The Bleeding Stone

***The Bleeding Stone*** is the first book of *The Spellbinders and the Gunslingers* trilogy, and the debut novel by Joseph John Lee. It was independently published on December 13, 2022 under the author's personal imprint JJL Publishing.

## Description

*The island nation of Ferranda is the jewel of the Acrarian Kingdom, and its Founder, Aritz a Mata, is revered as a god amongst men. But twenty-five years ago, Aritz was merely a man, a colonizer, an Invader seeking glory and fame in the name of his King and Queen, and Ferranda was a nameless union of indigenous Tribes, reverent of the heightened powers and aptitudes granted to them by their Animal Deities, but sundered by the foreigners claiming their lands to the south.*

*In the unconquered north, the Stone Tribe has for fifteen years offered a safe haven for the southern Tribes displaced by Aritz's Invaders, whose occupying march north has been ostensibly halted by a dense forest barrier dividing north and south. Among the Stone people lives Sen, an outcast for the circumstances of her birth, preserved in society only by her status as daughter of her Tribe's Chief. Forever relegated to the fringes of society, she is forced to watch as countless of her kin, including her sister and brother, complete their rites of passage into adulthood and accordingly earn their aptitudes by the Deity to whom they share an affinity - the Bear, the Wolf, or the Owl.*

*Despite this, Sen finds comfort in her life of forced solitude with her close inner circle, but hers is a comfort in days of waning tenuous peace. When Aritz's technologically-advanced forces push north, Sen is thrust into a singular quest to rescue one of her precious few captured in the ensuing struggle. While her goal is earnest - save someone dear to her and prove her worth to her Tribe - her people's goal is far more dire: survival in the face of uncertainty.*

## Summary

### Memories

In the year 1534 Anno Salvatoris, an Eclipse struck fear in the hearts of the Stone Tribe. During this Eclipse, an event carrying with it an ill omen, a baby girl was born to the Stone Chief Fannalhen and his wife Dennalhir. The girl was given the name Sennalhat, which in the Stone tongue meant “Child of Light.”

Sennalhat, bearing the nickname “Sen,” spent much of her childhood carousing with her close friends, Narva and Fann, as well as her older sister, Tez, and younger brother, Brin, unaware of the circumstances resultant from her birth. One day, however, during an adventure through the mountain ranges to the north of the Stone Tribe village, Sen inadvertently triggered a rockslide that horribly broke Fann’s arm. Fann’s mother, Koelhe, denounces Sen as a “Curseborn” and forbade her son from ever associating with Sen. Perplexed, Sen was given no clarification as to the meaning behind the label from her parents, and as the years go on, her friendship with Fann deteriorated into a rivalry of extreme animosity, often manifesting in Fann berating and bullying Brin. One such occasion led to Sen violently breaking Fann’s nose.

Upon reaching eighteen years of age, Sen ventured into the mountain ranges of the Heart of the Land to undergo her Trial, a coming-of-age ceremony whereupon children of the Tribes passed into adulthood and were granted Boons associated with the Animal Deity under whose Sign they were born—either the Bear, the Wolf, or the Owl. Sen, however, still unaware of her being born during an Eclipse, was subjected to a strange non-Trial in which she was belittled by two entities acting as envoys of the Moon, revealing to her the nature of her birth and her status as an Eclipseborn, a being looked upon with disdain in Tribal society for the supposed calamity they were meant to bring. The Eclipseborn were meant to be shunned from society, banished from their Tribes, but due to her parents’ intervention, Sen was permitted to remain within her village and Tribe, despite the implications that would inevitably arrive.

The two entities offered Sen a choice between life and death, elaborating no further on the offer. Sen chose neither and instead opted to reflect on the good fortune with which she was blessed to have been permitted to remain among her people. However, at seeing the horror upon the faces of those conducting her Trial, Sen realized that she would never be accepted among her people and admonished her parents for keeping her true nature secret to her. She ventured off on her own until finding herself at a tavern and taking up playing a card game with a stranger, a game based entirely on chance that Sen suddenly won with ease, a consequence of the new power of Luck that was just awakened within her.

### Present Day

In the year 1556 Anno Salvatoris, Brin, accompanied by his family, underwent his Trial. Brin completed his Trial, bestowing upon him the Boon of Memory associated with the Owl, and turned to face his family, but realized Sen had disappeared. Sen was found drinking at a tavern by Fannalhen, who angrily led her back to the Stone Tribe village.

As the family returned to the village and Brin was granted his abilities, Sen once again wandered off to a tavern, where she met with Narva and lamented that she was an outcast for the accident of her birth, admitting her own jealousy at the adulation that Brin was receiving, none of which she was ever able to receive herself.

Meanwhile, as the festivities continued, Fannalhen’s celebration at his son’s success was interrupted by the Sun Chief Han’e, who came to plead with Fannalhen for the Stone Tribe’s assistance in reclaiming the lands of the Sun Tribe. Fifteen years prior, an army of Invaders came from across the eastern sea and claimed for themselves all lands to the south of the Forest, which displaced the Sun and Arrow Tribes while also nearly wiping out the Haunted Tribe. The Sun and Arrow Tribes since relocated and were permitted to settle in the territories belonging to the Stone Tribe. For years, though, Han’e had been attempting to employ Fannalhen and the Stone Tribe to reclaim the Sun lands from the Invaders, but Fannalhen, once again, declined, much to Han’e’s frustration.

The next day, Sen was admonished by Tez not only for her frequent drinking but also for her shirking of responsibilities pertaining to Brin. Sen made an unsteady peace with her brother and vowed to him stop drinking after he confessed that he no longer recognized her for the person she became.

