by Kyra Halland
"Yes, sir. I heard my Pa's stories about when he came through. I know it's dangerous."
"Your Pa... Would that be Burrett Banfrey, of Bitterbush Springs? And you're his girl Lainie, that they say ran off with a wizard?"
"Yes, sir. My Pa isn't a wizard, though; I got it from my grandmother." As always, the thought of the wicked, heartless woman who was the source of her talent, who had abandoned and betrayed her family after learning she was a mage, left a bitter taste in Lainie's mouth. But she didn't want her Pa to be in danger with people thinking he was a wizard.
"You don't look much like him, but you've got his strong will. I was sorry to hear about your brother; he seemed a fine fellow. Should I see your Pa sometime, I'll tell him I saw you. I just hope he won't have my hide for letting you go through the Gap after that wizard of yours. Anyhow, when you get to the other side, give this to the folks there and they'll pay you. Hope you catch up to your husband, Mrs. Vendine."
Relief and sudden hope after the nightmare she'd been through swept over her. She opened her mouth to thank him, and started crying instead. Not wanting him to think he'd just hired a weepy pitch-fuss, she wiped her eyes with her shirtsleeves and tucked the paper into her pants pocket. "Thank you, sir. I'm very much obliged."
* * *
Cold and pain filled him, radiating from the right side of his back and behind his right shoulder. In the darkness, voices filled with wordless rage and agony tore at his mind. The cold and pain and darkness reminded him of something, but he could never quite remember what; the answer always seemed to slip beyond his grasp. At times, his captors forced food and drink into him but more often than not he vomited what little he'd taken in back up. The journey seemed endless as he was jostled along on horseback, then moved to something that tilted and swayed, making the sickness already overwhelming him even worse. Shivering uncontrollably, wracked with muscle cramps and nausea, the screaming voices ripping his mind to shreds, he didn't think he would survive the journey to wherever they were taking him. The Mage Council, he remembered during his increasingly rare moments of lucidity
What about Lainie? Had they taken her too? He prayed not; he hoped with everything he had that she had kept going as fast and as far as she could. She had all their money; he hoped she would take it and get on a ship and sail far far away where they'd never find her.
Even these few thoughts had become nothing but tatters in his mind by the time he was hauled out of the latest conveyance he was in and dragged into a building. Pain, cold, darkness obscured his senses so that he couldn't make out his surroundings. People gathered around him, talking; their words were gibberish. He was allowed to collapse to the floor, where he lay curled up in agony.
"Remarkably effective." The voice, deep and rich though unmistakeably feminine, cut through the fog of noise and confusion and sickness with its sharp air of authority. A man spoke, his words unintelligible; the woman answered, "That won't be necessary. It will only make her suspicious. She's a clever girl; she'll figure it out for herself."
She... Lainie. Silas tried to force words from his mouth -- if they did anything to Lainie, he would kill them. But his body refused to obey him.
"He's awake," the man said.
"Ah," the woman replied. Silas was rolled onto his back, and the face of an elderly woman appeared, hovering over him, pale, stern, lined, framed with black hair. Recognition leaped in his mind -- he had seen that face before, but not on a woman. But before he could recall where he had seen it, the sense of familiarity slipped away. "Now, we'll see if this works," the woman said.
Something pressed against his mind, pushing inwards. He felt things ripping loose inside of him, felt himself pushed back, buried in a maelstrom of confusion. Lainie, don't -- he cried out in his mind as he smothered behind a heavy veil of darkness.
City of Mages
Book 5 of Daughter of the Wildings
Coming Soon!
The World of Daughter of the Wildings
Money and Measurements:
copper bits = 3 per penny
pennies = 3 bits
drinas = 10 pennies
gildings = 100 drinas
Week: nineday. 8 gods/one day per god, All-Gods day
Month: three ninedays plus a Darknight
armlength = 26"
measure = man’s arms spread out, from fingertips on one hand to fingertips on the other hand (72"/ 6 ft)
league = 1000 measures (1.13 miles)
The Gods:
The Provider – giver of what's needful, provider of good crops and herds
The Maker – creation, childbirth, creativity, growth of seeds, increase in herds
The Joiner – bringing separate things together, marriage
The Sunderer – violent death, separations, breaking apart
The Defender – defends, protects
The Gatherer – death, return to origins, harvest
The Avenger – attacks, avenges
The Mender – brings together things that were formerly together then separated, reconciliation, restoration. honesty, integrity, wholeness.
