Storm Kings (Song of the Aura, Book Six)

by Downs, Gregory J.

  Zain, The: The southernmost of the three Sea Nymph tribes. Unlike their brethren, they are restricted to a single mortal form. This may be due to the long periods of time spent on the land, or on the crafted wooden ships they use for trade.

  Zonder: A powerful Lordyte, and leader of the Golden Sepulcher rebellion. Formerly a Doomcleric; his dissatisfaction with the Golden Nation religion led him to subvert those around him in an attempt to pave the way for the rebellion.

  STRIDING the ELEMENTS in SONG OF THE AURA

  In the land of Vast, it is commonly held that the physical world consists of Five Elements. Three are of the World, and Two are of the Otherworld. The three World Elements are Sea, Sky, and Stone. The two Otherworld Elements are Spirit and Pit.

  Occasionally, a man or nymph will be born with the ability to manipulate part of an Element. Such a being is known as a Strider, and their ability is referred to as Striding. Most Striders are born with the ability to Stride only part of a World Element. This ability usually manifests itself sometime in early adolescence.

  The precepts and limits of Striding an Otherworld Element are unknown; however, it is generally accepted among scholarly circles that the so-called sorcerers and magicians are really just common men and women who have discovered some aspect of Pit Striding. The power of cleric “prayers” is sometimes attributed to Spirit Striding.

  In ancient times, Striders could manipulate an entire World Element, and sometimes even combine their power with some part of an Otherworld Element. The abilities of Striding have genetically decreased over time, however, and Striding an entire element was, for a while, unheard of.

  At the time of the events recorded in the Song of the Aura, some of the aforementioned facts have begun to be disputed. It is even prophesied by some of the less orthodox clerics in Vastion and beyond that there will soon arise those capable of surpassing even the most talented Striders of the past.

  ~

  And indeed, as time goes on, the power of Striders as a whole seems to be increasing at a rapid and dangerous rate. All but the weakest gain new power and new ability, resulting in many victories… and many deaths. The more power, the harder for those newly come into their power to control it. Excepting Gribly, Elia, Lauro, and Gramling, those who learn to control an entire World Element usually meet serious injury or death from the unclean flow of power. Some, like Karanel Winter, have even managed to “burn themselves out,” resulting in the loss of Striding altogether.

  ~

  With the passing of the Day of Norne, and the advent of a new age, things seem to be slowly reverting back to normalcy. But one can never know. Has Striding reached its peak, and is now descending into obscurity? Or has the Song of the Aura only begun a new, powerful stage in the eternal conflict that binds Vast and all the farthest lands together?

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS for SONG OF THE AURA

  There really isn’t room to thank all the people who had a hand in the conception, creation, and refining of this story. Most of them I’ve given a word to in previous books, so for now I’d like to cover all the main bases, as well as give you a special little anecdote about the series as a whole.

  Firstly, as always, I thank God. Who would’ve thought that he’d inspire me to write this story, especially so early? And even more amazing, he’s let it become something big… something worthwhile… something I simply never could have accomplished on my own.

  Secondly, I thank my family. Each one of them, but especially my parents, has had a unique part in bringing this story to life. They’ve sacrificed hours upon hours of their time, letting me shirk responsibility and type away like there’s no tomorrow… and what writer could ask for more?

  Now, about that anecdote. I’d like to tell you just how Song of the Aura came to be… and, in a way, thank somebody who probably doesn’t even know what a huge part they played in its existence.

  I’d had a world banging around in my head for a few years. That sometimes happens when you read too much. Anyway, I had drawn maps, outlined cities, built magic systems and created entire family trees.

  Then, while with a friend, I decided to draw an entirely new map, for fun. He helped me, and in no time we had created what would later be known as the land of Vast. I soon became so intrigued by this idea that I decided to write a book about it. It wouldn’t be just any old book: it would set in the world I’d created, but on a totally new continent!

  Thus, the story was born. You know how most fantasy epics begin when an ancient evil, long asleep, finally wakens? Well, Song of the Aura really isn’t supposed to be that way. In fact, it’s the story of the backstory.

  Huh? You say. Didn’t you just KILL all the interesting characters? Well… yes. But you’ll see.

  In the end of Song of the Aura, the Empire of Vastion is formed, with Lauro Vale as Emperor and a nymph Empress as his wife. Jump forward more than a thousand years… and you have the set-up for the original story… the one I thought I’d write first.

  I’m taking a break from the world of Vast. But I promise you, I’ll be back. And nothing… I mean nothing… will ever be the same.

  ABOUT the AUTHOR and the BOOK

  I’m the author of several books, including the standalone Arthurian novel Mordred, as well as the Song of the Aura series. Having grown up reading the likes of Tolkien, Jacques, Lewis, and Jordan, it was only a matter of time before my imagination grew too explosive to contain, and one day it spilled out onto paper as the first lines of my first story.

