by BJ Hanlon
The Rise of the Dematians
BJ Hanlon
Contents
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1. Back to Bestoria
2. Oh So Cold This Dip Is
3. Foci Dun Bornu
4. The First Signs
5. The Dead Swamp
6. The Haunted Tower
7. There’s no place like Northland
8. A view of the king
9. Invalid
10. Lost
11. The Frozen Tundra
12. The world below
13. Finding the Rage
14. The old Highway
15. The First Battle for Bestoria
16. Uneasy Alliance
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Want a free book? Of course you do, though you can’t get it at this moment. Sorry.
I really hope you enjoy this book but after it, I have an offer for you. A trade as it were. The aforementioned free book is my part of the bargain and yours is to join my emailing list. This list gives you access to upcoming news about my newest books and possibly other little tidbits of info. I don’t email much so you can be sure your mailbox won’t get overcrowded. Of course if you don’t like the books and wish not to be on said list, you can always unsubscribe.
But I sincerely hope you stay on and are entertained by Edin in his quest to do… quest to sav… I’d better not tell you since spoilers are no fun.
Thanks and enjoy!
BJ
1
Back to Bestoria
Floating silently on the waves, long crackles of white sheets gently swooned and bumped the ship as if it were trying to brush the cloak of a much beloved king.
In Edin’s mind, there’d probably never been such a person. Maybe a queen or a princess, but kings tended to be much more forceful, direct, and wary. Some people said it made them good leaders; having a person to make the hard choices most would shy away from was be a good thing.
Fog flew from his lips as the icy wind whipped Edin’s face like an unending lash. The air was fresh but cold and his lungs hurt as he breathed.
After covering his mouth with a wool cloth, he turned and walked back toward the stern. Edin glanced up at the first mate on the rear quarterdeck. The man watched him carefully as he gripped the spoked wheel tightly. The bulkhead groaned like a man being forced from bed far too early.
“Getting too thick…” Edin called over the bitter wind. “Better put down the sails.”
The first mate nodded and then yelled something up toward the crow’s nest.
The second of the four men was Spider, a little man that swung from the lashings and masts like a monkey. He leapt out of the crow’s nest and began fiddling with some of the ropes.
Edin climbed down the ladder and into the cabin below deck. He shivered. The air down here was only marginally warmer. He brushed ice crystals off his body.
“Another hundred yards maybe, I can’t be sure,” Edin said. “Then it’s frozen solid.”
Arianne walked over to him wearing the same type of thick cloak as he was. It was multilayered with one of leather, one of fur, and another of cloth. It was heavy and hooded.
“You’re a glasorio… can’t you break it up?”
Edin shook his head. “It’s seeming to refreeze immediately after I break it.” Edin said putting his hands near the stove which had been installed specifically for this northern voyage. A voyage that men from the Isle of Mists never took. “I can’t hold a passage open, and even if I could…”
“When you leave the ship, we’ll be stuck,” the captain said appearing in the doorway of his quarters.
Edin nodded. They were at the far edge of an ice field. Outside he could hear the thunk and crack of the ice chucks slapping the ship.
Arianne went to the small eating table that held the nautical charts and maps rolled up in tubes.
It’d been gray and windy for the last week. At points, Edin wondered if the sun was even real anymore or if it had just been a delusion. A warm and lovely delusion that grew more and more vivid as the days went on.
“We are where exactly?” she said unfurling a chart and leaning over it. Her shoulders were back and her arms straight pushing out like wings trying to sprout from her back.
“My best guess, fifty or so nautical miles east of Glustown,” the captain said.
Edin leaned next to Arianne, her fingers touching his gently in a cold caress. They hadn’t spent a night together since they boarded the ship. The hammocks made it very difficult to cuddle and Edin missed her warmth and other things.
“Where is the Ocaricson Fjord?”
“Northeast of Coldwater, according to these charts.” The captain pressed a finger to an open swatch of sea. Glustown was nearly fifty leagues southwest of it. The second furthest north city on the coast. Coldwater was the northern most, it was on a river and about ten leagues from Glustown. From looking at the ice patch outside, it was clear that there’d be no sailing into that port.
Back on the map he noticed that after a few miles inland, past either city there were few landmarks, large swatches of forest, then nothing.
The map was a blank.
Edin nodded. “So, what’s our best chance? Sail along the ice field and hope it breaks up or go over land?”
The captain said, “turn around and try again in summer.”
“Wintering in Tor’s estate wouldn’t be bad,” Arianne said squeezing his hand. “Take it easy for a while, cuddle by the fire, read and do other things.” She glanced at him and winked.
The ship began slowing and turning slightly aft.
“I say we leave the captive on one of them bergs and sail home,” the captain said. “I don’t want no Por Fen on my ship longer than I have to.” He paused, “and I’ll be a crillio’s uncle if we’re taking him back to Delrot with us.”
