Table of Contents
Book I: Child of the Flames
The Fall of House Llewan
Lords, Swordswomen, and Fools
A Conspiratorial Turn of Mind
Stealing the Child
No Use for Crying
Quitting Sanctuary
Dancing with the Fire
The Frozen Flame
Inconvenient Enemies
A Tide of Blood
Epilogue
Book II: The Knife in the Dark
The Golden Mug
Flying Rock
The Nature of Heat
The Old Witch Herself
Earning the Knife
A River of Shadow
The Truth About Kitamin Jurillic
Chasing the Blood
The Crux
Unsanctioned Operatives
Into the Tunnels
Epilogue
Book III: The Old Man of the Temple
The Cabal of the Epitaph
A Mouthful of Poison
Tamasis
The Kissing Disease
The Myriad Skills of the Killer
The Pirate-Queen and the Midwife
A Terrible Mercy
The Old Man and the Lurker
The Song of All Things
Die with Honor
A Glorious Ruin
Epilogue
A Note From the Author
About the Author
More from D.W. Hawkins
This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Seven Signs Three Book Collection
Child of the Flames
The Knife in the Dark
The Old Man of the Temple
Copyright © 2018 Daniel Wesley Hawkins. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this ebook, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this ebook via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
Published by Laconic Press. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. For all inquiries, contact [email protected], or visit our website at www.laconic.press.
Laconic Press
120 S. Houghton Rd., Ste. 138-145
Tucson, Arizona 85748-6731
www.laconic.press
Visit the author website: http://www.dwhawkins.com
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This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Child of the Flames
Book One of The Seven Signs
Revised Edition
Copyright © 2016 Daniel Wesley Hawkins. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this ebook, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this ebook via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
Published by Laconic Press. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. For all inquiries, contact [email protected], or visit our website at www.laconic.press.
Laconic Press
120 S. Houghton Rd., Ste. 138-145
Tucson, Arizona 85748-6731
www.laconic.press
Visit the author website: http://www.dwhawkins.com
I dedicate this book to vanquished demons.
It’s been a long battle. May you sleep forever.
The Fall of House Llewan
Shawna stared through teary eyes at the bleeding form of her father. He wheezed in a pained attempt to suck air into his chest, mouth twisted into an agonized grimace. Dolland Llewan had always had the sort of face that spoke of quiet strength, but no longer. Now it was a swollen, bruised mockery of the face she knew—like it wasn’t even him, just some arrangement of features that barely resembled him. His graying hair was matted with blood, as was the beard that covered his swollen jaw. His head hung to the side in a pained stupor as his chest heaved with each breath.
She thought from the look of him that he was probably going to die.
Shawna had stopped sobbing nonsensical syllables sometime during the beating, but she hadn't been able to stop the tears. Her chest was steady, heart calm, but her eyes would not stop crying. The only thing she could feel was a dull, anxious fear, curled in her stomach like a snake waiting to strike.
Everyone is dead, she thought. My sisters, the household, everyone—dead, dead, dead.
Shawna struggled against the ropes that bound her to the chair, but they gave no more than they had the last hundred times she'd tested them. She clenched her teeth and continued to struggle until her strength wore out, but the ropes only felt tighter than before. She tried to scoot over to the table that sat between her and her father, but she could barely get the leverage necessary to move the chair. Shawna grunted in frustration.
When the brigand returned, he would kill them both—she was sure of it.
She could hear the rest of the men in the manor, ransacking everything in a methodical search for riches. In all her twenty-five springs, Shawna had never imagined something like this could happen. Her family's estate lay on the fringes of Cambrell, but the kingdom had been peaceful for as long as anyone could remember. The king's patrols visited her family's lands several times during each season, and there had never been any sort of trouble. The most excitement Shawna had ever seen was when refugees had come streaming out of Shundovia, fleeing their war with the Galanian Empire.
That had all changed with the dawn. Now screaming men had come riding out of the morning, cutting down everyone in their path. The entire thing had happened so fast that Shawna hadn’t been able to do anything but stare on in horror as her sisters and everyone she loved were slaughtered like so much meat.
“Shawna,” her father coughed, snapping her back to the moment.
“Father,” she whispered around the lump in her throat. “I'm still here. I’m alright.”
“Shawna, listen,” he sputtered around a mouthful of blood. “You have to listen to me.”
“Alright,” she said. She could see how much the effort of speaking was paining h
er father. Whatever he wanted to say, it must be important.
