Cairns of Sainctuarie SciFi Series by Hawk MacKinney

Among the close-kin clans of western farms and gelf ranches of Malfesian Murians times are good. Full barns, fat gelf calves and large families thrive among the sprawling grain fields and hamlets around the river from which they derive their name—the Feldon. Word comes with the trade caravans that times are not so good in the regions far to the east: tumultuous changes stir among the remote province of Bleikovia.

Welcome to one of the October 20th stops on the book blitz for Cairns of Sainctuarie Science Fiction Series by Hawk MacKinney with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for more spotlights and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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About the Series

From a rocky outcrop a battle-widowed Etkaa, gazed down at the death and upheaval. Rancid green Murian blood stanched the dusklit breezes from the haze-dimmed river marshlands. Nothing has been spared by the Green Dragon forces of Bleikovia. In skirmishes along the Feldon River, Etkaaâ’s mate is fatally wounded with deadly selvon poison. Through a gruesome mountain trek of icy blizzards, they elude the Green Dragon. The battered starving Feldovats reach the coast at Eedov City only to be confronted by their implacable enemy determined to destroy the remaining Klarvkon rabble. Taking passage on crowded Maalon freighters, the refugees escape toward a new life among their Maalon hosts. Enraged Bleikovats move against the Klarvkons, bringing indiscriminate bloodshed. War once again surfaces, as it did in the muddy filth along the Feldon River of Malfesov, and becomes a different kind of war.

Generations after the great Murian upheaval of the Malfesian War against the

Bleikovats, the Accords between planets Terato and Myr are signed.

Provisional Outpost Terato is under construction near a farm where Teratoan orphan Eklam a’Qoc lives with his uncle and cousin. Inquisitive strong-minded Eklam, Ek to everyone in the village, is captivated by the off-worlders technology, and becomes an apprentice to the Outpost Terato’s Murian commander, Grand Duke Korvo. Uncle a’Qoc disapproves; wants nothing to do with these outlanders, wants their shimmering doorway portals-of-travel banned from Terato. As Outpost Terato becomes operational it seems to become a harbinger stirring ageless secrets of The Old Ones and their frightful weapons, of ancient Teratoan ruins, mysterious glowing lights, unexplained killings, a sacred book in a language no Teratoan can read, a moon that doesn’t behave like a moon in its wobbly orbit.

From cosmic reaches beyond space and time the ominous secrets of Terato’s

ancient ruins become more threatening. Ek and Korvo realize both their worlds face extinction with any hope buried somewhere in unknown galaxies far beyond a pastoral Terato or the sophisticated star-empire of the Murians; of missing planets in a star system with its single star in a galaxy far-removed unknown to Terato or Myr. They travel across the universe to a place long forgotten to fight this unknown foe with weapons only dreamed of. Together they face the beast that wishes to consume the entire universe.

The threat of rift invasions seems long passed. Plentiful harvests abound. The Murian first-contact Terato Outpost has grown into the sprawling Terato-Murian Terminus Terato with a hub of relay portals reaching across the vast uncharted galactic expanses and connecting with its eon-extinct Lantaraan prehistory. An exploratory Terato-Murian Jupiterr outpost is established on the gas giant seventh planet, and its quantum and gravitational energies are used to power outpost portals for an archeological survey of the fourth planet, Eorthe. The Lantaraan database aboard Terato’s ancient Downday moon shows that one or more planets of the Solaris planets have apparently been lost. Expanded archeological records on other Lantaraan orbital bodies in the Solaris system show the fourth planet from the star—Eorthe—to be a sterile wasteland. Except it is not. Eorthe’s civilization is not to the level of the Murian Empire, but it is far advanced to those of a pastoral Terato. Terato and Eorthe form the confederated United Terran League under the nominal figurehead leader of League High Judikarr Eklam a’Qoc. Jupiterr outpost expands into a major League stronghold, Jupiterr Base, when civil unrest erupts in the League, the unexpected return of rift intrusions threatens, and the Murian Emperor Klarvko Celo is assassinated. As they prepare for confrontations with an unknown ancient enemy, the internal tensions on Myr and Eorthe push Murians and Teratoans to dangerous discords.

