Reaver's Wail
Page 1
Contents
REAVERS WAIL
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
The Most Important Thing You Can Do to Spread the Word
About the Author
Reaver's Wail
The Legion of the Wind: Book One
by Corey Pemberton
Website: http://www.coreypemberton.net
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cI2YO5
Email: corey@coreypemberton.net
Copyright © 2017 by Corey Pemberton. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited. The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about The Legion of the Wind series, to help me spread the word.
Thank you for supporting my work.
CHAPTER ONE
I'm getting too old for this, Argus thought.
Only thirty. But a good half of those years spent warring and whoring and everything in between. It wore on a man. Ground him down so every day ran into the next and all the seasons became an endless fall.
He trudged through the narrow streets and into the driving rain. It stung his eyes, sloshed inside his nice leather boots and soaked his feet. Between that and the shock of brown hair matted against his face, he could hardly see a thing.
Just a few more jobs, he told himself. Then a quiet life, and a little farmhouse in the country.
Not before he took care of the woman standing between him and the life he so desired. Hardly a woman, really. More like an overgrown girl.
Argus followed her through the pothole-ridden streets. As she wandered half a block in front of him, he wondered how someone so naive had made it this deep into the frontier of Calladon without getting herself killed.
He'd seen her poster hanging in the flea-infested inn which served as his current home. After reading the five hundred dragons she commanded—an insane price for a small-time powder dealer—he had half a mind to go scouring the countryside for her himself.
But fate, such a fickle mistress, had other plans.
Little had Argus known that very woman would stroll right into their little secret drinking hole. She had smiled and tried to act casual. But the scoundrels who frequented Rafe's speakeasy knew better.
Her bronze skin had given her away as a native of the Comet Tail Isles. Between that and the way she crinkled her nose sipping on Rafe's heady ale, Argus pegged this as her first trip away from the islands she called home.
He'd watched her make eyes all night at the men throwing dice. She drank little, and said even less. At one point she'd whispered in his ear to ask if he wanted any magic powders, and he had half a mind to slap her right there for her carelessness.
Argus had watched and waited until the woman gave up and made her exit. Then he paid his tab, threw on his cloak, and followed her.
He gained on her now.
She glanced over her shoulder. Their eyes met, and the Comet Tailer hastened her pace. Hull's streets twisted and doubled back until Argus lost all sense of direction. Onward she went, past a blacksmith and a little cluster of houses with smoke curling from their chimneys.
Argus smiled.
It didn't matter if he was after rabbits or squirrels or people. The joy of the hunt was always the same.
The girl reached an intersection and ducked behind a ruined temple. Argus stopped at the corner and listened to her footsteps echo on the ancient cobblestones. She had led him to the oldest part of town, a relic of the Kingdom of Eld's rule one thousand years past.
Her footsteps stopped.
Argus drew his broadsword, slowly so as to not make a sound. His smile turned into a grin as he lingered at the corner and watched the moonlight dapple its flawless steel. Reaver. He'd washed her red too many times to count.
He readied his blade and edged around the corner.
Whoosh.
Argus ducked just before the hammer struck his temple. He jumped aside, half a dozen pints of ale sloshing about in his belly, and pointed his sword at the woman's throat.
“Easy, girl.”
“Scoundrel! Leave me be!” She receded into the ruins.
Argus grinned, a wicked grin that gave life to the scar running down his cheek. The girl swung her hammer again and screamed, “Help! Help me!”
But no one came.
No one would, either. Not in this piss stain frontier town. Here lived the drunkards and hard-drivers. Many were fleeing from justice themselves.
He dodged a few more hammer blows, chuckling until she tired herself out. When he lost his patience, he hacked her weapon with the flat edge of his sword and sent it skittering across the street.
Her eyes went wide. They were amber and huge—the same size as a doe's.
She turned and ran.
“Fine,” said Argus, sheathing Reaver and lunging into the ruins after her. “We'll do it the hard way.”
The woman didn't reply. She dodged left, then right around the crumbled columns. Deeper into the maze she scampered, over chunks of silvery glintstone shining in the moonlight.
Faster than she looks, he thought.
He went in after her, vaulting over chunks of wall until he found himself in a little clearing. She was running around in circles there, trying to squeeze through gaps in the stone or find something low enough to climb.
With her back to the wall, she turned and faced him with open palms.
“What do you want?” Anger lurked in her eyes, but just below it was fear. She wore the look patricians from Azmar wore when dragged too far from their palaces. She'd never seen real danger—and hadn't a clue what to do with it.
Argus stepped closer, hand on his sword hilt, and said, “You.”
