Sadyra, p.1
Sadyra, page 1
part #2 of Banebridge Companion Series
Sadyra
Book 2 of the Banebridge Companion Novels
A Story in the Soul Forge Universe
Sadyra by Richard H. Stephens
https://www.richardhstephens.com/
© 2020 Richard H. Stephens
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: fantasyauthor@richardhstephens.com
Cover & interior art by: Widget Wyvern Studios:
E-book ISBN: 978-1-989257-23-4
Acknowledgements
Sadyra is the second of three books in the Banebridge Companion Novels; complimenting the first book, Larina.
While looking to fill in the time between the completion of the Legends of the Lurker series and a research trip* to the British Isles, I wanted to do something different. I surveyed my amazing readers and asked them which minor character from either of my first two series would they like to read about. Sadyra, the cheeky, fun loving, wear her heart on her sleeve archer from the Soul Forge Saga was the winner. She beat out notables, Olmar, another favourite from the Soul Forge Saga, and Devius Misenthorpe and Tamra Stoneheart, from the Legends of the Lurker series. I thoroughly enjoyed fleshing out the backstories that explain how Sadyra and Larina came to fight alongside Pollard Banebridge in the Splendoor Catacombs Guard—a division of the Songsbirthian Guard.
*Unfortunately, my research trip has been cancelled due to COVID-19, so the Rise of Grimclaw is now on hold.
On the bright side, as one good thing comes to a halt, another opportunity arises. I am excited to announce the next series in the Soul Forge Universe: The Draakvarian Chronicles. This series will revolve around the elves, Ouderling Wys and Pecklyn Ors, filling in the history with regard to the emergence of the Windwalkers.
Sadyra is dedicated to everyone in the world who has selflessly kept our world running while it fell apart around us. The words, ‘thank you,’ seem so inadequate in expressing our heartfelt appreciation.
None of these stories would be possible without the input of my incredible beta readers. A heartfelt thank you to: Joshua Stephens, Paul Stephens, Alyssa Gelata, and of course, Caroline Davidson, who is always in the trenches alongside me.
A big thank you also goes out to my cover and interior picture designer, Tessa Escalera. Widget Wyvern Studios
Special credit: To honour the Indigenous Peoples of North America, I chose the name Lozen to represent an Altirius Mountain Indian; a title that appears in the original book, Soul Forge. All incidents involving Lozen in the books, Larina, and Sadyra, and Pollard are purely fictitious, and by no means represent the real warrior, Lozen.
A brief, unverified history of Lozen.
A famous warrior and prophet of the Chihenne Chiricahua Apache, Lozen was the sister of Chief Victorio.
Born in the 1840s, her brother once said, “Lozen is my right hand…strong as a man, braver than most, and cunning in strategy. Lozen is a shield to her people.”
Lozen used her spiritual powers in battle; calling on the favour of the gods to discover the location and movement of the enemy.
She participated in many fights on the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. During those fights, she helped many women and children escape the hands of the enemy and avoided capture herself.
A warrior named Kaywaykla, once said, “She could ride, shoot, and fight like a man; and I think she had more ability in planning military strategy than Victorio.”
Lozen fought alongside Geronimo in the last campaign of the Apache Wars.
Going forward.
As in my last series, The Legends of the Lurker, I will be searching for new and unique dragon names. If you wish to submit a name to be added to my list, please connect with me on my Facebook Author Page: RichardHughStephens
Credit in the form of a personal thank you, in the foreword of the book in which the names are used, is my way of giving back to you, the reader. (Including your real name in the acknowledgements will only occur with your permission.)
Table of Contents
Mysterious Cabin on the Hill
Capsized
Wrecked
Gitch
The Crew
Scourge of the Catch
Witch’s Cauldron
Seaside Antics
Learning the Ropes
Going Home
One of the Crew
If Only
The Reckoning
Tougher than Life
To Live Another Day
To Catch a Tiger
Kindred Spirits
A Distant Storm
To view the full colour maps in the Soul Forge Universe, please visit: www.richardhstephens.com
Sadyra
Book 2 of the Banebridge Companion Novels
A Story in the Soul Forge Universe
Mysterious Cabin on the Hill
There was something mysterious about the cabin on the hill—something sinister, if Sadyra cared to dwell on it. She didn’t. She had suffered too many sleepless nights worrying about the rumours whispered in her presence whenever she visited the village of Fishmonger Bay sprawled at the bottom of the hill. The backwater village rife with rumours concerning the shack she called home.
Standing at the end of a path that led away from her family’s dilapidated hut, she examined the coastline spread out far below; jagged reefs relentlessly pummeled by ocean swells. Her gaze followed the main trail down a steep slope in the opposite direction of Fishmonger Bay to where it connected with the shoreline and continued northward beneath a promontory of black rock projecting over the ocean at a dizzying height. The Summoning Stone.
She shivered. There was something ominous about that large, flat rock. Perhaps its name. Why would anyone summon anything out there? If there was a place in Zephyr farther away from meaningful civilization, she didn’t know of one.
