THE WARCASTER CHRONICLES: VOLUME ONE
THE WAY OF CAINE
MILES HOLMES
Cover by
Froilan Gardner
Illustrated by
Nikolay Mikhailovich
privateerpress.com
skullislandx.com
CONTENTS
MAP
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
EPILOGUE
IRON KINGDOMS INDEX
PROLOGUE
AR 596: Merywyn
The old man stumbled down the dim corridor, leaving his lavish bedroom in panic. He tripped over thick carpet, and tumbled into an awkward heap. With a whimper, he scrambled to his feet, and lurched forward again. He risked a glance over his shoulder as he went, peering into the shadows of his departed doorway, mouth agape.
Nothing moved.
At the end of the corridor, a grand balcony overlooked a wide hall. The walls were laden with priceless paintings, almost too many to count, though he could name each and every one. The balcony divided left and right into a polished stone stairwell spiraling three stories down before joining the main floor. As he neared the stairwell, he looked back once more, his breath ragged.
Nothing pursued.
No one could be seen at all, in fact. Neither guard nor servant was about, and most of the torches along the corridor had been snuffed. Finally reaching the balcony, he grasped the polished marble rail and called down for a servant. Breathless, his voice was reduced to a faint rasp.
No answer below.
Enough of this, he thought, taking a deep breath. The demons that hounded him were the stuff of his dreams. There was no more to it than that. Granted, he had endured terrible nightmares for months now, but he was a fool to let them get the better of his nerves like this. He turned from the balcony, scowling …
… to witness a figure appear from smoke.
He blinked, his scowl turned to astonishment. Time enough passed for eyes to meet, and not one second longer. A silent shockwave of spectral force surged into him, borne along tendrils of incandescent blue mist. The old man was a rag doll, tossed up and over the rail. He plunged three stories down, a gasp in his throat. There wasn’t time for more. Before he could draw breath to scream, he found himself eye to eye with the well preserved snarl of his prized white bear-skin.
Beneath it, the marble floor ended his fall as abruptly as it began.
PART ONE
Five Years Ago
Spring, AR 591: Bainsmarket
“C’mon, Allie, help me up!” Tylen Reilly’s pale face was flushed, his breathing hard. The drain pipe groaned as its shoddy bracings threatened to pop from the brick wall. The youth swayed, unable to pull himself over the eaves.
Allister Caine, reclined as he was atop a rooftop haunt, leaned forward with a smirk. He raised a worn black boot, and held it in mocking suspense, as though ready to kick his waifish friend back down the three-story height.
“C’mon then! Some of us have to do this the hard way, you know,” Tylen groaned, more annoyed then alarmed. Caine nodded, the smirk still in place, and reached forward. With a forceful tug, Tylen was up and over, thudding to the sooty rooftop with a grunt. Rolling over, he glared at Caine, and then shook his head in disgust. “Ech! My ’cerest thanks, yeh horse’s ass.”
Caine straightened his thick canvas jacket before reclining against the rooftop once more. He gazed beyond the city walls. Bainsmarket at dusk sprawled out before him. The working-class neighborhood bent and sagged becoming a canyon of tin roofs and brick walls. Laundry lines strung across balconies festooned with linens and undergarments, and chimneys puffed here and there. A half-mile west as the crow flies, Caine could see the towering smokestacks of the pulp mills churning thick black smoke in silhouette against a blood red sky. Even from a distance, the rancid stench reached Caine’s nostrils. The smokestacks reminded him of Tylen’s errand.
“Well?”
Caine’s red-haired, lanky companion nodded sullenly, taking a seat beside Caine. He pulled a frayed satchel from his shoulder, setting it before him. “Why I should give ye any is beyond me, what with such abuses as I suffer.”
Caine smiled, returning his gaze out over the sprawl, but nevertheless held a hand out. Tylen reached into the satchel, bringing forth cured meats, bread, and a few wine-dipped Ordic cigars. Rolling his eyes at Caine’s outstretched hand, he passed one of the stogies over and then took one for himself. The elder, Caine, twenty years old and lean as a whip, brushed back a wave of jet black hair and produced a wooden match from his boot. Striking it against the nearest chimney, he cupped the sputtering flame and held it to his cigar. Tylen leaned in and, likewise, lit up. Puffing contentedly, the two young men sat back against the roof and enjoyed the view.
