by H. M. Clarke
Copyright © H. M. Clarke 2020
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published in The United States of America in 2020
Sentinel Publishing, Dayton, Ohio.
Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
Also by H.M. Clarke
The Way to Freedom Series
1: The Kalarthri
1.1: The Cavern of Sethi
2: The Dream Thief
3. The Awakening
4. The Enemy Within
5. The Unknown Queen
6. The Searchers
7. The Whisperer
8. The Deceiver
9. The Great Game
10. The Gathering
The Complete Season One–Books 1-5
The Complete Season Two–Books 6-10
Coming Soon
11. The Mark of Fate
The Blackwatch Chronicles
1: Proven
2: Uprising
The Book: A Blackwatch Chronicles Short Story
Coming Soon
3: Sacrifice
The Verge
1: The Enclave
Coming Soon
2: Citizen Erased
The Order
1: Winter’s Magic
Marion: An ‘Order’ Short Story
John McCall Mysteries
1: Howling Vengeance
◆◆◆
DEDICATION
As always, this book is dedicated to my two beautiful children, Keith and Ariadne.
◆◆◆
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
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
Other Books by H.M. Clarke
About the Author
◆◆◆
“Fortune favors the Bold”
-Motto of the Brookhaven Blackwatch
◆◆◆
CHAPTER ONE
Blonde hair fluttered gently in the breeze before tangling itself in the stems of long grass growing nearby. It stood out starkly against the red slowly seeping onto the rocky ground. The face was pale, cold. Brown eyes staring, lifeless into the bright blue sky above. Bright polished armor gleamed in the weak sunlight. What could be seen of the plate design was old, outdated. It had also been pierced and crushed, as had the body within it. A sword rested near to the out-flung hand, and a golden coronet glittered atop the helm.
A puff of breath through the mouth and the smell and taste of blood filled the air. A step forward and a shadow loomed over the dead. A colossal head, a long sinuous neck, wide, outspread wings. A roar vibrated through the throat and sorrow engulfed everything.
Ryn Weaver woke with a start and could not help the sob that escaped her lips as the sorrow from her dreams followed her into wakefulness. She looked up through the branches of a tree to the dark, starry sky above. It was still night, and this was no day lit mountain top. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath to steady herself and listened to her surroundings.
The night was still, so there was no breeze to stir the trees. A distant snort told her that one of the horses on the picket line was awake. To her left, Cornelius Ashe snored softly in his bedroll. On her right, Dagan Drake slept soundlessly. Ryn opened her eyes again and found herself staring at the back of Dagan’s head. He was lying on his side, and she could just make out the slight rise and fall of his shoulder as he breathed in the darkness.
“SSSRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZ”.
The sound flashed through the campsite. Groans and a few cuss words spilled out as people were startled awake from their slumber.
“DONAL!” Banar Demaris yelled from beyond Dagan.
While Ryn had been distracted by the noise, Dagan had leveraged himself up on an elbow to see what was going on. “Ashe, lean over and shake him awake,” he said.
Ryn sat up on her bedroll and watched as Ashe flung back his blankets and leaned over a row of saddlebags and shook something vigorously on the other side. “Donal, wake up.”
A muffled growl was heard as a snore was stopped before it could fully escape. “Wait, what?” came a sleepy voice.
Ashe moved back as a tousled haired Donal Fergus slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “Is it time to get up already?”
“Donal, you woke us all up. Again!” Banar shouted at him.
“Leave him be, Banar,” Vannik Osega said as he sat up and scrubbed a hand through long, gray hair that now stood at odd angles from his head. “He only came off prisoner duty at midnight, which reminds me, I should get ready to go and take my shift with Lily.”
“What time is it, anyway?” Donal said as he shoved his black hair away from his face.
“It’s not far off dawn,” Dagan said as he threw off his blankets. “And since we are now all up, with some time to spare…” He let his voice trail off as his eyes settled on Ashe who gulped in startled surprise.
◆◆◆
Ashe leapt sideways as a bolt of blue energy streaked past his head to slam into the trunk of the tree behind him. He spun on his heel and threw his shield up in time to block another blast. Its impact was felt right through his arm, but the blue flame barely lasted a few seconds before dissipating to nothing.
“Okay. That’s enough. I’ve got all I need.”
Ashe looked up over his shield at Dagan, an eyebrow raised in surprise. “Really? We’ve barely even started.”
They were in a clearing surrounded by trees within shouting distance of the prisoner caravan. They would be at Kaldor, the capital, by early afternoon and would hand their charges over to the Aequitas Tribunal to stand trial for treason.