Her eyes rattled around like the dice being thrown in Rafe's speakeasy that very moment. “N-no. That's not—is it the powder? Because I'll give you all of it. Here…” She took off the leather satchel strapped over her shoulder and thrust it toward him. “Take it!”
He smiled. “I will.”
A shadow moved across the girl's face. Argus looked up, but by the time he saw what was happening the shadow was already on her. She screamed. They tangled amid the powdery temple dust until the stranger hopped up and pinned her to the ground w
ith his boot.
“Fancy seeing you here, Argus,” the man said. He was lean and wiry, with dark brown eyes. He wore his hair in a ponytail, as was typical of men from Tokat. His skin was just a few shades lighter than the shadows lurking in the clearing's edge. He was smiling.
“Still sore about our dice game, Harun?”
The man laughed. “I've never been a good loser. But what's a few pints of ale compared to all that powder?”
He opened the woman's satchel and whistled. Inside, row after row of little glass vials glinted in the moonlight.
Argus whiffed those intoxicating scents even half a dozen yards away. She had quite the variety in there. Enough raw ingredients to make any recipe magic fiends might crave.
“Please,” the girl said, squirming beneath the sole of Harun's boot. “Take the powder. Just let me go!”
“Unlikely,” said Argus.
“You can't harm me here,” she said. “This is sacred ground.”
“Not anymore,” said Harun. “Those gods are dead and gone. If they were ever here at all…” He grabbed her by the arm.
Argus moved closer and lowered his hand to the hilt of his sword. “She's mine, Harun. Let her go.”
The Tokati man grinned. “Then how come I'm the one holding her?”
Argus grimaced and moved closer still. “My how the mighty have fallen. You were a proud member of the Legion of the Wind once—not quite the fighter I was, mind you, but respectable in any scrap—and now look at you. A poacher.”
Harun pulled the Comet Tailer to her feet and in the same movement drew a long, curved dagger from his cloak. “As long as I'm rich, call me whatever you will.”
Argus spat into the temple ruins. “Poacher.”
“That's only one small step lower than bounty hunter.”
“The lowest of the low.”
Harun shrugged. “Whatever it takes to buy ale and bread. Times are tough out there, my friend.”
Argus unleashed a string of curses in the Vogath tongue, whose members had taught him to fight so long ago, and drew Reaver halfway out of her scabbard. Every muscle in his body tensed. He watched Harun's eyes, which were twitching.
They both knew the truth: if that blade came all the way out, it wouldn't stop until one or both of them were dead.
Harun pressed against the ruined temple wall and lowered his dagger to the girl's throat.
“No,” Argus said. “Wait.”
“Don't come any closer. I don't want to do this. Such a waste. But if you won't be a gentleman and at least share the bounty… hey, how much is she worth anyway?”
Argus studied the beautiful woman in front of him, who'd stopped squirming and was doing her best to stay still with Harun's dagger at her throat.
“She's worth five hundred dragons,” he said.
“What?” said the girl.
Harun whooped and pulled the dagger away. He eased his grip on her arm, holding her like a newborn kitten instead of a captive.
“That's right,” Argus said. “Five hundred dragons.”
Harun smirked and said, “All for a little powder dealer with a pretty face? That can't be right. If someone's willing to pay that much—”
“I know, I know,” said Argus. “But as long as they pay up, it isn't my concern.” He smiled and held out his hand. “So what do you say, Harun? Two hundred fifty a piece?”
The Tokati holstered his dagger, then he and Argus clasped forearms. “Agreed. Looks like the Legion of the Wind is reuniting.”
“Looks like it. Hopefully it's a lot less bloody this time around.” Argus grabbed the woman's other arm and started to lead them out of the ruins.
“Wait!” she shouted. “What do you mean a bount—five hundred dragons?” She threw a few punches at the bounty hunters, and when those didn't have the effect she was looking for, let her limbs go limp.
“That's cute,” Argus said as he and Harun lifted her off the ground. “For that kind of coin I'll carry you all the way to Eldhaven myself.”
“Eldhaven? That's an awful idea. I need to get to Azmar. Please. You don't know what you're getting yourself into. I have something. Something that could very well—”
“Enough,” Argus said. “There's good reason why someone is willing to part with that kind of money. But I'd rather not hear it.”
“It's for the best,” said Harun, as they shuffled back into the deserted alley, which was quiet save for the faint creak of a watermill. “We don't want any complications.”
The woman snorted. “Too late for that.”
“We ride the rest of the night,” Argus said. “The farther we can get away from Hull the better. Word travels fast out on the frontier. This place is crawling with bounty hunters. I'm surprised you made it this far without one of them picking you up.”
