Water & Storm Country

by David Estes

  WATER & STORM COUNTRY

  A Dwellers Saga Sister Novel

  Book Three of the Country Saga

  David Estes

  Published by David Estes at Smashwords

  Copyright 2013 David Estes

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Discover other exciting titles by David Estes available through the author’s official website:

  http://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com

  or through select online retailers.

  Young-Adult Books by David Estes

  The Dwellers Saga:

  Book One—The Moon Dwellers

  Book Two—The Star Dwellers

  Book Three—The Sun Dwellers

  Book Four—The Earth Dwellers (Coming September 5, 2013!)

  The Country Saga (A Dwellers Saga sister series):

  Book One—Fire Country

  Book Two—Ice Country

  Book Three—Water and Storm Country

  Book Four—The Earth Dwellers (Coming September 5, 2013!)

  The Witch Wars:

  Book One—Brew (Coming December 12, 2013!)

  The Evolution Trilogy:

  Book One—Angel Evolution

  Book Two—Demon Evolution

  Book Three—Archangel Evolution

  Children’s Books by David Estes

  The Adventures of Nikki Powergloves:

  Nikki Powergloves—A Hero Is Born

  Nikki Powergloves and the Power Council

  Nikki Powergloves and the Power Trappers

  Nikki Powergloves and the Great Adventure

  Nikki Powergloves vs. the Power Outlaws (Coming soon!)

  This book is dedicated to my Goodreads Street Team.

  Your selfless, energetic, and unwavering support is a sign

  of all that is good in this world.

  I’m forever in your debt.

  Chapter One

  Huck

  Standing on the deck watching the sunrise, I can’t hold back my smile. The air is crisp, a little colder than usual for this time of yar, numbing the tip of my nose, filling each breath with the distinct smell of salt and brine. While endless yellow clouds keep watch over the Deep Blue, the half-sun splashes purples, pinks and oranges on the ever reddening morning sky.

  To the starboard side I can see the shoreline, sandy at first, and then green, rolled out like a welcome mat. Above the land, the yellow clouds darken to black.

  In the waters surrounding the ship, I see the familiar dark triangles of sharp-tooth fins breaking the surface, patrolling the ocean, hoping for an execution or a natural death to give them the chance to taste human flesh yet again.

  But even the constant presence of the sharp-tooths can’t wipe away my grin. Not today.

  The ship lurches beneath me, riding the crest of yet another big rolling wave. But I don’t stumble, don’t lose my balance, don’t so much as sway from the ship’s movements or the tumultuous wind that whips my shirt in a frenzy around me.

  Steady.

  Balanced.

  A seaman, through and through.

  And smiling, bigger than the ocean, relishing the salt spray splashing my face as a wave crashes against the hull, living for the feel of the power rolling and throbbing beneath my feet, laughing when a flock of white-winged big-chins dive-bomb the water, each emerging with a nice-sized fish clamped tightly between its beak.

  This is the life. The life of a Soaker. A typical morning in water country.

  My life, all about to change. Because I’m fourteen now.

  “Huck,” a deep voice rumbles from behind. Not a murmur, not a greeting: a command.

  Startled, I turn quickly, my smile vanishing in an instant. “Father?” I say.

  “Admiral Jones,” he says. Admiral Jones is what his shipmen call him.

  “Sir?” I say.

  “Son,” he says, taking two steps forward to reach my side. “Today you become a man.” His words are the truth but I know he doesn’t mean them. Not after what happened. Not after what always happens.

  Today’s the start of my fourteenth yar, the yar I cast off my childish ways and become a real seaman, not just the son of one. “I’m ready,” I say, wondering if it’s true. I desperately want to look down, to look away, to escape the piercing stare of my father’s crystal blue eyes, which are startling next to his white, freckled skin, but I don’t—

  —because men don’t look away for anyone;

  —men aren’t scared of anything;

  —men don’t cry.

  My father’s creed, one I’ve heard a million and a half times.

  And men don’t fail their fathers, like I have so many times before.

  Resting a hand on my shoulder, my father—Admiral Jones—says, “Are you? Ready?”

  Uh…I think? Maybe? “Aye,” I say, keeping my gaze on his but feeling his disappointment tremble through me.

  “Hmm,” Father says, chewing on his lip. “I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?”

  I hold my breath because the way he’s looking at me, so full of doubt, so uncertain, with one eyebrow raised, his nostrils flared slightly, his expression lopsided, seems to pick me apart from the outside in, like a big-chin tearing at the flesh of a fish. If I breathe I’m afraid it will come out in a ragged shudder, and then he’ll know.

  He’ll know I’m not a man, even if I’m old enough to be one.

  My face warms while I hold my breath for ten seconds, twenty, as he continues to stare at me, his eyes probing, closing in on the truth.

  Just when I start to feel a little lightheaded, he looks away, turns, stomps off, his boots hammering the wooden deck like a funeral drum. I let my breath out as slowly as I can, closing my eyes. “I am a man,” I whisper under my breath, trying to convince myself. “I won’t fail you. Not anymore.” If only I had the guts to say it loud enough for him to hear.

