Sparo Rising: Minstrel of the Andrei

By Erik Schubach

Sparo Rising is a spinoff series from the Techromancy Scrolls. Each book features a standalone story of a different side character from the Techromancy Scrolls that readers wished to hear more about. This fourth book centers around Ranelle of the Andrei, and her rise to power.

Almost three thousand years after an extinction level event on Earth, mankind seeks to regain its former glory, in a new world where magic and technology collide.

Before there was Laney, there was a minstrel... Sora Ranelle of the Andrei, who rose up to become one of the most loved Great Mothers of the People in the history of Sparo.

From questionable beginnings, and possessing a power she could not control, the Mother of the Andrei sent Rain to learn control under the tutelage of the eldest and most powerful of the Mountain Gypsies, Mother Udele of the Lupei. The old seer teaches control and more to the young woman, whose fate Udele has already seen in her visions.

Over the years, Udele sends for Rain to witness turning points in the history of Sparo. And the Mountain Gypsy clans slowly lose their fear of her explosive magiks and learn to love her as their fierce protector.

On the day of the Choosing, where the Conclave of Mothers select a new ruler, to her shocked surprise, Ranelle is selected to lead as Great Mother of the People.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erik Schubach
• Release date: Dec 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005442767

Erik Schubach

I got my start writing romance novels by accident. I have always been drawn to strong female characters in books, like Honor Harrington. And I also believe that there is a lack of LGBT characters in media. So one day I came up with a story idea that combines the two... two days later I completed the manuscript for Music of the Soul.My writing style may not be the most professional nor grammatically correct, but I never profess to be an English major, just a person that wants to share a story. I maintain that my primary language is sarcasm.Each of my books features strong likeable female characters that are flawed. I think that flaws and emotional or physical scars make us human and give us more character than simply conforming to some "social norm".I have also started a SciFi series, The Valkyrie Chronicles which features a Valkyrie, Kara, who was left behind on Earth five thousand years ago to help the Asgard race escape the onslaught of the Ragnarok horde. With the aid of a human, Kate, she holds the line in battle to herald the return of the Asgard!If you like magic, paranormal romance and witches, then my new series Fracture might tickle your fancy. In the first book Fracture: Divergence, Alex King must stop magic from destroying reality. The problem is that Alex must solve the case in parallel universes where in one Alex is male and female in the other.There is even a modern shapeshifter paranormal series, Drakon. Featuring a fiery Irish woman with a sharp wit and sharper temper who finds out she is a dragon of legend.

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Sparo Rising: Minstrel of the Andrei

By Erik Schubach

Copyright © 2022 by Erik Schubach

Published by Erik Schubach on Smashwords

P.O. Box 523

Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026

Cover Photo © 2022 Fotolit2/Triff Depositphotos.com & ShutterStock.com licenses

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

FIRST EDITION

Chapter 1 – Lupei

As we rode deep into the Whispering walls toward Father Stone, I could feel my excitement growing. We were to meet the Lupei as they traveled to Wexbury for Carnival. The enigmatic band of the traveling People of the lands of Sparo, the Lands of Hope, favored the western slopes, or backside, whereas my band of the People, the Andrei, favored the eastern side of the Stone Mountains range.

The Altii peoples of the Northmen called the mountains which were our home, the Whispering Walls for all the voices held in the whispers drifting on the wind, tempting all to lose themselves for the chance to grasp even one of the elusive secrets held by those who came before us and those yet to be. Many minds of women and men have been lost trying to touch the intangible, the voices of lost loved ones who they swear they can hear among the whispers.

I glanced to the sun, the Shepherd, as she dipped low on the horizon painting the sparse clouds in the sky like a canvas, with bright oranges and reds, then back up to the Fates... the three pale moons low in the sky, the Mother, the Maiden, and the Crone. The ghostly celestial ring of debris that encircled the earth was barely visible during the day, but when night came, when the Fates traversed the sky, it would reflect enough light to travel the trails with the moons.

The Altii in the Northmen keeps and settlements called the moons the Three Sisters, and the sun, Father Sol. I prefer our names for them, but we adopt their terminology in our dealings with them.

Even after all these centuries since the Others, or the Altii, arrived in the lands of Sparo, we find them so foreign compared to how the People do things. And they are very violent people, still very young in most things, so we watch them still, watching as they slowly learn what the People have always known since we shed our own warlike past in the early history of our people after the Cataclysm.

What the Altii refer to as the Great Impact, almost three thousand years afore time, when a rogue celestial body collided with the great moon, Luna, and tore her asunder, leaving us with the Three Sisters and the debris ring in the sky to remind us of how fragile life is.

