Destroyer (Hidden Planet Book 1) Read online

  Destroyer

  Hidden Planet: Book One

  Anna Carven

  Copyright © 2017 by Anna Carven

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Also by Anna Carven

  Prologue

  Knee-deep snow blanketed the floor of the ravine, stretching between the sheer stone cliffs like a fine vooli pelt. Ares pushed back his hood and stared up at the violet sky as it deepened into black.

  “Going to be a cold night,” he muttered. The Dagger was visible again, its familiar black outline pointing toward the wide waterplains of the Ardu-Sai. Behind it lay a tapestry of stars, their brilliant glow muted by the dark veil of the Shadowring.

  Go back, it seemed to say. Leave this place.

  That wasn’t an option. He glanced over his shoulder. Twenty-five Vradhu followed him, their dark faces grim. The ivory points of their war-spears carved through the deepening shadows, bobbing up-and-down as if floating on an uneasy pond.

  Like Ares, they moved quickly and silently, propelling themselves over the snow with the help of their kratok bone skis.

  As was customary, their leader, Maki-ku-Rathra, brought up the rear, guarding his pack with sharp-eyed vigilance. They were deep in kratok territory now, and although the beasts were supposed to be in the midst of their winter hibernation, one never knew when a lone male might catch their scent and emerge from its burrow.

  This was the Highfold, a place of sheer cliffs, deep ravines, and bitterly cold winters. Before the Shadowring had appeared in the sky, the warm season would see a complete melting of the snows, and the blanket of ice under their feet would turn into a river of startling blue, its crystalline waters revealing a submerged forest of ancient logs.

  At least that’s what Ares had heard. He’d never seen a true Melting in his lifetime. The warm season still came, but its power was muted by the shadows in the sky.

  Ares crested a ridge and nimbly swerved around a grey boulder, using the small downward slope to build momentum. Cold air rushed past him, caressing his face and the bare sides of his scalp, tugging at his long warrior’s braid. A faint roar reached his ears, growing louder as he neared the Source.

  They had almost arrived at the base of the Matya, the highest peak in the imposing Esskar range.

  This was Ares’s territory. He was khefe—a lone Hunter—and he had earned the right to venture here alone, but even he was hesitant to trek deep into the Highfold during winter. The Vradhu were a warmth-loving species, and like all of his kin, Ares hated the cold.

  He had bitter memories of the cold.

  Angling his skis, he carved a vicious half-circle in the snow, throwing up a spray of white powder as he came to a halt. He held up a hand and the Hunters behind him stopped in a similar fashion, quickly removing their skis and strapping them to their backs. Ares removed an ankre pod from his pack and snapped it open.

  Darkness had fallen, and all he could make out were the whites of his clan-brothers’ eyes.

  Soft pink light formed a halo around the pack as the bioluminescent pod flared to life. Ares nodded in the direction of the cliff face, where ancient steps were carved into the stone wall, marking out a precipitous path to the top. He exchanged a knowing look with Maki and began to climb.

  “I still don’t see the point in going all the way to top,” someone down the line grumbled. “It’d make better sense to check downstream first—”

  Maki silenced the dissenter with a hiss. “There are dead things all the way from the river mouth to the Clanlands. We don’t know how far up the chain the poison goes, so we will start at the Source and trace our way down through the Seeli Caves. We can’t afford to miss anything.”

  Ares turned and glared at the insolent warrior, a lowlander named Baku. Don’t you understand anything? He had half a mind to beat some respect into the idiot, but Maki had his own subtle way of dealing with these things. Several Hunters returned his stare with hostile looks of their own.

  Pureblooded fools. Around half the pack was new, replacing those who had died during the last kratok hunt. Out of all of them, only Ares and Maki had a decent number of hunts under their belts.

  Maki had five. He was once-blooded.

  Ares had seven, the magic number. He was thrice-blooded, having killed three queens—a record for this generation of Hunters. The last queen he’d killed had been ancient, her eyeteeth as long as his arms. He’d taken the teeth as his prize and had them fashioned into krivera by a revered old weaponsmith.

  Nothing was quite as sharp and strong and beautiful as a pair of kratok-fang blades.

  The very same krivera were now strapped to his back as he climbed the walls of the Highfold, moving by feel more than sight.

  Ares didn’t even need the ankre’s light, for he knew this ascent like the back of his hand, but he let it shine for the benefit of his brothers. They didn’t have time to rescue any Hunter who slipped off the icy path.

  The faint roar grew louder. “It’s beyond the boulders,” Ares shouted, mindful of those who had never been here before. “Follow me. Careful. The rocks are slippery here.” A luminous blue mist rose from behind the massive rocks, which were nothing more than dark silhouettes.

