Ren of Atikala: The Scars of Northaven: Kobolds, #2

By David Adams

I am Ren of Atikala. Kobold. Prisoner. Experiment. My father owns me and my days are full of pain. I have many stories to tell. This one is about death.

Kobolds die every day. Even hatchlings are familiar with death, taught to understand it from an early age. Death is our nursemaid. By the time a hatchling has reached adulthood it has seen a hundred lives ended.

Humans do things differently. Humans avoid talking of death. It is spoken in whispers, avoided in conversation. When they must discuss it they use euphemisms, silly phrases like ‘passed on’, or ‘sleeping’ or ‘gone away’.

They are hoping, perhaps, they can pretend such euphemisms will not one day be used on them.

They will.

These are some of the hardest times I have ever faced, along with some of my sweetest joys. I have so many stories to tell but this one should come next. It will take some time.

This is the story of how I came to truly understand death.

The Kobolds series:

#1: Ren of Atikala
#2: Ren of Atikala: The Scars of Northaven (Now available for preorder!)

Other stories set in Drathari, the World of Shattered Dreams:

- The Gods are Silent, a short story (Coming early 2015!).

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Adams
• Release date: Jan 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781502207487

David Adams

David Adams served as an Officer in the Australian Army Reserve, trained alongside United States Marines Corps and Special Air Services SAS personnel, and served in the A.D.F as a Platoon Commander of Military Police. He has worked alongside Queensland Police Officers and held investigative roles with The Commission for Children and Child Safety.

Book preview

Ren of Atikala: The Scars of Northaven By David Adams

Copyright David Adams

2015

I am Ren of Atikala. Kobold. Prisoner. Experiment. My father owns me and my days are full of pain. I have many stories to tell. This one is about death.

Kobolds die every day. Even hatchlings are familiar with death, taught to understand it from an early age. Death is our nursemaid. By the time a hatchling has reached adulthood it has seen a hundred lives ended.

Humans do things differently. Humans avoid talking of death. It is spoken in whispers, avoided in conversation. When they must discuss it they use euphemisms, silly phrases like passed on or sleeping or gone away.

They are hoping, perhaps, they can pretend such euphemisms will not one day apply to them.

Ultimately, though, they always do.

These are some of the hardest times I have ever faced, along with some of my sweetest joys. I have so many stories to tell but this one should come next. It will take some time.

This is the story of how I came to truly understand death, and what it means to take a life.

Book one of the Kobolds series.

Books by David Adams

The Lacuna series (science fiction)

Lacuna

The Sands of Karathi

The Spectre of Oblivion

The Ashes of Humanity

The Prelude to Eternity

The Requiem of Steel (coming 2015)

The Kobolds series (fantasy)

Ren of Atikala

The Scars of Northaven

The Empire of Dust (coming 2015)

Stories in the Kobolds universe

The Pariahs

The Pariahs: Freelands (coming 2015)

Sacrifice

Stories in the Lacuna universe

Magnet

Magnet: Special Mission

Magnet: Marauder

Magnet: Scarecrow

Magnet Saves Christmas

Magnet: Ironheart (coming 2015)

Faith

Imperfect

Other Books

Insufficient

Insurrection

Injustice (coming 2015)

Who Will Save Supergirl?

Evelyn’s Locket

Ren of Atikala

The Scars of Northaven

Centuries ago, before the Age of Betrayal, the most powerful wizard in the entire land cast a mighty spell and looked upon the faces of all the Gods. In recognition of his skill and power, they promised to grant him one wish.

Some say that Alteron Devateri wished for gold, or riches, or immortality. Others say he wished for Godhood, and became the patron deity of ambition, strength, and force of will. Those who knew him, though, knew he craved only one thing.

Alteron longed to see the world burn.

PROLOGUE

Fuel for the Journey

WE MUST TAKE IN PAIN and burn it as fuel for our journey.

I wished I knew what those words meant. My jaw ached, the places where the wires had stitched my bones together wept pus onto my gums. I strained against my chains. They had worn away the scales on my wrists and ankles, leaving only blistered flesh, chafed and worn raw.

