For thousands of years, the Keepers of the Adjik Hata have preserved the White Path of the covenant with Ofvngv,but now the Spanish attempt to forcibly convert the Adjik Hata. Mvhvlv, the last Keeper, dispatches his tvbalv, Little Bird, with a secret message to Emperor Brim and entrusts to his niece, Morning Light, a strand of medicine beads containing the ancient lore of the Adjik Hata.
As her uncle perishes, Morning Light flees the ruin of a burning chapel with the beads to seek out Hiram at Ocmulgee. But war is brewing, so Hiram sends Morning Light to the unlikely haven of Charleston. As Morning Light struggles to adapt to the strange, new ways of the whites, Little Bird is drawn into the brutal Apalachee raids by his desire for vengeance and the machinations of Emperor Brim. During the war, Little Bird discovers a dark sorcerer and a Fallen Hiyaulgee instigated the destruction of the Adjik Hata to seize the beads, annihilate The People of One Fire, and usher in an age of darkness and corruption unseen since the Adjik Hata shut the way between the worlds. In the shattering aftermath of battle, Little Bird is directed to Ocmulgee. Meanwhile, Morning Light, troubled by dreams of tragedy for her adoptive family and destruction of the beads, is also urged back to Ocmulgee. Will they uncover the answers they desperately seek – or a destiny more wondrous and perilous than any they could envision?
Ty Bard is a graduate of the University of Georgia and a like-long resident of Georgia. 'Trekking to Ocmulgee' is the book one of the historical fantasy series, 'Spoken World.' Mr. Bard is currently at work on book two, 'Walkers between Worlds.'
This excerpt is from chapter three, 'Bird Song for the Sunrise.' Morning Light is musing about the power of the stories we tell to hold us together. The phrase Spoken World describes the narrative technique of the series - stories told by Morning Light to the medicine beads. It also indicates the importance of oral tradition to both pre-literate and literate cultures and alludes to Creation as the result of the Spoken Word of Ofvngv (the Creator.)
Book Excerpt
Trekking to Ocmulgee
We talked a bit of this and that, just sharing the small happenings of the day as women everywhere have always done. Don’t think men much talk that way, talking without a point, without a desired conclusion, just speaking the story of our worlds, of our shared lifes. Maybe that is why Uncle chose me to keep you beads and tell you the story of my life. Women are the ones who hold families, clans, peoples together. Our spoken world, the stories we tell, are the glue we use to do so.
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