“These men—they're going to kill you, dear. No...no matter what they tell you, you will not leave this house alive,” he wheezed.
“Why are they here?” she hissed, angry at the cold fear that ran through her in response to her father’s words. “What are they looking for?” The man who had beaten her father had asked him over and over where ‘it’ was, but her father had remained silent. Shawna had been too distressed during the interrogation to take notice, but now that her emotions were wearing thin, her mind began to pick things out.
“I was contacted seasons ago by a collector of artifacts. A rich man. He made multiple offers to buy your mother’s armlet, even threatened me once. I wouldn't sell,” he coughed, and she could see his shoulders slump with the statement. “I should have just sold.” He grew quiet, and Shawna's heart stopped beating with terror at the thought that he was dying. After a moment, though, his head struggled to rise once more.
“You...you knew this was coming?” she asked, ice running through her veins.
“No,” he grunted, spitting blood onto the floor. “I didn't even know who the buyer was. I recognize these men, though. Their weapons, their accents...they're Galanians, dear—Imperial Military.”
Shawna’s stomach tried to crawl to her feet.
“So there's an army coming?”
“Doubtful,” he said. “These men are military, but they’re no normal scouting party. They know what they’re looking for, they knew where to find it. It means that someone powerful wants the armlet, Shawna. There weren’t any higher officers among them, though, so there must be more of them around somewhere.” He sucked in a particularly painful breath and descended into a fit of wet coughing. Shawna wanted to rush to his side and wipe the blood from his face, but the ropes held her tight to the chair.
“What do I do?” she asked.
“You have to get free,” he breathed. “You have to...to run, Shawna. Take your mother's armlet and go!”
“Take the armlet?” she repeated, an irrational anger rising in her. If the armlet was the catalyst for the destruction that currently surrounded them, why in all the gods’ names would she take it with her?
“Yes!” he hissed, struggling to hold back another coughing fit. “There must be something important about it! It always gave your mother an odd feeling. She had dreams about it, Shawna. So did...so did Lya. You take that thing and run, dear. Don't let these bastards get their hands on it. If they find what they're looking for, then everyone here has died for nothing! Do you understand? Do you want Lya and Anna to have died in vain?”
Shawna rocked back from her sisters’ names like a slap in the face, the sight of her younger sisters lying in a bloody heap flashing through her mind. Shawna hadn’t seen either of her sisters cut down, but she had seen their bodies during the aftermath. Even now, the memory hollowed a hole in her chest and made it hard to breathe.
“I understand,” she said around the lump in her throat. “Where do I go?”
“Ferolan,” he coughed. “To your cousin. Warn the city, Shawna. Get word to the king!”
Before she could reply, the door slammed violently open.
“I hate to bring more bad news, but unlucky for you shits, we need to move this little operation along,” said the brigand as he strode into the room.
Now that her father had named them Galanians, Shawna thought she could see what he meant. This man had a hard look about him, but not the unkempt appearance of a bandit. His weapons were serviceable, and now that her mind was working, she realized that all of the men had been wearing the same type of chainmail. They might as well have been carrying a flag, and she had been too blind to see it.
“We don't know what you want,” Shawna's father said. Her eyes shot to his, but he betrayed nothing in the look that passed between them.
Shawna's body tensed as the Galanian approached her father. She wanted to scream, but something seized her voice before it could come out. The man smiled down at Dolland and pulled a long, thin dagger from his belt. Shawna's eyes couldn't leave the blade, even as the man spoke.
“I'm going to give you one last chance to tell me what I want to know. If you don't, I will kill you and make the same offer to your daughter. You can go to the Void knowing how much fun the two of us are going to have after your corpse goes cold. Test my resolve, old man—I'm getting tired of this game we're playing, anyway,” he said, leering at Shawna. Her skin crawled as his eyes slid over her, and dread filled her stomach at the man's meaning.
You're not leaving this house alive, her father's words echoed in her mind.
“Fuck yourself,” Dolland Llewan spat.
Her blood ran cold at the statement, and she wished that she could grab the words and stuff them back into her father's mouth. The Galanian chuckled and shook his head, reversing the grip on his dagger. Shawna caught her father's eyes, and saw her icy dread reflected there.
“Very well,” the Galanian sighed.
He slammed his dagger into her father's heart with a sudden brutal movement. Dolland Llewan let out a pained grunt and seized up in agony as blood pumped from the wound in his chest. His white shirt—already spattered with the blood from his beating—began to turn red in a bright, spreading stain.
