by James Wymore
A Division of Whampa, LLC
P.O. Box 2160
Reston, VA 20195
Tel/Fax: 800-998-2509
http://curiosityquills.com
© 2014 James Wymore
http://jameswymore.wordpress.com
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form whatsoever. For information about Subsidiary Rights,
Bulk Purchases, Live Events, or any other questions - please contact
Curiosity Quills Press at [email protected], or visit
http://curiosityquills.com
ISBN: 978-1-62007-522-7 (ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-62007-523-4 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-62007-524-1 (hardcover)
For Sam and Steve
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
Part One: Birth
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
Part Two: Death
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Part Three: Salvation
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Acknowledgements
About The Author
Part One
Birth
Chapter One
This one's not dead."
Cold penetrated to his heart when the man's voice woke him. Pain forced him to lift one eyelid and he discovered the world was sideways. Dim light magnified his headache, so he closed it again. "How can it be?" a woman asked from some distance. Her voice seemed to cut into his brain. "It's been two days since the war."
"It doesn't matter how," the man said. "We can't help him. Likely as not, he'll just arrest us."
"Hush. We can't leave him like this." She stood nearby now.
Metal seams bit into frozen skin at his shoulders and waist, as hands grasped the armor and tried to roll him. Fire lanced up the man's legs, which were stuck in the frozen ground. He tried to scream. Only a moan came out. Why couldn't they just let him sleep?
"Help me. Up we go, Lord," the woman said. When they both pushed together, the man's immobile legs broke free of the ground with a sickening crunch. Another moan as they leaned him against something so he was sitting up. His back ached. His cheeks and ears warmed slightly as she covered them with her hands. "Get him some water."
When a cup of glacial run-off poured down his throat, he felt relief from an all-consuming thirst he didn't know he had. At the same time, he felt the precious little heat left in his core begin to leech away.
Darkness tried to return. She patted his face, each touch stinging like a scorned lover's slap. He opened the same eye. Apparently, he only had one he could open. Light pounded his brain like a hammer and he snapped it shut again. "That's right, m'lord. You're going to be okay. Macey's going to get you all better." He didn't want to get better. He just wanted the painfree oblivion they'd stolen from him.
"Better get that armor off him," the man said.
"Use the other cloaks to make a blanket," she agreed. "We'll pack him in the wagon."
Voices and sounds echoed in the dark. Even as he shivered, he craved more of the icy water. Floating in and out of consciousness, he felt them remove his metal exoskeleton. Scabs broke when they pulled his helmet free, and the woman's warm hands staunched the blood with cloth wrapped around his forehead. They wrapped layers of rough fabric all around him. With great effort, they heaved the huge bundle into a small wagon. His legs burned continually now. More cloth tucked around him and under his head. Then they left him alone.
He heard them whispering. They moved things around. Occasionally, the sound of clanking metal or dull thuds carried to him. Frequently they made their way back to the wagon, tucking things in next to the bundle around him.
As his mind began to accept this as reality, he knew he needed to see. He opened his one good eye again, very slowly. Each time, the light lanced his brain. Against his instincts, he kept at it until some vision returned.
The shadow of the mountain fought back the heat on the foggy, gray morning. The wide river flowed past them, making no more noise than the mist twisting above it. He could see the river moving down the hillside to join the ocean a few miles away. Pieces of the ruined dam below him lay scattered or burned. The reservoir sat empty. The water already cut a new trench for itself through the one-time lake, dragged by gravity to the salty hell of the sea. Bodies of dead humans and monsters were scattered all the way along the new, unbroken track.
Who were these people? They were probably past forty, at least half his age older.
He understood this was a battle site. He knew the Hyzoi, humanoid seamonsters with crusty plates like starfish skin growing through their scaly skin, were the enemy. He understood the lay of this land. He knew why the dam had been so critical. Its destruction signaled their loss in this battle. He just didn't know any of the people. Shouldn't he know their names? Shouldn't he recognize the insignia on their armor?
"Oh, My Lord is awake," the woman said as she dropped a load of sharp, twisted metal next to him. She did it with no more ceremony than if it had been scavenged firewood instead of looted weapons from dead soldiers. "I'm Macey." She made an awkward curtsey, as if she'd only heard of curtseying in her youth and had never tried it before.
