The Skyfall Era Trilogy: Books 1-3 Read online

  THE SKYFALL ERA TRILOGY

  Books 1-3

  MATT LARKIN

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

  THE SKYFALL ERA TRILOGY

  Copyright © 2012-2015 Matt Larkin

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by Steve Parolini and Brenda Pierson

  Covers by Robin Ludwig

  Published by Incandescent Phoenix Books

  incandescentphoenix.com

  For Juhi, under the sun, under the moon.

  Author’s Note

  This volume presents the complete Skyfall Era trilogy including the expanded edition of Children of Sun and Moon. Children of Sun and Moon was my debut novel and consequently took the longest to write of any of my works. I want to thank Steve, Brenda, Margo, David, Robin, Doug, Chris, Shannon, Ginny, Amber, Quintin, Eric, and so many others for their support of the project, and most especially, my wife Tarannum Juhi Larkin.

  For those wanting an even more complete picture of the characters and events, I also recommend the interludes (Currents of Wind and Tide and Fragments of Memory and Dream) and the prequel, Curse of Witch and War. The recommended reading order is:

  Children of Sun and Moon

  Curse of Witch and War

  Currents of Wind and Tide

  Legacy of Moon and Fire

  Fragments of Memory and Dream

  Avatar of Night and Day

  And if you finished all that and want even more mythic fantasy? Consider the Ragnarok Era.

  Sign up for the author’s Readers Group and get a free copy of this prequel to the Skyfall Era series: Curse of Witch and War

  Click here to get started:

  http://incandescentphoenix.com/mattlarkin/free-offer.html

  PROLOGUE

  Twelve hundred years ago the Pact had broken here, though no one could say any longer who started the First War. All of the ensuing conflict, four wars spread over twelve centuries, fought over a place Anusapati had never seen before this night. Twenty-four Lunar dhows anchored offshore, war canoes carrying over a hundred Moon Scions and Macan Gadungan toward the beach.

  Astral Shore—so called because it sat in the shadow of the cliffs upon which rested the mythic Astral Temple. Sacred to all three dynasties of the Skyfall Isles, the Temple represented mankind’s only direct connection with the gods. And tonight, under the bright moon, the Lunars would finally reclaim it. For years the Lunars and Solars had alternated custody of the Temple. The war ended all that. It was past time the Moon God’s children claimed what was theirs.

  Anu leapt out of the canoe and joined the throng of Lunars charging up the beach. Almost immediately a hail of arrows began to fall on their position. Too much to hope they might have caught the Solars by surprise. It didn’t matter. Their numbers were overwhelming. They could do this. They had to do this. Anu raised his keris knife and roared at the night as he charged forward. Almost his entire life had seen this war. When he went home and married his girl, it would be under a moon of victory.

  Arrows fell in the sand around him, many cutting down men charging beside him. Macan Gadungan surged forward, assuming the form of tigers as they ran. The weretigers easily outpaced the Moon Scions and human Lunar warriors, closing the distance to the Solar archers in a few heartbeats.

  Men shrieked as tigers pounced on them, ending the rain of arrows. Solar soldiers rushed forward, bearing their keris swords and their spears. Anu grinned. Where was the mighty Arun Guard now? Where were the Solar elite he had heard such horror stories of? Afraid to come out in the moonlight?

  He drew his Moon Blessing of Potency, relishing the torrent of power that flooded his muscles, making him stronger and faster than any human, to say nothing of more resilient. Anu charged right into the midst of the Solar soldiers. One lunged at him with a spear, the thrust seeming to come with all the speed of a raging tortoise. Anu stepped around it, slit the attacker’s throat, and slammed his palm into another Solar’s face before they knew what had happened. The man he hit was lifted off his feet and crumpled, cartilage and bone shattering in his skull.

  A pair of swordsmen slashed at him, working together, perhaps thinking to offset his Moon Scion speed. It might have worked if Anusapati was an untrained oaf. He bent backward, avoiding both blows, and came up sweeping the two men’s legs out from under them. He stomped on one’s skull as the man fell, caught the other attacker’s forearm on his own, and twisted, slamming his keris into the man’s armpit.