Dagan leaned on his staff and let the blue runes running along its length slowly fade away back into the dark wood.
“Yeah, Dagan, you didn’t even tickle him,” Ryn said from behind the mage. “Donal does worse to me during our practice bouts.”
“Come on, now Ryn, you can’t still be sore about me tagging you in the butt with that fireball last month?” Donal Fergus called back from his safe position leaning against a tree.
“It was a lucky shot.”
Ashe closed his eyes and tried to hide his grin behind his shield. It looked as if Donal and Ryn were about to launch into one of their playful arguments, insulting each other until they both concede to each other something good about their fighting styles.
“A lucky shot is all it takes.” Dagan’s voice rose to stop the banter before it could start and turned to look at Ryn. “And considering how you like to throw yourself in front of dangerous objects Kathryn, you of all people should know this.”
Ashe felt a tickle of amusement and he looked across to his Pair. Donal was grinning from ear to ear. “And you won’t always have me around to magically put you back together.”
“That was only once-”
“And once is enough.” Th
e crack of pain that slipped into Dagan’s voice caught Ashe by surprise and the look of concern on Ryn’s face as she took a step towards her Pair made his chest constrict in anxiety. “Kathryn, you have to learn that you are not invulnerable. The first thing that you should NOT do is rush blindly into a situation. You won’t always have us; have me, to pull you back out of the fire once you jump in.”
Ryn looked about to reply, but Dagan shook his head and straightened. He turned to him, “Ashe, you can stand down.”
Ashe dropped his shield and let his arm slip from its leather strapping so that he could lean it against his leg. The face of the shield showed some slight scorching, and it looked as if some paint had bubbled, apart from that it was undamaged. Nothing that can’t be sanded and repainted. He looked back at Dagan. “So?”
“You definitely have the talent of a Jdari. That energy orb should have shattered your shield, yet it dissipated after coming in contact with your aura.”
“You were hitting me full strength?” Ashe asked in surprise. Dagan just glared at him and continued speaking.
“Your Talent will improve with training. Your issue then will be that you are resistant to magical healing.”
Ashe shrugged. “That just gives me more reason to train to avoid getting hit. Which reminds me–Ryn, you up for a short morning practice before breakfast?”
“Sure, if Dagan has nothing else planned for us,” she responded with a cheeky grin.
Ashe shyly grinned back at her. He enjoyed practicing sword and shield with Ryn. It was the only time he had alone with her, even if it was to beat each other black and blue with practice weapons. He was quick and assertive in combat, now if only he could be that way in other aspects of his life as well.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Dagan said.
“I knew it.” Ashe heard Bron mutter. The man was sitting on a fallen tree behind Dagan, throwing bits of jerked meat to be caught by a large black crow sitting on one of the dead tree’s upraised roots. He could hear the wood creak whenever Bron shifted his stocky frame. His brother Vannik, along with Lily and her Pair Banar were doing their turn boosting the magical containment on the prison wagon that held the Traitor Ben Henly. They were half a day out from the Capital City of Kaldor and from handing their magically criminal prisoners over to the Aequitas Tribunal for trial.
Dagan planted the steel shod heel of his staff into the ground and leaned against it. “We still have the issue that Henly hinted at when we captured him. That there is a traitor in the ranks of the Tribunal.”
“A traitor that wants to get you out of the way, Dagan,” Ryn interjected.
“Do you really believe anything that comes out of that man’s mouth to be true?” Bron scoffed. “You and I both know he has a forked tongue, and he knows how to use it.”
Dagan grimaced. “You do have a point Bron, but I believe him about this.”
Ashe watched as Bron shook his head, letting the intricate braids of his beard jiggle against his broad chest.
“I have had confirmation from another source that backs up these claims.”
“Was that in the message the bird bought to you last night?” Ryn asked. A loud caw came across the clearing followed by a high pitched warbling. Ryn glared at the crow before speaking. “Peck says that the pigeon was too much of a chatter box for being a confidential letter carrier.”
“Not everyone speaks Bird either,” Donal said as he adjusted his shoulder against the rough bark of the tree. “You and Peck are the only ones I know who does. I think the Tribunal’s secrets are safe.”
Ryn opened her mouth to reply, but Dagan’s voice quickly cut across them. “Please, enough! Peck, can you go up into the trees and make sure that we are not overheard by other ears?”
The crow puffed up his feathers and cocked his head as he looked across at Ryn. “It’s all right, Peck. Call out to me if you see anything.” The bird squawked and then launched itself up through the branches into the sky.