And yet, every three years during the spring equinox, people migrated to the Summoning Stone to take part in a bizarre celebration known as the Mating Festival.
Mesmerized by the relentless waves crashing against the reef, Sadyra shivered. It was high summer, two years after the last gathering, and already she had witnessed the heightened activity surrounding next year’s festivities.
She cringed. The hedonistic rituals performed during the weeklong Mating Festival had always repulsed her. Ever since she could remember, her parents had dragged her and her younger sisters to watch the barbaric rituals unfold—all in some bizarre act to appease the dragon gods. Every festival except the last.
The Mating Festival was a time of coming together for the hardy people eking out a meagre living on the rugged shores of the Niad Ocean. Fishermen mostly. The dangerous shoals abutting the coastline around Fishmonger Bay provided those tough enough to live here an abundant supply of fish with which to trade in larger cities like Thunderhead and Storms End, many leagues to the south.
For most of its residents, Fishmonger Bay provided a haven from society—harbouring those seeking refuge from people who might take exception to their past deeds should they ever run into them again.
To Sadyra, the backwater village was a dead-end place to live. Unless, of course, one was content to work themselves from sunup to sundown, breaking their back in hopes of reaping the puny rewards their catch might net them from the skinflint buyers in the big city. Not to mention the ever-present danger of plying one’s trade along the razor-sharp reefs lining the northwestern coast of Zephyr. A danger Sadyra was all too familiar with.
Many were the evenings Sadyra’s father would stumble into their hut, stone drunk and babbling about the latest victim of the surf. Those days were mostly behind him now. It was Sadyra’s turn to brave the unpredictable ocean currents and provide for the household—allowing him and her mother more time to maintain their constant state of semi-consciousness.
Brought up to be a hard worker, Sadyra had done as she had been instructed for as long as she could remember; mending nets, gutting fish, and hauling backbreaking buckets laden with the day’s catch from her father’s leaky dory to the warehouse fronting the rickety pier. She had learned the value of a hard day’s effort, and the daily routine had conditioned her to maintain the rigours of working on the ocean.
Being the eldest child, Sadyra knew nothing else. Up before dawn; expected to prepare breakfast—one her parents would inevitably complain about—and then off to the village to assist her father. Day in and day out, she lugged the family’s scant fishing gear down the steep trail into Fishmonger Bay, to where their poor excuse of a boat lay on the gravelly beach.
Every now and then, as they worked the ocean swells, the miserable man would look at her and grumble something about a reckoning. She had no idea what that meant but judging by his scowl, whatever it was, it had to be her fault.
A hand clamped on her shoulder. “Nice view.”
Sadyra jumped and reached for the filleting knife tucked in its worn sheath at her waist but the hand stayed her arm.
She swallowed, knowing the voice all too well. Bano Shell. The young man her parents had betrothed her to in the spring. The man with whom she would be expected to take part in next year’s Mating Festival.
Sadyra cursed the day she had, in her mother’s words, blossomed. At seventeen, her womanly physique had filled out quicker than other girls her age; making her popular with the boys. An attribute she wasn’t keen on. Other than her wish to someday get out from underneath the life sucking pall of her parents, she wanted nothing more than to be left a lone.
The advent of Bano Shell’s betrothal had gone a long way to keeping other suitors away, but Sadyra wasn’t convinced that was a good thing.
Faking a smile; dimples lifted her freckled cheeks. “It’s beautiful.”
“I’d say.”
She sighed. Bano’s eyes weren’t looking at the scenery. Shrugging free of his grasp, she waited until his dull, brown gaze met hers.
He raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Tural give you the day off?”
“Couldn’t drag himself out of bed, more like.”
“Again?”
“What else is new?”
“I guess it’s no big deal. You’re running the boat on your own most days now, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much.” She looked away. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I hit a reef yesterday.”
“Oh, oh.”
She nodded. “Capsized, too. Had to swim it back to shore.”
“Much damage?”
“I’ll say. That’s why I’m standing here. I need Father’s help to fix it.”
Bano looked up the path leading to Sadyra’s hut and said under his breath, “Lose much?”
“The whole lot.”
“And?”
Sadyra fought off tears. She pulled the waistband of her breeks down her hip and lifted her shift part way up her back, exposing a series of deep bruises.
“From the shoals?”
Sadyra shook her head.
“Oh Sadie. I’m sorry.”
Sadyra swallowed. Steeling her emotions, she stared at the raging surf breaking over the reefs far below. She didn’t appreciate Bano calling her by her nickname. Only people she considered friends were allowed to call her Sadie. “Ain’t your fault.”
“True, but you shouldn’t get beaten for an act of nature.”
“Ya, try telling him that. He says I need to keep my mind on what I’m about, not where I want to be. If I paid better attention, I would’ve seen the reef before I struck it.”
“The sea was angry yesterday. You had no business being out there. My father spent the day tending his nets.”
Sadyra grimaced. “Ya? Well, according to my father, it’s my duty to earn me and my sisters’ keep. At least until they’re old enough to join me.”
“Sleena’s old enough. What is she? Twelve?”
“Ten.”