Agony.

I did not know how many days I had been chained to this wooden board in this dim dungeon. Long enough to lose count. The only light was a small pile of coals in a standing brassier, ever burning, ever hot.

Please no, I whispered, barely able to manage the words through my broken jaw. Please, no. Please, no. Please, no.

Someday you’ll treasure these scars, said Contremulus, my father, the dragon in the shape of a man. He slid a long metal brand from the coals, inspecting it with a precise eye. After you see what I can see.

No, no, no—

He pressed the tip against the flesh of my jaw. Hot metal, red and angry, hissed as it touched the pus. I tried not to scream, for this would only make the pain worse. I tried not to thrash and pull my chains, for they would dig into me and worsen the chafing. I tried not to cry, for the salt would sting my open wounds. I tried to do those three things.

I failed.

When it was over Contremulus touched my cheek with his human hand. Fascinating. The wound has sealed, the infection bested, but the flesh is not damaged by the heat. You and I are more alike than I had dared to hope.

It hurts, I said. My tail spasmed in agony. It hurts so much.

The pain will only be passing. In truth, your pain comes not from the heat, but from the raw contact. He smiled at me.

I hated him.

I could touch you with a cold rag and have the same affect, said my father. You have a severe infection. If it were your arm, we would amputate it. Alas we cannot amputate your head.

Why would he not just leave me alone? I had shouted at him, screamed and screamed. What do you want? Why do you keep doing this to me? What could you possibly hope to gain?

Those were the words of a lifetime ago. Now I just wanted to die and the pain to end. Please, stop, I begged. Tears poured down my face, stinging the infection with their salt. Please.

I just want you to understand, he said, reaching for one of his dozens of knives, each razor sharp. I knew those knives like my own bones. I’m trying to teach you.

I had no idea what he was talking about, what he was trying to show me. He spoke often of lessons, of his attempts to show me things through pain and torture. He would pry off my scales, and he would ask me if I saw. He would slice my unprotected flesh and ask me if I understood.

I did not. How could I? All I knew was the pain, the blood loss, the infection. Why? Why do you do this to me?

I’m trying to show you the truth. Pain is necessary. He was crying. He always cried. Not from sadness. Not from joy. From the memory of something—something I could not understand. He was not looking at me, truly. He was looking past me. Seeing the past. Seeing the future. Seeing everything except my suffering. This is something we must share together.

He cut. He cut, and I failed to control my screaming again. He cut at the skin near my nostrils, near my armpits, anywhere the scales were weakest. I hated this knife. It was barbed, twisted and crueller than the others. I named it Kurdax, after one of my classmates from Atikala, one I disliked.

I had named all the knives. They were the only friends I had left.

Kurdax let my blood run out. I had spilt so much the board was stained a gold hue. Blood had soaked into the wood itself, unable to be separated. The board and I were one now. We were old friends; me, Kurdax, the pain, and my father.

You bleed more than usual today, Ren. Your heart beats stronger. Contremulus studied the wounds he had made with a careful, patient eye. I will make sure Jhora brings you extra water.

Jhora, his pet knight in her golden helm. I hated her too, for what she had done to Khavi.

Kurdax continued his work, but it seemed as though his wielder grew bored with me. The knife was withdrawn and came to rest with my other classmates, each personified as instruments of torture.

Perhaps, said Contremulus, I am going about this the wrong way.

He studied me. Actually looked in my eyes. For a fleeting second, I had the briefest feeling that I was his daughter. Not an experiment, a plaything he tortured for reasons I could not begin to understand, but someone he cared about.

It faded as quickly as it had arrived. Perhaps I should try something else.

Then my father did something he had not done before. He moved behind me to a place I hadn’t seen yet. I had woken up in this room, strapped to this table, and the sides of my world ended at the wood. I could not see the things behind me. Sometimes, when Contremulus was away on business, I would imagine things there. A plate of real food. Maybe a nice warm blanket. Or the skulls of every kobold who had been killed in the last year—including Khavi, Faala and Jedra, and the unborn infant in the egg Pewdt had crushed. Other times I saw them alive. Those times were less often.