  “Walk with me, Son,” my father says without turning around.

  “Aye, aye, Father,” I say.

  “Admiral Jones,” he replies. By blood he’s still my father, but by rights he’s the admiral, and I’m one of his men, subject to all the same rules as anyone else.

  “Admiral Jones,” I correct, wondering why saying it this time doesn’t feel nearly as good as it always did when I practiced in my cabin.

  I hustle to catch up, trying to stride the way he does across the deck. Long steps, chin up, eyes sweeping the ship, taking everything in. As we walk aft, two of my father’s lieutenants are swashbuckling on the starboard side. Their swords ring out loud and shrill and practiced as they parry and slash and block. It’s a morning ritual for these two, Cain and Hobbs, one I’ve watched with boyish interest many times before.

  When we approach, they stop, planting their blades point-first into the deck. Hands flat, they each raise the tips of their fingers to the arch of their eyebrows in a rigid salute. “At ease, lieutenants,” my father says.

  They relax their arms but continue to stand at attention. “Mornin’, Admiral…Huck,” Cain says, his blue uniform turning dark with sweat stains beneath his armpits. He flashes a smile.

  “Mornin’, Cain,” I say, smiling back.

  “Lieutenant Cain,” my father corrects sharply. I look up at him and he’s giving me those dark eyes again, sparkling blue under the morning sun but shrouded in shadow from the b
rim of his admiral’s cap.

  “Lieutenant Cain,” I mumble, feeling stupid. How can I be a man if I can’t even talk right?

  “Mornin’, Huck,” Hobbs says with a sneer. Unlike Cain, he’s never liked me.

  I frown at his half-smirk. “Mornin’,” I say under my breath.

  “Lieutenant,” my father says again.

  Stupid, stupid. “Lieutenant,” I say.

  “So you’re a man today,” Cain says, slapping me on the back with a firm hand. It hurts a little but I’ve never felt better.

  “I am,” I say, beaming.

  “That remains to be seen,” my father says, wiping the grin off my face before it’d even reached my eyes. How do I prove myself to him after what happened two yars ago? My mother’s face flashes through my mind: her quick smile, her green eyes, her long blond hair. The way she’d read to me at night. Tales of great battles against the Stormers, our independence won and lost and won again. Many yars ago.

  Her face again, not smiling this time: awash with terror, twisted and stricken and looking up at me, pleading—her eyes always pleading…

  “Huck!” my father barks.

  I snap out of the memory, shake my head. Hobbs is snickering while Cain looks at me under a furrowed brow. Father’s lips are unreadable beneath his thick salt-and-pepper beard. “Wha—what?” I stammer.

  “Lieutenant Hobbs asked you a question,” my father says.

  I glance at Hobbs, who looks smug, his hands on his hips. “Aye?” I say. Catching myself, I add, “Lieutenant.”

  “Have you been practicing your sword work?” Hobbs asks again.

  Not the question I expected. For a moment I let the warmth of pride fill my heart, because I have. Been practicing, that is. Every spare moment I’ve been practicing with the wooden blade my father gave me when I turned seven. Fighting the other young boys on the ship, parrying with masts, battling heavy bags of potatoes and rice. Swinging and swinging my practice sword until it’s become a part of me, an extension of my arm and hand.

  I stick my chest out and say, “Aye.”

  “Show us,” Hobbs says, a gleam in his dark brown eyes.

  I look at him sideways, wondering what he’s up to, but, not wanting to disappoint my father yet again, I start to pull my wooden sword from where it hangs loosely from my belt.

  “No,” Hobbs says. “Not with that. With this.” He reaches down and picks up a sword, shorter than his, but shiny and sharp and real. And the hilt…

  —it has the Admiral’s markings on it, a woman, beautiful and shapely, her hair long and falling in front of her shoulders to cover her naked breasts. And beneath: the skin of her stomach gives way to a long tail with scaly fins, like a fish. A merwoman. Identical to the figurehead on the bow of the ship. The ship’s namesake. The Merman’s Daughter.

  The sword is my birthright, the sword I will wear until my father dies and I inherit his long-blade. With a slight bow, Hobbs holds it in front of him reverently, offering it to me. Through his long blond bangs, which hang over his eyes, I see him wink at me as I take it.

  Something’s up. Hobbs never winks.

  In my grasp, the sword seems to gain weight and I almost drop it, awkwardly bringing my offhand up to balance it. I hear Hobbs snort, but I ignore him, because this is my time, my day.

  My right.

  Slowly, I raise the sword to eye level, watching in awe as it seems to catch every ray of red sunlight, sending them shooting in all directions.

  My right. My sword.

  “Why don’t you give it a try?” Hobbs says, and I sense something in his voice—a challenge.

  “Hobbs,” Cain says sharply, sounding sterner than I’ve ever heard him.

  “Uhh, aye,” I say, looking between them, wondering why Hobbs looks so mischievous and Cain so angry.

  I move a safe distance away and raise my sword to attack position, my feet planted firmly as I’ve been taught. I start to swing, but stop when Hobbs laughs. “I mean against a real opponent,” he says.