"Thank you," the soldier in the cart said with effort. "I'm…" He didn't know. He knew he should give her his name and possibly some kind of lineage. Did soldiers give parentage or rank? He couldn't remember. Suddenly, the pain and dehydration were not his biggest problems. He didn't know his name.
"Don't try to talk," Macey said, pulling the top-most muddy cloak tight and tucking it in around him like a cocoon. Her own clothes were strange. She had a heavy red jacket to ward against the cold. Dirt smeared her arms and elbows, where strips of purple fabric, like the cloaks wrapping him, were tied around her sleeves to make the oversized garment fit. Up close, he could see it matched the red jackets of the military men littering the ground. She had red patches over the knees on her purple skirt, too. She turned and called, "Bowen, he's coming to. Get a fire going."
"Are you daft? A fire would bring them fish-men back to finish us off, like all of these." Bowen indicated the ocean with a sweep of one finger. The rest of his fingers clutched three small moneybags. Like the woman, he wore repurposed red and purple clothes, with the insignia and buttons removed. A trimmed salt-and-pepper beard wrapped around his jaw beneath a floppy, quilted purple hat pulled down over his ears.
"He needs to warm up and eat," she persisted. He liked that idea, as much as the pain would let him like anything.
"Have to wait 'til we get away from the water. We've alr
eady lingered too long. The cursed river will have carried our scent down to the blood thirsty mer-monsters." He tossed the coin bags into the wagon, along with a bundle of armor. The man inside stifled a groan. He didn't want them to feel any worse after doing so much.
"Can't we just finish up now? The trip is so long. And I don't see any sign of them."
"No, get up or start walking," Bowen insisted. "They move under water like crocodiles or ghosts. There's nothing to see or hear of them until they fly out, like unholy demons. Then it's too late. Remember what happened to Rex?"
"Never came back," she said, climbing into the wagon. She slipped back the first time and had to exert considerable effort to get her large, short body up onto the seat.
"They can smell us in the water," Bowen continued, as he swatted the goat's butt to get the wagon moving. "Soon's I dipped my hand in with that cup, the scent started down that slope." He kept talking as he walked alongside the shaggy white mountain-goat, who strained against the heavy load. "It takes some time for them to get up here. But we used our safety up. Did he say who he is?"
"No. Poor thing can't really talk."
"Who'd want to talk about this, anyway?" Bowen asked. Their voices, the creaking wooden wheels, and the rhythmic clopping of goat hooves on the frozen dirt lulled the nameless man back to sleep.
"There, there," the soothing woman's kind voice pulled him from the darkness. The pain remained, but the world had become uncomfortably warm. The smell of strong peppers filled his nose. "You can sleep all you want, but we have to get some nourishment in you, or the hunger will kill you every bit as much as the bleeding might have."
He cracked open one eye. He still couldn't open the other one. The firelight didn't assault his brain this time. He wiggled his arms to loosen the layers of rough cloaks and push himself higher on the bundle propping up his back.
Macey dabbed blood off his forehead with a wet cloth. "This is going to sting," she said. "But we need to clean it." She opened a small bottle and doused the rag with strong smelling alcohol before applying it again. A new blossom of pain burst from above his eye and spread to his whole skull. This pain brought him out of grogginess into acute awareness. The alcohol seeped beneath his shut eyelid. New tears swelled and cracked the scab, welding it shut. Macey used her free hand to wipe away the dried clumps. When the alcohol fumes gave way again to the thick smell of peppers, the man pried his other eye open.
"I got some nice stew going. I made it strong, so it'll burn. But it's the best medicine for someone in your condition." She moved over to the boiling kettle on the fire. He could see she'd removed the wrapped military jacket. They were in the main room of a small wooden walled cottage. She had pushed a few chairs and a small table against the far wall to make room for his makeshift bed.
"Thank you," he said again. His dry throat caught on the words. It tempted him to cough, but he suppressed it because he lacked the energy.
"So polite," Macey said. "You're welcome." She brought over a cup and held it to his lips. Sweet grape juice cleansed the sting from his tongue as it trickled down to his throat, coating the imagined cracks there with cool salve. The touch of food after so long set his stomach churning with hunger. Macey patiently administered the whole cup of liquid. Then she set it down and picked up a bowl of pinkish stew. She used the black spoon to crush the meat before each scoop.
