Release date: 5th May 2017
Sub-genre: Fantasy
About Children of the Shaman:
When their aunt is
taken ill, thirteen-year old Annat and her brother are sent from their small
coastal town to live with their unknown father. Like Annat, Yuda is a Shaman; a
Wanderer with magical powers, able to enter other worlds. As Annat learns more
about her powers, the children join their father on a remarkable train journey
to the frozen north and find a land of mystery and intrigue, threatened by dark
forces and beset by senseless murders that have halted construction of a new
tunnel. But Annat’s doll, her only remembrance of her dead mother, may hold a
dark secret - and when her brother Malchik is kidnapped, Annat and her father
must travel onwards to find him before it is too late.
Cover art by Daniele Serra, internal illustrations by Evelinn Enoksen.
Excerpt:
Annat yelled.
It came out of her suddenly, in a reflex vomiting of fear. They were coming. A bitter taste was in her mouth, chaos in her
mind. An utter panic urged her to run out into the cool mist, away from the
scalding, searing touch of concentrated evil. Then she felt the impact of a
huge blast of power, stronger than any she had ever known.
“Malchik,”
she said, and jumped down on to the ballast. She ran towards the source of the
power. Someone was screaming in the mist, with terrible, howling sobs. Yuda was
ahead of her, and she felt the heat of him concentrated into a white-hot core.
Behind her, Scorpion yelled a battle cry. Annat ran down the embankment, anger
hurling her forward. The mist split, and she saw them: dressed in rags, four
men and a woman bending over a prone figure that writhed on the ground. It was,
it had been, Pyotr. The sum of their joint power was a pulsating mass, a
living, separate creature that stank of cruelty and unbounded wildness.
Yuda stopped,
dropped on one knee and stretched out his right arm, sending a surge of power
into the group. Annat felt the impact from where she stood, but it seemed to
have no effect on the five. Their heads turned towards Yuda with one slick,
mechanical movement, and Annat saw that their eyes were white. She ran towards
her father, carried by panic and rage, and sent her own small, hopeless flame
searing towards them. Scorpion fired her gun over Yuda’s head, in a blue jet of
charged ozone that struck one of the men under the chin, spinning him
backwards. For an instant the group wavered, then Annat felt them gathering
force for their counterattack, which would shrivel and burn the soft parts of
her body. There was nothing the eye could see, but she felt a tearing pain that
wrenched her from her feet. As she fell, she saw Yuda on his feet, his arms
spread to make a wall. The blast was deflected, fracturing into splinters that
pierced the mist, sending up jets of superheated steam. As Scorpion flung down
her gun and sent a bolt of lightning from her cupped right hand, Yuda ran in
close and caught the foremost man in the belly with his knife. Annat saw the
blue-tinted entrails slither from the gash; the dying man caught Yuda by the
shoulders, trying to raze his mind with the gaze of those milky eyes.
The mass of inhuman power quavered, rent by Scorpion’s
fire, but the three survivors gathered the strength of their dying companions.
They seemed to merge into a hydra-cloud, sucking power into their depths from
everything that surrounded them. Forced to his knees, Yuda nonetheless managed
to gather his strength for another blast; white lightning roared from his hands
and caught in the toils of the power cloud, tearing great holes in it. He was
bleeding from head and chest; Annat could smell Scorpion’s burns.About Jessica Rydill:
Jessica’s novels are a cross-genre mash-up; they embrace fantasy with mediaeval warlords, and Victorian adventure with lightning-wielding shamans. A host of underworlds and other dimensions are only a short step away.
Jessica’s first three books are being reissued by Kristell Ink/Grimbold Books, together with Winterbloom. You can visit their web-site here: http://kristell-ink.com/
Visit Jessica’s web-site at www.shamansland.com to learn more about Mir, the shamanworld.
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