The Dragon's Threes Deck and rules:
7 suits/point multipliers: Sun (4x), Moon (3x), Stars (2x), Earth (1x), Water (2x), Air (3x), Fire (4x)
ranks/points: Dragon (15pts), Mage (14), King (13), Queen (12), Priest (11), Demon (10), Warrior (9), Crone (8), Merchant (7), Hunter (6), Farmer (5), Harlot (4), Begger (3), Joker (2), Death (1)
Straight: pts x 3 (3 cards in a row from same suit)
Level: (3 cards of same rank) pts x 2
Ranking points: number of players -1 x 10. e.g. 7 players: best combo gets 60 points, next best gets 50, etc. Worst combo gets 0 ranking points.
The cards are dealt out evenly, extras are taken out of play and placed face-down in the center of table.
Players lay down combinations of three cards. All chosen combos for the round are placed face down before combos are revealed.
Points earned depend on combos, how good they are compared to other combos. Points may be kept with colored pebbles.
Bets change during play.
Up to 10 players can play at once.
Rules of courtesy:
No smoking at the card table if any of the players object to it.
Onlookers may not discuss the cards in players’ hands (this is a shooting offense).
For maps, character interviews, previews of the other books in the Daughter of the Wildings series, and more book extras and information, visit http://www.kyrahalland.com/daughter-of-the-wildings.html
Books in the Daughter of the Wildings series
Beneath the Canyons, Book 1
Cowboys and gunslingers meet wizards in this high fantasy series inspired by the Old West. Silas Vendine is a mage and bounty hunter, on the hunt for renegade mages. He's also a freedom fighter, sworn to protect the non-magical people of the Wildings from ambitious mages both lawless and lawful. When Silas comes to the town of Bitterbush Springs on the hunt for a dangerous rogue mage, he meets Lainie Banfrey, a young woman who is both drawn to and terrified of her own developing magical powers. Though Lainie has been taught all her life to hate and fear wizards, she and Silas team up to stop the renegade who has brought her hometown to the brink of open warfare. The hunt takes them deep beneath forbidden lands held by the hostile A'ayimat people, where only Silas's skills and Lainie's untamed, untrained power can save them and the town from the rogue mage and the dark magic he has loosed into the world.
Now Available
Bad Hunting, Book 2
The town of Bitterbush Springs ain’t big enough for two wizards, or even one, so Silas Vendine, mage bounty hunter, and Lainie Banfrey, mage-in-training, have hit the trail. Then Silas gets word that another mage hunter down in the dry and desolate Bads is on to something big and needs backup. He and Lainie head into the badlands only to find that the problem is worse than they thought... And it’s about to become a very deadly problem for Silas.
Now Available<
br />
The Rancher's Daughter, Book 3
Once a hunter of renegade wizards, Silas Vendine now finds himself on the run. He and Lainie are living on what Lainie can win at cards and whatever odd jobs Silas can get from people who need his skills and don’t ask too many questions.
When Lainie’s luck with the cards turns sour, they are led to a meeting with one of the richest ranchers in the Wildings. Brin Coltor wants Silas and Lainie to undertake a dangerous mission into A’ayimat territory for him, and they can’t afford to turn him down. But Coltor is hiding a few secrets of his own, that lead Silas and Lainie right into the trouble they've been trying to avoid.
Now Available
To the Gap, Book 4
With more mages discovering the secret of Lainie's unprecedented magical power, Silas is determined to take her to safety. But they don't have enough money to escape to a place where they can truly be safe, so Silas signs them up to work the big yearly cattle drive. Every summer, thousands of cattle are driven to The Gap, the one pass through the towering mountains that separate Granadaia from the Wildings, to provide the settled lands of Granadaia with fresh meat for another year.
Rumor has it that prices for the cattle will be the highest ever this year, making the drive a tempting target for rustlers. Silas and Lainie quickly realize that the drive also presents an irresistable opportunity for renegade mages to make a quick gilding and stir up trouble. The freedom and prosperity of the Wildings settlers depends on the success of the annual cattle drive, and Silas and Lainie’s lives depend on being able to hide from both the mage hunters who are after them and the mage-hating settlers while saving the drive.
