The Cendrillon Cycle
Volume I: The Battle of Castle Nebula
Volume II: A Cinder's Tale
(published in the Five Glass Slippers anthology)
Volume III: The Star Bell
© 2014 by Stephanie Ricker
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in reviews.
This volume contains a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover and e-Book design by A.E. de Silva
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
About the Author
To Cap, with unending thanks for the past year of laughter, adventure, encouragement, and inspiration.
Traveling by sled was always tricky this time of year. The spring thaw, such as it was, decayed the top layer of the snowpack and made it prone to collapse. Crossing the snowfields, and particularly doing so alone, was reckless. This suited Elsa just fine. The jarring ride matched her mood, and she didn’t really care whether or not she reached her destination in one piece.
Harmattan kept flicking his ears back at her—as she drove the sled, Elsa’s anger was transmitting via her body language to the animals. She barked a command at her wheelers, Levanter and Vardar, and Levanter yelped in surprise at the uncommonly harsh tone. She felt a pang of remorse as the wheelers, the animals hitched immediately in front of her, maneuvered the sled around an upthrust jag of ice in response to her order.
But she was in no state to be charitable, and her rage beat her guilt into submission as the hund team galloped on. The hunds’ large, webbed paws, ideally suited to traversing the snowpack, kicked up a flurry behind them as they ran. Their long limbs devoured the distance, bringing Elsa closer to her destination at a rate that was simultaneously too slow and too fast for her liking.
Elsa was fleeing the scene of her loss, but she was also leaving her home.
Up ahead, she saw dark shapes on the snow. The day was overcast, precluding the usual need for snow goggles, and as she drew nearer, she was able to see that a herd of wildekreet had broken through a patch of rotten ice. Wildekreet was settler slang for any variety of local, herbivorous quadruped, usually consumed as a food source on whatever world colonists found themselves inhabiting. A proper name for Anser’s caribou-like creatures existed, but in all of her nineteen years on the planet, Elsa had never heard anyone use it, not even her father—and Helias Vogel was usually a stickler for nomenclature. At this time of year, the wildekreet were moving into the snowfields in search of the lichen that would soon be growing up through the snow.
One of the animals bawled, and Elsa assumed it had fallen through the weak snow into one of the many fissures seaming the continental glacier. She half-wondered if that would be better for her as well; falling into a crevasse would solve all of her problems, one way or another.
Harmattan glanced over his shoulder at her, the wind ruffling his thick double coat. He was probably reading her despair. Lead hunds had to be intuitive to do their job well, and Harmattan had taken old Kaver’s place when he became too blind to lead the team.
“Don’t you worry, Harmattan,” she called above the hiss of the sled’s runners. “You know I wouldn’t do it.” Hunds were slightly more intelligent than Earth dogs, and Elsa’s father had passed along to Elsa his habit of talking to them as though they were people.
She swung the team to the right, veering away from the dangerous ice. Harmattan swished his bushy tail in approval. No one ever heard of a Vogel taking the easy way out. Then again, no one ever heard of a Vogel taking the easy way, period. Her mother used to say that pure cussedness would carry them through when nothing else would. Obduracy wasn’t something Elsa had ever lacked, but it had been cultivated in her over the last ten years. Anyone who willingly stuck around Anser after the battle possessed more stubbornness than wisdom. The surviving inhabitants often repeated the tired old joke: “The question is, who wants Anser?”
Not her. Not anymore.
A yank on the gangline broke her out of her ornery thoughts. Several of the hunds had caught wind of the wildekreet and were looking with interest in that direction, trying to catch a glimpse over the rolling snowpack. The hunds weren’t above a little hunting expedition now and again, although they preferred the larger mammut to wildekreet. The Vogels had always kept their animals well-fed enough that they were typically half-hearted about indulging in the survival practices of their wilder forebears. The iron-grey coats of the hunds made them exceptional night-hunters, and wild hunds routinely took down the giant, tusked mammuts.
