Fire Country (34 page)
Authors: David Estes
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General, #Dystopian, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic
I would be nothing without my
readers, who’ve searin’ stuck with me through thick’n thin, who’ve made all the hours of hard work, of stressing over burnin’ deadlines and going wooloo over word count…so now I say, to scorch with all that, ’cause you’re awesome and you’ve made this journey so special and worthwhile and it would mean nothing—
nothing!
—without all of you along for it. So a special thanks to you, my readers, particularly those of you in my Goodreads fan group, which, at the time of writing this, was over 900 members! I never believed it could grow so big, but you all did, and it’s all thanks to your efforts, for you forcing your friends and family members to read my books when they probably didn’t want to (like
really
didn’t want to!). I couldn’t do what I love to do on a fulltime basis without all of you.
I
also have to give a give a high five and a big hug and kiss to my wife, Adele, who supports me each and every day when I’m lost in other worlds, in other people’s (or prickler’s named Perry) heads for more than five hours a day, plus another five of tap-tap-tapping on my iPhone, chatting in my fan group and answering reader messages. You are my ultimate beta reader, and our many discussions of plot, the cheesiness of my dialogue, and how much you love my writing helps me in ways I can’t even explain. Oh, and your coffee is the most delicious and having you by my side is what keeps me sane. Thank you for changing my life and for believing in me.
To my marketing team at ShareARead, Nicole Passante and Karla Calzada, as usual you never cease to astound me at your unceasing ability to get my books in the right readers’ hands. We started this together, and before our very eyes it’s turning into something very special. Thank you for being my partners in all the fun (and for staying up till all hours of the night planning blog tours and giveaways!).
To my cover artist, Regina Wamba, it’s my first time working with you but you’ve simply outdone yourself, taking the smorgasbord of ideas that Adele and I spout at you and piecing it together into something beautiful and a perfect representation of the world I created.
Next
, a GINORMOUS thanks to my team of beta readers, some of you who’ve been around since The Moon Dwellers, and others who’ve just joined for this book. I love you all.
Fire Country
is at least ten times better because of your insightful and honest feedback. So thanks to Laurie Love, Alexandria Theodosopoulos, Kayleigh-Marie Gore, Kerri Hughes, Terri Thomas, Lolita Verroen, Rachel Schade, Ventura Dennis, Krystle Jones, and Anthony Briggs Jr.
For the first time and certainly not the last time, I’d like to thank my super-secret street team (you know who you are). In the shadows you move like ninjas, penetrating even the toughest of bloggers, slipping my books into their author features and reviews almost without them knowing. I don’t know how you do it, but: You. Are. My. Heroes.
I’d also like to offer a very special thanks to one of my readers, Rachel Hanville, for helping me correct a mathematical error in the ages of my characters! Even writers should have a calculator handy!
And last but
not least I’d like to thank my friend Teddy (who happens to be a teddy bear), who thinks he’s real and helped inspire the character of Perry the Prickler. I know I say bad things about you and throw you against the wall sometimes, but in my heart I love you.
The saga continues in other books by David Estes available through the author’s official website:
http://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com
or through select online retailers including Smashwords.com.
Young-Adult Books by David Estes
The Dwellers Saga:
Book Four—The Earth Dwellers (Coming September 5, 2013!)
The Country Saga (A Dwellers Saga sister series):
Book Three—Water and Storm Country
Book Four—The Earth Dwellers (Coming September 5, 2013!)
The
Slip Trilogy:
Book One—
Slip
The Evolution Trilogy:
Book Three—Archangel Evolution
Children’s Books by David Estes
The Adventures of Nikki Powergloves:
Nikki Powergloves—A Hero Is Born
Nikki Powergloves and the Power Council
Nikki Powergloves and the Power Trappers
Nikki Powergloves and the Great Adventure
Nikki Powergloves vs. the Power Outlaws (Coming soon!)
