Epic Fantasy
The surprising conclusion to the Fovean Chronicles - Randy Morden has taken on the world, and now the world is fighting back! Enemies must now become allies, and friends enemies, as Randy fights not just to appease the god War, but to keep his family intact and, no matter what direction he turns, it looks like he must lose it all.
I tugged on Blizzard’s reins and we turned east toward the
trail that would lead to the road. It
was approaching noon, and we wouldn’t be moving at Blizzard’s speed any
more. We’d be lucky to make camp before
dark.
I expected my
son, Eric to ride up next to me, but he hung back with Nina of the
Aschire. It turned out that my daughter,
Dagi, was the one who rode up next to me, that shield of hers over her back and
her sword in a scabbard attached to her saddle.
She looked for all the world like an Andaron warrior in Volkhydran
clothes.
We stayed
silent for a while. I think she might
have been waiting either for Shela, my wife, to replace her or for me to send
her back, but neither happened and Shela was actually pretty deep in discussion
with our daughter, Lee.
“My mother
married a Long Manes warrior,” Dagi said, finally. “She has two sons.”
I
nodded. “Have you thought of adult names
for them?”
She looked at
me. “So you know our traditions?”
“Hard not
to,” I said.
She nodded
and was quiet for a while. We were
coming up on the main road.
“Did she stay
with Chesswaya’s mother after her tribe dissolved?” I asked. Chesswaya was my daughter as well, by another
Andaron woman.
“After you
destroyed it, and formed your Wolf Riders, you mean?” Dagi accused me.
“Yes,” I
said, looking straight at her.
She met my
eyes. Hers were every bit as cold as I
knew mine could be. She was going to
feel me out and decide if I was worth staying with. That’s what I would have done as a kid, too.
“No,” Dagi
said. “Chesswaya’s mother went to the
Sure Foot, then the Hunters when they had no women. I met Chesswaya at the Long Manes’ tribe last
year, when she came to learn her craft.
We didn’t know that we were sisters until the demigod Steel told us.
Whoa – didn’t
see that one coming.
“Steel?” I
asked. “The Savior. Steel came to you?”
Dagi nodded.
“In a dream?”
She shook her
head. “While we were playing chunkee
with Nanette and Thorna,” she said.
I looked back
at Nantar’s daughters, riding side-by-side with spears in their hands, just
ahead of Eric. If there were a fight,
they were positioned to come charging into it.
We turned
onto the road. The sun overhead gave me
a little warmth, but not much. I was
going to need to go somewhere and buy furs.
“What did
Steel have to say to you?” I asked. “Can
you tell me?”
Dagi was
silent for a moment. She looked up at me
from her horse and she said, “He came to see the daughters of the Daff
Kanaar. I thought that He meant Nanette
and Thorna, and He said, “No, the other
daughters. He meant Chesswaya and me.”
I nodded and
stayed quiet.
“He told us
that it was a new age, and that we needed to go north and to learn a song from
a Druid in Volkhydro. He warned us that
nothing would be the same.”
That was news.
“We waited
for the men to come back from Toor, and most of them did. We went north on strong horses and we found
our brother, Agtani Chewla, and then
our other brother and his wife.
“We saw the
war come to our land, and we heard Eric, whom we named Usdi Waya, tell us that if Chatoos fell, then our land would never
be the same.”
Usdi Waya
meant ‘Little Wolf’ in Andaron. Eric had
a lot of foresight.
“Then we met
you, our father,” she said. She was looking straight forward now. “We would have known you, if Steel had never
met us.”
“Really?”
She nodded,
still not looking at me. “Chesswaya has
your eyes,” she said. “I have your lips
and your nose. Mother had described you
without naming you – and Chesswaya felt
your presence before she met you.”
“Chesswaya
has great power,” I commented.
That got a
look from Dagi. “As does Lee,” she said. “Vulpe can sing, and singing is
important. Lupennen speaks with animals
– I can’t imagine a more powerful gift.”
“And Eric is
Daff Kanaar,” I said, “and you wonder, ‘What of poor Waya Daganogeda? What does she inherit from the Emperor?”
She looked up
at me again, and this time I thought I could see some hurt in her eyes.
“Yes,” she
said. “What of Dagi, who has nothing but
her mouth?”
An Andaron
who ‘has nothing but her mouth,” is usually a woman who’s a gossip, or a
complainer. It’s a derogatory term for a
spinster, or one who is going to be a
spinster if she doesn’t change her ways, because no one wants a woman who’s
always giving her opinion.
“Maybe you’re
more my child than any of them?” I told her.
She regarded
me but said nothing.
“I can’t speak
to animals,” I said. “I can’t cast
spells. I can’t stun a crowd with my
song, and I had to go to Conflu to get the mark of the Daff Kanaar – no one
clashed swords with me and put it there.
“I’ve never
had anything but my mouth,” I
said. “It served me well.”
“You forget
the horse you ride,” she said. “The
sword you carry. You forget the stories
about you, sung in every language.”
I
nodded. “But I got them without magic,”
I said. “Without song.”
She wasn’t
looking at me, so I reached down and I stroked her long, brown hair. She looked back up at me and I asked, “Do you
want to learn these things?”
She frowned
and looked forward.
Finally, when
I thought I wasn’t going to get an answer, she said, “Yes. I want to know everything.”
Good enough,
then!
About the Author
Born in Connecticut in 1964, he graduated from University of Connecticut in 1986.
He worked his way through college as a construction worker, an infant swimming instructor, a bartender, a waiter, a secretary, the manager of a dry cleaning store and a security guard.
While in college, he began the first version of the 'The Fovean Chronicles.'
After college, he lasted exactly three months in the insurance industry as an Assistant Annuities Analyst, and then enlisted in the Naval Nuclear Power Program.
He served in the Navy from 1987 - 1994, receiving the Navy Achievement Medal, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Southeast Asia Service Medal, and Good Conduct Medal during the Gulf War. He was certified as an Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist, a Reactor Operator, a Radiological Controls Shift Supervisor and achieved a rank of Petty Officer First Class while serving onboard the USS Truxtun, CGN-35 and the USS Cape Cod, AD-43.
He has two children, Billy and Jennifer. He and both of his children are born on the same day of different months. Billy enlisted in the US Navy, following in his father's footsteps.
Since leaving the Navy, he's been in sales, pest control, auto repair and .Net programming. He ran his own company specializing in add-on software and then sold it to focus more on his writing.
He's very involved in animal rescue, and has two dogs, a cat and several horses which he's rescued and rehabilitated.
Although born in Connecticut, he has lived in Orlando, FL; Bremerton, WA; San Diego, CA; and then for fourteen years back in Florida. He currently resides on a horse farm in Tennessee.
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