The swing hunds in particular were antsy, jinking around in their harnesses behind the lead hund. Elsa snapped at them to behave, but they didn’t settle. She realized abruptly that even the usual steel-nerved Harmattan was growing anxious. She pushed her thoughts away with a shake of her head. Something was amiss, and she had been too caught up in her troubles to pay proper attention. As a general rule, the snowfields weren’t terribly forgiving of such lapses.
Harmattan whined, and the whine turned to a growl deep in his chest, but he kept the pace steady. Elsa scanned her surroundings as light flakes began to fall from the sky in desultory fashion. Aside from the floundering wildekreet, still off to her left, there was nothing to see except snow, laid out under a leaden sky. She was many miles yet from the launch, much too far away for her to see Atticora, the community that had sprung up around the launch site. Harmattan wasn’t given to flights of fancy, though; if he thought something was nearby, something was nearby.
“Where, Harmattan?”
Harmattan broke stride briefly, and the growl became a full-fledged snarl, ripping from between bared teeth. Elsa’s eyebrows rose. She had never seen the lead hund act this way, unless…
She whipped her head to the left, scanning the wildekreet herd again. The commotion made it hard to see as the animals flailed their long limbs in the snow. They shouldn’t still be having trouble by this time, Elsa thought. Why wasn’t the herd clear of the rotten snow?
A wildekreet bellowed and went down hard. Its cry changed in timbre, becoming a scream, and Elsa finally saw them: lycaons, running low, their white coats blending in with the snow.
Anser boasted two wild canid species: the tall, grey, dog-like hunds that prowled at dusk and the more compact, white, wolf-like lycaons that hunted by day. Hunds roamed in small packs and were easily domesticated by Anser’s settlers when they arrived on the planet over a hundred years ago. Once tamed, they were loyal for life. Lycaons were all but untrainable. They hunted in larger groups, sweeping the snowfields of wildlife.
As Elsa watched, another lycaon leapt, tearing at a wildekreet’s belly, and the animal went down in a thrashing pile of hooves. One of its powerful hindquarters caught the lycaon, however, and the snow wolf also collapsed with broken ribs.
The hund team had drawn parallel with the wildekreet herd by this time, although a considerable distance still separated Elsa from the fight between predator and prey. All of the hunds were snarling now, simultaneously nervous and eager to fight. Hunds and lycaons maintained a wary coexist
ence in the wild. Snow wolves typically avoided hunds, unless they were hungry—or were caught up in the bloodlust of a hunt.
Elsa shouted commands, wrangling the hunds into order. “Keep them moving, Harmattan!” She needed to get away from the mess before she became a part of it.
Harmattan yowled, almost cat-like, and two of the team hunds running in the middle of the string leaped high, twisting in mid-air. They tangled in one another’s tuglines as they landed, but Elsa was focused on the white streak that had torn through the middle of the team, making a strafing attack. The snow wolves had scented the hunds, and at least one had broken off from the pack. She didn’t see any blood on her hunds’ coats; they must have evaded the lycaon’s snapping jaws.
Snow wolves were like cockroaches, her father used to say. Being Anser-born, Elsa had never seen a cockroach, but she knew the rule: where there was one, there were bound to be more. Judging by the size of the wildekreet herd it had tackled, the lycaon pack must be a hefty one, greatly outnumbering Elsa’s team.
Elsa stepped on the sled brake, harder than she would’ve ordinarily liked, and the claw bit deep into the snow, slowing the sled abruptly. “Whoa!” she called to the hopelessly tangled hunds, and they obediently stopped, kicking up a spray of snow. She hefted the ice axe leashed to her wrist and jumped from the runners, hitting the packed snow at a run. Her cleated boots dug deeply into the snowpack with each step.
