Storm Phase Series
Books 1-3
David Alastair Hayden
Contents
Copyright
The Storm Dragon’s Heart
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Epilogue
The Maker’s Brush
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Lair of the Deadly Twelve
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
The Forbidden Library
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Afterword
Also by David Alastair Hayden
The Storm Phase Series: Books 1-3
The Storm Dragon’s Heart, The Maker’s Brush, Lair of the Deadly Twelve and The Forbidden Library
Copyright © 2015 by David Alastair Hayden
All Rights Reserved
Version 1.0 | November 2015
Cover illustrations by Leos Ng “Okita”
Graphic Design by Pepper Thorn
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Prologue
“I am a qengai…a spy…a warrior…a thief…an assassin.”
The k’chasan girl lifted a sleeveless top off a pile of neatly folded clothing and slipped it over her head. Next came the matching charcoal shorts. She adjusted the skin-tight material so that it lay comfortably over her russet fur.
“I am devoted to Master Notasami’s Sacred Codex.”
Reluctantly, she stepped into a pair of thick canvas pants and cinched them tight. She hated the pants. Given her fur and the tropical rainforest she lived in, they were almost unbearably hot. But the pants protected her legs from brambles, rocks, and far more harmful things.
“I am willing to die for our cause.”
She slid on her thick-soled sandals and wound the cross-gartered straps up her calves. Then, over the pants, she fastened on dark green shin and thigh guards made from hardened leather.
“I am the clouds and the wind.”
She paused, savoring the feeling of one last cool breeze against her fur, before pulling on her long, canvas shirt and her padded leather breastplate.
“I am the rain and the hail.”
With nimble fingers, she laced the hardened leather vambraces onto her forearms and wove her thick hair into a braid that circled her head like a crown. She pulled up the hood of her shirt, making sure her catlike ears retained their full range of motion, then wr
apped the gauzy scarf around her lower face, so that only her amber eyes and the downy fur around them could be seen.
“I am the thunder and the lightning.”
She tucked two sickle-shaped blades with long handles into the loops on her belt, strapped a sheathed knife onto each leg, and slid a set of throwing spikes into compartments hidden underneath the vambraces on her forearms.
“I am the storm.”
Even though she had spent the last six years training in this uniform, she was already sweating. But a qengai ignored discomfort. All that mattered was the mission, the cause. She examined herself in a small, polished-bronze mirror, the most valuable thing she owned.
“And I am so not ready for this.”
She sank onto the reed mat that served as a bed in her tiny, ramshackle cottage. Drawing a pebble from her pocket, she traced a finger across the name etched into it.
“It’s just nerves. Everyone feels this way before their first mission…out in the world…all alone. I can do this.” She clenched her fist around the smooth stone and nodded her head. “I have to do this: for myself, for my clan, and especially for my mother. I’ll be fine. I’ve trained harder than anyone else. And I’m better than even some of the older, experienced boys.”
Someone tapped on the door.
She kissed the stone and returned it to her pocket. Then she stood and looked at herself in the mirror again. “You’ve got this.”
Elder Oreni, first-husband of their clan’s leader, stood on the other side of the door, his expression sterner than usual. She didn't expect encouragement from him or anyone else in the village of Yasei-maka. Just because he was also her stepfather didn't mean that she got special treatment—exactly the opposite, in fact. “It’s time to go. The Prophet is expecting you.”
She nodded. “I’m ready.”
“I took a chance on you, Iniru,” her stepfather growled. “Don’t make me regret it.”
* * *
The Cavern of the Prophet lay deep within the heart of Yasei Forest, centered between the original nine qengai villages. The Prophet interpreted the inscriptions that magically appeared within the pages of their chapter of the Sacred Codex. After determining which qengai was called to serve and the nature of his or her mission, the Prophet would send a silver-beaked magpie to the appropriate village to summon the required qengai by shouting their name three times.
Only a few thin shafts of early morning sunlight managed to pierce the dense, evergreen canopy overhead, but it provided more than enough illumination for a k'chasan like Iniru to easily avoid fallen logs, stumps, thorn-tipped vines, and bogs. She darted from shadow to shadow, hurrying through the rainforest quietly and, as always, cautiously. The dangers so close to a village were few, but it was important for a qengai to maintain a constant state of heightened vigilance, even on her home turf.
Iniru’s large, fur-tufted ears twitched back and forth, taking in all the sounds around her. Above her, loud birds in a myriad of bright hues cheeped, warbled, and sang. In the distance, monkeys howled and chattered. And among the foliage and ground debris, snakes slithered and all manner of insects and rodents crept and crawled.
The wind shifted. Iniru's nose crinkled. Somewhere close by lurked a panther, either perched in a tree or soundlessly stalking its prey. Iniru changed her route to lead her farther away from the cat. It wasn't likely to attack, unless threatened or starved, but it never hurt to be extra careful when dealing with them—especially today. She couldn't risk anything going wrong on her first and most important visit to the Cavern of the Prophet.
Besides, Iniru secretly didn’t mind the delay changing her route would cause. It meant that for another precious few minutes, she was just a k’chasan girl, still training in the arts of subterfuge and combat, and not a full qengai burdened with the responsibility of a dangerous mission from the Sacred Codex.
The shadows lengthened as she slipped deeper into the forest. The birds and insects quieted. The vegetation changed.
Thick air—heavy with the cloying scents of fungus and rotting vegetation—invaded her nostrils and seeped through her clothes and into her fur. Despite the stifling atmosphere, she shivered.