“NO!” Shawna screamed. She struggled violently against her bindings as she tried to reach her father, but the ropes held her just as tightly as before. The Galanian stepped toward her and cuffed her across the jaw with his fist. Her sight dimmed as her head exploded with pain, and she lost a moment of time as her wits tried to reassert themselves. She vaguely felt her bonds being cut, and then her chair was knocked over. When she came back to consciousness, she was lying on the floor.
“Get up,” the man snarled. He reached down and tangled his free hand into her red-golden hair. Shawna tried to fight him off, but it still felt as if her head was packed with wool, and she couldn't summon the energy. He yanked her up from the toppled chair and put his dagger—still stained with the blood of her father—to Shawna's throat.
“This is what's going to happen. We're going upstairs and you're going to dig around dear old ma's jewelry. Find me what I want, and I'll let you go. Get any cute ideas like your father did, and you'll die naked and screaming. Understood?” he snarled.
Shawna only sobbed in reply, her eyes going to the limp form of her father.
“Move!” the Galanian snarled, prodding her in the back with the tip of his dagger.
He marched her out of the kitchens and into the greatroom. Her family's furniture was mostly intact, though odd implements and heirlooms lay scattered around the floor. Shawna cried out in alarm as she was prodded past the bloodied corpse of her father's chamberlain. He had been in his sixty-second spring, and had lost his wife to the plague that took Shawna's mother and older brother. His dead eyes now stared sightlessly upward, away from the gaping wound in his stomach.
A second Galanian came into sight as Shawna’s captor marched her toward the stairs. He was dressed in the same nondescript chain armor, and had a sheathed longsword at his side. He wore no helm, which allowed Shawna to see the hungry look on his face as his eyes crawled up and down her body.
“Don't kill her before I get a turn, Corporal,” he said as they passed by.
“Have you found anything?”
“Trinkets, coin. Nothing like what we're looking for,” the man replied. “Looks like a lot of good horses outside, though.”
“Have everything of value brought to this room. If it won't fit in a chest and we can't spend it, leave it where it lies.”
“Aye, Corporal. And the girl? Sergeant Janks has one outside, but she's not as pretty as this one.”
Shawna's skin crawled with disgust, and her hands began to shake.
“Well, that all depends on her—doesn't it, sweet-meats?” the man at her back said, laughing low in his throat. His hand tightened in her hair once again and he pushed her along. “Tell the boys not to burn a
nything yet. The colonel will want to set up for the night here, and I'll not have the Lieutenant crawling up my arse because you lot can't control yourselves. Shit rolls downhill, Pellim. Got it?”
“Got it, Corporal.”
“Good. We'll be upstairs.”
The corporal prodded her toward the staircase and Shawna went without protest. Her limbs felt numb as she climbed toward her family's rooms. She could hear screams from somewhere out in front of the manor, and she thought she recognized the voice of one of the kitchen girls. Shawna felt suddenly nauseous at the thought of what these men had in store for her.
No matter what they tell you, you will not leave this house alive.
Her thoughts raced as the Galanian led her down the hallway on the upper level, toward her father's suite at the end. The door was ajar, but the man still slammed her into it as they stepped inside, chuckling the way a half-stupid child would laugh as he ripped the limbs from a frog. It was more humiliating than painful, but the urge to launch herself at the man and rip his eyes out blossomed, nonetheless.
She resisted it, even as he grabbed her by the upper arms and tossed her into the floor. She bit her tongue as she went down, but refused to let the pain show on her face. Shawna had a moment of fierce panic at the thought of the corporal crawling atop her, but he was looking around the room.
It was a spacious suite—the largest in the manor—and decorated as any provincial lord's home might be. Her father had a large covered bed that was festooned with white sheets, which had been the work of her late mother. Dolland Llewan had never changed it in the wake of his wife's death. He’d always said that she’d be angry if he went and changed her bedsheets, and her ghost would come back to nag him from the Void.
Shawna felt an instant of pure sorrow, but forced it down before the Galanian could see it.
A large fireplace stood on the far wall, while three windows looked out over the sunlit hills of her father's pastures. The light streaming in through the windows fell upon the detritus scattered about the floor. The soldiers had no doubt ransacked the room some time ago, and had come up empty handed. Shawna's muscles burned with the effort of movement. Being tied to the chair in the kitchens had stiffened her.
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