The lycaon had been carried well to the right of the sled hunds by its momentum after its failed attack, and it had landed clumsily, hindquarters sliding on an icy patch and paws scrabbling for purchase. Its awkward entrance gave Elsa enough time to slash through the tuglines on the wheel hunds. Wheel hunds, hitched closest to the sled, were chosen for their strength since they were the ones to muscle the sled around corners or obstacles. They were also solid fighters: steady, reliable, and relentless.
“Levanter, gee. Vardar, haw.” Elsa ordered the wheel hunds to the right and left of the lycaon. Though shorter and stockier than the lanky hunds, whose shoulders reached Elsa’s waist, the lycaon looked considerably more intimidating. It had the heavy shoulders and sloping hindquarters of a hyena, and its large, blunt muzzle was curled back to reveal wicked fangs.
“Take it!” Elsa ordered.
The wheel hunds leaped at the lycaon, now back on its feet and glancing from one hund to the other, unsure which of the long-legged beasts to tackle first. Snow wolves were pack animals, and Elsa was hoping that this lone lycaon wouldn’t know what to do with a team of trained hunds.
She was right. Levanter tore into the lycaon’s left flank just as Vardar snagged a right hind leg, the lycaon twisting its head and snapping wildly at both. Elsa gave a short nod as she worked quickly at untangling the tuglines, preparing to leave as soon as the wheel hunds finished off the lycaon. She pulled one of her gloves off with her teeth so that she could unravel the leather lines more easily. She knew the rest of the snow wolf pack would be drawn by the ruckus. She was fortunate that—
Harmattan’s warning yowl gave her just enough time to spin around before a white blur of rank fur and slashing teeth was upon her. Bise and Bora, the two team hunds closest to her, shouldered into the second lycaon, barking frantically and partially blocking its lunge. The protective response, clumsy and mostly ineffective as it was with both hunds still harnessed to the gangline, saved Elsa’s life. She fell hard on the snow, fingers already searching for the haft of her ice axe still leashed to her wrist.
The lycaon was in a tangled mass of hunds, harness lines, and roiling snow. Elsa resisted the split-second urge to wade into the mess. There was nothing she could do, not without injuring a hund or becoming caught up in someone’s jaws. Over the cacophony of snarls around her, she could hear the dying cries of the first lycaon, which Levanter and Vardar were polishing off.
She scanned the area around her, knowing she had to leave before the situation grew worse. The snow wolves’ camouflage made them almost impossible to see until they were right on top of her, and the light snowfall made visibility even worse.
Harmattan’s yowl rang out again over the racket, and this time Elsa was ready. She spun and dropped to the ground in a crouch just as a third lycaon lunged for her throat. Elsa’s height—or lack thereof—did have a few advantages; ducking meant that the heavy lycaon leaped right over her head. She stood up and spun on her heel as the lycaon landed behind her, its back facing her. She swung the ice axe with all of her strength. She was small, but she was Anser-born; a lifetime on the snowfields had made her sturdier than one would think at first glance.
The axe head featured a serrated blade on one side and a sharp pick on the other. Elsa plunged the blade into the lycaon’s lower back, and the animal howled in pain and anger. But Elsa knew the blow wasn’t mortal. Thick muscle protected the lycaon’s spine. She hurriedly yanked the axe free, knowing she was in for it now. She risked a quick glance behind her as the lycaon staggered around to face her: Elsa didn’t see any snow wolves behind her, but that didn’t mean much.
Blood dripped from Elsa’s ice axe and melted the snow where it fell. The lycaon was quiet now, watching her, trying to circle. Elsa wouldn’t be circled; she knew what that meant. The snow wolves’ strategy when hunting together was to turn their prey to give another lycaon an opening to attack from behind. It worked well on wildekreet.
“But I’m not a wildekreet, my friend,” Elsa muttered, her heart racing. She wished she’d had a chance to cut more of the hunds free before the fight started. This would’ve been over in a trice, with a team of nine trained hunds properly deployed in a circle, backs facing the middle.