“A proper feast we have here, but what was the take?” Caine said with a puff and a sidelong glance at Tylen.
“Ech ... not as good.” Tylen retrieved a change-purse from his jacket, tossing it onto the tin roof. Five coppers spilled from an otherwise empty bag. Caine rolled his eyes, to which his friend shrugged.
“Market square ‘peared near empty today.”
“All week.” Caine corrected, frowning.
A scream came from below, quickly muffled and followed by the sounds of a scuffle.
Caine and Tylen scrambled to the edge of the roof and peered down into the twilight shadows. Below, two men shoved a third to the wall. The larger of the two, a pudgy man with a clean shaven scalp, held the sobbing victim in place while the other, a lean brute in close fitting dark clothes, pressed close to speak. Even from their lofty vantage, the man’s visage was unnerving to behold. Either a wound or some deformity had left him with only a narrow gap where a nose should be. The victim protested, his voice shrill. The ham-fisted enforcer responded by punching him in the stomach, hard enough for the man to double over. The skull-faced man laughed, a grating hideous sound, and yanked the victim’s head back up by his hair. A moment later, the victim relented, reaching to pull something from out of his boot.
“Ech! The hounds are out.” Tylen snorted, eyes narrowing. “That’s Horace, eh? Boss’ Dakin’s second?”
Caine nodded. “No mistaking that beauty. Looks like a collection night.”
He looked at Tylen, lips curling into a grin. “Maybe this is a chance to make up for a bad week?”
Tylen laughed. Caine did not. The ginger-haired youth swallowed, his face twisting to a grimace.
“Yer not kidding.”
In the shadows of a twisting alley, the pair awaited their marks. Caine leaned back against the wall of an alcove, listening to the footfalls of Horace and his goon. In the alcove opposite, Tylen did likewise. The youth looked across to Caine, his face sickly pale. Caine eased him down with a gesture, his ear still cocked. Tylen nodded back, and pulled a hood over his face. Caine heard the footfalls nearly there. It was now or never. The signal given, Tylen bolted around the corner and into the enforcer. Both men cried out. Tylen’s light hands clasped a shiny bauble at the large man’s belt, and in the next instant, he was sprinting down the alley.
“Blighter took me time piece, he did!” The big man shouted, turning to watch as Tylen escaped. Horace was not so slow-witted.
“Well?!” he shouted, clapping the larger man on the back as if driving an ox. The thug stumbled ahead to give chase with heavy footfalls. Horace shook his head, frustrated, then made to follow his henchman.
Caine stepped from the shadows, Horace’s back to him. His brow furrowed in concentration, and his eyes flashed with an unnatural light.
Magic was coming.
Most times, he kept it back, hidden. Never show them the ace up your sleeve, he’d learned. Now was different. Nobody here but ugly and me, he smiled. The magic bent to his will, manifesting and curling around him in an incandescent circle of runes. He put a hand out, and force surged ahead, catching Horace square in the backside.
The mobster tumbled forward into the slick stones of the alley with a grunt. He slid face first along the slime and muck that lined the alley before coming to rest. The enforcer ahead of him was oblivious on his fool’s errand, shouting after Tylen with impotent rage.
Caine fell upon Horace like a vulture, snatching an overstuffed coin-purse with practiced ease. Horace flailed, trying to fight off his attacker.
“Do yeh have any idea who I am?!”
Their eyes met briefly in the shadows, and Caine winked in reply. Then he was gone, slipping back into the alcove from which he had come.
He heard the skull-faced man getting to his feet, cursing. Caine’s attention fixed upon the eaves of the rooftops above his shallow alcove.
“Yer as good as dead, little dog! D’ye hear me?! Yeh’ve nowhere to go now!” Horace screamed from around the corner.
