Hunt of the Bandham (The Bowl of Souls: Book Three)
Read Hunt of the Bandham (The Bowl of Souls: Book Three) Online
Authors: Trevor H. Cooley
The Bowl of Souls: Book Three
HUNT of the BANDHAM
By: Trevor H. Cooley
The Bowl of Souls Series:
Book One:
Novella
:
HILT’S PRIDE
Book Two:
MESSENGER of the DARK PROPHET
Book Three:
HUNT of the BANDHAM
Book Four:
The WAR of STARDEON
Upcoming
Book Five:
MOTHER of the MOONRAT
Upcoming
copyright © 2012
All Rights Reserved
Cover art by:
Dedication
This book is dedicated to you. Yes, specifically you, the reader who has taken a chance on a relatively unknown author and spent your hard-earned money on my first two books. Here you are, back for the third and . . . I love you.
I tried for years to get my book noticed, but I couldn’t find any agents or publishers that were interested. Some friends encouraged me to publish on my own, but I felt like my books wouldn’t be a success unless I had a publisher’s name on the spines like the fantasy novels I grew up reading. This story and these characters had been living in my mind since I was a teenager. I wanted to give them the chance they deserved, and I worried that by putting them out there on my own I would be cheapening them somehow.
One night in May 2012, I was researching about publishing books on Kindle. I downloaded the instructions and it felt right, so I just did it. It was a whim. I didn’t even have a cover at the time. I had no idea what to expect. I told my friends and family about it and downloads started to trickle in. When I put out the second book two months later, that trickle became a stream.
I am blown away every time I think about it. You noticed my book. You read it. Some of you cared enough to tell your friends and write reviews. Those reviews are the lifeblood of an independent book series! Thank you, and please keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll get going on the next book.
Trevor H. Cooley -
Deathclaw and Talon darted through the winter-frozen forest. Their lithe, scaled bodies glistened in the beams of sunlight that pierced the boughs of the fir trees. Their claws left behind deep trenches in the snow, but they didn’t bother covering their tracks. They didn’t fear pursuit. The scent of freedom filled Talon’s nostrils, while Deathclaw was simply elated at finding her. They frolicked through the daylight hours, racing each other and putting as much distance between them and the wizard’s castle as possible.
Once they had been part of a pack of raptoids, wingless dragon-like creatures that hunted the desert dunes of the
Whitebridge
Desert
. The wizard Ewzad Vriil had come upon their pack looking to create soldiers for his army. The changes caused by the wizard’s cruel experiments had killed the others, but Deathclaw escaped and his sister had been taken back to the wizard’s castle.
It had taken over a year, but Deathclaw had found the wizard’s castle. He fought his way through the mutated monsters that Ewzad Vriil had created and now, despite his wounds that were still healing, Deathclaw felt no pain. He was happy for the first time since the wizard had changed his body. Though he would never again be able to return to his old life as leader of a raptoid pack, the new life ahead of him looked to be full of promise. He wasn’t alone any more.
As the sun sank behind the horizon and darkness crept in, they caught the scent of a herd of mountain elk. Deathclaw let forth a throaty chirp and the two transformed raptoids fell back into their old familiar hunting pattern. When they came upon the herd, they stayed downwind so as not to frighten the animals. The elk had stopped for the night in a clearing. The females and young were huddled in the center while the males stayed around the outside for protection.
Deathclaw had his eye on one particularly old buck that would provide more than enough meat for both of them. He was excited. Prey this large stayed away from the dwellings of the humans and he had not eaten a meal larger than a rabbit in weeks.
He chirped a command to Talon, telling her to circle around for