  This was too easy. He loosened his grip on his Moon Blessings, holding just enough to give him a slight edge over ordinary men. After all, you couldn’t overuse them—to do so would drive you lunatic. A taste of the Moon God’s power was all a mortal could handle. Too much, and you’d be raving with delusions of godhood yourself.

  More and more Solar soldiers fell before the Moon Scions. Chandra above, they should have attacked this temple long ago. Were these the people his leaders so feared? They were nothing, mere mortals before the children of the Moon God.

  A tiger’s yelp drew Anu’s eyes back to the dying archers. He had only taken a step toward the weretigers when a woman in a blue baju appeared between two of them. Her keris sword blurred from one to the other faster than Anu’s eyes could track. In another instant, the woman was above another tiger, thrusting down between its shoulder blades. She was gone again before the tiger could even cry out. The weretiger slumped to the ground, resuming human form as it died.

  Anu’s mouth hung agape. No Moon Scion could move that fast, much less appear out of nowhere. The legends were true. The Arun Guard were like gods. No one knew how many there were, but the number was thought to be very few. A dozen or fewer. They were the ones every Lunar feared … But if Anusapati killed one he would go down in history, his name celebrated in song for generations alongside Malin’s. Who hadn’t heard the stories of the weretiger who had killed Arun Guardsmen? And better still, it would end the war. According to their sources, only one Guardsman—or Guardswoman—protected this place.

  He drew his Potency hard once again and surged onward, empowered muscles carrying him forward at a stunning pace. He slammed his arm into a Solar as he passed, sending the man sprawling while not even slowing himself.

  “Guardswoman!” he shouted. “Guardswoman!”

  The Solar paused, looked to him, then vanished. At the same instant someone collided with Anu, hurling him to the ground. With his Blessings drawn, the impact barely stunned him. He shoved the man—Malin, the Macan Gadungan leader, now in human form—off him. The Solar stood above him, swinging. Before Anu could even rise, the woman twisted and thrust down at Malin. Malin reacted faster, blocking the blade with his forearm and earning himself a nasty gash for it. Again and again the Macan Gadungan blocked and dodged impossibly fast strikes. Then the Arun Guardswoman vanished again, appearing behind Malin. The weretiger reacted as if he knew it was coming, immediately diving to the side in a roll.

  Anu roared and launched himself at the Solar. The woman vanished again. Anu twisted, trying to repeat Malin’s maneuver, but the Solar’s keris opened a gash on his back and Anu stumbled.

  “Remember your training!” Malin shouted at him.

  Run them out of sunlight. Somehow, the Arun Guard drew their energy from the sun. At night, they eventually ran out. Before Anu could
take the fight back to her, the Guardswoman was gone again, appearing behind Mahesa, one of Anu’s friends. The boy didn’t even see it coming as a slash tore through his shoulder and back and sent him sprawling to the ground. The war band Mahesa had led shouted and rushed the Solar. Eyes glowing like sunlight, she danced around them at superhuman speeds, appearing and disappearing with impossible ease. Twenty Lunar warriors were dead in the time it took Anu to close ten paces.

  And she was gone again before Anu even reached his friend. He skidded to a stop in the sand and knelt beside him. Mahesa lived, but his breath was ragged and pained. “Draw your Blessings!” Anu shouted at him. “Draw them, damn you!” With Potency drawn, maybe there was a chance, maybe Mahesa could hold on until his wounds could be tended to. “Malin!”

  The Macan Gadungan was at his side almost immediately, kneeling to inspect Mahesa.

  “Get him to safety,” Anu commanded.

  Malin hesitated, looking around the battlefield.

  “That’s an order, tiger!”

  The first of the Macan Gadungan snarled at Anusapati, but he lifted the boy’s body in his arms and took off running back toward the dhows. Mahesa was not only Anu’s friend, he was probably Chandi’s best friend. His love would never forgive him if he let something happen to Mahesa.