Edin stared at Arianne’s gray–green eyes. They twinkled with the fire lantern and there was a hint of something wicked in them. Something that promised excitement.
He was tempted, oh was he...
Edin reached up and brushed a few strands from her face. So much of him wanted to turn this vessel around and head back. He had a seat on the council now, at least temporarily. The Reaches tower was being rebuilt and Cannopina had said it’d be better than ever when Dorset and he returned.
Edin wondered where his roommate was. At the last moment, he had decided to join this expedition and became the cook. He’d make the meals all the while staring at Berka and taunting him with names like Firepits, Stonehead, or Yio’s Ginger Stepchild.
At the captain’s insistence, they’d chained Berka up to a sturdy support post, his hands tied behind his back and legs splayed attached to two eyehooks screwed into the deck.
Objects such as knives, bowls, and even a crank would randomly fall and land barely inches from Berka’s manhood. How he wasn’t half dead from the Inquisitor’s beating, Edin didn’t know.
Every time he’d tried to get Berka to talk, he was met with silence. He wouldn’t have been certain that he still had a tongue if not for seeing it while he ate.
Berka did still eat like a mongrel, rarely using utensils and scooping food with one hand. Apparently, the Por Fen didn’t care much for table manners. Though it wasn’t surprising as they didn’t seem to have much in the way of humanity.
Edin shook his head slowly and Arianne looked down. �
��I have to go on.”
“Then I do too,” she said then turned to the captain. “We can’t gamble on the ice sheet breaking at any point. We’ll turn around and head south until we’re free of the ice.” She traced her finger down the ocean. “Then we go west until we find land.”
“Aye my lady, we’ll do as you say but we can’t stick around after we drop you off. You’ll be on your own.” The captain moved to the ladder and began climbing.
“We understand,” Arianne said and looked back at Edin. “You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll help give us a boost,” Arianne said. She stood up on her toes and kissed him then followed the captain up the ladder.
“Keep that public smoochin’ private will ya.” Henny said from the hammock.
“Don’t fall out of that.” Edin said giving the hammock a quick shove.
“Woah…” Henny said. “I’ll get you for that.”
“Right.” He said and made his way to the hold at the stern of the ship.
It was small with a single bulkhead. There was a second stove burning without the need of fuel, a prep table for food, and a few chairs. All were recently installed for a long voyage.
Berka stared at him as he entered. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes and he shivered involuntarily but still he said nothing. He didn’t complain of thirst or hunger.
Edin took a mug of warm coffee from the stove and looked at the stew Dorset was preparing. Ham with peas and carrots. The smell made his stomach grumble.
“About two hours or so,” Dorset said.
Edin drank and felt the heat run through his body like a good whiskey.
Dorset, his roommate at the Reaches, had been cooking for himself for more than two years, ever since he’d left the corruption of the city. Though he wasn’t as good of a cook as the staff from Edin’s manor in Yaultan, he could whip up something tasty if he needed to.
Edin took a seat on a crate and leaned against the hull.
He wondered about the horseless carts he’d read about in that fictional story all those years ago and if they could possibly work. If so, could there be windless ships? What would that look like?
“Feel like talking yet?” Edin said.
Berka looked away, his cheeks were red though not nearly the color of that fiery hair that was beginning to sprout like the first sprigs of grass from seed.
After being captured during the assault on the Isles, Edin saw Berka was thicker than when they’d last met, thick and strong, even bigger than his father Vistach who was by far the largest man in Yaultan. Now he ate little and was losing some of that bulk.
But just seeing him, got Edin
thinking about home. His home which had been burned by the village, those he’d once counted as acquaintances, if not friends.
“Are you not curious where we’re going?”
Again, no answer and Edin sipped from the coffee mug. The steam coming off felt good on his rosy cheeks. He offered it to Berka who turned his head away.
“How about the fact that I saw you beaten on the ground in the vision? Was that fake? Staged because the Inquisitor wanted me to come and defect? Or was it to just murder me?”
Berka flicked his eyes toward Edin and then dropped them again.
It was probably the case. Edin leaned his head back and stared at the wooden planks above him. They were stained black and brown and held choruses of patterns made by smoke and water stains.
Edin could almost make out faces in the patterns. A nose, eyes, a twisted upturned mouth… a mythical fairy with wings. If he turned his head, he could see animals, a rabbit maybe or a squirrel. He couldn’t quite make up his mind about it but there was definitely something there. It triggered a memory from a lifetime ago, though probably only two years.
“Do you remember Flo’s birthday at the Crane?” Edin asked. He didn’t look at Berka, didn’t see if he responded or even acknowledged the question. “Old Ulson had left at about ten. I remember watching him wobble outside, as drunk as he’d ever been and trying to hold up his trousers. He wore that faded and torn gray tunic so threadbare you could see his scraggly chest hair. We were all waiting for the day he’d begin to shed and we’d find gray and white hairs in our mugs.”