Book One

The Bleikovat Event
The Cairns of Sainctuarie Book One
by Hawk MacKinney

Published 11 November 2012
Sage Words Publishing

Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 228
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Among the close-kin clans of western farms and gelf ranches of Malfesian Murians times are good. Full barns, fat gelf calves and large families thrive among the sprawling grain fields and hamlets around the river from which they derive their name—the Feldon. Word comes with the trade caravans that times are not so good in the regions far to the east: tumultuous changes stir among the remote province of Bleikovia. Old timer Feldovats shrug it off as one more squabble between clans over boundaries or water rights…too distant to affect the Feldovats. Western Feldovats learn too late—it is no local squabble. Outnumbered and unprepared, Feldovats resist a hoard bent on plunder and conquest. Days of battle along the Feldon River stain the riverbanks in green Murian blood. In the finals days of exhausted fighting, Judikar Klarvko Celo of the Feldovat Clan Klarvkon is fatally stabbed with slow-acting selvon poison. The Judikar’s consort Klarvkaa Etkaa becomes Regentkaa. With Celovat Field Commander Korvo Celo serving as her advisor, she leads the demoralized Feldovat survivors on a gruesome ill-prepared winter trek through high mountain passes of ice and blizzard snow in an attempt to elude the Green Dragon forces of the Bleikovats. Etkaa’s only son, Klarvko Celo II, helps spirit Feldovat young across a remote mountain exodus toward Eedov Province. The battered, starving Feldovats reach the Malfesian coast at Eedov City only to be confronted with their implacable enemy determined to destroy the remaining Klarvkon rabble. Taking passage on crowded lumbering Maalonovion freighters, Feldovats and Malfesian refugees set sail. On arrival in Maalon City they are welcomed among their Maalon hosts, and settle into a new life.

But famine and a pandemic pestilence stir old hates. The enraged Overseers of Bleikovia move against the Klarvkons, bringing bloodshed to Maalonovia. The exiles from the Feldon must fight still again, but starvation and plague across the Planete Myr make this a different war from the Feldon… a na’ä blikovat… the Bleikovvat Phenomenon… an event with unexpected consequences none could have foreseen. Before the killing is exhausted, the Regentkaa Klarvkaa and her son are swept onto the Maalon throne, setting the Klarvkon Dynasty and the Murians toward an intergalactic golden age, and a star-flung destiny the farmer-herder Feldovat could never have envisaged.

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Excerpt

The catafalque of the old Dowager Queen rested on the high rostrum of the Temple of the Goddess Myraa.  There was little ceremony to the cremation of dead.  Yet, all that had passed made this requiem for the Dowager Queen Klarvkaa Etkaa Bremanova Celovaa Bremanova symbol of the changes which had swept so many lives.  Long annuals before the ascendancy of The Klarvkon Dynasty, the massive wood and granite Temple to the Goddess Myraa had been destroyed in the firestorm which laid waste Eedov City.  After the close of the Malfesian War the temple was rebuilt, but not the city.  On the ashes of the old temple, immense columns rose above the sanctuary and vaults.  Iridescent alabaster and polished marbles greeted pilgrim supplicants who had come to the shoreline plains washed by the Green Sea.

Dowager Etkaa Klarvkaa…wife, myäat, founding matriarch of the Klarvkon Dynasty, gave hope from a time without hope.  As was her wish, she would be cremated on the soil of her birth, her ashes to mingle with those of her consort, Klarvko Celo.  Their son, His Imperial Majesty Klarvko Celo the Second, decreed it would be.  At the enormous base of the great temple…a spectacle never seen before and seldom since those times, came an undulating ocean of banners.  Some of clans which no longer existed, even the once-hated Green Dragon of Bleikovia.  Murians had taken her to their hearts…and never relinquished her.  Her shadow would reach across the centuries, and measure all who followed.

Book Two

The Missing Planets
The Cairns of Sainctuarie Book Two
by Hawk MacKinney

Published 2 September 2014
Sage Words Publishing

Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 260
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Generations after the great Murian upheaval of the Malfesian War against the Bleikovats, the Accords between planets Terato and Myr are signed. Provisional Outpost Terato is under construction near a farm where Teratoan orphan Eklam a’Qoc lives with his uncle and cousin. Inquisitive strong-minded Eklam, Ek to everyone in the village, is captivated by the off-worlders technology, and becomes an apprentice to the Outpost Terato’s Murian commander, Grand Duke Korvo. Uncle a’Qoc disapproves; wants nothing to do with these outlanders, wants their shimmering doorway portals-of-travel banned from Terato. As Outpost Terato becomes operational it seems to become a harbinger stirring ageless secrets of The Old Ones and their frightful weapons, of ancient Teratoan ruins, mysterious glowing lights, unexplained killings, a sacred book in a language no Teratoan can read, a moon that doesn’t behave like a moon in its wobbly orbit. From cosmic reaches beyond space and time the ominous secrets of Terato’s ancient ruins become more threatening. Ek and Korvo realize both their worlds face extinction with any hope buried somewhere in unknown galaxies far beyond a pastoral Terato or the sophisticated star-empire of the Murians; of missing planets in a star system with its single star in a galaxy far-removed unknown to Terato or Myr. They travel across the universe to a place long forgotten to fight this unknown foe with weapons only dreamed of. Together they face the beast that wishes to consume the entire universe.

Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK

Excerpt

Ek never forgot the time Klara peeked over his shoulder; clutched his arm, “It was promised The Old Ones would return.”

“They don’t look like what I thought the Old Ones would look like,” he’d whispered to her. “Suppose they’re not the Old Ones. Where’d they come from? What are they?” Questions Ek had, with no idea there would be other times he’d ask the same kinds of questions—but with far more serious inferences.

The word spread. Many believed these off-worlders were the promised return of their ancients. As time passed, between chores and extra homework for his special classes there hadn’t been much chance to slip away; take the curved path to his overlook spot. Yet, when he did, boundless questions grew as Ek watched in the dusklit the off-worlders create what would become Outpost Terato.

His uncle was unbending, “Neither you nor Klara are to go anywhere near that abomination these off-worlders build out of the air,” his disapproval more severe with each passing dawnlit.

Book Three

Inanna Phantom
The Cairns of Sainctuarie Book Three
by Hawk MacKinney

Published 17 September 2019
Sage Words Publishing

Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 240
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

The threat of rift invasions seem long passed. Plentiful harvests abound. The Murian first-contact Terato Outpost has grown into the sprawling Terato-Murian Terminus Terato with a hub of relay portals reaching across the vast uncharted galactic expanses and connecting with its eon-extinct Lantaraan prehistory. An exploratory Terato-Murian Jupiterr outpost is established on the gas giant seventh planet, and its quantum and gravitational energies are used to power outpost portals for an archeological survey of the fourth planet, Eorthe. The Lantaraan database aboard Terato’s ancient Downday moon shows that one or more planets of the Solaris planets have apparently been lost. Expanded archeological records on other Lantaraan orbital bodies in the Solaris system show the fourth planet from the star—Eorthe—to be a sterile wasteland. Except it is not. Eorthe’s civilization is not to the level of the Murian Empire, but it is far advanced to those of a pastoral Terato. Terato and Eorthe form the confederated United Terran League under the nominal figurehead leader of League High Judikarr Eklam a’Qoc. Jupiterr outpost expands into a major League stronghold, Jupiterr Base, when civil unrest erupts in the League, the unexpected return of rift intrusions threatens, and the Murian Emperor Klarvko Celo is assassinated. As they prepare for confrontations with an unknown ancient enemy, the internal tensions on Myr and Eorthe push Murians and Teratoans to dangerous discords.

Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK

Excerpt

The first anomalies were logged by remote nanoparticle quantum-field sensor arrays positioned on uninhabited dwarf planets, moons and long-orbit asteroids of the star systems of the League. The inconsistencies were short sub-fracture durations and were seismically unremarkable. Across the League’s far-flung frontier systems, seasoned operators monitored the encoded decryption of the scan-logs. Through decades of use, the linknet had become indispensable; supplanting the slower interstellar particle entanglement-based trans-light travel. Linknet protocols established allowances for such random background fluctuations with standard deviations measured against system parameters. The diverse configurations of the link systems were accepted as fail-safe.

Senior specialists assigned to Terminus Terra II protocol-consoles maintained continuous scans for minor time-sync misaligns. Scan records were stored in Murian-designed crystals in tiered sublevels of mantle crust beneath Terminus and in Myraa City. Link schedules of freight shipments, personnel, and communications remained on tight schedules.

The erratic anomalous spacetime oscillations data was logged. The ruse was almost perfect. Except star-core substrate logs registered converter power for the unsanctioned personnel requisition of translinks coordinates for specific network portals. It was a simple oversight but one that had sa s’Blikova’at consequences. Besides, waiting one more day wouldn’t matter.

The following morning Marleen and her three sons would be alone.

About the Author

With postgraduate degrees and faculty positions in several medical universities, Hawk MacKinney has taught graduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem. His professional writing includes articles on chordate neuroembryology, and aerospace research on muscle metabolic behavior in multi-orbital environments.

In addition, Hawk has authored several works of fiction including a historical romance Moccasin Trace which was nominated for both the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award. His Cairns of Sainctuarie Science Fiction Series and his Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series have received national and international attention.

Author Website | Sage Words Publishing

Giveaway Alert!

Hawk MacKinney will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Want more great Sci-Fi? Check out Goodbye to the Sun