Caine smiled, the magic within him surging still. Focused on the eaves, the air bent around on him like a soap bubble. The dead-end alcove vanished. Blinking, he found himself three stories up, crouching on the spot he had spied from below.
Not a second too soon. He turned to see the alcove just as Horace rounded the corner, a brutish looking pistol leading the way. The ugly mobster wore a feral grin, but as he saw his attacker gone, it abruptly vanished. He screamed an oath. Reaching for a barrel of rubbish, he cast it aside, spilling the contents. For good measure, he trained his pistol on a large turnip as it rolled from the upturned barrel. The shot splashed rotted pulp against the greasy brick wall. The report of his weapon echoed like a thunderclap in the confined space, and Horace shook with rage. Screaming a final time, he turned on his heel and stamped off.
“Stupid! It was stupid! Boss Dakin … he will … ” Tylen fretted as he and Caine pushed through the crowded streets on a dilapidated row of tenements. As they neared the last door in the row, the light of the gas-lamps fell short. A red door upon a broken stairwell loomed over them.
“Did the tarheels get a look at you or didn’t they?”
“No, but …”
“Ech, then give yourself some credit, why don’t you? You’ve faster feet and lighter hands than anyone I’ve ever seen. If you just had the stones to go with them, you’d be a nightmare. Now take your cut, and trouble yourself no more on it.” Caine smirked, clapping Tylen on the back.
“Will it be enough? Referrin’ as I am to your share?” Tylen called after him, his expression softening to concern.
“Maybe.” Caine said, tapping his cut from the top of the steps.
Caine watched as his ginger-haired friend melted into the flow of workers shuffling home from the mill. He turned to the door, and saw faint lights within the crooked gap in the shutters. With a deep breath, he entered.
A motley collection of weathered furniture and castoffs filled the living room. The long wooden dining table was held in balance with a stack of old books, and knitted blankets had been carefully placed over torn upholstery. If there was one thing he could say about his mother, it was that she would never let hard times rob her of her dignity. Caine took it all in with a sigh.
Despite the remains of a fire sputtering in the hearth, the house appeared empty. His sister was likely on shift now, over at the textile factory, but what of his parents?
Caine paced until he heard a faint sob from upstairs.
Bolting up the creaking steps, he found his mother alone in her bedroom, curled in a ball next to the bed. She didn’t notice his arrival, and pulled a house shawl tightly around her as she wept. Her long brown hair had been left unkempt, a rarity for her. Caine stared at her in the gloom, a lump in his throat.
“Ma?” He asked softly. Pulling herself up, she wiped her eyes, and tried to smile.
“Allister … you’re home?”
“For a moment … what’s wrong, Ma?”
“It’s nothing, Allister. Come downstairs. You’ll be hungry, I expect?”
Caine sighed, his face hardening. “Where is he?”
“Never you mind! It’s just, he ...”
“Where, Ma?” Caine pressed.
“The Boiler Plate, I think. It’s not his fault, Allister! Not this time,” she said, as resolutely as she could manage. Her eyes told a different story. He saw lines around those eyes, saw the years of worry they held, and he could not bear it. He turned to go, but paused at the doorway. Taking the still bulging coin-purse from his coat, he tossed it on the bed beside her.
“Of course it’s his fault.”
Caine opened thick double doors to reveal a roaring fire at the hearth of the Boiler Plate. All around it, tankards were struck and ruddy-faced men laughed loudly. A stone’s throw from the mill down the road, it was a full house of poor working men, rejoicing in another day done.
Caine scarcely noticed. All he could see clearly was his father Seamus hunched in a booth at the back, a full tankard before him. Actually, he was more pressed into the booth, hemmed closely on either side by two men. The paunchy old machinist pressed a wisp of graying hair across the top of his bald head, and adjusted his spectacles, but did not touch his tankard. Caine frowned. A second later, the large man next to Seamus slammed his own tankard to the table, and the elder Caine nearly jumped clear of his seat. If he didn’t know better, Caine could have sworn his father was stone cold sober and scared witless.
As he drew closer, Caine felt nauseated. The men sitting with his father were not simply drinking partners.
