Table of Contents
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
Other Books by C.M. Estopare
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C.M. Estopare
Wild Hunt
Fire always wins.
First published by C.M. Estopare in 2017
Copyright © C.M. Estopare, 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
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Contents
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
Other Books by C.M. Estopare
Connect with me!
1
There’s nothing like staring down death first thing in the morning.
A black beak cut through the rippling morning air, spearing through skies stained a blazing orange. Crouching with her fiery fingers contorted, Ren held her ground.
Oh, yeah. She could control fucking fire now. This bird—cockatrice, whatever—didn’t know what she had planned for it. Her first thought was burn it and its rude-ass rider off before she burned alive right with it. Ren wasn’t in the mood for death today, but this lady was making it pretty damned hard as she flattened herself against the cockatrice’s sable feathers and held the colossal bird’s reins in a choking death-grip.
The cockatrice’s massive beak gradually opened as it closed the distance between them. What did Lindiwe say about the cockatrice’s breath?
Small feet crashed through the grass behind her. Chancing a look over her shoulder, Ren watched the beads in elder Lindiwe’s hair fly behind her as she raced into the treeline to join the rest of the tribesmen. The cockatrice shrieked, its piercing cry shattering Ren’s eardrums. The fire in her hands died as she slapped her hands to her ears, knees almost buckling as they knocked into each other. The shriek came again as a ghastly stench wafted through the air above. Just as a breath of cold air hit Ren’s body, Kato’s broad chest barreled into her and sent her flying to the right.
Good thing too. Because the moment the cockatrice touched down, the grass thickened. Turning an ashen white before freezing and crumbling into dusty pebbles.
Stone grew through the grass toward her. Ren pushed herself up, eyes wide. That damned bird had turned the grass into stone. What. The. Fuck.
Tendrils of amber strands snapped in a hot wind created by the cockatrice’s wingbeats. The cockatrice’s rider, Madalitso, stood in her saddle and angled a three-pronged spear at them. It crackled in the morning air, spiky fingers of electricity zig-zagging up and down the steel pole.
Cutting her right arm across her face, Ren flung an angry ball of fire at Madalitso. The rider swerved to her left, barely avoiding the flame as it singed her saddle. Scorching it a crisp black. Ren wiggled her fingers, now blackened by the flame, and cringed at the pull of power draining from her gleaming Scion crystal.
She needed to end this fast.
The bird reared back its head, ready to send another blast of sulfuric air their way. Kato flung a scythe of air at the creature, ruffling its black feathers and stealing its balance away. Beating its black and gold wings against the ground, it propelled itself up into the air and screamed. Behind them, grass crunched and voices buzzed as the Mesh who had followed them to the edge of the Great River poked their heads from the treeline to watch the fight.
Ren wished they wouldn’t.
“Go back!” she screamed. But all she got were cocked heads and confused stares. Even though she was their leader, their Shamaness, she could not speak the language. Some could speak hers though and they still ignored her plea. No—her command.
“I said, go back!”
Ren’s command was sliced through the air by the piercing shriek of the cockatrice. Hovering above them, it roared. Its roar accompanied by the eye-watering stench of its breath and a white plume of air. The white plume floated for a moment before it spread itself into a mist and descended onto the ground below. Kato rolled away, sending blasts of air the cockatrice’s way. A bit of the white plume got tangled up in his blasts and rocketed toward the cockatrice. The rider pulled the bird up, narrowly avoiding the spray of stone-breath, while Ren dove to the far right.
A cacophony of screams shook the treeline. The Mesh bold enough to ignore Ren’s command shrieked as the white plume swallowed three: two men and one woman. Turning all three to stiff stone. Wide-eyed peels of horror ripped through the teakwood trees, pulling at Ren’s heartstrings as a high-pitched shriek erupted nearby. Ren turned.
A girl. A child. Half of her body was engulfed in the plume, the other half trying to move. Trying to pull away.
She didn’t try hard enough.
Fuck.
Fire burned to life in Ren’s stomach. Madalitso let out a cackling laugh as the cockatrice hovered closer to the treeline. It shrieked along with her, crying like an eagle.
Balling up her fists, Ren shot frenzied blasts at the cockatrice as her scion crystal drained out. The cockatrice wove and dodged, Madalitso laughing, her spear angled at Ren in her free hand. Ren’s next fireball didn’t come as easily. Sweat pooled over her upper lip as the cockatrice blurred into two. A sharp pain spiked through her body as her left knee buckled. She sent another ball of fire, this one weaker than th
e others. Before it hit the cockatrice, it fizzled out. Steam wafted through the air.
