The Dark Sea Beyond
Page 1
The Drakkan Chronicles
Book 1
THE
DARK SEA
BEYOND
Rye Sobo
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
Dedication
EPIGRAPH
MAP
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A HUMBLE REQUEST
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
The Dark Sea Beyond: Book 1 of the Drakkan Chronicles Copyright © 2019 Rye Sobo.
All Rights Reserved. No portions of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any for form or by any means (for other than review purposes), electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any other informational storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any relation to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not the intent of the author.
Cover Art: Border design and kraken icon licensed through istockphoto.com.
Interior Map © 2019 Rye Sobo. Designed using Wonderdraft.
For Kristi
“Traveling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”
- Ibn Battuta (1304-1377)
CHAPTER ONE
The gnome stood in the middle of the ancient Imperial Hall of the Black Keep, fresh blood dripped from his armor and covered his face.
“You have to understand, none of what happened, any of—this—was what I ever wanted,” he stood with hands out to his side, blood fell from his fingers to the floor. He addressed the red-cloaked warrior-priests gathered before him.
“Apologies?” a priest asked as he tightened the grip on his glaive. “You can’t just apologize and walk away from this.”
At the center of the crimson phalanx stood a Dwarven woman, her hair and her beard the same fiery red as the armor she wore. Her eyes locked on the blood-covered gnome before her. She clenched her jaw tight. Her fingers adjusted their grip on her scimitar, ready to deliver justice should her god demand it.
“Lusia—”
“Daen’t. Ye will address us with the dignity and respect we deserve.”
“Yes, you’re right,” he bowed his head and took a deep breath.
The thirty priests with their blades drawn were each capable of passing judgment on him. It was to her, only her, the gnome spoke. Her judgment was the only one that mattered. Only she could judge him for what he had done. For what he was about to do.
“Justiciars of Res, I am Ferrin Alsahar, wanted by you for murder and treason. I call upon my right as a Drakkan citizen to stand before you and plead my case.”
“As a Drakkan?” Lusia scoffed at the absurdity. “Tell yer men to drop their arms and we’ll grant ye an audience.”
“I don’t actually carry any weapons,” a voice came from the stairwell. “And she kinda is a weapon on her own.”
“Both of ye, get in here,” Lusia said.
A tall, pale Elven man with shaggy brown hair dressed in flowing green robes stepped through the stairwell door. Ari held his hands out. “Very well. Very well.”
Behind him stepped an orcish woman. Rook was dark-skinned like the gnome, but while he was brown, she had a greenish hue and large protruding lower teeth capped with iron. As she stepped from the stone doorway, the Dwarven war-priests stepped back to keep themselves out of her reach.
“Right,” Lusia said. “Ye two sit down and daen’t speak unless questioned. Understood?”
Ari and Rook nodded an agreement and sat in two chairs in the far corner of the Imperial Hall flanked by red-clad dwarves.
***
Ferrin knew how important today was. It had been years since he had seen his homeland, seen his family.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, remembered the fragrant scents of the spice merchant stalls in the Grand Arcade in the Market District. As he inhaled now all he smelled was smoke, ash, and blood.
Memories of the warm Drakkan sun on his face as he ran through the winding streets of the great walled city protected him from the harsh winter nights in the icy wildlands far away.
Even the tobacco Torsten smoked in the war camps reminded him of sitting on the floor of his father’s study, reading tales of dragons, heroes, and great battles.
He worried if Lusia had been the right choice to judge him. He wondered what her opinion would be. As Ferrin, the foolish storyteller who ended up on the wrong side of the law, he could have asked her to pardon him and she would agree. But what would she say to a blood-soaked warlord in the heart of her city under siege?
***
Lusia sat in a high-backed chair just in front of the imperial throne. That chair, more imposing than its last occupant, had sat empty for over a hundred years. To either side, crimson dwarves pulled chairs from around the room and placed them on the dais, formed into a half-circle around the gnome.
Ferrin stood. He would be the center of attention and he always performed best standing.
“Are you ready?” he asked when the warriors settled.
Lusia nodded. “Ferrin Alsahar, do ye swear to tell the truth before this assembled panel and before Res, god of justice?” she asked with all the formality she could muster.
“May he strike me dead if a falsehood leaves my lips,” Ferrin said.
“It’s me that’ll strike ye dead, Fer,” Lusia said. She took a deep breath and nodded. “Then ye may begin when ye’re ready.”
“Right then,” Ferrin said, “To tell this story I must tell it from the day I was forced from my home until this day, so that each of you may know the whole truth.”
CHAPTER TWO
My head felt like a dragon sat on it.