  The Guardswoman cut down another Lunar war band, its Moon Scion leader included. Anu grit his teeth. He’d do this without Malin. He’d do it for Chandi. Fuck glory. He just wanted to make it home to his girl. And this woman had probably killed a hundred Lunars tonight alone. Chandra let her be running out of sunlight.

  Still kneeling in the sand, Anu switched Blessings from Potency to Glamour, the illusion washing over his clothes and making them appear as a Solar uniform. The effort left him giddy, swaying. Glamour was the hardest of the three Blessings, after all. He sprinted toward where the woman fought another war band, pausing only long enough to cast aside his keris knife and grab a Solar sword. When he reached them, before the woman’s eyes, he clubbed a Lunar over the head with his sword. The Guardswoman nodded at him, leaving him to engage another Lunar. A mortal, not a Moon Scion. His life was nothing compared to the Guardswoman’s. Anu swung his keris sword, cutting down the Lunar. Then he rammed the sword into the Solar woman’s back, letting the Glamour fade.

  Without it he was suddenly empty, too mortal himself, so he immediately drew his Potency Blessing again. The rush calmed him. Made him once again a god among men. He repeatedly rammed his blade into the Guardswoman’s back even after she grew still. Lunars stood staring at him. Impressed with his might? They damn well should be. This was his Rangda-damned moment.

  “Who’s next?” he shouted.

  As if in answer, more shouts went up among the Lunars as additional Guardsmen appeared among them. Their information was wrong. More than one Guardsman protected this place. And they were easy prey before him. Chandra, Anu was going to be a legend when he killed the entire Arun Guard.

  One of the Guardsmen—his cerulean uniform meant he must be—hung back, protecting a man in golden regalia. Anu grinned, then burst out laughing. This was too precious. The Solar Emperor was here. That explained the presence of multiple Guardsmen. They must have caught the emperor while he was inspecting the Astral Temple.

  “Macan Gadungan,” he shouted. “Converge on those Guardsmen.”

  The weretigers existed solely to protect the Moon Scions. They would do as he bid, even unto their deaths. And dozens would die wearing thin the Arun Guard, but it would be worth it. This was what they had been waiting for all along. This was the end of the war. Anusapati was going to save the Lunar Empire. He was going to kill Ken Arok, the famed Solar Emperor.

  He waded among the Solar troops, killing a few while letting the Macan Gadungan distract the Guardsmen. Everything depended on this. He had to get close. He once again drew his Glamour Blessing, disguising himself as a Solar and not bothering to drop his Potency. Why would he? He needed every edge. And the Moon God walked with him tonight. He drew every ounce of power he could from his Blessings, letting them flood through him until his limbs felt like iron, ready to explode into motion.

  A Macan Gadungan lunged at Ken Arok, trying to steal Anu’s prize. The Solar Emperor spun, whipping his keris sword in an arc that cleanly sliced through the tiger’s foreleg, into its skull, and out the other side. The dead weretiger dropped to the ground in gory, too human pieces.

  Anu paused just a moment, then closed in on the emperor. The Solar leader opened his mouth, perhaps to demand what one of his troops was doing. It didn’t really matter. Anu lunged forward and grabbed the man by his golden baju.

  All at once, everything shifted around him and Anusapati was in the sky. He clenched his fist around the emperor’s baju, holding on for all he was worth. His perspective shifted twice more, threatening to leave him vomiting despite his Blessings. The emperor was a Guardsman? Or had their power.

  Don’t let go. Malin said they couldn’t get away if you didn’t let go.

  They plummeted from the sky and Ken Arok swung his keris at Anusapati. Anu parried and his own keris sword snapped in half under the blow. Rangda’s spit! The emperor’s sword bore some kind of power. And it would be his. He caught the emperor’s wrist and squeezed until he felt bones crunch.