  As far as my life goes, I like all sorts of fantasy games, movies, and books. I’m a soccer player, a wannabe musician, and an active Catholic. I was homeschooled, allowing me to finish my first novel by age 16. By 17, I’d written four. Into college and beyond, I hope to continue writing novels that both inspire and enlighten you, the reader… just make sure to have fun while you’re at it, OK?

  I hope you've enjoyed this book- but whether you liked it or hated it, I value your opinion. Reviews are hugely appreciated. Thank you, and May the great Creator of the world send His Aura to protect you!

  To visit my blog, go to www.epicbloggjd.blogspot.com.

  To become a fan of the Song of the Aura series, go to www.facebook.com/songoftheaura.

  To become a fan of Mordred, go to www.facebook.com/Excather.

  To follow me on Twitter, look up “@GregoryJDowns.”

  BOOKS by GREGORY J. DOWNS

  SONG OF THE AURA

  Brother Thief

  Winter Warrior

  Grym Prophet

  Golden Tide

  Dire Sparks

  Storm Kings

  THE EXCATHER CYCLE

  Mordred

  Book Two, coming late 2012

  SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  Dreams of Steel

  STANDALONE FANTASY

  Ghostwalker, coming Summer 2012

  PREVIEW OF

  THE UPCOMING

  FANTASY THRILLER

  -GHOSTWALKER-

  That one memory kept assailing him. The wound plagued him. Hald could barely go more than a minute without stopping and leaning against a tree, gasping from the pain. He didn’t dare rest for long, though. It could kill him. Rest could kill. He needed to keep moving. The cold would end him otherwise. It might end him anyway. Fighting only delayed the end. Why fight?

  I don’t care, he thought. I have to try. Lose, win. It doesn’t matter. I have to try.

  It was getting darker. He didn’t have much time. Sometimes, he thought he heard footsteps behind him. Far off. Distant. But there. The land kept sloping upward. He tried to follow it down, slipping occasionally… luckily, he never actually fell. He might not get up again. Something told him to follow the cracks in the land… to a place where the trees were larger and the ground rockier. He kept walking, stumbling, searching, and hoping, as the light faded from the forest.

  Then night fell. Like a blanket of death over the cold world, the darkness ate up the snow-strewn realm. Hald was tired, freezing, and hurt. He w
ouldn’t have noticed the dark, had the feelings it produced in him not come like an almost preternatural blow to the face.

  They are coming!

  He pulled up short, leaning against a tree, ignoring how its rough bark scraped his hand. The thought had pulled at his mind with extreme force… almost as if it had come from outside of him. The invisible grip of fear nearly choked him. The night had come, and so would they… whoever They were. He didn’t doubt the fact anymore. Somehow he knew, with a certainty stronger than he knew his own name, that they were coming. He had moments, maybe, before they arrived.

  Hald froze, shivering from more than the cold now. What could he do? Where could he go? He had a knife and some broken pottery, and a piece of rope. He needed to find a safe place. Somewhere. A tree, maybe. If he couldn’t hide in a cave, he could climb a tree.

  A rending scream split the air. It was chilling, like banished hope. Like death. Like blood and ice. Like cold fire. Hald thought he heard words in that scream… though it was impossible. A scream was not a command. But… it was. A command to hunt.

  Howling broke out in the trees all around him. Feral, ferocious howling. Different from the scream, but just as deadly.

  The hunt is on, he thought. And I’m the prey.

  Hald ran. His chest heaved. His stomach clenched. Pain shot up his spine and into his gut. He spat blood out and kept running. It was an odd shuffle-slip, shuffle-slip, but he threw himself into the chase with strength born of desperation. He would not be caught. He would not be hunted.

  Hald pulled the knife from his belt. Ahead of him, the trees grew ever thicker. Good. Whatever was coming, it couldn’t catch him so easily there. Hald skidded into a snow bank, hurdled a dead log, and slipped in the moss on the other side. He hit the ground hard, but rolled back up and kept running.

  Thank the Heavens I didn’t land on the knife, he thought.

  Yes, the trees were definitely thicker, here. The ground was rockier, too. That didn’t quite match up in Hald’s mind, but he was beyond caring. He could see moonlight up through the dark canopy of needles and leaves. Was it really that late? How long had this chase gone on?

  The howls grew louder. There were more of them. The unearthly scream came for the second time. Just before plunging into the thickest part of the forest labyrinth, Hald slowed his pace, bending over, gasping for breath. The knife was still in his hand. He held it ready, and turned to look behind him.

  Shapes blacker than the night careened through the forest, snarling. Fangs. Yellow eyes. Too blurry to tell the exact size. Bigger than wolves. Maybe bigger than bears.

  Hald twisted round and dodged into the thickest part of the trees. He weaved between trunks and avoided branches, but some still lashed him anyway. He couldn’t get away like this. Finally he just charged forward, letting the branches whip him as he passed. The knife was flailing blindly in front of him. He wanted nothing- he was nothing- but the overpowering urge to break free. To escape.