Later that evening, Dennalhir encountered two haggard people collapsed at the entrance to the village. Convening with Fannalhen and the rest of the Tribal council, they learn that the two, named Shara and Ran, were once members of the Haunted Tribe who were now slaves of the Invaders, held in a prison camp in the Invaders’ City to the south. Fannalhen and his council—which included Koelhe; Tawa, who was Narva’s father; Rantalha, a stoic hunter; and Sharrabha, a huntress and liaison to the Keeper Tribe to the north—could not find common ground on which to agree regarding what to do with these runaways and decided to table the discussion for the morning.

However, a party of Invaders led by General Aritz a Mata arrived in the village in the middle of the night, having followed the runaways this far, and first questioned Sen as to their whereabouts over a game of cards, a request that Sen immediately rebuked. Aritz returned later with a greater and more furious intent, and when Fannalhen refused to give Shara and Ran up, Aritz shot him dead and instead stole away Brin and another villager, much to Sen’s shock. Feeling she was to blame for her father’s death and brother’s capture, Sen resolved to go to the Invaders’ City to the south and bring Brin back, despite her mother’s objections. She left with Narva the next day, determined to prove her worth to the Tribe.

As the Stone Tribe’s council, now led by Dennalhir, discussed what to do after Fannalhen’s murder. Koelhe indicated her own intentions to claim leadership, pointing to Fannalhen and Dennalhir’s supposed disregard and disrespect for Tribal customs after allowing their Eclipseborn daughter to remain in the village and therefore “dooming” the Tribe. Dennalhir banished Koelhe from the council.

Sen and Narva’s journey south took them through the Forest, where they encountered the zealously territorial Wood Tribe. Upon meeting with the Tribe’s Chieftain, Sen learned that the Invaders passed through the Forest with a bloody and violent disregard for the lives of the Wood Tribe, slaughtering them both times they passed through the Forest. At the same time, Sen began experiencing episodic visions of herself killing her father, the face of Aritz replaced with her own face. Narva attempted to quell her guilt as Sen confessed the degree of blame she placed upon herself for her father’s murder and brother’s kidnapping.

Sen and Narva reached the Invaders’ City and, finding suitable disguises, set out to find the slave camp that was described to Sen by Ran before she left the village. To their surprise, they found a disoriented Brin wandering the streets of the City. They chased after him, but for some reason, Brin opted to return to the slave camp. Though confused at the decision, Sen freed her brother, deciding not to free the countless other Tribespeople who remained chained in the camp despite Narva’s protests, and ran for the hills alongside Brin and Narva. Unbeknownst to them, however, a trap is deployed by an Invader soldier, and before they were able to get too far, Narva was shot dead by the Invaders while Sen and Brin were immediately captured and brought back to the City.

Meanwhile, Dennalhir and Tez began to grow suspicious of a possible coup by Koelhe. Tez inadvertently happened across a secret meeting with Koelhe and many of her co-conspirators, who also included Fann, Han’e—who was promised Koelhe’s assistance in reclaiming the Sun Tribe territories— and Rantalha. Tez was dragged away by Rantalha, who explained that he could not abide by her parents’ dismissal of Tribal customs in allowing her Eclipseborn sister to remain as part of the Tribe. Tez rushed back home to warn her mother, but before they were able to act, they were faced with Koelhe’s attack. Though fighting hard against the odds, Dennalhir’s loyalists were overrun, Dennalhir was captured, Koelhe installed herself as Chief, and Tez fled alongside Tawa and Sharrabha to recruit the assistance of the Lake Tribe to the west in order to reclaim the Stone Tribe.

Back in the City, Sen and Brin were paraded around the slave camp as a warning to the others not to attempt another escape. Sen and Brin were brought to an alleyway, where they faced an execution via a firing squad of four, but while Sen’s innate Luck prevented any of the shots from hitting her, Brin was not so fortunate, and immediately died. While two of the Invader soldiers approach Sen to futilely attempt to shoot her, the other two soldiers turned on their fellows and shot them dead. The soldier who sprang the trap approached Sen and recognized the latent Eclipseborn power of Luck within her. The soldier dispelled an illusion, revealing herself as not only a Tribal woman named Kamataa, but also an Eclipseborn. Disregarding Brin’s dead body entirely, Kamataa offered Sen an opportunity to learn from a fellow Eclipseborn.

### Flash-Forwards

In the year 1591 Anno Salvatoris, Lord Aritz a Mata returned to Ferranda for the first time in years, promising to give a lecture at the University. At the end of his lecture, he was admonished by a student who challenged him on the founding of Ferranda, questioning what happened to the Tribes who had once populated this land. Aritz disregarded the Tribes as little more than wicked spellbinders who could kill people with a single touch and worshipped animals as gods, and that he was glad to have banished them deep into the mountains after he claimed the land for the Acrarian Kingdom.

Upon returning to his Ferranda manor, Aritz found one of his pieces of memorabilia, an ornate flintlock pistol, missing from the trophy shelf within his chambers. In his search for the missing weapon, Aritz noticed a Tribal ornament placed on his desk, weighing down a handwritten letter pledging that the “Harvest” had never been forgotten. Aritz disregarded the letter but was drawn to the ornament, a pendant carved with a rune he recognized as being a Tribal symbol meaning “Memory.” Touching the ornament, Aritz was forced to relive a moment at this estate in Acraria where he slaughtered the vast majority of his estate attendants and guards before brutally murdering his wife and children. Judging by comments made by those he killed, Aritz realized that this incident happened after his departure for Ferranda and that someone was framing him.

Before he could pursue that thread further, he heard the hammer of a pistol click behind him. The dissenting student from the lecture showed herself, promising that she was there to claim revenge against Aritz for her family. Aritz began to dismiss her claim, but the student immediately changed form, taking the shape of Aritz knew long ago. Someone who he knew to be dead.