They were the men he’d just robbed, not an hour ago.
Caine wheeled abruptly to face the bar, for fear they might spot him through the crowd. What was his father doing with them? Caine groaned. He owed them money. What else could it be? Exactly when had things gotten so bad his father had stooped to taking a debt with the mob? Sure, things had been tight since he’d been hurt at the factory. Caine knew his father had had his share of troubles since, not least of which was the bottle. But had he not also managed a few crowns here and there with odd jobs? How had it come to this? Caine ran a hand through his hair, and elbowed his way up to the bar.
What now?
He leaned in to flag the bartender, and let a moment pass before daring a peek over his shoulder. Horace was no longer looking his way. Rather, the skull-faced mobster was distracted by a passing serving girl. Caine let out a long exhale, and faced forward again. Opening his coat, he checked the two-shot holdout in the folds of his jacket. The thing was bound together with worn cloth wrappings, and its iron sights were long since gone, but it had served him well enough in a handful of scrapes thus far.
At the stool next to him, an imposing tree-trunk of a man wrapped in a black riding cloak tilted back a tankard, and eyed him dubiously. The man had a mane of black hair tied back in a ponytail, and had set a sturdy black tricorn on the bar before him.
“You expectin’ trouble?” the stranger mused, with a voice both sonorous and gravelly. Caine flinched, closing the lapel of his coat. He narrowed his eyes at the stranger.
“Not your concern now is it?” he hissed.
The big man turned to look at Horace.
“Right. Well, if you’re going to start something, you’d best be packing more than that.” The man turned back to the bar, sipping at his tankard.
Caine stared back at him, incredulous. A tankard slid down the bar, settling before him. As he pulled the draft to his lips, he peered back to see if his father had yet appeased Horace’s demands. As he did, he choked on his drink, spilling it over the bar.
The booth where his father had been was empty.
The man in black chuckled without looking, and Caine was on his feet. Pushing past drunken patrons with a snarl, he made for the back of the tavern. He arrived at the rear exi
t, and swung the door open to reveal a narrow alley lit only by the gas lamps from an adjoining street.
There, his father was against the far wall as the enforcer repeatedly pummeled him. Seamus withered with the beating, sobbing from under upraised arms. Blood ran from his mouth and nose. Horace cackled, watching. Caine snarled, drawing his holdout in anger.
With the squeeze of the trigger, a shot echoed in the alley, and the enforcer’s cocked fist unclenched in a splash of red. An ugly hole gaped from the center of his palm, leaving tendons shredded and visible. The mobster looked at it numbly before starting to whimper, his grip on Seamus long forgotten.
“That’s enough!” Caine shouted.
Horace turned, his face twisted in rage. The mobster had his own gun out, a quad-barreled pepperbox, and it shone in the moonlight. Too late, Caine saw the brutal weapon aimed his way. In a heartbeat, Caine’s thoughts exploded into action. His eyes flashed and ethereal runes swirled before him. For the second time that night, a shockwave of force slammed into Horace.
The mobster tumbled into his mewling enforcer, his pistol dropped. Both Horace and his father looked at him, breathless and wide-eyed.
“I’ve got one more, and it’s in your eye if you don’t put your hands where I can see them.” Caine said, keeping his holdout evenly on Horace. Slowly, the mobster stood in compliance.
“All right, kid.” Horace said soothingly. His hands up, he studied Caine. Eyes flashed in recognition, and an ugly smile spread across his face. “Well, well. We’ve met, ain’t we? I’ll give you that first one, you got balls. But I ain’t stupid. You should have quit when you were ahead.” Horace took a half step forward.
Too fast for Caine to react, a shadow came from behind, cracking him on the head with a blackjack. He was down in a heap, the world a blur. His holdout clattered to the ground, and the distorted silhouette of Horace advanced on him, blocking out the gaslight. Rough hands gripped him from behind, pulling him up, shoving him to the wall. Feet kicked at his own, spreading his legs. Horace’s laugh grated in his ears.
The Way of Caine (The Warcaster Chronicles) Page 1