David Estes was born in El Paso, Texas but moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was very young. He grew up in Pittsburgh and then went to Penn State for college. Eventually he moved to Sydney, Australia where he met his wife and soul mate, Adele, who he’s now been happily married to for
more than two years.
A reader all his life, David began writing novels for the children's and YA markets in 2010, and has completed 15 novels, 13 of which have been published. In June of 2012, David became a fulltime writer and is now travelling the world with Adele while he writes books, and she writes and takes photographs.
David gleans inspiration from all sorts of crazy places, like watching random people do entertaining things, dreams (which he jots copious notes about immediately after waking up), and even from thin air sometimes!
David’s a writer with OCD, a love of dancing and singing (but only when no one is looking or listening), a mad-skilled ping-pong player, an obsessive Goodreads group member, and prefers writing at the swimming pool to writing at a table. He loves responding to e-mails, Facebook messages, Tweets, blog comments, and Goodreads comments from his readers, all of whom he considers to be his friends.
Chapter One
I
t all starts with a girl. Nay, more like a witch. An evil witch, disguised as a princess, complete with a cute button nose, full, red lips, long, dark eyelashes, and deep, mesmerizing baby blues.
Oh yah, and a really good throwing arm. “Get out!” she screams, flinging yet another ceramic vase in my general direction.
I duck and it rebounds off the wall, not shattering until it hits the shiny marble floor. Thousands of vase-crumbles crunch under my feet as I scramble for the door. I fling it open and slip through, slamming it hard behind me. Just in time, too, as I hear the crash of something heavy on the other side. Evidently she’s taken to throwing something new, maybe boots or perhaps herself.
Taking a deep breath, I cringe as a spout of obscenities shrieks through the door and whirls around my head, stinging me in a dozen places. You’d think
I
was the one who ran around with a four-toed womanizer named LaRoy—that’s LaRoy with a “La”, as he likes to say. As it turns out, I think
La
Roy had softer hands than she did.
As I slink away from the witch’s upscale residence licking my wounds, I try to figure out where the chill I went wrong. Despite her constant insults, narrow-mindedness, and niggling reminders of how I was nothing more than a lazy, liquid-ice-drinking, no good scoundrel, I think I managed to treat her pretty well. I was faithful, always there for her—not once was I employed while courting her—and known on occasion to show up at her door with gifts, like snowflake flowers or frosty delights from Gobbler’s Bakery down the road. She said the flowers made her feel inadequate, on account of them being too beautiful—as if there was such a thing—and the frosty’s, well, she said I gave them to her to make her fat. Which, if I’m being honest, was partially true. Now I wish I hadn’t wasted my gambling winnings on the likes of her.
In fact it was just yesterday morning when I last stopped by to deliver some sweet treats, only to hear the obvious sounds of passionate lovemaking wafting through the black stone of her elegant front door. Needless to say I was on the wrong side of things, and much to my frustration the door was barred by something heavy.
So I waited. And waited. After about three rounds of the love-noises, soft-hands LaRoy emerged looking more pleased with himself than a young child taking its first step. In much less time than it took for the witch to put the smile on his face, I wiped it off, using a couple of handfuls of ever-present snow and my rougher-than-bark hands. I capped him off with matching black eyes and a slightly crooked, heavily bleeding nose. He screamed like a girl and ran away crying tears that froze on his cheeks well before they made it to his chin.
Hence the bigtime breakup today.
Best of luck, witch, I hope crooked-nosed LaRoy makes you very happy.
Why do I always pick the wrong kinds of women? Answer: because the wrong kinds of women usually pick me.
Walking down the snow-covered street, I mumble curses at the beautiful stone houses on either side. The White District, full of the best and the richest people in ice country. And the witch, too, of course, the latest woman to add to my so-not-worth-the-time-and-effort list.
I pull my collar tight against the icy wind, and head for my other girlfriend’s place, Fro-Yo’s, a local pub with less atmosphere than booze, where a mug of liquid ice will cost you less than a minute’s pay and the rest of your day. Okay, the pub’s not really my girlfriend, but sometimes I wish it was.