Now Available
City of Mages, Book 5
A nightmare come true, a betrayal deeper than Lainie and Silas could have imagined, that could mean the destruction of everything they love and believe in. Alone in a strange land, with no friends, no allies, no one they can trust, Silas and Lainie have to find a way to escape from their enemies and stop the evil that threatens the Wildings.
Coming Soon!
For the Wildings, Book 6
Silas and Lainie recover from their ordeal in Granadaia, while knowing that an evil is at work that threatens the freedom of the Wildings and that this peaceful interval is no more than a brief illusion. Then the unthinkable happens, the battle begins, and Lainie, the daughter of the Wildings, and Silas, the man she has claimed for herself and for the land, have to draw on all their power and strength – and on the life of the land itself – to protect their beloved Wildings and the people who make it their home.
Forthcoming
More Tales of Fantasy, Heroism, and Romance
from Kyra Halland
Urdaisunia
In Urdaisunia, a land torn by war and drought and abandoned by the gods, a widowed rebel and a prince walk intertwining paths of danger, love, and war to save the land they both love.
Now Available
A Cure for Nel, And Other Stories
Three short fantasy stories of love, family, greed, ambition, and the desires of the human heart.
Now Available
Chosen of Azara
In a quest that spans centuries, Sevry, the last king of the land of Savaru, searches for the woman who holds the secret to bringing his destroyed homeland back to life.
Now Available
The Lost Book of Anggird
Stodgy Professor Roric Rossony has been asked to find a way to stop the deterioration of the powerful magica. He hires free-spitited Perarre Tabrano to translate books for his research, and finds his life turned upside-down by their unexpected romance and the most important work of his life. When he goes too far in his research, delving into lost and forbidden books, magical disaster strikes, and he and Perarre must flee in search of the secret of the magica's origins.
Now Available
The Warrior and the Holy Man
Haveshi, a young wife and mother betrayed by her clan, sets out on a path to regain what she has lost. Latan, a lowly clerk in a magical order, finds himself on a path of unexpected danger and self-discovery, guided by the warrior named Haveshi Yellowcrow. Two fantasy stories set in the same magical world as Chosen of Azara.
Now Available
Sarya's Song
In a world where music is magic, disgraced musician Sarya dyr-Rusac hears strange and powerful new music on the wind. Torn between the man who loves her, whom she can never have, and a beautiful man in chains who appears in her dreams, begging her to sing him free, she must discover the meaning of the mysterious music she heard before the world itself is torn apart.
Now Available
For the complete catalog of my books,
please visit http://www.kyrahalland.com/books.html
Acknowledgements
The Log of a Cowboy by Andy Adams http://americanliterature.com/author/andy-adams/book/the-log-of-a-cowboy/summary, considered the most authentic fictional account ever published of a late 19th century cattle drive, was an invaluable source of information on how a cattle drive in the 1880s worked and on the things that happened on a drive, especially the things that could go wrong!
The blog Wild West History http://wildwesthistory.blogspot.com/ was also a great source of information for this book.
Many thanks to Jill and Kellie for reading an earlier version of this book and giving me much-needed feedback.
Also thanks to Mominur Rahman, for bringing Silas and Lainie to life on the cover.
And, most of all, many many thanks to my husband for his love, patience, and support, and to my God for the ability and opportunity to share my stories with readers.
About the Author
Beginning with the Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander and the Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Leguin, Kyra Halland has always loved fantasy. She has also always loved a good love story. In 1990, as a new stay-at-home mom with a young baby, she finally decided to combine those two loves – like chocolate and peanut butter! – by writing the kinds of romantic fantasy novels she wanted to read.
Complicated, honorable heroes; heroines who are strong, smart, and all woman; magic, romance, and adventure; and excursions into the dark corners of life and human nature mixed with a dash of offbeat humor – all of these make up Kyra Halland's worlds. She is excited to share those worlds with readers, who she hopes will enjoy her stories and characters as much as she does.
Kyra Halland lives in southern Arizona. She has a very patient husband, two less-patient cats, two young adult sons, a lovely daughter-in-law, and an adorable granddaughter. Besides writing, she enjoys scrapbooking and anime, and she wants to be a crazy cat lady when she grows up.
For more information, visit her website at
http://www.kyrahalland.com