Some wishes were more likely than others.

My father returned with a clear glass vial. He put it to my bleeding wounds, letting my golden blood trickle past the lip.

It should be tested, he said, watching the small container slowly fill. But on whom?

He spoke as though I was just another thing in the room, something that blocked the light of the coals and took up space on his bloodstained board. A toy to stab and slice and beat. Something to bleed and harvest.

Contremulus withdrew the vial. He spoke arcane words of power, and the room flooded with light, yellow and sunny like my own, emanating from a small ball at his human fingertip. He brought the light to the vial, inspecting it carefully.

So much potential, he said. So much power. He held the vial out to me. A vial of my own blood as big as his thumb. Don’t you see?

I couldn’t. It was just my blood, yellow and metallic as it always was.

No, I said, my jaw aching with the effort. I do not see.

His face fell, a mask of bitter disappointment. He reached for Kurdax. Then let me shed some illumination.

ACT I

Northaven

NOBODY KNOWS HOW LONG A kobold can live. We age differently than humans. We come into this world with a wealth of knowledge already burned into our minds. Even our hatchlings, fresh from the egg, know how to speak and walk. As we age we do not wither and die, but instead grow more powerful. Vrax of Ssarsdale, the one who betrayed me, was hundreds of years old when he turned me over to the humans. It is possible that my kind, as tiny and weak as we are, are truly immortal.

We are all killed before we can find out. We accept this fact.

Kobolds die every day. Even hatchlings are familiar with death, taught to understand it from an early age. Death is our nursemaid. By the time a hatchling has reached adulthood it has seen a hundred lives ended.

Humans do things differently. Humans avoid talking of death. It is spoken in whispers, avoided in conversation. When they must discuss it they use euphemisms, silly phrases like passed on or sleeping or gone away.

They are hoping, perhaps, they can pretend such euphemisms will not one day apply to them.

I never understood why they worry so. All humans die. This fact is inescapable and known to all. Humans die in their sleep, die of wounds, die in birth, and in the giving of the same. In the face of insurmountable evidence, they fight so hard to deny that they too, one day shall be a rotting corpse. A human can go through their whole life and never even see death before it’s their turn.

I rarely side with my people on philosophical matters. However, I believe humans are mistaken with their attitudes toward dying, and this ignorance breeds fear. Some humans tremble irrationally at the thought of their end and go to extraordinary lengths to avoid it. They take no risks, burrow themselves into their safe worlds, small worlds, and try to survive as long as they can. Even the perception of aging is treated as a hostile incursion; humans paint their faces to hide their wrinkles, dye their hair to cover grey, endlessly fretting before a mirror as they try to hold back time’s encroachment.

Ultimately, though, they all fail.

For all of us, everything we do in our lives is a postponement. A stall for time. We eat a meal, and we live another day. We exercise, because we know if we do, our lives will likely be longer in the end. With peace abroad and common sense at home, a human can live until their teeth fall out, their hair turns ashen, their bones are brittle, and their skin becomes a withered sack. Humans can live a very long time indeed if given the chance to do so.

But never forever.

Men think elves are immortal. They are not; eventually elves age and die. Dragons live longer than the hardiest elf, surely, yet even the greatest of dragons, barring misadventure, eventually succumb to old age. This is a secret known to few.

I learnt it from Contremulus even though he did not teach me. I learnt that dragons, like men, feel death’s cold breath on their neck and know that every year is another grain of sand down the hourglass, another moment until they pass from this world.

Dragons fear death just as men do, and for some this fear drives them to do very wicked things indeed.

These are some of the hardest times I have ever faced, along with some of my sweetest joys. I have so many stories to tell, but this one should come next. It will take some time.

This is the story of how I came to truly understand death, and what it means to take a life.

— Ren of Atikala

CHAPTER I

KURDAX, THAT RAPSCALLION, PLAYED INSIDE my body. My mind shut down, as it had so many times since I arrived, and I welcomed oblivion.

Welcomed it and feared it.

