The Guardian Herd: Landfall
Page 20
Petalcloud had tricked him! She’d injured Larksong so that he’d abandon his friends, leaving them unprotected from Nightwing. The Destroyer’s armies had failed to kill Star’s guardian herd, had failed to retrieve Star’s head—and so Nightwing had changed his plan. He’d attacked what Star loved most: his friends and protectors. But where were they?
Star’s head dropped low, and he sobbed. White flowers sprang up all around him, pushing through the ashes of his murdered herdmates and reaching toward the sky. He stood and stomped them out. This was his fault. Petalcloud was right. He was to blame for waking Nightwing, which meant he was to blame for this. Star spread his wings in the glittering black dust—he couldn’t heal ashes! How many of his friends had died? Where were the rest? Surely Nightwing hadn’t killed them all; there wasn’t enough ash here for that.
Star returned to investigating. If Nightwing had taken the rest of his herd captive, how had they left the area so quickly? Star tossed his mane, perplexed. As he continued searching for clues, he spotted a large, round pool of moonlight brightening the forest floor. He approached it warily, snorting and huffing at it. In all his time living in the Trap, he’d never encountered such a huge patch of light.
He glanced up and saw that a massive hole had been blasted into the leafy ceiling. It was allowing in the moonlight that filtered between the thick clouds. “This is how they got out,” Star whispered to himself. And suddenly he could imagine what had happened in his mind’s eye, as if he’d witnessed it: while Star was healing Larksong, the Destroyer had surprised his herd. He’d killed the steeds who stood up to him and blasted a hole in the top of the Trap—that was the awful explosion Star had heard—and then Nightwing had flown away with the survivors.
Star unfurled his wings and flew up and out of the forest. A heavy but intermittent cloud layer blocked any chance of spotting Nightwing or his friends in the sky. Star glided in a wide arc. Which direction had they gone? Where was Nightwing taking them? Star swiveled his ears, listening for wingbeats. Anok felt absolutely empty.
Far away, a she-wolf howled, a plaintive wail that carried for miles. She was seeking her pack mates. Star answered the lone wolf with a cry of his own, the desperate plea of a pegasus abandoned. It floated over Anok like the songs of the huge, harmless whales that migrated off the coast—a yearning moan that shook Star’s chest and begged for answering.
The wolf raised her voice, joining it with Star’s. Then another wolf, miles away, joined them, then two more wolves. All around the Trap their voices rose and resonated in the cool atmosphere between the ground and the clouds. Star felt their song vibrate against his ribs.
As the howling died, loneliness flourished. Star had lost his guardian herd, and not since his mother died had he felt so alone.
He pinned his ears and curled his neck as fury ignited his heart. He would find Nightwing and free his friends. He vowed it under the moon and stars, in a breath of golden starfire that burst from his lips like steam and then drifted toward the blackness of space.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
I’m thrilled you’re reading the Guardian Herd series! Since you’ve just finished book three, I thought it’d be a good time to share with you the story about how these novels came to be published.
I grew up crazy for horses, but I was born to a family that couldn’t afford them. To satisfy my cravings, I read horse books, volunteered at stables, bought horse toys, took lessons, and played “horses” at recess with my friends. I wrote in my diary that one day I would be a published author, I would write about wild horses, and I would own a horse that lived outside my window.
In pursuit of my goal, I worked hard at school and earned a scholarship to UC Berkeley, where I studied English literature. I wrote in my college essay that my ambition was to write animal stories for children. After I graduated from college, I proudly purchased my first horse, a failed Thoroughbred racer named Splash. She reared every time I rode her, kicked me twice, and trampled me once—of course I loved her dearly. Meanwhile I wrote middle grade novels about animals, but I was intimidated and clueless about how to get them published.
Time proceeded and then unexpected events derailed my writing for fifteen years: I fell in love and got married! A few years later, we started a family. My writing and my horseback riding took a backseat as I focused on raising our three children.
Once my youngest child began school, I resurrected my publishing dreams. I still wanted to write that special book about horses, but I felt like every horse story had already been told. Then, in June of 2012, I was driving down the freeway and I was struck by an intense visualization. I saw a herd of flying horses and they were migrating. A white mare was struggling to keep up and I noticed she was heavily pregnant.
A burning curiosity to know more about the pegasi and the special unborn foal overcame me. As soon as I got home I began Starfire. My daughter, then eleven years old, began reading the chapters and became equally intrigued, asking for a new one to be ready for her each morning when she woke up. So I set my alarm for 5 a.m., and I wrote like mad to accommodate her. When the draft of Starfire was finished, I sent it to a literary agent who had previously rejected me. Everything happened quickly after that because as it turns out . . . not every horse story has been told!
I am now living the dream I wrote about in my diary. I’m a published author, I write about flying horses (a more exciting version of a regular horse, don’t you think?), and my real-life horses live in a pasture outside my window. The Guardian Herd series represents the sum of me—my passions, my favorite animals, the interesting places I’ve visited, and the hopes and fears that shape me. I believe these are the books I was born to write.