The rainforest around her village had always seemed simultaneously ancient and new, with old trees and ferns dying and new ones sprouting up to replace them. But this part was different. Her mother had once said to her that walking into the heart of the forest was like stepping back in time, to a primordial forest that had once covered the entire continent of Okoro, long before k'chasans or any other peoples had come here. Iniru couldn’t disagree.
The farther she went, the thicker the forest grew, closing in on her. Twisted, vine-wrapped firs of a type she’d never seen before leaned into one another. Red-striped bamboo stands grew so tightly together that they formed massive impenetrable barriers. At times, she was forced to climb over the bloated roots of towering magnolias, as if they were boulders on a mountain. Blue-tinged ferns with wide leaves lay amidst clusters of briars, their thorns dripping a strange sweet-scented ichor. And crimson flowers bobbed out from fungus clusters hanging off the sagging limbs of cypresses.
Shivering again, she suppressed her fear as she had been taught. Her pace slowed and every sense came alert. She crept forward, her eyes scanning the unnaturally dense vegetation on either side. A clear path had formed, leading her forward. That should have made her feel better. She had heard stories of interlopers being trapped by the forest until they starved to death. Even qengai would find their way blocked by an impenetrable wall of trees if they had not been called. No one could reach the Cavern of the Prophet without permission.
But it took all her willpower to force herself to keep going. As the canopy lowered and thickened to form a roof that choked out the already dim light, Iniru’s hands started to tremble and her stomach twisted. The trees grew tighter and tighter together, interweaving their branches until she was walking down a living tunnel and even her sharp, k’chasan eyes could no longer see by the faint light that made its way in. By feel and instincts alone she advanced, picking her way carefully across the uneven floor of roots and earth.
Despite her training, her heartbeat raced as she imagined monsters lurking within the darkness. One legend said the forest had given birth here, that the goddess Ishiketa had emerged fully formed from this very tunnel. Another legend said the trees had been warped into this shape by the dark magic of a terrible monster. The great hero Akahiron had slain the beast eons ago but its twisted lair still remained. The elders dismissed all the stories except one: centuries ago, Master Jujuriki Notasami had meditated here for one hundred and forty-nine nights, recording his prophetic visions into the Sacred Codex. And only their Prophet, who lived out her entire life in the cavern, could decipher the strange glyphs of his transcriptions.
Thinking about the Prophet only increased her anxiety. Even the most hardened qengai master spoke of her in hushed tones edged in fear. Most people only mentioned the Prophet directly when she called someone to the cavern.
Iniru was on the verge of panicking, of breaking and running out, back toward the light and out into the fresh air beyond the heart of the forest. But then faint, flickering orange lights appeared ahead. Relief flooded through her, breaking her uncharacteristic paranoia. She took a deep breath, scoffed at herself, and tentatively walked into a huge cavern illuminated by a sparkling swarm of fireflies…and an expansive iron brazier filled with glowing, red-hot coals placed in the center.
“Hello?” she called.
At the sound of her voice, the fireflies stirred erratically for a few moments before settling back into their languid clouds.
Searching the circular cavern, she found a simple table, and three boxes—a large one filled with square sheets of paper, a medium one containing a number of charcoal sticks used for drawing, and a small one stuffed with an herbal, tea-like mixture. Beyond the table, a narrow passage led into a small room with a second, normal-sized brazier. Rows of boxes filled shelves th
at seemed to grow out of the walls, and what appeared to be two piles of bedding lay to one side.
“Greetings, Iniru of Yasei-maka,” said a husky voice, behind her.
Iniru spun around, automatically raising her hands in a defensive position.
A stooped, white-furred k’chasan woman wearing only a short skirt stepped out from the shadows to Iniru’s left. Chills pricked across Iniru’s skin. She had examined the cavern carefully without seeing or smelling anyone. And if the woman had entered after her, surely Iniru would have heard some trace of sound.
Judging by the withered folds of her skin and her thinning fur, the Prophet was older than old. Trailing behind her was a girl several years younger than Iniru. She too had cloud-white fur and wore only a matching black loincloth split along the sides. Iniru had seen k’chasans with red-brown fur like her own or with paler browns, darker reds, and sable even. But she had never seen white fur before.
“I am the Prophet,” the crone said.
Iniru removed the scarf from her face and bowed respectfully. “Hello…um….” Iniru frowned. “I’m sorry. No one told me how I should address you.”
“It is of no matter,” the Prophet said. “Let us begin.”
“Oh…okay.”
The Prophet gestured to a spot in front of the central iron brazier. “Kneel here.”
As Iniru stepped that way, the girl smiled at her.
“And who are you?” Iniru asked.
The girl started to speak, but the Prophet interrupted her. “She is the Acolyte. Ignore her.”
Iniru knelt before the brazier. Her knees settled into rounded indentations where thousands of knees had knelt before. This wasn’t the only place to kneel. Eleven other pairs of indentations surrounded the brazier. Missions often required more than one qengai, so that didn’t surprise Iniru.
“Are you prepared to serve the Sacred Codex?” the Prophet asked.
“I am ready.”
The Prophet smiled, her bright-blue eyes disappearing into the folds of her skin and fur. “You are well-trained and determined, but you are not ready.” She turned to the Acolyte. “They are never ready when they come here, because they are afraid—of their future, but more so of us. Do not doubt them, though. The ones like Iniru here will conquer their fear and serve.” She waved the Acolyte closer. “Can you see the determination in her eyes? Can you feel the passion radiating from her soul?”
Storm Phase Series: Books 1-3 Page 1