I hadn’t dreamed since I arrived. I was worn out, too close to death to power my magic with life. I couldn’t cast with my claws shackled. I sometimes wondered if I still could. A sorcerer without their dreams was nothing.

As much as I wanted to die, the survival instinct was strong. Eventually my mind decided to peek back into the world. The coals had died down. My cell was empty, and I was alone. Footsteps filtered through from underneath the door. Someone walked up to my cell, then stopped outside.

I expected my father again, bracing myself as well as I could for more of his experiments, but the door opened to reveal someone shorter. Stockier, wider, stronger. With brown hair and a smooth round face, clad in white tunic and pants. Too short to be a human, too tall for a gnome, too wide for any other race I knew.

A dwarf.

So you’re awake, she said, her Draconic lightly accented, easy to understand. Her tone was soft and gentle. I visited before. You were sleeping.

The pain from my jaw was less now. Perhaps the heated metal had fought the infection. I tried to move it as little as possible as I spoke. Who are you?

Dorydd Duergirn of Thunderhelm. She looked over my body, and with palpable effort, forced her expression to remain neutral. Trying not to stare. How are you? Do you need some more water?

How could I answer? With the truth, or with a meaningless platitude? Free me, I pleaded. Or I’ll die.

She knew it was true, every inch of it painted on her face. I can’t, Dorydd said. The Sunscale is not done with you yet.

I hadn’t spoken to anyone except my father since I arrived here. Even if she couldn’t free me, I wanted this dwarf to stay. I wanted to talk to her, to reassure myself the world outside this tiny cell still existed.

So you serve him?

A cloud came across her gentle features. Clan Thunderhelm serves nobody, she said. I am here as an envoy of my people. I will say this, though; the Thunderhelm lords have an accord with the Sunscale, a memorandum of cooperation. Much as I dislike you being in this hole, and the sight of you is discomforting, I’ll not break my word.

It had seemed nobody in the world could help me. Still, it was comforting to know someone, at least, cared for my plight.

Where am I? I asked.

"You are in a human city. They call it Northaven from the old word aven, for river. It’s more of a creek really. It is in the Crown of the World, at the very tip of Drathari, a land of cold summers and icy winters. Very different from the underworld I imagine."

The underworld, my home. A huge series of tunnels, caverns, and underwater lakes and rivers that ran under everything above. I had heard rumour of a human settlement to the west of the only entrance to those tunnels I knew.

Strangely, knowing roughly where I was comforted me. I wanted to ask more, but my lips were cracked and dry. I remembered Dorydd had offered me something to drink.

Water, I said. Please.

She retrieved a waterskin from her hip and offered it to my lips. I drank eagerly, like No-Kill had done.

No-Kill. The gnome I had buried in the remains of her city. I drank until my belly hurt. I didn’t know when I would get another chance to have so much.

Where is Jhora? I asked, when my belly could hold no more.

She is ill today. Dorydd wiped the drops away.  Her stool is water; she cannot be ten feet from a bucket.

I hope she shits her guts out.

It could not have happened to anyone more deserving. A savage sense of vengeance swelled in my belly, although it would take more than a bout of intestinal distress to make up for what she had done to Khavi. In truth, I felt nothing could.

His headless body danced in my memories. He had wanted to breed with me, and I had rebuked him. In the end, however, I think I had begun to feel something. It started when he was wounded and thought he would die. Khavi was cruel and stupid on the surface, yet there was something deeper about him which was intangibly interesting. He was more complex than I had initially thought.

Not that his depth had been worth anything in the end. Now he was dead, murdered by Jhora. History would completely forget him. Aside from me, I doubted there were any who still remembered his name.

Dorydd smiled mirthfully. The priest says she will recover within a tenday. Until then, she is to rest, and I am to be your aide. She leaned forward, touching my chin. Your jaw seems better than they told me.

Contremulus sealed it with heated metal last night. To kill the infection.

She examined me, the curiosity clear on her face, and her touch did not sting as I expected it to. Then the metal has done its work well. Strange, I see no burns.

Kobolds do not scar as others do, I said.