“Where the hells am I?” I tried to keep silent while I stumbled around the room in search of a piece of furniture that wasn’t moving.
I was at… The Stone Anchor Tavern. At the bar. I remember… pirates? My eyes focused in the darkened space.
A faint ray of morning sun slipped passed the fabric over a window. The chamber was luxurious but impersonal. It was the sterile comfort of a hotel room or tavern. Somewhere in the Central Market, perhaps? It’s far too nice to be Dockside. It smelled of warm perfume, not saltwater and fish.
There was a girl… wasn’t there? Shit. I turned around.
In bed next to me was a beautiful human woman. Young, perhaps in her early twenties.
Is she…? She’s asleep. Good. Was she the pirate? Where are my clothes?
If I could find my clothes, I might slide out the door without disturbing her. On the chair I found my shirt and breeches. On top of the table I found my boots.
A chill ran through my naked gnomish body. Shit.
“Good morning my pirate captain,” the woman said from the bed.
I was the pirate? I was within a step of the door. My breeches and shirt in one hand, boots in the other. I considered just bolting.
“Just heading to the galley to fetch some ale,” I said.
“And coffee too. Please, Gustavo,” she said with a pout.
“Certainly,” I said with a smirk and stepped into the hallway.
Had she been awake, she would have noticed that I wasn’t wearing trousers. She was still in the fantasy. Her pirate captain would pillage the tavern stores for her.
Keeping encounters like this short and mysterious is in her interest as much as mine.
The gentleman merchant leaving his room down the hall, however, was not in the fantasy. He was aghast at the bare-ass gnome trying with some difficulty to dress in the corridor.
I made my way to the end of the hall where I discovered a set of stairs, still uncertain of which establishment I was in. My head thrummed with each step.
At the bottom of the staircase I found a dining room and bar arranged for breakfast. Two people were in the room: the merchant I met in the hallway, who refused to make eye contact, and Norma, an older human woman who was the cook at the Compass Rose.
The Rose was a posh boarding house on the expensive side of the Market District. That would explain the offense to a nude gnome. Wealthy travelers pay extra to avoid nonsense of that sort.
“And what have we today?” Norma said with a wry smile. “Merchant lord with a flotilla of spice ships? Gallant hero just returned from a magnificent quest?”
“Pirate Captain Gustavo Blanco,” I answered with a flourish.
Norma had often witnessed my early morning escapes. She understood the romantic fantasy, and on some level enjoyed her part in it.
“Oh my,” she said with false astonishment, “how daring!”
The gentleman at the table let out an incredulous snort.
I put two iron pins on the bar. “Would you be so kind as to take the lady some coffee and pastries?” Then set a copper half knot down next to the pins, “and let her know—”
“The Watch drove you away from the premises, pursuing you like the villainous dog you are,” she finished.
I smiled and turned for the exit.
“Good morning to you,” Norma said, “Captain.”
Outside the Compass Rose the city was already coming to life, if it ever slept. Merchants were setting up their stalls and farmers from south of the city were guiding herds of sheep and goats to the docks.
It was early in the harvest month of Panis and that was evident in the Central Market. Fresh fruits and vegetables were everywhere as I proceeded through the bustling crowds. The smell of fresh bread in dozens of nearby ovens mixed with fragrant spices and sweet fruity notes, filling the air with a pleasant, inviting quality.
On a street corner opposite the Grand Arcade, a justiciar, adorned in his red robes, prepared for the day. The older man, with dark brown skin and a white beard that reached to his navel, wore the dispassionate face of someone who had seen enough in his time that nothing surprised him anymore. Wisdom, I heard it described, though I considered it jaded.
Already a crowd had gathered to present grievances to the old man on the street corner. Others to bear witness and hear the sordid details of their neighbors’ lives.
***
Dem and I spent hours listening to the grievances as children. And hours more arguing with each other about the justiciar’s rulings—how our ten-year-old’s opinion differed from the judge. That passed as entertainment for us before women and whiskey. Instead, we would hear how Fawdil the mercer had cheated Loritus the tailor because he had used his young son’s arm to measure the cubits of silk, shorting the order and ruining that wealthy merchant’s shirt.
“They base a cubit on the person who is measuring,” I argued as I stuffed a dried apricot into my mouth. “The mercer’s apprentice couldn’t use another hand to measure, only the one he had.”
“But the tailor had ordered the silk from the mercer, not his son. Had the tailor known the child would do the measuring, he would have adjusted the order.”
“If I was the apprentice, would you accuse me of cheating customers because of my gnomish stature?”
“I’m just glad I wasn’t a tailor, a cubit of silk from you, Ferrin, wouldn’t be enough for a single cuff,” Dem said. Satisfied with his response he took an apricot from my hand and popped it into his mouth.