  He hauled himself up the rocks, muscles straining, his bare hands protesting as they came into contact with the freezing stone. Ares climbed quickly, by feel more than sight. Moving through the ancient stone formations and crevasses of the Highfold was as natural to him as breathing.

  After all, this was his hunting ground.

  As he reached the top, a gust of warm air hit him in the face. Moving quickly, he turned and traversed a narrow path that led down to a flat embankment of smooth rock.

  Ares looked up at the waterfall as he waited for the others to catch up. As always, the Source was a breathtaking sight, a torrent of heated spring water rising from some unknown place within the mountain and cascading down an impossibly sheer cliff. Steam rolled off it, lit up by the brilliant glow of luminescent blue algae. The waterfall disappeared into a giant hole in the rock, where it became the underground riverway they called the Seeli Caves.

  When the sn
ows melted, he wouldn’t even be able to stand here. This place would turn into a raging torrent of water.

  As Maki and the others reached his side, Ares raised his arm and pointed at the waterfall. Strange green lights flickered behind the curtain of water, followed by a ripple of shadow. “See there?” he shouted, making sure they could read his lips in the glow of the ankre-light. “There’s someone or something behind the waterfall.”

  A deep cave extended behind the cascade. Ares had spent many a night there, taking advantage of the natural warmth that seeped through the rocks.

  “Who dares?” Maki hissed, his dark eyes narrowing in anger. The deep black ankhata on his face accentuated his fearsome expression.

  “If they are the ones responsible for poisoning our waters, I will tear their eyeballs from their faces and rip out their tongues, so they have no choice but to walk blindly and mutely into the Underdark.” A vicious smile curved Ares’s lips as he contemplated his revenge.

  “Hold, brother.” Maki put a hand on Ares’s shoulder. “Put a leash on that famous temper of yours. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ll destroy them.”

  “Now I remember why you don’t work well with others, Ares-rai.”

  “I’m just thinking like a Hunter.”

  “The absence of caution can get you killed.”

  “So can overthinking. I haven’t survived seven hunts by being scholarly.”

  “Truth. But you are also unfairly gifted.”

  “Merely shaped by Aethra’s will, my Lord.”

  Several of the new warriors hissed as they witnessed Ares’s familiarity with the pack-leader, but Ares was beyond caring about formality and protocol. Maki might be a Lord of the Two Clans, but he was also his friend.

  Ares dipped his head in a show of respect. “I will go first and find out what is—”

  A sleek vessel flew out from behind the waterfall, slicing through the torrent of water.

  In unison, the warriors whipped their war-spears from behind their backs. “Magrel!” one of the purebloods hissed.

  Ares drew his krivera—his twin bone swords.

  The vessel looked like something straight out of the glyphs depicted in the Ancient Stones; a double-winged ship the size of a youngling kratok.

  It drifted toward the embankment and descended in front of them, seemingly soundless against the backdrop of the roaring falls. Ares held his blades low as the cursed machine landed on a flat area of stone. A blast of warm air hit him in the face, fluttering the edges of his cloak.

  Curled around his left leg, his tail twitched in anticipation.

  “Naaga,” Maki growled, loud enough for only Ares to hear. “Now it makes sense. They poisoned the Source to draw us out of hiding.”

  “What could they possibly want with us? There is nothing of value to them here.” A low hiss left Ares’s lips. “How did they learn of our existence? We withdrew from the outside world eons ago. Perhaps it is best to just kill them and be done with it.”

  “Caution, brother. They obviously lured us here with some plan in mind. The Made Ones will be anticipating our violence.”

  “Feh.” Ares took a step forward, raising his blades. “Just let them try and take advantage of us.” Anger unfurled in his chest, making him want to decapitate the first Naaga he saw.

  Young race of fools. They deserve to die slowly and painfully for what they have done to us.

  They had tracked the poisoned waterways all the way from the Clanlands to the Highfold. He’d seen the destruction first-hand; the dead trees and plants, the lifeless sarukark floating belly-up in the rivers, the desolation across the wide waterplains. Their people had been forced out of the Clanlands and into the dense sekkhoi forests, where they carved out a meager living off sekkhoi fruit and rainwater.

  This was not how they were supposed to live.

  The Vradhu Hunters had been sent to find the source of the corruption and deal with it.

  They hadn’t been expecting this.

  A door opened in the side of the ship. A ramp slid to the ground. Out walked a group of Naaga, six in total. They wore long robes that concealed their bodies from head to feet. Only the lower halves of their blue faces were visible.