  Yes. The Guardsmen were fast. Yes, they could appear anywhere. But they weren’t any stronger than other men. Ken Arok shrieked in pain and they appeared on the beach. The impact flung them apart and Anu stumbled away. With his Potency drawn, he was barely stunned, and he immediately launched himself back at Ken Arok. The man tried to rise. Anu couldn’t afford to let him get his bearings and vanish. He landed atop the emperor and pounded him with blows that crunched bone beneath his fists. The emperor reached for his sword. Anu grabbed it instead, then rammed it straight down. It punched right through the Solar’s heart and out the other side.

  A geyser of blood washed over Anu’s face, almost drowning out the sounds of men screaming around him. Something slammed into him, and another Guardsman appeared above the fallen emperor. The man turned on Anusapati, murder in his eyes. And then a tiger collided with the Guardsman, its jaws clenching down on the back of his neck.

  The tiger shifted back into Malin, who stood towering above Anu, eyes locked on the dead emperor, face a mask of shock. Then he turned, taking in the battle, and Anu followed his gaze. In the harbor, half their dhows were ablaze. Thousands of men and women from both sides lay dead and dying, staining the sands crimson. Far more Lunars than Solars had fallen. They’d never hold the Temple this night.

  And none of it mattered. Anusapati had not only killed the Arun Guard, he had slain the Solar Emperor. He was the heir of Chandra the Moon God. He was a god. And when the Solars fell, he would rule all the Skyfall Isles.

  PART ONE

  1191 After Pact, The Dry Season

  CHAPTER ONE

  Word came with the tide that the battle had gone badly. Chandi would grieve for their losses, of course, but Anusapati was alive, was returning to her. The first sailors back had told her that much.

  So she stood on the cliff with her cousin Ratna, watching the sea in the early moonlight, as they had done every night since the ships left for Astral Shore on Puradvipa. Chandi bit her lip and paced back and forth, running her fingers over the pearl statuette in the palm of her hand. A carved rhino Anu had given her.

  “I’d feel the same if my betrothed were sailing to me,” Ratna said.

  How many countless nights had they spent here, fantasizing over that? Ratna, more beautiful by far, not to mention the War King’s daughter, should have found a husband first. But her cousin didn’t say it.

  Chandi adjusted her bodice wrap. She’d bought the brightest white kemban she could find for this moment. Every little detail had to be just right for his return. She tucked the statuette into her sarong—the skirt patterned with white jasmine to match the kemban. “How do I look?”

  “Same as before,” Ratna said. “Perfect.”


  Perfect might be a stretch, but Anu had thought her pretty enough to court. A Moon Scion of his prowess could have called on any woman in the Lunar Empire. But he’d chosen her. She blew out a deep breath. He’d chosen her.

  At night, the cyan sea of the Skyfall Isles turned dark sapphire. In the distance, dhows threaded through the waters, approaching the harbor below. Far fewer ships returned than had left to retake the Astral Temple. For twenty years the Lunars and Solars had fought over that place.

  Chandi started to run down the path from the cliff to the harbor. Ratna caught her arm before she’d gone three steps. “What are you doing? You have to make him come to you. He’ll know you’re here, soon enough.”

  With a sigh, Chandi returned to her post atop the cliff, forcing herself not to fidget. Well over a hundred Moon Scions and Macan Gadungan, and several thousand soldiers, had gone to fight. Two thirds of those would not return home. Could one more Moon Scion have made a difference? Her father, Ketu, had gone, but ordered her to guard the War King and his daughter.

  Ratna might need protection, but Rahu, the War King, surely did not. To hold the throne, he had to be the finest Silat martial artist in the Lunar Empire. But the War King needed to coordinate the war, so Chandi’s father, the high priest of Chandra, had led the attack instead. When Chandi learned her father and Anusapati were both well, she’d allowed herself to relax.

  Allowed herself to forget so many would not return.

  “Do you think Mahesa’s with them?” Ratna asked.

  “I’m sure he is.” Had Ratna heard the hesitation in her answer? “I notice he’s the only one you ask about. Maybe your own wedding isn’t so far off, then?”