“Turn away,” Madalitso called down. “Or Stormbringer will kill you all.”
Kato heaved near her, his crystal completely drained. Behind them, the camp disappeared further into the Wilds. Cries of pain and mourning slithered past the massive teakwoods, blanketing the canopy above the Wilds. Ren’s right hand burst into flame. She had to get across that gorge. They all had to. Moira needed them to—the island’s goddess. Or, the entire island would die. Followed by the whole world.
Ren had to beat this fucker.
“Kato,” Ren hissed, “Let’s get rid of its wings.”
He had no words. Between pants, he nodded.
“I take the right, you take the left.”
The cockatrice swooped in closer, its beak gradually opening. Touching down with a massive gust of wind, it blew a misty plume of white across the grass. Turning it all to stone and white pebbles.
Pulling from her own body, Ren howled as her heart clawed at her chest. A massive tongue of fire exploded from her right hand and she dashed it across the cockatrice’s right wing. But the rider yanked at the cockatrice’s reins suddenly, forcing the bird to waver toward its left. Ren’s flame missed as the bird snapped its beak open, beady black eyes trained on Ren. It shrieked, a gust of white mist bursting from its beak. Ren rolled to the left, shrinking back against the mist as her left hand went numb. Cold. She screamed, spikes of red hot pain exploding up her left hand.
Stone. It turned her hand to stone.
“Finish them, Stormbringer.”
The bird stood taller. Its beak dropped open. Panting and heaving, Kato brushed himself against Ren’s back and spread out his hands. The bird belched a sulfuric wind of white as Kato forced a wall of wind up from the stone-white ground. Tendrils of hair slapped Ren’s face as she braced herself against the mist. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes as her body went still. As a chilling coldness swept over her, the wind dying down. Kato’s wall falling.
Madalitso’s scream stabbed her eardrums.
2
Ren’s eyes fluttered open as her hair fell back to her shoulders. Kato’s arms dropped, his body slumping against the grass as the cockatrice bent backward. Calcified in white stone, the rider and cockatrice tipped over the edge of the Great River and dropped.
Ren didn’t even hear a splash. Gripping Kato’s shoulders, she smiled despite herself. He had done it.
Beyond the treeline, screams of sorrow and pain drained her happiness as they hit her ears. Kato flashed her a sheepish look. “I missed.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “My plan was shit anyway—cut its wings off? Pfft!” she turned back toward the treeline. “Can you walk?”
They hobbled back toward the campsite together, Kato leaning on her like a human-sized crutch. A trail of white pebbles and discarded stones led their way. Ren looked closely at the white stones on the path and clenched her jaw as her stomach churned like the Great River beyond. The stones were fingers. Toes, arms—body parts. She had fucked up letting the Mesh get so damned close. But if only they had listened to her.
If only she could speak the language.
Dammit.
Ferocious sobbing hit her like a slap as they entered the thrown together campsite. Tents hung between trees, the canvas lopsided. Spilling across the ground like used bathwater. Kato patted her back and let her go, limping toward a pit in the center of the copse of trees and lopsided tents. A fire blinked to life as tribespeople unaffected by the cockatrice’s stone-breath tried to create some sense of normalcy in the camp.
They failed. Miserably.
What was Ren supposed to do? To her right, Lindiwe clasped her hands before her chest and leaned her head over a tear-stained woman. Ren chewed her bottom lip as the woman’s fingers, stone, and cold, reached for Lindiwe’s shoulder. A figure flashed before her, running to her left. The woman held the white hand of a young man whose entire forearm had hardened to stone. He screamed in pain as the woman leaned him against a tree and began shaking his afflicted forearm. The camp seemed to go on without her—without her guidance. Without much of anything directed at her. Except stares. Except barely disguised glowers of disgust as she stood, jaw unhinged, at the chaos rippling through the tribe.