The world was torn apart, land masses heaving and buckling, the Earth's crust itself flipping or crumbling in places. And a world that had once supported billions of human beings, and millions of species of animals, plants, and insects, was virtually wiped out in a mass extinction event.

So few of us survived, and for the longest time, the People believed we were all that remained of the world of man. Until men braving the broken and barren rock landscape of the Expanse, or Uninhabitable Lands arrived in the North West of Sparo.

The People rode to greet them, astonished that we were not alone. But that first expeditionary party from the Northland misinterpreted our advance as hostilities and took up arms. They seemed terrified when those of the Touched of the People used our magiks to defend themselves and secure the Altii. It was as if they had never seen magik before, as mind-boggling as that concept was. Magik was just something that... was.

Our most accomplished scholar, Hinaria, was sent for. She spoke many of the dead languages as the keeper of the books of old. And was able to communicate with them using one of those ancient languages called English.

She learned of the Northlands they called Highland, and that they were searching for other habitable lands like Mother Racina had attempted with the lost Cristea band a decade prior. Their scholars thought that there had to be other pockets of life in our unforgiving, broken world, so they were sending expeditions out farther than they ever had... and here they were.

After learning of our ways, always traveling the range, living with nature, and experiencing all there is to in this small pocket of life of ours, they deemed us Wanderers or Mountain Gypsies.

Once they returned to their lands with word of Sparo, they came in great numbers to settle on our land and set up great kingdoms. They brought violence and sickness too. But we were patient with the Altii. They were but children in the eyes of Father Stone.

When they tried to claim our mountains as their own, thinking we had no teeth, the People held our first war council at the Meeting Spot. Great Mother Ezabelle taught us temperament. We had numbers that could wipe the Alti from the lands, but she bid us patience. We showed the Altii our strength, our numbers. But our magik scared them the most, they had not witnessed such power, and it gave them pause.

Then the wise ruler king of the Altii from Highland Reach; I know it is odd they have a man as their leader instead of a Mother; rode alone without escort across the Gap to confront his people. He bid them all temperament, reminding them that they were guests of our land and were there at our convenience. King Derek the Righteous set up a parlay between his people and us and forged peace that has held since.

Shortly after the King returned to his Northlands, his Highlands, hundreds, then thousands more of the Altii came, claiming lands and building settlements, building more keeps, and waging wars against their fellow Altii to obtain more. But we left them to their vices, knowing that they had to learn the hard-won lessons we had, and we would shepherd them where we could.

They never tried to break the peace pact and enforce their beliefs upon us, partly because of the pledge their King had made to the People, and partially because they were afraid of our magik and what it could do. A power they could not fight with their blades and will, so they don't encroach much upon us in the Whispering Walls, and as agreed in the pact, a third of the range was off limits to them as they were some of the most heavily traveled trails of the People.

Over time, the Altii started to develop their rudimentary elemental magics just as the People had in the beginning before ours evolved into the more powerful and useful magik of the spirit. Their leader, King Derek, was the first of the Altii to ever bloom with the odd elemental magics of their people. This concerned the Mothers of our bands, and they beseeched the Great Mother, thinking its time for the Altii to go back from whence they came as they were becoming a threat to our people and way of life if our magik was less of a deterrent if they had their own.

The Great Mother of that time, Ezabelle, instead bid patience. She decreed that English be taught to all the People alongside the tongue of the People so that all could communicate with them. Then her plan became clear when she formed another band of the people, the Rovers, sending them out from the mountains to live among the Altii and keep the People informed of the Altii and their culture.

Volunteers and lotteries are held every three years, and five individuals from each clan are assigned to the Rovers, to live among the Altii until the next batch is assigned.

The other way of both keeping tabs on the Altii while building comradery between the Keeps and the People, and sharing our culture with them so we didn't seem so alien or threatening to them, was to hold a version of our yearly Unity Festival, where the bands all get together in the shadow of Father Stone at the Meeting Spot and celebrate. Showing off the skills and entertainment of each band with all.

It was under Great Mother Ezabelle, all those centuries ago, that the first Carnival was held at Solomon Keep on the Great Sea. Each band would hold Carnival at a different Altii keep once a year before returning to their travels in the Whispering Walls until the next Carnival they would hold in another Keep. This way the clans rotated, each band visiting all of the ten colonies the Northlanders carved from the free lands of Sparo, celebrating with all.

The exception was Hell's Gate, as it was problematic, so was skipped by most bands by necessity, as the Burning Desert is treacherous to cross so they saw Carnival but once every two years.

So the citizens of the Altii became friends of the People, and the militaries remained wary of us as we rarely ever showed our magiks to them. So the leaders of the keeps saw it prudent to keep in our good graces.

I was knocked out of my musings as mother snapped out at me. Ranelle? Are you listening to me?

