies for survival by our ruler. Supplies that would just about last until the next century rolled around, when wars – we called them the wars of Meridian – would be fought again. The gifts included clothes, weapons, food supplies, and the necessary ingredients for survival in the harsh land.
I had experienced crushing loss a hundred years ago, when I had eagerly joined the Fydars (a group of Falcords who trained exclusively for the battles and who were known with reverence throughout the legions of the people) in hope of winning valour for my people. Unfortunately, we had lost, and had returned home dejected and angry.
After that, I had promised myself that I would dedicate my life to fighting, to becoming a legendary warrior like the rest of the Fydars. Only it hadn’t worked out – I had met Eimana and fallen in love with her almost immediately. Suddenly, war wasn’t my focus so much as being a good husband was.
Now that we had lost for a second time, I knew that there would be urgent talks on rationing our food and conserving what we had. A hundred years was a long time to be without plentiful food and means of survival. It was easier for us, however. We remained hopeful, because a hundred years… it was the equivalent for us of a few years of the life of a mortal.
And we – the species of superhuman who were split into two different peoples – weren’t mortal.
We were considered immortal, our lifespans ranging from 700 years to over a millennium, depending on our lifestyles and how well-nourished we were. Many died of starvation in the village outside our camp, and mortality rates in children were high.
All for this war.
Before the wars, the Falcords and Firborn had lived together for eons, presided over by a true immortal. A god of sorts. All I knew was that his reign had ended when another god arrived from a different dimension and killed our previous ruler.
The new god, Sardaron, was the ruler of darkness and death. He rejoiced in the suffering of others. It was what kept him alive – the deaths of his people powered him further.
At least, that was the myth, woven around battlefields and passed on from generation to generation.
It was also said that this dark god had created a prophecy. The prophecy ordered wars to be fought every hundred years. The deaths that occurred were used to power the life of the god – but whoever won the wars also received all the equipment and supplies needed to survive the next hundred years.
The prophecy contained a curse that took two girls from Earth to fight against each other the result determining which side won. That was the most devastating part of the curse: the girl that lost would either be killed or be turned into a mortal once more.
I turned away from Remas, who was looking at me with concern still hovering in his eyes. He smiled ruefully and patted my shoulder once. His distance was to be expected; we had never been close, and I understood that he didn’t know me well enough to know how to comfort me.
Anyway, I didn’t want comforting. I didn’t want sympathy. None of those things had mattered before, not when I had the attention of the only person I needed it from. Everyone else was irrelevant – extras in the scenes I had performed with Eimana, the spotlight seemingly on just the two of us. She was the only one that mattered.
I walked away from Remas towards the small tent that I had set up for the duration of the battle. It was small and discreet, and I pushed open the flaps to let myself inside.
In a corner, a small bedr