Y'keta
The
Sky Road Trilogy Book 1
by
Sandra Hurst
Genre:
Epic Fantasy
Banished.
Cast out. Powerless. Y’keta is exiled to the small village of
Esquialt as his father's punishment for his rebellious spirit.
Village tradition gives him one Cycle, from spring to spring, to earn
the right to stay.
The
villagers have a legend about mighty beings called the Waki'tani,
mythical lords of the wind and lightning who can shapeshift into
human form. Y'keta knows the truth behind these stories. Could there
be more to them than just tales shared around the campfire?
If
Y'keta reveals what he knows to the villagers, it will tear their
history and traditions apart...but sharing his secrets may be their
only hope for survival when Esquialt is threatened by the brutal,
ferociously destructive Utlaak.
Loosely
based on the Thunderbird of North American legend, Y'keta is an epic
fantasy set in an ancient world where legends walk and the Sky Road
offers a way to the stars.
There was a light fog on the north ridge that
seemed to get thicker as I walked further from the village. The new Kit'na
would be at the campfire tonight. I just hoped they would keep mother busy
enough not to notice my absence. Uncle Pey't was going to read the scroll of
the Utlaak to the village, reminding themselves of the great danger of long
ago. He would scowl at the ring of young faces around the campfire. They would
stare back at him, half scared, half fascinated, as he told the tales of the
enemy from Below.
It was here, he would remind them, that the
last great battle in the war against the Under- dwellers, had ended. It was
here when Esquialt was falling, its last warrior dead, that Surta, the Lord of
the Waki'tani, the Sky People who flew between the earth and the Sky Lord’s
Road, had appeared to drive the Utlaak back into their barrows. The Waki'tani
knew this Village’s Road, Uncle Pey’t would growl. There were even rumours that
at times they walked here cloaked as warriors.
I was so tired of that story. I had heard it
every spring camp since I was old enough to sit at the campfire. They came. We
beat them. They came again. We beat them again. Why did it have to be anything
more?
The legends weren’t necessary, I thought. Why is it important to keep retelling the same dusty stories just to
feed the imaginations of the hatchlings and comfort the egos of rambling old
men?
The fog twined around the boles of the trees
as I crawled in and out picking berries. It crept downhill and stretched its
ephemeral talons towards the village. The afternoon had faded and the quick
dusk of a spring night was falling. As the warmth of the day subsided, I pulled
my shawl tighter around my shoulders. In the bush, I could hear crickets
rubbing their legs together, their chirps slowing with the fog and wind. The
ridge was steeper now, the black boles of the Aspens twisted and gnarled in the
deepening twilight. I rubbed my arms as a chill breeze blew through the trees,
and looked back down the valley to the camp below. I don’t remember coming so
high or walking so far.
The fog carried the mouldy smell of the forest
floor mixed with the nose-pinching bite of sweetgrass in bloom. Grabbing onto a
thick aspen trunk, I pulled myself across the loose gravel scree on the
hillside, following the strange fog up the ridge. Pebbles skittered down as I
scrambled higher up on the sandstone ridge. They sounded much louder in the
falling dark. I froze, hugging the damp, mottled bark of a twisted aspen until
the sound faded and the faint noises of the forest restarted.
Hesitantly, I looked up the ridge. Though I
squinted at it until my eyes ached, something in the shadows at the top of the
ridge didn’t quite seem to fit with the oncoming night. Yes—right there,
between that boulder and the ridge line. There was something that didn’t move,
or should move, or something. It was just the wrong shape for a shadow.
The fog should have been thinner up here. It
wasn’t. My throat felt tight as I swallowed nervously. My feet were heavy and
less willing to move the higher I climbed. The fog climbed with me. I don’t
believe in legends, I reminded myself. That's why I’m here. I don’t believe the
Utlaak wait in the dark or the Sky People steal you if you leave camp at night.