Drawing my eyes reluctantly from the sky, I turned in my saddle, looking past our garda personalas. Sorry, I was just marveling at the sunset. What was that?

Anita giggled in the saddle behind me, her small hands around my waist. I patted her hand as I hid my grin from mother. She wanted us to be so serious all the time, even though we were just children. I had just seen my thirteenth turning, and Anita was but six.

My baby sis was a surprise pregnancy when mother thought she could have no more, what with my birth being so problematic, then she almost died giving birth to Benji. Three miscarriages followed and then it seemed there would be no other children from our branch of the Andrei clan. But then along came Anita, the perfect baby girl. A second mostenitor, heir of the Andrei.

I sometimes felt as if my mother saw her as a backup to take up the mantle of Mother of the Andrei if something ever happened to me. Mother seemed disappointed that Anita didn't show any signs of being among the Touched as I was, but I saw her as an absolute joy in my overly structured and quite un-fun life as I studied daily to one day become Mother of our clan.

And now I was being punished because I can't seem to control the magik that leaks from me even though I haven't bloomed, or ignited as the Altii say so that I can access my full magik potential which is locked away in my adolescent form.

It wasn't my fault what happened. Those Altii Marauders were going to kill Benji. I hadn't meant for anyone to die. And now I was being sent away, to train under the most powerful magik user of the Touched to learn to control the budding magik trying to get out of me.

Even though it felt like a punishment I was excited to apprentice under Mother Udele of the Lupei, the woman most accomplished in the magik of the People, and the most powerful person with the Sight, seeing the past, present, and most likely of futures.

Yes, the same Udele who refused the nomination to lead us all in the position of Great Mother of the People when the prior Great Mother died of a mysterious ailment. The current Great Mother, Irene, defers to Udele and seeks her counsel. And I... I was going to study under her.

Anita was coming to see the Lupei at Carnival at Wexbury, since they are said to have the most spectacular entertainment of all the clans, and Anita has only ever seen the Andrei at Carnival.

The guilt hit me at that thought, Benjamin really should be here too to enjoy Carnival with Anita, but he was still recovering in our Gypsy Wagon back home with our father, from the injuries he suffered at the hands of the Marauders, and the ones I inadvertently inflicted.

Ranelle? Rain!

Oh, sorry, yes mother.

Get your head out of the clouds, girl. Remember, you represent the Andrei. You will be Mother one day, so you need to apply yourself. Take this seriously. Even though the high and mighty Lupei always have an unfair number of the Touched, Udele is the most accomplished, so you can't squander this opportunity. You can't continue to be a danger to yourself and others around you.

The Andrei is the largest and most prestigious clan, and we need a leader to project that one day when you are handed my title. I always felt so... small when she admonished me like this. At least it would be a long time before she would ever pass the reins to me. She was a fairly powerful magik wielder herself, so she would live much much longer than the fifty-year average of someone not of the Touched.

To be honest, I don't even want to be Mother of the Andrei, but fate has other plans for me. As the eldest daughter, I was a Sora, so my future was already chosen for me. I had no choice in the matter and I couldn't even seem upset about it or Mother would see me as being ungrateful.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mother, she's a lot more caring and loving than I may be sharing, but when it comes to matters of leading our clan, she is strict and unyielding.

Yes, mother.

Any more conversation was cut short as we came over a rise to see a group of masterfully crafted wagons of the People setting up camp around a central fire under a huge rock overhang, all displaying the colors of the Lupei. I quickly counted twenty wagons. Wasn't that small for a clan heading to Carnival? Usually, two or three bands of a family would form together. The smallest band of the Andrei was ours, at thirty-one wagons. So maybe the other Lupei bands haven't arrived yet?

Then again, maybe not, as I knew the Lupei were among the smaller bands, though as mother said, they possessed a larger quantity of the Touched than most of the other bands. So maybe this was two or three bands?

I tried to remember the endless lessons mother inundates Anita and me with, about the various families of the People and their political and magik strengths, while the other children are playing in our camp. I just wanted to be like those other kids and not a Sora of the Andrei.

Though I could be mistaken since my mind would drift to thoughts of adventure and exploration of the world around us when I should have been paying attention to lessons, I believe that the entire Lupei family only had around four or five hundred wagons among its various bands. So would that mean each band consisted of a meager ten wagons? Surely this had to be just one.

I looked around again as our garda personalas made some bird calls to announce our presence, which was met by animal chitters indicating they knew and were tracking us already. I suppose this was all they could spare for Carnival, this band or two?

There were more calls down in the camp. They all knew we had arrived now. My eyes darted from tree to tree as I caught flickers of motion in my peripheral vision. Their scouts and hunters were just as skilled as ours.

In the twilight of the evening, the trail