It was not the complete truth. While we did rarely form scar tissue, I was not like others of my kind; flame was my element when it came to magic. It had been that way since I had died, unhatched in my egg, to be reborn in the furnaces of Atikala. The more Contremulus experimented, the more obvious it was that fire could not harm me.

Well, whatever the cause of it, you’re healing up well.

This was no cause for celebration. The sooner my body healed, the sooner Kurdax and the others would be into my flesh again, and Contremulus would experiment once more.

How long have I been here?

Two moons tomorrow.

I remembered the bright light in the sky, surrounded by little tiny lights. A moon was not a measure of time. Two moons? How long is that?

Dorydd smiled. Dwarves often lived underground. She would understand how I thought. Sixty days.

We understood days; the time between sleeping and waking. The answer shocked me. Had it really been so little time? I had expected years. This cell felt like my second home. Another egg I was living in, a shell shielding out the world.

Dorydd knew things. Knowledge was what I needed.

What does he want? I asked, straining against my chains. Why does he torture me?

Dorydd dabbed at my chafed wrists with a cloth. Who can say? It is certainly a mystery, and I do not think even he truly knows. All he does is spend time with you and study your eggshells. Never have I seen something consume him so since… her voice trailed off. In a long time.

The pouch of my eggshells? They glowed, to this day, from my rebirth in the flames. I had woken up without them and had not seen them at all. Where are they?

The Sunscale keeps them in his chambers or around his neck. The manor is full of whispers; some say that Contremulus aims to empower himself by exposing himself to your essence in some way.

Tell me more.

She shook her head. I don’t know any more. Sorry, lad.

I am female.

I had meant it as a simple statement of fact, but this revelation seemed to inspire a mixture of pity and dread on her face.

Then I worry for you even more.

That made no sense to me. Why?

Dorydd finished tending my wrists and replaced the cloth in her pocket. I should go, she said. They’ll notice me gone if I stay any longer.

Wait, I begged. Please. Please stay. Don’t leave me.

She went to the door, closing it without a sound, leaving me alone in the dark with nothing but knives for company.

Contremulus did not visit that evening. It was completely unlike him to miss a day of our sessions, so I was grateful. My body still needed time to heal.

I could move my jaw now. Dorydd was right; whatever Contremulus had done, its efficacy could not be denied. Breathing was easier, and for the first time in some time, I spent a night without pain. I was still uncomfortably strapped to the board, still enduring blistered wrists and ankles, but I found something approximating rest. I was grateful for this at least.

Miraculously I even dreamed. A little. Not much, fragments and visions of nothing. Not like the dreams I had when my life was simpler. These were not visions of power; they were whimpers, beaten animals of dreams who were too afraid to come out.

Despite this they were strangely comforting. A reminder of the world I had known. Of better days.

When they ended I was oddly calm. As though the dreams had soothed some of my inner turmoil. My body still ached, and my jaw felt raw. Despite my pain, part of me understood that some of my burdens had been lifted through some process I did not comprehend at all.

As I waited for dawn to come, and for Contremulus to visit, I slowly came to realise what I had been missing.

Companionship.

Dorydd the dwarf, hailing from a place I had never heard of, had talked to me. Not with the aim of wanting anything, not because she had to serve me, only because she wanted to. Sincere, genuine friendship, offered right when I needed it.

I don’t know why this brought me so much succour. Perhaps I needed conversation more than I thought. Her visit, brief though it was, had recharged me. I knew then I could never be a solitary creature; I needed to talk to someone every so often, or the loneliness would take its toll. Eventually I would be worn away.

The door opened, and he entered. I stared at my father, ready for another round of pain and misery.

He pulled another creature into the room behind him, dragging it on a thick chain around its neck. I knew its kind: a goblin. It had green skin, was as tall as I was, with a wide and balloon shaped head. Its mouth was full of sharp teeth, and its tiny red eyes darted around, taking in its surroundings, little dots full of hunger and fear.

Good morning, Ren. I hope you are well rested for today’s journey.

Is the morning good? I asked, baring some of my teeth. I cannot see from within my cell.