“Weren’t you fishing with your father before then?”
“Oh, aye. I can remember dragging the buckets across the shore. They were half as big as me.”
“Why doesn’t she help?”
Sadyra shrugged. “Don’t know. Father’s got a sweet spot for her.”
“What about…?” Bano’s brow furrowed.
“Sable?”
“Yes, Sable.”
It was useless trying to figure out her parents’ motivations. “Who knows? If anything, Father detests Sable more than me.”
“Come on. It can’t be that bad.”
Sadyra glowered at him until he broke eye contact.
He shook his head. “And he hasn’t said anything more to you about your ancestors?”
Her breath caught. Her family history was a sore point with her parents, and Bano knew it. He had convinced her to inquire about it a few months ago and she had been beaten unconscious as a result.
She glared at Bano and noticed what appeared to be the hilt of a priceless dagger protruding from an ancient sheath attached to his belt. “Where’d you get that?”
He followed her gaze. “Huh? Oh, that? It’s nothing, really. Just something my parents gave me.”
“Looks expensive.”
“Bah. Appearances can be deceiving.”
She thought he seemed embarrassed. “Hmm. Well, anyway, I don’t care to discuss my father, okay?”
Bano nodded, letting it go. His gaze lingered on the two small headstones barely visible amongst the undergrowth—their amateurish inscriptions no longer legible.
Shaking her head at the impetuous man’s fascination with her family heritage, she sat down on the brink of the steep drop-off to await her father.
The sound of a door squealing and banging made Sadyra cringe. Tural Ors was awake.
Bano had grown bored with Sadyra and returned to the village a while ago. She didn’t blame him. She wasn’t good company today.
Rising to her feet, she looked at the ground as her father lumbered down the path. Stepping onto the main trail, he grunted and made his way toward Fishmonger Bay.
Sadyra fell in behind, mindful to keep her distance lest her presence awaken his latest irritation with her.
The sleepy village of Fishmonger Bay was built in a small clearing at the base of Peril’s Peak—the mountain’s permanently snow-capped summit sparkling in the afternoon sunshine.
She had climbed those heights on many occasions as a child to escape the wrath of her parents. Two years ago, just before the Mating Festival, she had fled there with her younger sisters to keep them from harm’s way. Her parents had indulged in a drunken bender worse than any she could remember. Fearing the outcome, as these episodes never ended well, she snuck Sleena and Sable away from the hut and led them to an abandoned cabin high upon Peril’s Peak.
Sadyra had been fourteen then; her sister Sleena, eight, and Sable, five. It wasn’t lost on Sadyra that their birth years coincided with the Mating Festival. Nor could she forget the day she had brought her sisters home; weary, starving, and afraid. It had taken her a good month before the resulting injuries of her disobedience allowed her to sleep through the night. It had been a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget.
Watching the slumped shoulders of her downtrodden father crunching across the gravel common area between the buildings lining the base of the mountain and the warehouse dominating the shore, Sadyra found herself feeling sorry for him. As much as she hated the sight of the grizzled, pepper-grey haired man, she knew deep down there had to be an underlying reason for his perpetual malaise. One that he blamed her and her sisters for.
Many of the villagers shunned Tural Ors. Upon seeing him, they would change direction and avoid having any dealings with the man. Sadyra had always thought it was largely due to her father’s mean streak, but lately she had begun to rethink her views on both of her parents’ mannerisms.
Feeding on Bano’s peculiar interest into her family’s past, she started to wonder whether something deeper and darker lie at the root of her parents’ troubles. She wished there was someone she could speak to but it was a touchy subject to bring up. It wouldn’t end well if her inquiries made it back to her parents. She couldn’t afford to spend time recovering if she wished to keep deflecting their everlasting anger from her sisters.
Tural stopped and stared at the damaged boat. Hands on hips, he shook his head and grumbled.
Sadyra couldn’t make out what he said, nor did she want to know. Whatever it was, was no doubt directed at her.
She took a deep breath and looked around, hopeful to see other villagers in case he went off. She grunted. Even had there been anyone close by, their presence wouldn’t make a difference. Though not the biggest man in the village, she doubted anyone was brave enough to challenge Tural when he was in one of his moods. It was all she could do not to run away as his dark gaze turned on her.
“Where’s the rest of the boat?”
She swallowed. The surf pounded the shoreline. Curling waves rose above a ramshackle jetty that extended into the brine. She forced a smile and shrugged, trying to ease the tension with a high-pitched voice. “Out there somewhere?”
Tural followed her gaze. He took a couple of deep breaths. “Your mama’s gonna be livid if we don’t make this week’s quota.”
More like, Mama’s gonna be angry she can’t afford enough grog to keep her pickled, Sadyra thought. Had it been anyone else facing her, she would have voiced her feelings. But not her father. She had enough bruises.
“I reckon you best head into the mountain and fetch us some grub while I see if I can repair this tub.”
“Yes, Father.”
“It ain’t to be pretty, I can tell you that.” He shook his head as he examined the damage. “Next time you hit a reef, you best pray your head’s between the boat and the rock.”
