Moon Breaker

By Matthew Marchitto

Koll doesn't want to be a leader, and he doesn't want to be like his father. But he's too afraid to change, to speak.

His cowardice may destroy his home.

Koll must hunt a Stone Eater, claim its hide, and become his tribe’s Moonwarden. Can he overcome the beast’s terrifying power, or will he never see his home again?

Nala hates tradition, hates the way it binds her people and roots them to the ground. When her brother, Koll, leaves, she's left alone and isolated amid burgeoning lies.

No one will listen.

A mysterious death leads Nala to uncover long buried secrets. Her trust has been misplaced, and the people of her tribe aren't what they seem. The truth will bring justice to her people, but might tear her family apart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Marchitto
• Release date: May 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310001871

Matthew Marchitto

Matthew Marchitto is a writer with a penchant for creating worlds both bizarre and wondrous. He writes fantasy and science fiction with an action adventure bend. You can read his most recent novella, The Boneman, in Three Stories About Ghosts. Prior to that he self-published two novellas, Moon Breaker and The Horned Scarab.Matthew lives in Montréal, Québec, where he spends his days brushing up on his French, creating new weird worlds, and giving scritches to the goodest pup.

Book preview

Moon Breaker

Matthew Marchitto

Copyright © 2014 Matthew Marchitto

Cover Illustration by Tommaso Renieri

SMASHWORDS EDITION

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Gift of Fire

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Guilt

Chapter Five

Abyss

Chapter Six

Schemes

Chapter Seven

Betrayal

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Iron from the East

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Other Books

Gift of Fire

Isnor had crossed the Boon, marched through the gray sands, and past the whispering arches. Now he stood before the creators at the edge of the world. They spoke to him in this dark hollow place. Faces of light bleeding through the blackness like stars in the night. I understand now.

How many months had he stayed upon the edge, listening to the song of the creators? Their tongue is beyond me, but I hear the song. I see the clues, I feel their guiding hands.

He held the gift of fire in his hands, a tawny staff of many rings. He tore away sword, spear, shield, tossing them all to the ground.

I will not shame this gift of fire. From the staff burst white hot light, engulfing his iron. It burned red, iron melding with iron, wood exploding into ash.

I have looked into the face of gods and now hold their power in my hand. I am the Singer of their Song.

Chapter One

Nala ran up the side of the Valley, taking the steps two at a time. She ignored the smell of smoke and the chanting from the Circle of Isnor. Her bare feet sent plumes of dust into the air. Koll was atop the peak, as she knew he would be. He sat with his back against a newly sprouted tree with black bark and violet leaves. He wore a mask in the likeness of a bird, the beak carved of bone with deep red feathers.

Koll’s beak was pointed to the moon. He was crushing the stars between his hands.

Koll, it’s time.

I know.

Nala sat beside him. You don’t have to go.

I do. What else could I do?

Something else. I don’t know what. Just something else.

Father would never allow it, Koll said.

What could Father do? What would Father do?

You know what he would do, Nala.

They were silent for a time. Looking up at the stars, and listening to the singing from below. The Night Song reverberated through the Valley; it could be heard from every hovel, every hut. The Night Song was above them: the stars and the moon sang, the earth, the trees, the water, and the stone—they were all a part of the Song.

I don’t want you to go, Nala said.

You could come with me.

I couldn’t, I can’t.

"Why, what would Father do to you?"

Nala shook her head. I’m not sure anymore.

Do you think I can do it? Kill a Stone Eater?

Nala’s breath caught. No, she thought. Look what it did to Kohn.

Smoke billowed toward the sky from behind. It’s time for you to go, Nala said.

Koll rose. Will you walk with me?

Nala shook her head.

She listened as her brother made his way down the stairs and back into the Valley. Be careful, Koll, things are not how we remember them. I see a hint of madness in the Starsingers that was not there before.

****

Koll made his way down the age worn steps to the Circle of Isnor. He passed from platform to platform, ignoring the faces staring at him from hovels and huts. None of the Valley Singers came to greet him; none offered words to ease his mind. He was to go on the Final Hunt and kill a Stone Eater, and few expected him to return.

