by Rj Barker
The clarion came yet again. A dozen wayfarers spurred down the street. A plate-clad knight rode at their head, his destrier caparisoned in silver-flecked black. Not the heraldry of a knightly chapterhouse, but a family of the first rank. His sword – a heavy, fennlander’s claymore – rested in its scabbard. A circular shield sat slung across his back.
The greys of the rain-sodden town lost their focus. Katya tightened her grip on the reins. She flexed the fingers of her left hand. They felt distant, as if belonging to someone else. Her shoulder ached, fit company for the dull roar in her side – a memento of the sword-thrust she’d taken on the ridge at Zanya. Weariness crowded in, the faces of the dead close behind.
The world lurched. Katya grasped at the bridle with her good hand. Focus returned at the cost of her sword, which fell onto the narrow roadway.
So that was how the matter lay?
So be it.
“Go,” she breathed. “See to your sister’s safety. I’ll hold them.”
Josiri spurred closer, the false calm giving way to horror. “Mother, no!”
Calenne looked on with impassive eyes.
“I can’t ride.” Katya dropped awkwardly from her saddle and stooped to reclaim her sword. The feel of the grips beneath her fingers awoke new determination. “Leave me.”
“No. We’re getting out of here. All of us.” He reached out. “You can ride with me.”
The tremor beneath his tone revealed the truth. His horse was already weary. What stamina remained would not long serve two riders, let alone three.
Katya glanced down the street. There’d soon be nothing left to argue over. She understood Josiri’s reluctance, for it mirrored her own. To face a parting now, with so much unsaid…? But a lifetime would not be enough to express her pride, nor to warn against repeating her mistakes. He’d have to find his own way now.
“Do you love me so little that you’d make me beg?” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Accept this last gift and remember me well. Go.”
Josiri gave a sharp nod, his lips a pale sliver. His throat bobbed. Then he turned his horse.
Katya dared not watch as her children galloped away, fearful that Josiri would read the gesture as a change of heart.
“Lumestra’s light shine for you, my son,” she whispered.
A slap to her horse’s haunch sent it whinnying into the oncoming wayfarers. They scattered, fighting for control over startled steeds.
Katya took up position at the bridge’s narrow crest, her sword point-down at her feet in challenge. She’d no illusions about holding the wayfarers. It would cost them little effort to ride straight over her, had they the stomach for it. But the tightness of the approach offered a slim chance.
The knight raised a mailed fist. The pursuers halted a dozen yards from the bridge’s mouth. Two more padded out from the surrounding alleys. Not horsemen, but the Council’s simarka – bronze constructs forged in the likeness of lions and given life by a spark of magic. Prowling statues that hunted the Council’s enemies. Katya swore under her breath. Her sword was useless against such creatures. A blacksmith’s hammer would have served her better. She’d lost too many friends to those claws to believe otherwise.
“Lady Trelan.” The knight’s greeting boomed like thunder. “The Council demands your surrender.”
“Viktor Akadra.” Katya made no attempt to hide her bitterness. “Did your father not tell you? I do not recognise the Council’s authority.”
The knight dismounted, the hem of his jet-black surcoat trailing in the rain. He removed his helm. Swarthy, chiselled features stared out from beneath a thatch of black hair. A young face, though one already confident far beyond its years.
He’d every reason to be so. Even without the armour, without the entourage of weary wayfarers – without her wounds – Akadra would have been more than her match. He stood a full head taller than she – half a head taller than any man she’d known.
“There has been enough suffering today.” His tone matched his expression perfectly. Calm. Confident. Unyielding. He gestured, and the simarka sat, one to either side. Motionless. Watchful. “Let’s not add to the tally.”
“Then turn around, Lord Akadra. Leave me be.”
Lips parted in something not entirely a smile. “You will stand before the Council and submit to judgement.”