  Then the trees ended. The sour smell of sap gave way to a painful, crisp scent of night air. Hald stopped, shocked. The thick copse of trees ended behind him, and out in front was a snowy plateau, lit by the moon and scattered with boulders and shards of rock. It ended in a cliff, and beyond that… nothing.

  Hald whirled. Through the trees behind him, the black shapes were slowed. They howled in rage, now… he’d evaded them for a moment too long. But not long enough. There was no time to climb a tree… they’d be on him too fast.

  A sob of exhaustion and fear broke from Hald’s lips. Then he straightened, spat at the woods, and ran towards the cliff.

  Pound. Pound. Pound. His ragged boots kept time on the gravelly ground of the cliff top. The world rushed by on all sides, and he took it in as he ran. An open, starry sky as deep as eternity. A white moon that mocked him with its freedom. Sloping cliffs all about. Trees hemming in a rocky valley too low for him to reach. He was high up in the world… running off the very side of a mountain.

  Pound. The cliff was nearer. Hald felt a strange warmth fill him. Maybe it was the exertion of the chase, driving out the cold of winter. Maybe it was something else. Twenty… thirty… now forty feet lay between him and the end of the trees. He was halfway there.

  Growling, foaming black forms broke from the tree line. He glanced back and ran faster. They thudded towards him on padded feet, roaring their victory. Fangs flashed in the night.

  Hald reached the end of the cliff. It wasn’t sheer, thank the stars. It dipped down at a precarious slope, pitted with cracks and strange, looping, fingerlike protrusions of rock. The cliff overshadowed a valley… but what Hald had taken for trees were really an endless array of queer stone piles.

  He paused. The black fiends kept coming.

  They’re ruins, he realized. A village, or something like one, used to sit here, between these two mountains. It’s been blasted away. Crushed right into the ground. This is all that’s left.

  Sticking the knife between his teeth, Hald fumbled with the cord around his waist. It came loose in a second, and he wrapped the ends around his hands as tight as he could. His side no longer hurt. It didn’t matter why, but it helped.

  The shadows attacked.

  Hald jumped off the cliff, swinging the long loop of rope as he did so. It was longer than it looked. Something swiped at his back- he felt the wind- but missed. He plummeted down the face of the cliff, rope trailing behind him. The howling of the fiends and the wind blurred into one shrieking lament.

  Hald twisted in mid-air, jerking the rope with all his strength. The loop caught around one of the fingers of rock that studded the cliff. For a moment his heart almost stopped, as he kept falling.

  Then he jerked to a stop, flung about like a fish on the end of the line. His hands burned with a searing pain where the coiled rope bit into them. He swung back and forth, slower and slower, trying not to retch from the shock of it. The knife slipped from his teeth and flipped down into the misty shadows below. He hung between Heaven and Earth… but he had escaped the hunters. Angry howls sounded above him, and the third ghastly scream.

  Then silence. Utter silence.

  The vertigo, the disorientation of the escape, caught up to him with a burst of stars on the edge of his vision. Hald’s vision faded in and out, as he fought the urge to black out… to slip… to let go of the burning rope and fall to his death. An easy death. Hald would not- could not- accept that. He had gone too far. He would survive, whatever it took.

  Grey fought white in his darkening eyes. Snow began to fall again.

  PREVIEW OF

  -DREAMS OF STEEL-

  8 SHORT STORIES

  FROM BEYOND ANY GENRE

  “Is your deck ready?” I look down the dark hall to see who has spoken. It is a thick machine-man with a strange metal box over his mouth. It translates his native GM language into Common Speak. Behind him, a strange yellow light spills into the hall from the door behind him, illuminating his metallic skin. I finger the thin, battered box of cards wrapped up in my arm rags and nod. I'm shaking.

  “Good,” rasps the GM. “Follow me.” I rise slowly from the rotting waiting bench where I have been sitting. Adrenaline pumps through my veins like electricity. As I follow the machine-man through the door, the yellow light blinds me and I have a strange sensation of falling, even though I know my feet are still on the ground. I close my eyes when I realize blinking is useless. GM traveling always has this effect on me.

  “This your first Pro match?” asks the croaking, mechanical voice. I nod, eyes still closed, not trusting myself to talk and not caring if he can’t see me. Whether he does or not, he continues talking.

  “Keep your eyes peeled as soon as we hit the playing field,” he says. “Whatever tricks you used to pull in the minor leagues, they don't work here in the Pros.” There's a pause. “You'll probably die in a few minutes. Most do.” Whatever. I nod. “Good luck, kid.” I shrug, still keeping my eyes closed. I giggle. Why?

  Then we hit. The light arou
nd me dims and I open my eyes again. The GM is gone, and I’m standing in a door at the bottom of a tall stone tower, looking out over an immensely wide field of grass. The playing field. I know the other competitor is probably already out there, so I reach tentatively into my sleeve pouch and pull Three from the deck. Each competition deck has only one suit, so I have to be careful about which cards I play. They’d only work once. Play all your cards at once and you're risking your life on a single move. Far better to spread them out.

  Strategy is everything.