The mask was restricting, and the leather straps bit into the skin of his scalp. It was part of the ritual: the fledgling chick, an infant, was leaving the tribe to return a man. A Moonwarden.

He could smell the smoke through the mask. It scratched at the back of his throat. The Great Pyre burned and roared aflame, the smoke billowing thick into the sky. The Starsingers sang, their voices echoing through the Valley. Among those voices was his father’s, but he could not make it out. They sounded as one. A singular voice calling him closer to his task.

The Great Pyre sat atop a large outcropping of rock in the center of the Valley. It rose nearly to the Valley’s peak. Upon this outcropping was the Circle of Isnor, where the homes of the Starsingers and the Moonwarden resided. They were above all the rest, able to look down upon the others from their huts. Koll made his way up the stone stair, feeling the heat from the Pyre.

The flame was larger than a man, larger than all those who knelt around it. Six Starsingers wearing cloaks made from beasts slain in their youth. At the center, beyond the flame, knelt Kaz, Koll’s father.

The Starsingers looked beastly in the firelight, their faces hidden by masks made from the heads of animals they had slain. Koll knelt before them and waited for their singsong prayers to end. When there was silence, Koll sang. He sang the Songs of stars, of night and moon, he sang odes of old and prayers of new. The flames danced to his voice, wavering in the wind. The blackness of the sky was absolute as the flames roared higher.

Koll’s Song ended, and his father beckoned him nearer. The Moonwarden looked fearsome in his Stone Eater’s hide; the mask had six eyes, and the flesh was covered in claw-like quills. Koll knelt before him. His father gathered a handful of ash from the fire and pressed a blunted bone into it. Kaz tore away Koll’s mask and hurled it into the flames. He then drew the ash along Koll’s face.

You are a singer of the sands, a speaker to the moon, a whisperer to the world. Kaz intoned the words and the Starsingers echoed them.

I sing to the sand, Koll intoned, I speak to the moon, I whisper to the world.

Koll focused his mind, calling on his gift. He saw every bead of ash and sand, every grain rolling in his father’s hand. Koll called to them. He sang to the earth, prayed to the Night Song, and whispered to the world. He felt a weight pressing against his chest, his shoulders, and then his body felt as though it were being simultaneously crushed and torn apart. He opened his eyes. Sand and ash hovered in the air before him, frozen in time, still as it was never meant to be.

The Starsingers sang louder. Kaz’s expression was unreadable beneath his mask. He waited for the Song to end, waited for Koll to release the earth from his Song.

And then silence. Koll let the sand fall to the ground; it felt as though a weight was lifted from his shoulders. Kaz lowered his staff, Firemaker, its coppery metal gleaming in the firelight. Kaz sang a final song, and at the conclusion, Firemaker exploded in a beam of light, colliding with the Pyre, making the flames roar higher and hotter than before.

Fey, the youngest of the Starsingers, rose and draped a rognaw cloak around Koll’s shoulders. It was a simple garb of dark brown, and signified that Koll was to enter the forest humble and return a Moonwarden.

His father pressed Firemaker to Koll’s chest and lowered his head in a final, silent prayer.

Koll rose from his place, turned his back on the Pyre, and made his way down the stone steps. It was time to begin the hunt.

****

Solif and Kohn waited near the Valley’s entrance, their drogons snorting and stomping. Earthshaker whined as Koll approached, and Kohn let go of the beast’s reins so it could run to Koll. The drogon nuzzled Koll with its snout, leaving streaks of moisture along Koll’s cheek. The drogons were large but squat, their shoulders reaching the top of a man’s head.

Solif jovially greeted Koll with a pat on the back. Time to find your manhood, he whispered.

Kohn remained silent. His stomach churned as he looked into his brother’s eye, the grotesque visage. Kohn was tall and strong, but his skin was a mess of gnarled flesh. While he'd once shared the same blue-black hair as his sister and mother, nothing but a twisted scar remained. It spiraled down one side of his face, where he was missing an eye and half his nose. Two fingers had been stolen from his left hand.

Kohn handed Koll a stone hatchet. The stone blade had been meticulously engraved with the flames of the Valley Singers. A braided length of blue-black hair hung from the solid, black wood handle. This was a gift from his brother, but since his brother could not bind the gift with