As the reader, I want to thank you for sharing this world with me. These characters and their stories belong to you now as much as they do to me, and I hope they find a special place in your heart, as they have in mine.
Jennifer
For more information about the series,
please visit www.theguardianherd.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m grateful for the vision and enthusiasm of each member of the Guardian Herd team.
Karen Chaplin, senior editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books, is my first point of contact for all things Guardian Herd. She looks out for me, but she also looks out for you, the reader. If it weren’t for Karen, my guess is that you’d all be terribly confused because sometimes I leave important plot details in my head. Karen’s good at digging them out and getting them into the book where they belong. We can all appreciate Karen for that!
I’d like to thank the following people at HarperCollins Children’s Books for their support and talent:
Kimberly VandeWater for her creative marketing ideas (and a shout-out to her mother, who I hear is cheering for Star!).
Heather Daugherty for designing the beautiful jacket and interior layout.
Andrea Pappenheimer and the entire sales team for reading the books and then sharing their enthusiasm with booksellers.
Patty Rosati and Molly Motch from the library outreach team. Because of their efforts, the Guardian Herd books are available for children to borrow. How awesome is that? It’s pretty awesome.
Kathy Faber for meeting me at several conferences and letting me ransack her brain regarding all things books!
Extra thanks from me to Olivia Russo (previously Olivia DeLeon) for arranging outstanding and seamless school tours. Because of Olivia, I’ve visited thousands of children across the country and had a blast doing it.
Now if you follow me on social media or you’ve visited my website—you probably know that David McClellan is the Guardian Herd illustrator. I’m a huge fan of David’s artwork. He draws the covers, the maps, and the interior character sketches. He’s given the pegasi physical bodies through his art, and I’m forever grateful for that.
Another talented man behind the book series is actor Andrew Eiden. Andrew is the Guardian Herd audiobook narrator. His sincere performan
ces have given the pegasi their voices, and I love hearing him read the books. Deyan Audio produces the audio editions and the attention to detail is fantastic. Thank you, Andrew and Deyan Audio, for your mad skills! (Please visit www.theguardianherd.com to read behind-the-scenes interviews with both David McClellan and Andrew Eiden as they discuss their fascinating professions.)
Overseeing this grand adventure is editorial director Rosemary Brosnan. I’m absolutely thrilled she saw something in the first draft of Starfire that made her want to read more. We all need someone to believe in us and take a chance on us, and she did that for me. Thank you, Rosemary.
To my agent, Jacqueline Flynn—I couldn’t ask for a better advocate, not just for my career, but also for me as a person. Thank you.
Huge thanks to booksellers and readers everywhere—you truly complete me.
Much love to my family, my friends, my church, and my animals. You inspire me.
Lastly, I’d like to acknowledge my father, Charles Lynn Jewett. He passed away eight days after the release of book one, Starfire. I’m grateful that he lived to see my dream come true because he also was a dreamer. As I went through his belongings, I found a to-do list. My dad was famous for making lists, especially when we traveled. At the end of each list, he wrote, “Bring list!” (He loved exclamation points, and as you’ve probably noticed, he passed that on to me.)
So on this particular day, as I was cleaning out his apartment, I found one of his famous lists, which he wrote at the age of eighty-two. I’ll never forget the second item on it for two reasons: One, because I know he believed he could accomplish the objective; and two, because I thought it should top the list, that it should rate higher than buying vitamins—but that was my dad: his priorities were never ordered by urgency, but by some logic only he understood.
So this is what he wrote: “#1, Buy vitamins. #2, Build empire!”
Yes, my father planned to rule the world, but he would buy vitamins first.
Charles Lynn Jewett (1932–2014)
I love you, Dad. Fly straight and find your rest. —Jennifer
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Karen Perez
JENNIFER LYNN ALVAREZ received a degree in English literature from UC Berkeley. She blogs about her books and the publishing business (www.jenniferlynnalvarez.com) and speaks regularly at schools about creative writing. She lives on a small ranch in Northern California with her husband, three children, and their horses. When writing her books, Jennifer draws on her lifelong love of animals for inspiration. When she’s not writing, Jennifer can be spotted galloping her mare across the golden foothills of Sonoma County. The Guardian Herd: Starfire and The Guardian Herd: Stormbound are the first two books in this series. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter @JenniferDiaries.
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BOOKS BY JENNIFER LYNN ALVAREZ
The Guardian Herd: Starfire
The Guardian Herd: Stormbound
CREDITS
COVER ART © 2016 BY DAVID McCLELLAN
COVER DESIGN BY HEATHER DAUGHTERY
COPYRIGHT
THE GUARDIAN HERD: LANDFALL. Text copyright © 2016 by Jennifer Lynn Alvarez. Interior art © 2016 by David McClellan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015940698
ISBN 978-0-06-228612-3
EPub Edition © January 2016 ISBN 9780062286147
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FIRST EDITION
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