Katya knew what that meant. The humiliation of a show trial, arraigned as warning to any who’d follow in her footsteps and dare seek freedom for the Southshires. Then they’d parade her through the streets, her last dignity stripped away long before the gallows took her final breath. She’d lost a husband to that form of justice. She’d not suffer it herself.
“I’ll die first.”
“Incorrect.”
Again, that damnable confidence. But her duty was clear.
Katya let the anger rise, as she had on the road. Its fire drove back the weariness, the pain, the fear for her children. Those problems belonged to the future, not the moment at hand. She was a daughter of the Southshires, the dowager duchess Trelan. She would not yield. The wound in Katya’s side blazed as she surged forward. The alchemy of rage transmuted agony to strength and lent killing weight to the two-handed blow.
Akadra’s sword scraped free of its scabbard. Blades clashed with a banshee screech. Lips parted in a snarl of surprise, he gave ground through the hissing rain.
Katya kept pace, right hand clamped over the failing left to give it purpose and guide it true. She hammered at Akadra’s guard, summoning forth the lessons of girlhood to the bleak present. The forms of the sword her father had drilled into her until they flowed with the grace of a thrush’s song and the power of a mountain river. Those lessons had kept her alive on the ridge at Zanya. They would not fail her now.
The wayfarers made no move to interfere.
But Akadra was done retreating.
Boots planted on the cobbles like the roots of some venerable, weather-worn oak, he checked each strike with grace that betrayed tutelage no less exacting than Katya’s own. The claymore blurred across grey skies and battered her longsword aside.
The fire in Katya’s veins turned sluggish. Cold and failing flesh sapped her purpose. Too late, she recognised the game Akadra had played. She’d wearied herself on his defences, and all the while her body had betrayed her.
Summoning her last strength, Katya hurled herself forward. A cry born of pain and desperation ripped free of her lips.
Again the claymore blurred to parry. The longsword’s tip scraped past the larger blade, ripping into Akadra’s cheek. He twisted away with a roar of pain.
Hooves sounded on cobbles. The leading wayfarers spurred forward, swords drawn to avenge their master’s humiliation. The simarka, given no leave to advance, simply watched unfolding events with feline curiosity.
Katya’s hands tightened on her sword. She’d held longer than she’d believed possible. She hoped Josiri had used the time well.
“Leave her!”
Akadra checked the wayfarers’ advance with a single bellow. The left side of his face masked in blood, he turned his attention on Katya once more. He clasped a closed fist to his chest. Darkness gathered about his fingers like living shadow.
Katya’s world blurred, its colours swirling away into an unseen void.
Her knee cracked against the cobbles. A hand slipped from her sword, fingers splayed to arrest her fall. Wisps of blood curled through pooling rainwater. She knelt there, gasping for breath, one ineluctable truth screaming for attention.
The rumours about Akadra were true.
The shadow dispersed as Akadra strode closer. The wayfarers had seen none of it, Katya realised – or had at least missed the significance. Otherwise, Akadra would have been as doomed as she. The Council would tolerate much from its loyal sons, but not witchcraft.
Colour flooded back. Akadra’s sword dipped to the cobbles. His bloodied face held no triumph. Somehow that was worse.
“It’s over.” For the first time,
his expression softened. “This is not the way, Katya. It never was. Surrender. Your wounds will be tended. You’ll be treated with honour.”
“Honour?” The word was ash on Katya’s tongue. “Your father knows nothing of honour.”
“It is not my father who makes the offer.” He knelt, one gauntleted hand extended. “Please. Give me your sword.”
Katya stared down at the cobbles, at her life’s blood swirling away into the gutter. Could she trust him? A lifetime of emissaries and missives from the north had bled her people dry to feed a pointless war. Viktor’s family was part of that, and so he was part of it. If his promise was genuine, he’d no power to keep it. The Council would never let it stand. The shame of the gallows path beckoned.
“You want my sword?” she growled.
Katya rose from her knees, her last effort channelled into one final blow.