Ashe’s gaze dropped back to Ryn. As long as he had known her, Peck the Nabolean crow had been with her. He didn’t know that much about Nabolean crows except that they were intelligent and exceedingly loyal to those they consider ‘family’. Every Blackwatch member standing in this clearing had felt the rake of the bird’s claws in their hair after either earning the birds, or Ryn’s, displeasure.
“It seems that things may be worse than Henly implied. My Praefect did not want me to air the Tribunal’s dirty laundry out to outsiders. But he did leave it for me to decide, and I have. He hinted that there may be more than one person involved with this business with Henly; he does not know who we can trust within the Tribunal nor how high up this might go.”
“Why would your Praefect care about what you think? You are a freelancer,” Bron said as he rose up from his seat and moved into the clearing. His movement triggered the others who had been standing around the clearing to step in as well. Ashe stepped forward to complete the circle that had formed. The only people missing from their group were Vannik, Lily and Banar.
“That makes me independent from the Tribunal and not influenced by any of its politics and infighting. Apparently I have garnered a reputation for doing the ‘right thing’”.
“Yeah, I’ll give you that, Dagan,” Bron grudgingly replied.
“Dagan, what have you decided?” Ryn asked.
“My Praefect has asked that I investigate these allegations. I am now also Blackwatch, and you are my team, assigned to me by the Knights Commander of Brookhaven Keep. And you are the only people that I trust to help me do this. I have been in contact with Knights Commander, Doran and Hembrook; they have also authorized your extended leave to help with ‘Tribunal Matters’. And Bron, my Praefect has authorized me to extend our deal to include any work you and your brother do in regard to this investigation”.
“That is generous of your Praefect, but if we do this, I want what’s left of Vannik’s sentence written off.”
Ashe watched the exchange, saw the muscles in Dagan’s face moved effortlessly into a frown and look toward Ryn. She stared back at him and she gave him an almost imperceptible shrug- Ashe had only seen it because he knew her so well. The Magister then turned back to Bron.
“Very well, I consider that an acceptable tradeoff. I will authorize the remit of the rest of Vannik’s sentence if you both agree to help bring these traitors to justice.”
“So, what is the plan, Dagan?” Donal asked.
“What is said is to be kept only within this group. We can trust no one else, especially if they are Tribunal.”
“So, the Tribunal officers here-”
“Are to be kept in the dark about our new orders. Until we know how deep this treason goes, we trust no one from the Tribunal.”
“Does that include your Praefect?” Bron asked.
“At this point in time… Yes.”
Bron just grunted in reply and ran a hand over his intricately braided beard.
“The plan, Dagan?” Donal asked again.
“The plan is to not let the Tribunal know our full strength. There are only three people there who know that I am now part of the Blackwatch and none of them know exactly how many of you are with me. I don’t want it widely known within the Tribunal how many of the Brookhaven Blackwatch with me there actually are. This afternoon we are due to arrive in the Capital, and we will need the mages to help with prisoner containment, so Donal and Lily will go with me and the caravan to ensure that the traitors are placed securely in the Tribunal’s Watch house.”
“What about us?” Ryn asked. Ashe leaned forward, interested in Dagan’s answer.
“Banar will come with us, and at a pinch, I want him to pretend that he is my warrior pair.”
“But?-” Ashe heard Ryn’s chagrin in her voice until she was cut off by a wave of Dagan’s hand.
“They will expect to see my Pair and I don’t want them to know it is you.”
“So, what are we to do then?” Ashe asked before Ryn could get too
upset.
“I would like you and Kathryn to patrol this area, looking to see if the caravan had been followed.”
“Are you afraid that these lunatics are going to try and break Henly and his sycophants out of one of the most guarded places in Mrycea?” Bron asked, his skepticism plain in his voice.
Dagan turned his head to look straight at Bron. “Yes. I am.” He turned back to Ashe and Ryn.
“There is an abandoned farmhouse in the woods southwest of Kaldor’s main gate. I want you both to set up there as your main camp once you have reported in to the Knights Commander of the Blackwatch Barracks in Kaldor. And that will be everyone’s escape place if something goes wrong within the city.” All heads nodded back to Dagan, though Bron gave him a disparaging snort. “Kathryn and Ashe, while we are in the city, I want you to scout around looking for any signs of groups of people moving around in the woods off of the main roads. As Ashe is a Jdari, he should be able to shield you both from any magi if you run into any trouble and need to make a quick escape. If you run into any trouble with non-magi, well, you both know how to use those pointy bits of metal strapped to your sides,” Dagan finished with a grin.
“Definitely,” Ashe said, patting his sword hilt.