He just smiled. Your spirit is strong. This is excellent. Contremulus tugged on the chain around the goblin’s neck. I feel today will be a particularly auspicious moment for both of us.

Forgive me if I do not share your enthusiasm. I flicked the tip of my tail at the goblin. Who is this?

Contremulus didn’t answer. He stepped over to me, reached out, then touched my jaw. I snapped my teeth at him. He nimbly dodged out of the way.

I had seen an adult copper dragon with a head the length of my whole body maneuver a claw fractions of an inch above my scales with uncanny precision. I had seen the same dragon, in the guise of a gnome, stop a dagger thrust with two fingers. Dragons were fast, even in their borrowed forms.

"My, you are full of energy today. Perhaps Dorydd is better suited to the task of tending you than I had given her credit for."

Perhaps I am simply glad Jhora’s guts are roiling, and she’s in pain, her arse-pit a stinking fountain.

Contremulus seemed amused. It is a most unfortunate malady. I am assured my loyal minion will recover. Do not fear, my little daughter, you will see Jhora and her golden helm again.

The thought made my tail curl. I tried to think of something snappy to say, but fatigue and pain made the words sound pathetic. I’d rather not.

Alas, we do not always get what we want. Contremulus retrieved the vial he had taken yesterday. My golden blood, now mostly dried and stuck to the edges of the glass, remained within. He set the vial down on the bench that held my dagger-friends, then reached into a satchel at his hip, withdrawing a small pouch.

The pouch of my eggshells.

He fished one out, the glowing fragment between two fingers, then removed the stopper on the vial. The fragment sank into the vial of my blood, sitting at the bottom. He replaced the stopper, shaking it for a moment, marvelling at the yellow light that shone from within.

When it faded, he held it out before the goblin.

What is, master? said the goblin in a poorly articulated form of Draconic.

Something very special indeed.

The goblin’s inquisitive red eyes latched on to the golden vial of my blood. Shiny, he said. Pretty!

I want to give this to you.

The goblin reached for the vial, then stopped, suddenly suspicious. You want give for slave? Why master do?

The reasons why are not your concern, goblin. Take it and drink.

Drinking my blood and my eggshell? What gain could come of this? I watched as the goblin’s greed overcame his caution. He snatched the vial, sniffing it.

Smell of kobold! Blech!

Drink, Contremulus urged. I want to see you drink it.

The goblin yanked the stopper off the vial, then poured my blood down his throat. He smacked his wide jaws, testing the taste and seeming to find my blood to his liking.

Sweet, he said. Very sweet. Sweet and spicy. More!

Is this your secret plan? I snipped at Contremulus. Harvesting my blood to feed to slaves?

Contremulus watched the goblin intently. I watched too. The creature hopped from foot to foot,

Reviews for Ren of Atikala

[jarandel · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Generic fantasy world with creatures and their ecology straight out of the D&D bestiary, but with an interesting perspective-flip from the usual human and demi-human adventurers to a kobold sorceress and her patrol mate.

[jamiesbookblog · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(Warning: Another super long review by me!)
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest Review.

It's been a while since I've read a standard fantasy book. The first books I ever read were the Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman. I didn't read for several years after that until I discovered the wonderful Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Leguin at my highschool's library. It was that trilogy that really kindled my love for reading. Much like the beautiful covers of the Earthsea books which always reminded me of tiles for some reason the cover of Ren of Atikala drew me in and made me want to know what the book was about and the premise of it was so extremely unique. There are plenty of your standard human heroes, elves and even a dwarf or two but a kobold? I'd never read about one and not only was a Kobold the main character but also the hero of the book and on top of that Ren is a female kobold. I just had to know more so I eagerly dug into Ren of Atikala and discovered that there was nothing "standard" about this fantasy book. It was exceptional! Ren's world is a big scary place and her travels instantly took me back to my childhood, of playing Dungeons and Dragons, reading Dragonlance, learning about Drizzit for the first time. It brought back all of those memories and added to them. Ren might be a little Kobold by human standards but there's nothing little about her, her tale or her destiny.