Although it’s barely midmorning, Fro’s is open and full of customers. But then again, the pub is always open and full of customers. We might not have jobs, but we’ll support Yo, the pub owner, just the same.
Snow is piled up in drifts against the gray block-cut stone of the pubhouse, recently shoveled after last night’s dumping. Yo’s handiman, Grimes, is hunched against the wind with a shovel, clearing away the last of it along the side, leaving a slip-free path to the outhouse, which will be essential later on, when half the joint gets up at the same time to relieve themselves. There are two things that don’t mix: liquid ice and real ice. I’ve seen more broken bones and near broken necks than I’d like around this place.
“Mornin’, Grimes,” I say as I pass.
Grimes doesn’t look up, his matted gray hair a dangling mess of moisture and grease, but mumbles something that sounds a lot like, “Icin’ neverendin’ colder’n chill night storms…” I think there’s more but I stop listening when he starts swearing. I’ve had enough of that for one day. And yet, I push through the door of the obscenity capital of ice country.
“Dazz! I was wondering when you’d freezin’ show up,” my best friend says when I enter. Following protocol, I stamp the snow off my boots on the mat that says
Stamp Here
, and tromp across the liquid-ice-stained floorboards. Buff kicks out a stool at the bar as I approach. He’s grinning like an icin’ fool.
For a moment the place goes silent, as half the patrons stare at me, but as soon as they recognize me as one of the regulars, the dull drone of conversation continues, mixing with the clink of tin jugs and gulps of amber liquid ice.
“Get a ’quiddy for Dazz,” Buff shouts to Yo above the din. The grizzled pub owner and bartender sloshes the contents of a dirty, old pitcher into a tinny and slides it along the bar. Well practiced bar sitters dodge the frothing jug as it skates to a stop directly in front of me. As always, Yo’s aim is perfect.
“Thanks,” I shout. Yo nods his pockmarked forehead in my direction and strokes his gray-streaked brown beard thoughtfully, as if I’ve just said something filled with wisdom, before heading off to refill another customer’s jug. He doesn’t get many thanks around this place.
“Out with it,” Buff says, slapping me on the shoulder. His sharp green eyes are reflecting even the miniscule shreds of daylight that manage to sneak through the dirt-smudged windows.
“Out with what?”
Shaking his head, he runs a hand through his dirty-blonde hair. “Uh, the big breakup with her highness, Queen Witch-Bitch herself. It’s all everyone’s been talking about all morning. Where’ve you been? I’ve been dying to get all the the details.”
Elbows on the bar, I lean my head against my fist. “It just happened! How the chill do you know already?”
Buff laughs. “You know as well as anyone that word travels freezin’ fast in this town.”
I do. Normally, though, the gossip’s about me getting broken up with after having done something freeze-brained, not the other way around. “What are they saying?” I ask, taking a sip of ’quiddy and relishing the warmth in my throat and chest.
Buff’s excitement seems to wane. He stares at his half-empty mug. “You don’t wanna know,” he says, and then finishes off the last half of his tinny in a series of throat-bobbing gulps.
“Tell me,” I push.
“Look, Dazz…” Buff lowers his voice, a deep rumble that only I can hear. “…the thing about women is, when you want ’em they’re scarcer than a ray of sunshine in ice country, and when you don’t, they’re on you like a double-wide fleece blanket.” Now I’m the one looking at my unfinished drink, because, for once, one of Buff’s snowballs of wisdom is spot on. I thought I wanted the witch—because of her looks—but as soon as I got to know her I wanted to toss her out with the mud on my boots.
Using my knuckles, I knock myself in the head three times, exactly like I rapped on the witch’s door this morning before it all went down.
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask
, I mentally command myself. “What are they saying?” I ask, repeating myself. Having not listened to my own internal advice, I feel like knocking my skull against the heavy, wooden bar a few dozen more times, but I manage to restrain myself as I wait for Buff’s response.