Akadra’s hand, so lately extended in conciliation, wrenched the sluggish blade from her grasp. He let his own fall alongside. Tugged off balance, Katya fell to her hands and knees. Defenceless. Helpless.
No. Not helpless. Never that.
She forced herself upright. There was no pain. No weariness. Just calm. Was this how Kevor had felt at the end? Before the creak of the deadman’s drop had set her husband swinging? Trembling fingers closed around a dagger’s hilt.
“My son will finish what I started.”
The dagger rasped free, Katya’s right hand again closing over her left.
“No!” Akadra dived forward. His hands reached for hers, his sudden alarm lending weight to his promises.
Katya rammed the dagger home. Chain links parted. She felt no pain as the blade slipped between her ribs. There was only a sudden giddiness as the last of her burdens fell away into mist.
Josiri held Calenne close through the clamour. Screams. Buccina calls. Galloping hooves. Barked orders. Josiri longed for the thunder’s return. Bravery came easier in moments when the angry sky drowned all else.
The church spire passed away to his left. Desperate townsfolk crowded its lychpath, seeking sanctuary behind stone walls. People filled the streets beyond. Some wore council blue, most the sea-grey of Eskavord’s guard, and too many the garb of ordinary folk caught in between.
Ravens scattered before Josiri’s straining horse. He glanced down at the girl in his charge. His sister she may have been, but Calenne was a stranger. She sat in silence, not a tear on her cheeks. He didn’t know how she held herself together so. It was all he could do not to fall apart.
A pair of wayfarers emerged from an alleyway, their approach masked by the booming skies. Howling with courage he didn’t feel, Josiri hacked at the nearest. The woman slumped across her horse’s neck. Josiri rowelled his mare, leaving the outpaced survivor snarling at the rain.
More wayfarers waited at the next junction, their horses arrayed in a loose line beneath overhanging eaves. The town wall loomed through the rain. The west gate was so close. Two streets away, no more.
A glance behind revealed a wayfarer galloping in pursuit. A pair of simarka loped alongside. Verdigrised claws struck sparks from the cobbles.
To turn back was to be taken, a rat in a trap. The certainty of it left Josiri no room for doubt. Onward was the only course.
“Hold tight to me,” he told Calenne, “and don’t let go.”
Thin arms redoubled their grip. Josiri drove back his heels.
Time slowed, marked out by the pounding of hooves and the beat of a fearful heart. Steel glinted. Horses whinnied as wayfarers hauled on their reins.
“For the Southshires!”
The battle cry fed Josiri’s resolve. The widening of the nearest wayfarer’s eyes gave him more. They were as afraid of him as he of them. Maybe more, for was his mother not the Phoenix of prophecy?
Time quickened. Josiri’s sword blurred. A wayfarer spun away in a bloody spray. And then Josiri was through the line, his horse’s greedy stride gobbling the last distance to the west gate. The mare barely slowed at the next corner. Her hooves skidded on the rain-slicked cobbles.
Calenne screamed – not with terror, but in wild joy – and then the danger was past, and the west gate was in sight.
The portcullis was down, its iron teeth sunk deep. A line of tabarded soldiery blocked the roadway and the branching alleyways to either side. Halberds lowered. Shields locked tight together, a flock of white hawk blazons on a wall of rich king’s blue. Wayfarers filled the street behind.
Thunder roared, its fury echoing through the hole where Josiri’s heart should have been. He’d failed. Perhaps he’d never had a chance.
“Everything will be all right.” He hoped the words sounded more convincing to Calenne than they did to him. “Mother will come.”
Calenne stared up at him with all the earnestness of youth. “Mother’s already dead.”
Spears pressed in. An officer’s voice bellowed orders through the rain. Josiri gazed down into his sister’s cold, unblinking eyes, and felt more alone than ever.
if you enjoyed
THE BONE SHIP’S WAKE
look out for
THE UNBROKEN
Magic of the Lost: Book One
by
C. L. Clark
Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, she owes loyalty to only her fellow conscripts. But now her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.
Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.
Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.
Chapter 1
Change
A sandstorm brewed dark and menacing against the Qazāli horizon as Lieutenant Touraine and the rest of the Balladairan Colonial Brigade sailed into El-Wast, capital city of Qazāl, foremost of Balladaire’s southern colonies.
El-Wast. City of marble and sandstone, of olives and clay. City of the golden sun and fruits Touraine couldn’t remember tasting. City of rebellious, uncivilized god-worshippers. The city where Touraine was born.
At a sudden gust, Touraine pulled her black military coat tighter about her body and hunched small over the railing of the ship as it approached land. Even from this distance, in the early-morning dark, she could see a black Balladairan standard flapping above the docks. Its rearing golden horse danced to life, sparked by the reflection of the night lanterns. Around her, pale Balladairan-born sailors scrambled across the ship to bring it safely to harbor.
El-Wast, for the first time in some twenty-odd years. It took the air from the lieutenant’s chest. Her white-knuckle grip on the rail was only partly due to the nausea that had rocked her on the water.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Tibeau, Touraine’s second sergeant and best friend, settled against the rail next to her. The wooden rail shifted under his bulk. He spoke quietly, but Touraine could hear the awe and longing in the soft rumble of his voice.
Beautiful wasn’t the first thing Touraine thought as their ship sailed up the mouth of the River Hadd and gave them a view of El-Wast. The city was surprisingly big. Surprisingly bright. It was surprisingly… civilized. A proper city, not some scattering of tents and sand. Not what she had expected at all, given how Balladairans described the desert colonies. From this angle, it didn’t even look like a desert.
The docks stretched along the river like a small town, short buildings nestled alongside what were probably warehouses and workers’ tenements. Just beyond them, a massive bridge arced over shadowed farmland with some crop growing in neat rows, connecting the docks to the curve of a crumbling wall that surrounded the city. The Mile-Long Bridge. The great bridge was lined with the shadows of palm trees and lit up all along with the fuzzy dots of
lanterns. In the morning darkness, you could easily have mistaken the lanterns for stars.
She shrugged. “It’s impressive, I guess.”
Tibeau nudged her shoulder and held his arms out wide to take it all in. “You guess? This is your home. We’re finally back. You’re going to love it.” His eyes shone in the reflection of the lanterns guiding the Balladairan ship into Crocodile Harbor, named for the monstrous lizards that had supposedly lived in the river centuries ago.
Home. Touraine frowned. “Love it? Beau, we’re not on leave.” She dug half-moons into the soft, weather-worn wood of the railing and grumbled, “We have a job to do.”
Tibeau scoffed. “To police our own people.”
The thunk of approaching boots on the deck behind them stopped Touraine from saying something that would keep Tibeau from speaking to her for the rest of the day. Something like These aren’t my people. How could they be? Touraine had barely been toddling in the dust when Balladaire took her.
“You two better not be talking about what I think you’re talking about,” Sergeant Pruett said, coming up behind them with her arms crossed.
“Of course not,” Touraine said. She and Pruett let their knuckles brush in the cover of darkness.
“Good. Because I’d hate to have to throw you bearfuckers overboard.”
Pruett. The sensible one to Tibeau’s impetuousness, the scowl to his smile. The only thing they agreed on was hating Balladaire for what it had done to them, but unlike Tibeau, who was only biding his time before some imaginary revolution, Pruett was resigned to the conscripts’ fate and thought it better to keep their heads down and hate Balladaire in private.
Pruett shoved her way between the two of them and propped her elbows on the railing. Her teeth chattered. “It’s cold as a bastard here. I thought the deserts were supposed to be hot.”
Tibeau sighed wistfully, staring with longing at some point beyond the city. “Only during the day. In the real desert, you can freeze your balls off if you forget a blanket.”