The justiciar, in his wisdom, ordered the mercer to replace the fabric with the correct measurements and to have a more watchful eye on the apprentice. Not long after that, the Council of Lords established a standardized cubit based on the Lord Regent’s arm.
The grievances brought between friends, families, or spouses were always the most entertaining though.
My favorite was the case of Bakkar the baker, who accused his best friend, Samir the miller, of an adulterous relationship with his wife, because Bakkar saw Samir fleeing the family home early one morning.
“I would never betray my closest friend and brother by sleeping with his wife,” the miller told the justiciar.
“But I saw him run from my family home, across the courtyard and over the garden wall before dawn, with nothing but the moonlight on his bare ass,” the baker said. “Who then was he engaged without a thread of clothes? I ask my wife, but she will not look me in the eye! He is guilty, and she along with him.”
I often laughed at the way people felt they needed to speak to the justiciar. It’s as though he wouldn’t understand if they didn’t speak like the ancient poets.
“He was with me,” announced the baker’s mother after a long silence. “He was providing me with the comfort I had not had since my husband died two years earlier.”
I still remember how the baker’s face turned from a dark olive to a deep red as he realized the truth, he had caught his best friend sleeping not with his wife, but his mother.
“Comforting widows,” that’s how Dem would describe my exploits.
***
I snaked my way through the vendors in search of a morning meal, my heart set on some fresh apricots and goat cheese. The air of the market was sweet with apricots this morning, a fresh shipment must have arrived from Maropret overnight.
I glimpsed two men following me at a distance. They dressed well enough I could tell they weren't local cut-purses. Most likely travelers. Gnomes are a rare race outside the Auster Islands with only a few thousand in Drakkas Port.
I hoped to avoid the leers by sliding down an alley between stalls.
As I rounded the corner, one of the two men shouted, “That’s him!”
I bolted, ran into the twisted thoroughfares of the Central Market, crouched under a counter, and through a carpet dealer’s stall. I wasn’t sure what these men thought I had done, but I knew I could never take both in a fight.
In the narrow confines of the Market my stature was a distinct advantage. I dashed into the market crossroads in front of the trading house and found two representatives of the Watch standing at the intersection. I stopped, struggling to catch my breath.
“Arrest that little devil,” one man shouted to the Watch. The guards glanced down at me. My hands on my knees, chest heaving.
“What in the name of the gods is going on here?”
“I haven’t done anything,” I said.
“He’s a pirate,” the second traveler reported. “He absconded with my betrothed.”
The guard looked down at me, “Pirate?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Only time I’ve ever helmed a ship, it smashed into the wall and sank in the harbor.”
&n
bsp; “I remember that,” the guard said excited. “Ten Hells, what a mess that was. Took a span to clear the Hydra’s Mouth to anything bigger than a skiff.”
“What’s this about wife-stealing?” the other guard asked.
“She’s not my wife, not yet. We were to be wed in two days’ time,” the traveler said. “He stole her away, forced himself on her, tainted our sacred union.”
“Sounds like you haven’t been union’ed yet,” the guard said.
“A woman is free to do as she pleases, with whom she pleases,” the second guard said. “You, however, are disrupting the peace and assaulting this man. I will ask you two to come with us, please.”
The traveler scoffed. As the Watch approached, he threw out his arms to push off the armored men. “Don’t touch me, I will not go with you! Arrest him!”
The Watchmen grabbed the belligerent traveler and threw him to the ground. “You are now under arrest for attacking the Watch.”
That had worked better than I expected.
The Watch lifted the man to his feet, his fresh clothes covered in dirt and manure, and frog-marched him through the streets toward the Black Keep.
I surveyed the area. I wasn’t far from the Southern Empire. If I was quick and quiet, perhaps I could find a bite to eat.
CHAPTER THREE
The Southern Empire Trading Company headquarters was an enormous, three story building in the heart of the Central Market District. The modest white stucco walls, no different from much of the architecture of the city, exuded the well-crafted lie that the Southern Empire was just like every other trading house in the city.
Anyone with half a wit of sense knew the truth: many knew it as “The Empire” for a reason. The influence which originated here with the tiny proprietor stretched to the distant edges of the known world.
Over the massive timber-and-steel front door of the trading house was a large brass emblem of the company’s crest. When I was a child, I wondered why no one had ever sought to steal the crest. It had to be worth a respectable fortune, at least several hundred silver heads as scrap.
With age and wisdom, I learned the reason that crest stood for generations of humans to see, there was no one in the Commonwealth foolish enough to buy the crest off a would-be thief. It meant having to deal with Zori’s wrath.