Levanter and Vardar should have finished with that first lycaon long ago. She couldn’t hazard another glance in that direction, but she assumed that they must have engaged with another animal. She slashed at the injured lycaon’s foreleg with the axe, causing it to jump back painfully to avoid the strike and driving it around her. Its back was clearly bothering it; the animal leaned forward as it stood, trying to keep as much weight off of its hindquarters as possible.
The lycaon’s gaze flickered behind Elsa nonetheless, and instead of turning to face what surely had to be another lycaon coming up behind her in spite of her best efforts, Elsa charged at the injured snow wolf in front of her, running low. Surprised, the lycaon tried to dance backwards but yelped as its injured back took its full weight. Its hindquarters collapsed under it. Elsa tucked her head low and slammed into its chest, hearing its teeth snap above her head as she rammed into the animal. The impact bowled the overbalanced hundred-pound lycaon over. It landed sprawled on its back. Elsa drove the pick end of the axe into its exposed underbelly and yanked, opening the lycaon up from the sternum downwards.
But still the lycaon wouldn’t die. It twisted up off the snow, leaving Elsa covered in snow-wolf blood and pulling the axe free of its belly with the movement. Elsa managed to keep her grip on the axe haft and lurched ungracefully to her feet. Not quickly enough.
The lycaon had turned, and while its speed was drastically abated, it was still far too fast. Elsa pulled the axe back to strike, trying to time the blow with the instant the lycaon reached her. She would only have one chance. The animal weighed at least as much as she did, and she doubted she would be lucky enough to catch it off balance a second time.
Before she could act, Harmattan slammed into the lycaon’s side, knocking it sideways and off its trajectory. Elsa saw that the lead hund had chewed through his harness, enabling him to join the fight.
“Clever boy, Harmattan,” she murmured, rubbing her right shoulder, which had been wrenched when the lycaon pulled itself free from her ice axe. “Good boy!”
Harmattan had the lycaon down, and though it still kicked feebly, the animal was clearly in its last moments. Elsa approached, and Harmattan rumbled at her warningly.
“Let go, Harmattan,” Elsa said. “Help the rest of the team.” Four or five of the least tangled hunds were snapping at two snow wolves, both injured
, dodging in for quick attacks and leaping back out of the way. A lead hund in the mix would end the confrontation quickly.
Harmattan gave her a look with his eerily human eyes, his face half-covered in the lycaon’s blood.
“I’ve got this,” Elsa said, a tinge of anger in her voice. “Let go.”
Harmattan relinquished his hold on the lycaon and loped over to the fight, casting Elsa another look over his shaggy shoulder.
The lycaon was as good as dead. There was no reason for Elsa to go near it. Yet she found herself approaching the downed snow wolf. She dropped the ice axe and drew her knife from its sheath at her belt. The lycaon watched her with wary eyes. It wasn’t far from death; it was having trouble focusing on her. She dropped to her knees next to it, not bothering to avoid the spreading blood, bright red against the snow. She was already covered in it anyway. The face cover used to protect her skin from the cold and wind while driving the team had slipped during the fight, and she could feel spattered blood starting to dry on her cheeks.
The lycaon gathered its strength and snapped at her, close enough that some of its blood-tinged saliva fell on Elsa’s parka sleeve. But she had been ready for the movement, and she shoved the heavy head to the ground with her good left hand, leaning her weight on it. The lycaon’s eyes followed her movement. Ignoring the stab of pain from her shoulder, Elsa drew the knife swiftly and deeply across its throat, cutting the artery with more gusto than was necessary. After a few moments, the lycaon’s eyes glazed, and it lay still.
With hands shaking only partly from adrenaline, Elsa turned to her team. All of her hunds were still on their feet, she was relieved to see, but several of them were bleeding.
“Harmattan, keep an eye out,” she instructed. The lead hund followed her with his eyes for a moment before turning his attention to the snowfields.
The Battle of Castle Nebula (The Cendrillon Cycle Book 1) Page 1