The book starts out by introducing us to Ren's world deep inside her cavern home with her community. Kobolds are very different from alot of the other races yet so eerily similar. They love their homes, guard them with their lives and they value their community. In fact the normal Kobold lives each and every second for their community so when tragedy strikes and Ren is forced to leave everything she's ever known behind we begin her journey into not only discovering the big wide world but also who she really is. Ren has always been different and it's not just her scales which are pure golden. She's always had a bit of an independant streak but inside her home she's never really had a chance to grow or even think about what she really wants or who she really is in the great scheme of things.


Home. The word has a special resonance with us all. Great or humble, rich or poor, everyone cherishes their home and if deprived of it loses a pice of themselves.


Ren is not only a little bit differnt but she's also a warrior and a sorcerer.


I disliked being unable to control my mind while I slept, but I knew sorcerers always dreamed. Our dreams reflected the faint sliver of powerful blood in our veins, a body stuffed with too much soul, the excess spilling into the night hours. It was the price we paid for our arts.


As Ren and and her companion Khavi travel through the tunnels leading to the world beyond and to Ssarsdale where their Kobold cousins live they face many obstacles and Ren begins to question many things that she has been taught her whole life. You see Kobolds have much in common with the other races of the world. They are raised in fear and believe that humans, elves and gnomes are all evil and that they are the good guys. In fact there are many passages dealing with this. At one point it shows them talking about how gnomes hearts must be black along with the blood in their veins so what happens when you're thrust out into the world only to discover that which you were led to believe your whole life isn't true? That even through their differences the races all have much in common and maybe, just maybe they are not all evil like Ren once believed. But then what does that make her and her own kind? Evil? Or just different. These are the moral dilemna's Ren must face along with surviving her journey.


We live in a world surrounded by hate, by hungry steel in blood-soaked hands. Humans. Elves. Gnomes. Jealous of our gifts, these wicked races of darkness are your enemies. They hate you as you hate them, seeking only your destruction and the denial of our destiny. Never hesitate to spill their blood, for they would end you in a hearbeat. The righteous can have no mercy for monsters. Say it with me now, children! Shout it to the stones above! Let all who hear our voices tremble in fear! No mercy for monsters! No mercy for monsters! No mercy for monsters!


I could go on and on all day about this book. The writing was superb and it reads like David Adams has been writing fantasy for his whole life. The story along with it's setting was so unique and fascinating. I literally could not put down my kindle. For some reason I was thinking that this was going to be a lighthearted adventure and while there were some funny passages, especially when the kobolds were trying to figure stuff out about other races and the world it was a very gritty and realistic story. I forgot that Kobolds are not gnomes. They are not happy go lucky creatures and they live in a big world where they are just the little guys. That is why they breed so fast, they win wars and discourage aggression through sheer numbers but that doesnt' mean they aren't brave. Some of the things Ren and Khavi face would send many humans or elves fleeing for their very lives yet they do it with courage and honor. One thing I really enjoyed about this story was that inbetween the chapters you get to read a journal entry from Ren's future self and catch a glimpse of who Ren will eventually become and her views on the world and the things she went through at the very beginning of her tale. I cannot wait to find out what Ren's destiny is. It's apparent from the book that great things are in store for Ren, that her destiny is larger than her small frame and you get to experience the beginning of her growth as she learns to value those around her and follow her own course. This was simply a great book and deserves to stand amongst those titles I mentioned earlier. It's been days since I've finished reading it and I still can't get Ren out of my head. If you love adventure, fantasy and want something a bit different then give Ren of Atikala a try. This is one journey you do not want to miss and I'm so very thankful for getting a chance to read this and for that the wonderful cover which drew me in and made me want to find out more. Just all around an excellent read! I'm going to leave you with this last little passage, it just feels like the best way to end this.

"you...I sense something about you. I sense you are destined for great things." A sad edge filtered into his tone. "And great pain." "Pain?" "This is the curse of all those who bear great power. Each of us suffer our burdens, and those are stones we carry until we are dead. The greater our strength, the more weight life stacks on our backs."


I would give this one 10 stars if I could but will have to settle for 5 since that is all that is allowed. :)