  “White-eyed devils,” someone hissed. They had never seen the Naaga in real life, but they all knew what they looked like. They’d all been made to study the Ancient Stones, which depicted the long and bloody history of their peoples.

  Ares was already moving, ignoring Maki’s warning and sprinting across the flat rocks until he was face-to-face with the Naaga. He raised his swords. “Leave and take your cursed poison with you. This is our territory, Naaga.”

  He would defend it to the death.

  The Naaga responded with silence. They didn’t even flinch.

  The group slowly parted. Another Naaga emerged, clad in shimmering armor made from thousands of tiny metal scales. A faceless helm concealed her features, but Ares could tell it was a she from the way she moved and the shape of her body.

  The others respectfully moved aside.

  A rush of feet and the collective flare of two dozen killing auras told Ares that Maki had assembled the pack behind him. His tail became a black blur as it uncoiled from around his leg and wrapped around the female’s neck. He pressed the venomous barb against the underside of her chin.

  He spotted a weak point there; a gap where the edge of the helm was supposed to connect with her scale-armor. Ares could punch his barb through it in an instant. She would be dead as soon as the tip punctured her skin.

  Vradhu venom was incredibly toxic to all species on Khira. It was why they kept their tails so tightly leashed.

  To further emphasize his point, Ares leveled the tips of his swords at her chest. According to the Ancient Stones, the Naaga possessed two hearts.

  One on the right, and one on the left.

  “Tek a tek,” she said.

  What the fuck did that mean?

  “Why did you poison the Source?” Maki roared.

  No response. The Naaga pulled something from the belt at her waist; a round metal orb attached to a chain.

  Realization struck him. “They can’t understand us. Old Verthe once told me they are unable to speak any tongue but their own. The Drakhin designed them that way.”

  “Then what’s the point of—”

  A pungent, sickly-sweet smell filled the air, mingling with the earthy-wet scent of the Source. Faint white smoke poured from the orb. The female swung it back-and-forth, inclining her head.

  Weakness flooded through Ares. His legs started to quiver. His grip became loose. “Poison!” he gasped.

  He slammed his tail-barb home. It pierced the soft skin underneath the Naaga’s chin. The effect was instantaneous. She fell to the ground, dead. The orb dropped from her hands and rolled around on the glistening rock.

  At the same time, Ares and his clan-brothers dropped to their knees. It was as if all his muscles had been turned into stone. He couldn’t move, not even to turn his head to look at Maki and the others.

  Were they going to die here?

  Why the fuck would they lure us up here, only to kill us?

  That final thought trickled through his mind as the remaining Naaga swarmed around them, metal restraints appearing in their hands.

  His anger turned to horror and outrage, and then…

  Nothing.

  Consciousness returned. Ares gasped. His eyes flew open. Excruciating pain drilled through his head, from the base of his skull right up into his temples.

  An oppressive grey ceiling arched overhead. He couldn’t move. Something held him down. Where is the sky? A bolt of panic shot through him. They’d taken him somewhere. He was trapped. Where was Maki? Where were the rest of the Vradhu pack? He tried to sit up, but restraints cut into his flesh. Ares screamed in frustration.

  Cold hands touched his bare skin. Suddenly, a Naaga hovered over him. Pearlescent white eyes without pupil or iri
s dissected him.

  “I’ll fucking kill you,” Ares spat. He tried to move his tail, but it was bound tightly around his leg. Although he desperately wanted to strike the Naaga, the venom in his barb was depleted and would take several days to replenish.

  The Naaga shrugged. “You are truly as dangerous as they warned, aren’t you? Oh, do not look at me like that, barbarian. Understand that your people survive at our mercy. The moment you stop being useful to us is the moment we obliterate the Ardu-Sai. If you do as we say, you and your clansmen will be treated fairly, and we will reverse the contamination.”

  “Fairly? Y-you poisonous… bastard…” Ares’s speech came out jumbled. He shook his head, trying to make sense of it all through the thick fog in his mind. Of course, the Naaga spoke only Naaga, and for some reason, Ares understood him perfectly well.

  How?

  “Since we are unable to speak any other tongue, all of our subjects get the language implant.” The Naaga sighed. “Yours is not grafting well. Too much aggression, you have. Try to calm down. Here. This will help.”

  Ares raged against his restraints, but it was futile. Something cold and hard came into contact with the bare skin of his lower arm. A needle prick.

  Then darkness.

  Ares rubbed the area at the base of his skull. A small, faintly tender ridge protruded from his skin; the only remaining evidence that magrel had been forced into his brain.

  Now he could communicate in perfect Naaga. All of the Vradhu warriors could, thanks to their blue captors.