“Well…some of them are saying good sticks for you, she got what she deserved, Brown District pride and all that bullshiver. You know the shiv I mean, right?”
All too well. I nod. “And the others?”
Buff chews on his lip, as if deciding how to break something to me lightly.
“Give it to me straight,” I say.
He sighs. “You know tomorrow they’ll move onto the next freezin’ bit of juicy gossip, right?”
“Buff,” I say, a warning in my voice. I know what’s coming, so I tilt my tinny back, draining every last drop in a single burning gulp.
“If I tell you, promise me you won’t start anything—I’m not in the mood.”
Looking directly into his black pupils, I say, “I promise.”
He rolls his eyes, knowing full well I just lied to him. Then he tells me anyway. “Coker’s been saying the witch was too good for you, that she shoulda dumped your mountain-fearin’ arse a long time ag—”
I’m on my feet and breaking my false promise before Buff can even finish telling me. My stool clatters to the floor behind me, but I barely notice it. I get a bead on Coker, who’s between two of his stone cutting mates, laughing about something. Regardless of what it is, and even though they’ve probably moved on from discussing me and the witch already, I pretend it’s about me. About how I’m not good enough for someone in the White District. About how I’m lazy and good for nothing.
My fists clench and my jaw hardens as heat rises in my chest. Always aware of what’s happening in his pub, Yo says, “Now, Dazz, don’t start nuthin’, remember the last time…”
“Dazz, hold up,” Buff says, his feet scuffling along behind me.
I ignore them both.
When I reach Coker he’s already half-turned around, as if sensing me coming. I spin him the rest of the way and slam my fist right between his eyes. A two for one special, like down at the market. Two black eyes for the price of one. His head snaps back and thuds gruesomely off the bar, but, like any stone cutter, he’s tougher than dried goat meat, and rebounds with a heay punch of his own, which glances off my shoulder, sending shivers through my arm.
And his friends aren’t gonna sit back and watch things unfold either; they jump on me in less time than it took for the White District witch to cheat on me, swinging fists of iron at my head. One catches my chin and the other my cheek. I jerk backwards, seeing red, blue, and yellow stars against a black backdrop, and feel my tailbone slam into something hard and flat. The wooden table collapses, sending splinters and legs in every direction—both table legs and people legs. I’m still not seeing much, other than stars, but based on the tangle of limbs I’d say the table I crashed into was occupied by at least three Icers, maybe four.
I shake my head and furiously try to blink away the dark cloud obscuring my sight, feeling a dull ache spreading through the whole of my backside. When my vision returns, the first thing I see is Buff hammering rapid-fire rabbit punches into one of the stone cutter’s, sending him sprawling. The area’s clearing out, with patrons scampering for the door, which is a good thing, because Coker gets ahold of Buff and throws him into another table, which topples over and skids into the wall.
Me and Buff spring to our feet simultaneously, cocking out fists side by side like we’ve done so many times growing up in the rugged Brown District. Buff takes Coker’s friend and I take Coker. We circle each other a few times and then all chill breaks loose, as the fists start flying. After taking a hit in the ribs, I land a solid blow to Coker’s jaw that has him reeling back, off balance and stunned. I follow it up with a hook that sends a jolt of pain through my hand, which is likely not even a quarter of the pain that I just sent through his face. He drops faster than a morning turd in the outhouse.
I whirl around to find Buff in a similar position, standing over his guy and shaking his hand like he’s just punched a wall. The guy he was fighting was so thick it probably was like hitting a wall. We stand over our fallen foes, grinning like the seventeen-year-old unemployed idiots that we are, enjoying the aliveness that always comes with winning a good, old-fashioned fair fight.
Yo’s glaring at us, one hand on his hip and the other holding an empty pitcher. I shrug just as his eyes flick to the side, looking past us. The last thing I hear is a well-muffled scuffle.
Everything goes black for good when the wooden stool slams into the back of my head.
Ice Country
by David Estes, available NOW!