I finally reached the crest of the ridge and
lay down shivering in the early spring moss. The damp vegetation soaked through
my thick hide robe and chilled whatever courage I had left. What
was I doing up here?
The fog flowed steadily toward the boulder
where the black something hovered unmoving against the horizon. It wrapped
around the twisted tree trunks and over my shoulders like a clammy stream; not
still and airy the way fog should be, but always moving towards its ocean.
A scratching noise disturbed the forest
silence. The shadow seemed to detach itself from the rock and extend itself to
twice the height of one of the People. Great yellow eyes opened half-way up its
body, swiveling backwards and forwards across the ridge. Sweat dripped down my
face making my eyes sting as the creature carefully scanned my side of the
ridge.
Breathing slowly just to keep myself from
moving, I tried to see a form in the darkness. The rocks and soil under my
fingernails felt hard and wet as my hands dug, attempting to find an anchor
into the mulch; desperate for the reality of the cold frozen earth. Apparently
unable to see anyone, the fierce eyes turned upwards for a moment, giving me
time for a full, careful breath. A breath I abruptly lost as the amorphous
shape seemed to split itself in two. Where the eyes had been was now the shape
of a head with massive wings stretched out to each side.
The Waki’tani aren’t real, I boggled, this
isn’t real! I’ve hit my head on a rock or a tree stump, and I’m unconscious;
just lying here in the dirt.
Carefully pulling one hand to my side, I ran
it over my wet braids checking for blood or bumps on my head, then I touched it
to my chest feeling the reality of my own racing heart. I looked at the
bird-shaped thing again.
The raven creature stood looking down at the
village. Its wings spread wide in the darkness, blocking out the stars who were
twinkling everywhere else in the frosty sky. Overhead, the Sky Road appeared, a
million points of light showing the way to the Elder Stars.
The Waki'tani turned its head. I swallowed in
fear as the great beak snapped at a passing thought. With a last look at the
village and a noise somewhere between a human sigh and a raven’s caw, it soared
into the sky. For a few seconds, I could only watch as the creature disappeared
into the distance, then, noticing the fog seemed to be evaporating as the
creature departed, I scrambled from the ridge line into the cover of the lower
bushes.
Clinging to the bole of a knotty pine tree, I
tried to rebuild my world. It was a much larger, much scarier place than it
seemed when I left camp a few hours ago. It was real, how can I tell them, it’s
all real!
Hi,
my name is Sandra Hurst, the author of the Sky Road fantasy
series.
As a child growing up in England stories and legends
surrounded me, I learned how important imagination was. When I was 8,
we moved to northern Canada and the legends changed. Stories of the
Fae and the little people were replaced by legends of the Thunderbird
and stories of the woodlands. I never stood a chance. What could I be
but a writer?
Growing
up in Northern Alberta gave me a great love and respect for the wild
lands and indigenous cultures which made its way into the worlds I
create. A
mythmaker at heart, I started writing poetry in middle school and
graduated to epic fantasy.
Myths
give us a way to interpret the world past our normal experience. To
ask questions and explore answers in a larger-than-life game of ‘what
if.’ We need to make room for myths and mythmakers in our fact
driven world. To give space for worlds that are brighter and clearer
than our own. For it is in doing so, that we have room to become more
fully human.
My
first book, Y’keta,
is loosely based on the
Thunderbird of North American legend, Y'keta is a Young Adult, high
fantasy set in an ancient world where legends walk and the Sky Road
offers a way to the stars.
I
now live in Calgary, Alberta with my husband and son, both of whom I
love dearly, and have put for sale on e-bay when their behaviour
demanded it. My day to day life is a balance between my outside life
as a paralegal counsellor and my inner life as an author/poet. In
between, I work on courses to improve my writing, learning the Cree
Language, book reviews and blogging on my website, and studying
mythologies from around the world.
Follow
the tour HERE!
1 comments:
Yes legends change from country to country, that's what makes life interesting!
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