0 (29) YA Historical Fantasy: CHILD OF THE STORM

TITLE: Child of the Storm
GENRE: YA Historical Fantasy

When the fourteen-year-old Amargi finds his mentor brutally slain, he leaves his tribe in the Zagros to petition the kings of Sumer for justice. Skilled, clever, but too innocent for politics, he soon becomes the pawn in a deadly game for supremacy. At a time when deception means survival, Amargi must trust the girl who once betrayed him, else forfeit his dignity, his plans for vengeance, and his life.

A storm was rising; Amargi could smell it in the air. The wind already shook the tent walls, and the skins snapped hard against the support poles. Amargi searched the tent with his eyes, clutching his knife, certain something menacing had come.

“Kutik?” he whispered. “Adda?” He peered through the darkness inside the tent.

Snoring softly on the mats were only his brother’s wives and the children. Outside, the darkness had already eased into a bruised dawn.

He’d been up for hours already, to sharpen the knives and axes, and to get the dogs fed. At thirteen, and the youngest, if his adda said to stay and watch over the cattle, who was he to defy? An uneasy feeling had brought him back. It was early, still. He thought he might still find his brothers and adda here, but no such luck. Amargi wished the holy shatin would acknowledge him a man already. Then perhaps he could have told adda about this bad feeling, rather than staring at the snoring forms of the women under the sheepskins.

Amargi heard grandmother’s humming outside. That old witch was always awake. Thunder cracked and popped, making the earth beneath him vibrate. Amargi stared at the moving shadows of the trees against the tent skins, his knife firmly in his grip.

The shatin would laugh at him if he saw him now. “So now the boy reads omens like a holy man? Why don’t we just let him invoke the gods, then?”

But Amargi was worried. The feeling was real.