Harun stopped in the street and picked up the woman's hammer. He twirled it and studied it in the moonlight. “You are an artificer?”
She said nothing.
“She is,” said Argus. “But instead of using that to craft the scientific marvels of the world, she decided to swing it at me like a war hammer.”
Harun chuckled. “A woman full of surprises.”
She glared at her captors. “You haven't the slightest idea. If you knew what I was carrying you'd—”
“That's enough,” Argus said. “Don't make me gag you.”
She smiled. “The truth will come out. It always does.”
“Climb up the Bonefrost Mountains and shout it across the world for all I care… after I get my dragons.”
“After we get our dragons,” Harun said.
“Right…” They passed the tiny cluster of houses and shops. The street was empty, the windows and doorways darkened. Soon enough Rafe would have his fill of the drunken louts and kick them out of his barn turned tavern. There would be plenty of swearing, and maybe a knife fight or two, before the roosters crowed.
If everything went according to plan, they'd be well away from it.
“Come on,” Argus said. “It's late, and the road is long.”
CHAPTER TWO
When Argus felt the girl's head slump against his back and couldn't bear Harun's complaining any longer, he called a halt to their journey.
“We'll rest there for a while,” he said, pointing into a scorched ravine between a pair of gentle hills. “If we go down to the bottom no one from the road will be able to see us.”
Harun nodded and guided his horse down the slope. “Finally. Took you long enough to find your wits.”
Argus led his mare after him. “We both know the frontier is crawling with scoundrels such as yourself. And five hundred dragons is enough to turn a decent man into one—at least for the moment. I'm not looking for a fight.”
“Neither am I. But if that is the path written in the sands of fate, I'd like to be awake enough to stand a chance.”
They dismounted in the hollow of the ravine, surrounded by burnt farmland. Argus dragged the girl off the horse and laid her on the ground. Their horses staggered over to a nearby creek bed. Only a trickle ran through these parts. But men and horses both lowered their lips and drank their fill.
“Ah,” said Harun, water droplets trembling on his lips. “That's better than ale. See about my horse? It's time for bed.”
Argus grunted and waved him on. He shook the girl, who'd identified herself as Nasira, awake and removed the strip of leather from her mouth. “You better have some water before the horses get it all.”
Her eyes flew open as she scuttled away from him. Nasira rolled herself into a ball and groaned. She looked around. “Where the blazes are we?”
“About four hours closer to getting my dragons. That's all you need to know.”
Nasira shook her head at him, disoriented, her eyes creased with disappointment. The abduction hadn't just been a terrible nightmare. “Where's the other scoundrel?”
“Harun?” Argus pointed twenty yards up the ravine, where his former mercenary brother lay slumped against his
pack looking up into the night sky.
“Wonderful,” she said. “Listen, you can't take me to Eldhaven.”
“Don't make me gag you again.”
She held up her hands. “I know, I know. But there's still time to turn back…”
Argus pointed to the creek. “Drink.”
“Buffoon.” She shot to her feet and brushed herself off, sending grass scattering in every direction. Argus watched her walk over to the water. For a moment he almost felt sorry for her. She was young and beautiful and incredibly naive. Then he surveyed the scorched countryside around them and remembered: there was little room for sympathy in times such as these.
Once Nasira had her fill she sprawled with her things near the creek. In a matter of seconds she was snoring, limbs splayed on her earthen bed.
Argus found the remnants of a half-burned scrub tree, a rarity in this graveyard of wood and grass, and tied up the horses. He sat there, his body tired but his mind restless. This spot offered a decent vantage point of the road. The sun's first rays peeked over the horizon, angry and warming the air quickly.
He didn't see any travelers.
That would have been a rarity just three years ago—the last time he was in Calladon. This was one of the few civilized places back then. On its roads trafficked a steady stream of farmers and merchants carting their goods into the nearby towns. There were occasional highwaymen, of course, but the Calladonians dealt justice swiftly, hanging the criminals along the roadside.
Now that road was empty.
Argus looked around and didn't recognize a single other landmark that harkened back to more civilized times. There were only destruction and death here. Casualties of the War of Five Tribes. It was finally over, settled with Emperor Eamon's decisive victory over the last of the independent tribes.
Yet the casualties lingered. Most of the people who tilled this earth were dead and gone. A few had wandered into the cities, begging and scraping out an existence in the newly-unified empire.
They probably wish the war had taken them, Argus thought.
He didn't care much for politics. Despised them, actually. But politics had taken a keen interest in him. He'd served lords and chancellors and queens and religious orders. Their names and titles didn't matter. In the end everyone served the same master: the almighty dragon.