Her right arm trembled, her palm clammy and sticky. She couldn’t even feel her left hand. She couldn’t even feel—
Hands groped her ankles. Moistness kissed her toes. Ren looked down, eyes glazing as the braids of a bowing woman slithered across her tan shoulders. Tears pooled between the cracks of Ren’s toes as the woman cried onto her, kissing her toes. Kissing the tops of her feet. Bringing her bleary gaze up, the woman stared into Ren’s eyes and pleaded in island speak. Ren cocked her head, heart thundering in her chest, as the woman clasped her hands before herself and repeatedly dipped her head to the soil, only to look back up at Ren again. The woman’s strange words hitched in her throat with every bow and every repeated glance up. Ren couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t understand what the fucking woman was saying.
“What? What is it?” she clenched the hand she could actually feel. “Can someone—can someone—” translate?
The woman’s brown gaze flickered. Her tears stopped. Her nostrils flared.
You cannot even understand our tongue. Nakato’s voice. It boomed through her mind. Can you?
Ren’s eyes snapped wider. Nakato? Did she just hear a fucking dead lady speak? She shook her head, trying to concentrate on the scene unraveling before her. There were way too many weird things happening at once.
The woman raised her hand to Ren’s face, then hesitated. Ren’s gaze connected with the chocolate-brown ones of the tribeswoman and she nodded her head. Whatever you need to do to help me understand… “Do it.”
The woman grasped Ren’s chin, squeezing her cheeks and jaw bone. She twisted her jaw slightly to the right and down. Ren sighed heavily, shoulders slumping. Her stone-hand twitching absently. This was her damned fault.
A little stone-girl stood frozen in time and place, her mouth wrenched open in a silent scream. Her deer-like eyes wide, little crystal tears crumbling on their edges. They winked in the noontime sun, glittering like gold.
“Heal,” the tribeswoman gutted out, “Shamaness.”
A crowd gathered. Sobbing and sniffling reverberated around her as scrutinizing gazes hooked her skin and pulled. “I—I don’t…” what could she do? Moira told her to find her Scions—all twelve. The Mesh had made her Shamaness because she beat Nakato, then killed her. Slick tentacles wiggled up her spine as she took a step toward the stone-child. It was almost as if Nakato was there again, forcing Ren to do something she swore she never would again.
Breaking promises left and right, aren’t we? You killed the cockatrice rider. That…Madalitso. A deep laugh echoed in her skull.
Get out of my head. Her jaw tightened.
The tribe looked on expectantly. Hopefully. Ren placed her hands on the child’s shoulders and shivered at the chill that swept up her right arm. Her left could feel nothing.
She closed her eyes. Moira, I know you’re out there. You chose me for this and now these people need my help. Please, she pleaded, please heal this child.
Ren clamped her teeth together, clenching her jaw shut. She squinted, keeping her eyes closed, as the hairs on the nape of her neck rose. Sweat trickled down her neck, wedging itself between the wings of her shoulder blades.
Fuuuuuuuuuck.
Not even a breeze wafted through. Ren tightened her grip on the girl’s shoulder as a throaty voice wove its way through her mind. She strained to hear it, to hear Moira, as she sang a word through Ren’s head.
3
No.
Moira had told her, no.
Cold water slid between the cracks of her fingers as she stretched them out wide in the stream. Ren had told the woman that she would go to the stream, convene with Moira, and help her. Help her in any way she could. The sun di
pped below the horizon, a brisk chill settling over her skin, before Ren heard anything else other than no.
There is only so much I can say.
It was a brief echo rolling around in her mind like a pebble settling in her shoe. Her jaw clenched, a sharp pain breaking through before she let her face relax and her eyes concentrate on the clear water rushing over her wrist. Do I have to get naked again to talk to the goddess? Wait. There was some weird symbol I drew…then there was a portal and…
Fuck. She sounded crazy as hell. Ren’s head involuntarily shook from side to side. Why had she tangled herself up in all this mess? Oh, yeah. Her grandfather planned to destroy this place for oil. Already, he and his armed mercenaries were probably battling it out with the Wilds to get to the center of the island. The Great River. The spirits with their creepy bleached animal skulls could only hold Morgan Black and his mercenaries off for so long. They weren’t immortal, Ren was pretty sure. And they could be knocked down by a hail of bullets like anything else.
Ren could only hope she had brought the Mesh and the island some time. She hoped that one day she could thank the spirits and that creepy talking tree for their help. But first, she needed to find the goddess’s Scions and descend into her heart. The goddess needed help protecting the island and Ren intended to give it to her. This entire ordeal was her fault, anyway. She could have talked her grandfather out of coming here years ago, but she had been too caught up in college and love and the possibility of getting married.
Wild Hunt (The Island Book 2) Page 1