  I look back, my prideful chest deflating. “Sir?” I say. I can’t possibly fight him. He’s a man, and I’m…not, regardless of my age and who my father is.

  I can feel a crowd gathering, their boots shuffling on the deck. I whirl around, taking them in, the eyes—so many eyes—staring, waiting, watching. To see what I’ll do. A test. This is exactly the kind of thing my father would do.

  My chance. To prove myself. To him.

  Maybe my last chance.

  My mother’s face, open-mouthed and screaming. Pleading and pleading.

  I grit my teeth, shake my head, nod firmly at Hobbs. Raise my sword with two hands in his direction.

  He laughs, deep and loud. “Me? You thought you were going to fight me? Don’t insult me, kid. You’ll fight someone closer to your own size.” At the same time as I feel angry heat swallow my neck—because he called me kid on the day I become a man—I breathe out a silent sigh of relief. Perhaps I have a chance after all.

  I look around, seeing a couple of the guys I practice with, Jobe and Ben, looking almost as scared as I feel, afraid they’re about to be asked into the circle with me to prove their manhood in front of an audience. “Who?” I say, my voice quivering around the single word.

  “We don’t want to give you more than you can handle for your first real fight,” Hobbs says, walking a lazy circle around me. Meaning…what?

  “You’ll fight one of the bilge rats,” he says, the edge of his lip turning up.

  “What?” I say, more sharply than I intended. What the hell is going on? “But I can’t possibly…”

  “You can and you will,” my father interjects. “Remember what I taught you, Son.”

  I frown, remembering his lessons well. The bilge rats are nothing more than swine, less than human, here to serve us and be trodden under our feet. Nary better than animals, they are. When, as a child, I asked him where the bilge come from, he said, “From nowhere,” like they just popped out of the ground or were fished from the ocean or dropped from the sky. He wouldn’t say any more than that and I knew better than to ask.

  I nod. If this is what I must do to become a man, I’ll do it.

  “Bring him in!” Hobbs hollers and I sense movement on the port side of the ship. The crowd parts and a skinny, brown boy stumbles toward me, being half-dragged and mostly pushed by a strong man I recognize as one of the oarsmen. The bilge rat’s eyes are wide and scared, darting around him, like at any moment someone might hit him. I’ve seen the boy before but have never spoken to him. Usually he’s on his knees, scrubbing the decks, his head hanging in defeat and resignation.

  Less than human.

  The big oarsman shoves him forward and he trips, nearly falling into me, but I catch his arm firmly, hold him up. He stares at the sword in my other hand, his jaw tight. For a moment I look at him—really look at him—like I never have before. For this one time, he’s not just an animal, not just an object to be ignored, like my father always taught me. He looks so human, his skin browner than mine, aye, but not so different than me after all.

  He jerks away from my grip and a piece of his dirty, tattered shirt comes away in my fist. I stare at it for a moment and then let it drop to my feet. Hobbs hands the boy an old sword, even shorter than mine and blunt and rusty around the edges. Unblinking, the boy takes it, swallowing a heavy wad of spittle that slides down his throat in a visible lump.

  How can I fight someone like him?

  I have to.

  But how? He’s so weak-looking, so scared…

  I have no choice.

  “Fight,” Hobbs says, backing away, smiling bigger than ever.

  I raise my sword, which has fallen loosely to my side. The bilge rat continues looking at his rusty blade, as if it’s a snake, but then suddenly grips it tightly, his brown knuckles turning white. He lifts his chin and our eyes meet, and I see…

  —hurt

  —and anger

  —and fear, too, but not as much as before.
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  His mouth opens and he screams, right at me, a cry of war.

  I take a step back just before he charges, cheers rising up around me like sails on a summer wind.

  Chapter Two

  Sadie

  The wind rushes over me and around me and through me, blasting my dark hair away from my face and behind me, flattening my black robe against my chest.

  I lengthen my strides, the dark skin of my legs flashing from beneath my robe with each step. Muscles tight, heartbeat heavy, mind alive, I race across the storm country plains, determined to surprise my mother with the speed of my arrival back at camp after my morning training run.

  Lonely dark-trunked leafless trees force me to change my direction from time to time, their bare scraggly branches creaking and swaying in the wind like dancing skeletons.

  I can already see the circle of tents in the distance, smoke wafting in lazy curls from their midst, evidence of the morning cook fires. Although I left when it was still black out, the sky is mixed now, streaked with shards of red slicing between the ever-present dark clouds.

  With the camp in sight, I call on every bit of strength I have left, what I’ve been saving for my final sprint. I go faster and faster and faster still, unable to stop a smile from bending my lips.

  I close in on the tents, sweat pouring from my skin as excitement fills me.

  That’s when I hear the scream.

  Carried on the wind, the cry is ragged and throat-burning.

  I stab one of my dark boots in the ground, skid to a stop, breathing heavy, swiveling my head around to locate the bearer of the yell. My breath catches when I see it: a ship, moving swiftly along the coast, the wind at its back filling its white wind-catchers, propelling it forward as it cuts through the waves.