Avtappi Express

By A.C. Ellas

Exhausted from war, grieving the loss of his first rider, Dynami returns to Okyro uncertain what the future might hold. He gains a new rider and under S’Yrinim’s steady hand, he heals and learns to enjoy life once more.

But life can be as dangerous in the courier service as it is on the Line, and not everyone will be as accepting of a hybrid as S’Yrinim is. Dynami is forced to choose between peace and duty, and his life may hang in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Oct 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781487408138

Book preview

Hybrids are dangerous because they have the powers of a vranyxi but can pass for avtappi.

Exhausted from war, grieving the loss of his first rider, Dynami returns to Okyro uncertain what the future might hold. He gains a new rider, and under S’Yrinim’s steady hand, he heals and learns to enjoy life once more.

But life can be as dangerous in the courier service as it is on the Line, and not everyone will be as accepting of a hybrid as S’Yrinim is. Dynami is forced to choose between peace and duty, and his life may hang in the balance.

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

Avtappi Express

Copyright © 2016 A.C. Ellas

ISBN: 978-1-4874-0813-8

Cover art by Angela Waters

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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Smashwords Edition

Avtappi Express

Hybrid Two

By

A.C. Ellas

Chapter One: Arrival in Okyro

The city of Okyro sat on the southern point of a massive plateau which towered three hundred lengths above the rumpled, rocky desert that comprised the land of A’filozenoi. In the old tongue, the name meant the unloved land. Most modern speakers rendered it as the badlands. They approached the plateau conventionally enough from the smooth, level expanse of the Midgate Road to the Ring Road, so named because it circled the base of the plateau. The Ring Road also circled the broad, paved flats that formed the feet of the winding switchback ramps up to the top of the plateau. All the ramps were clustered along the southern edge of the plateau, both to the east and to the west of the southern point.

Darker spots, the mouths of caves, pockmarked the orange, brown, red, yellow and white striped layers of the sandstone cliffs. Dynami sent an image of a certain cheese Vestrin had always been fond of, one with lots of large holes in it.

Yes, it does look like a large piece of bubbly cheese, S’Rak said. The cavern system inside the plateau is extensive, but the openings you see are well guarded. Those are where the dragons lair.

Dynami snorted a laugh, pictured the enemy sneaking into one of the eyes only to roast in the dragon’s fiery breath.

Precisely, replied his rider, who’d easily followed his train of thought.

Before long, they reached the ramp S’Rak wanted. It wasn’t one Dynami had used before. Most of the time, he’d traveled the broad ramp reserved for the army. A couple of times they’d used the trade ramps when repairs caused the closure of the army ramp. This ramp was neither army nor public. It was narrow and steep, too narrow for even the smallest of wagons, too steep for oxen or horses.

This is the fastest way up without flying.

One of the best things about having S’Rak for a rider was his tendency to answer Dynami’s questions before he even asked them. The man’s ability to simply know what he was thinking, how he was feeling was unparalleled in Dynami’s experience. The clarity of the Thezi high priest’s thoughts marked him as different from even the other Thezi that Dynami had worked with. S’Rak claimed it was because he was Loftoni and dragon-bound, Dynami suspected there was more to it, perhaps because he was the high priest and not a lesser member of the sect.

They started up the ramp, and once Dynami had set his cloven hooves upon it, he realized that only an avtappi could manage it. The rock bed of the road was textured with grooves that provided traction for him, but there were places where he and Vyld were forced to use their climbing claws.

This road was made for avtappi, S’Rak told him as they traversed a relatively easy section. It is designed for a single rider, or at most, a small party of riders, and it does not end at the city gates but within the temple grounds.

At no place had this ramp shown itself wide enough for two avtappi to walk abreast. Vyld, bearing the packs for now, was forced to follow him. Before this, the two had always traveled side