Edin drank form the coffee again, still looking up.
“I think someone had told him to go change and he stumbled out to what we assumed was home. Maybe he’d get new clothes, not that he’d ever had anything worthy of the term. It was all scraps, remember? He had those trousers that were cut high up the thigh where you could nearly see…” Edin shuddered remembering it. “You said you’d like to see Mistress Elyoso in those… as long as she’d shave her legs.”
Dorset’s chuckled from the other side of the room. He wasn’t looking at them, only tending to his task.
“You and I we were playing dice with either Sorn or Jassir, you were losing and taking shot after shot of whiskey when Ulson appeared bleeding and holding something in that tattered shirt. The man was grinning and we all thought he’d gone crazy. A moment later, the musician quit playing and the Crane went as silent as ever with only squeaks and laughs coming from the door. ‘I caught me a cat, who wants a cat! He’s ticklish.’” Edin drank from the mug. “But his barrel of a stomach was scratched and bloody. He pulled down the bottom of his tunic and he had a fat raccoon covered in blood trying to scratch itself free.”
Berka snorted, maybe remembering it, maybe he didn’t care. But it was a sound.
Edin turned toward Dorset. “Well that raccoon decided to leap onto Flo’s back and she screamed like she’d been attacked by a rabid badger. She leapt from her chair, knocking ales down and tumbling into Loli and tearing her blouse halfway down her chest. The raccoon leapt off, knocking over mugs and scampering around the room. I remember, it hit one of your dice and knocked a two to a six and you won. Everyone was screaming and laughing and you were cheering because I had to take a double shot of whiskey in a single gulp. Then you said, if I couldn’t do it—”
“You had to tie your trousers around your head and run screaming through the village square.” Berka chuckled. “Your bare white cheeks were like ham hocks in the moonlight. That image will be seared into my memory for all time.”
“You’re welcome,” Edin said and smiled.
“I wasn’t going to thank you for that… damned abomination.” He muttered the last bit.
His smile faded and he looked down at his old friend. Something flew from Dorset’s direction. There was a thunk as it landed a few inches from the crook in Berka’s trousers. It was a knife, sticking straight up into the air and wobbling side to side like a tree in a confused wind.
“Oops,” Dorset said.
Berka glared at him but said nothing. Then the Por Fen closed his eyes and rested his head against the pole.
Edin took a long slow drink of coffee as he stared. Then he stood, pulled the knife from the wood.
“Why are you taking me with you? Why did you not leave me to be executed with the rest of my kin? At least then I’d die for the gods,” Berka said, his eyes were still closed and the new ginger beard shined nearly orange in the firelight. Then he looked up. “Do you wish to punish me in this life and the next?”
“You and your black-cloaked thugs are the abominations. Not us. We do not murder innocents,” Edin said, purposely ignoring the first question.
Dorset cleared his throat and Edin looked at him and held up his hand to tell him to quiet.
“Your friends are the isle’s prisoners. Their fate as invaders of a sovereign land will be decided by our government.”
“You’re beasts! Children of Yio Volor and monsters! You deserve nothing less than complete annihilation!” Berka spat.
Edin held out his hand to Dorset, he had a feeling that another knife may land between Berka’s legs, this time, it may not miss.
“My friend,” Edin said crouching down before him. “You could not be more wrong.” He handed the knife to Dorset and looked
him in the eyes. “Only if he tries to escape. Just try not to castrate him.”
“No promises,” Dorset said.
Edin wrapped the cloak back around him and headed back up to the deck. He spied Arianne out front and the ship whipping through the much smaller chunks of ice.
To the left, was nearly ice-free ocean, but it was gray and dull like windblown snow on a vast and empty tundra.
“How far?”
The captain shrugged. “We have to go slow in case of giant icebergs. Sometimes they look small up top but are giant beneath the water. Like the peaks of mountains where snow is all that is visible.”
Edin crossed his arms. “And the crow’s nest?”
“Spider is up there, huddled and looking out, said it’s nearly clear of ice.”
“Let’s speed this up then,” Edin yelled.
Arianne looked back at him with a vicious glare. A moment later, the wind was thrown into the sails and Edin stumbled backward.
Behind him, the captain laughed.
A day later, the weather grew blustery as Spider called out the first sign of land. A barren beige rock barely piercing the gray water. The captain was at the helm with the first mate asleep.
Edin was outside using the wind to propel them faster. The boat bobbed up and down in the growing waves. Black rocks, some only a few yards wide, others the size of the vessel, began appearing with regularity.
“Cease!” The captain called out and Edin let the talent fade.
The boat moved forward slowly. Edin stood at the starboard side and watched for more obstacles as the other crewman stood on the port side.
More tiny black and gray islands emerged in the frigid sea. All were barren and rocky.