He tried to concentrate on her soothing words, but starvation would not let him think of anything except the burning pepper broth and goat meat. When she paused and gave him another drought of grape nectar, the soothing of the burn from her spicy stew made the sweet flavor better than anything he had ever tasted. It didn't mean much, since he could only remember three flavors, and both of these were better than coppery blood.
With unending patience, Macey chattered kindly about their modest accommodation, Bowen's goats, and a high yield of grapes this year. Once in a while, she paused to wet a cloth with water and wash a dribble of blood on his forehead. Then she would sting it with alcohol, apologizing constantly as she reminded him of the deadly infections so common on scratches from sea creatures.
In one such pause, he looked at the fire. She had stoked it high on one side of the large fireplace and shifted the metal grill beneath the stew pot to the other side. The grill caught his attention. Jet black from long use, it was twisted, with sharp barbs sticking down. It was strange and familiar at the same time. Suddenly, it dawned on him. The grill was made of weapons, pounded into a new shape with the barbs and points hammered down to make a smooth platform for the cauldron. Like their clothes, they constructed everything out of repurposed military paraphernalia.
The door creaked open and Bowen came in. Macey rushed to close it behind him as he refreshed the woodpile next to the fire with the load he brought in. His deep voice said, "I'm going back down tomorrow to make another run."
Macey shushed him with her fingers, keeping them on his lips as she whispered, "He's awake."
Bowen turned to the man, a look of guilt and worry knitting his thick eyebrows. "Does he remember his name?"
"Hush," Macey said. "He's barely hanging on to life. No need to worry him with such things."
Bowen scratched his beard and then nodded to the man. "If there's any life in you, Macey'll coax it to make you better. She's got a bit of magic, you see. You're lucky she found you."
"Do you have to go back now?" Macey stared deep into his eyes. It didn't take any effort for the stranger to see Bowen was her whole life. He envied their strong connection.
"Now or never. Gonna be snow before long. And we're about out of water, anyway. Might as well make a trip out of it."
"I hate it when you go without me," she said. "I worry the whole time, them crusty devils will take you."
"Not like you could do anything about it anyway," Bowen said. Despite the hard words, his voice was tender. "They'd just take you, too."
"Better together," she said.
"Nothing's going to happen. It's been a couple days now. They will have gone back to the sea, if we drew them out at all. I'll be back by night tomorrow and we can get the barn ready. Goats'll be kidding soon."
"I know," Macey said. "I'll make a roast and some cake for dinner. With the long grape season, the growing heard, and all the…" Her voice trailed off and her eyes flicked quickly to the stranger and back. "Anyway, we have lots to celebrate."
"Just keep a knife handy," Bowen whispered. "We can't trust a stranger." The soldier pretended not to hear, but he knew their caution was wise.
"I know," she whispered back. "Be safe."
He kissed her; a long, hard kiss. Then he ducked back out, and she placed a long metal bar with a row of barbs into a custom wooden brace on the doorframe. Another weapon they'd given practical use.
When she returned, the man pretended to be asleep. He kept his eyes closed as she went off to work on the never-ending household chores.
Chapter Two
We need to call you something," Macey said. She sat at the heavy table, scraping hair off a slab of goat meat with a long, thin stiletto knife. The shutters were open, letting a wide ray of morning light fall on the far wall, where a hand-embroidered picture of a rainbow faded under the bleaching beams. The fresh air was cold, so they both had small blankets over their shoulders.
"I still can't remember my name," he said. His body was healing, but his memory still had huge empty patches after a week. No amount of effort could drag the tiniest scrap of information from behind the blank wall. He could not recall his mother's face. He had no memory of the country represented in the blazing sun symbol on his tunic. After endless hours scratching maps in the ground and describing the citadel, Bowen had failed to ignite any memory of the country called Sel, where the amnesiac must have sworn grave vows of fealty. No father's name, no brother's love, no friend's smile could be coaxed from his gray mind. Was he married or betrothed? No ring offered the slightest hint. However, he sometimes reached for his ring finger, as if to play with
one.
"I know." Macey paused to look into his eyes. The wound over his right brow had recovered to only a pink line, but the nick in his eyebrow would never fill back in. "Maybe we can come up with something. Just so we have something to say besides, 'hey you,' until you remember."
"What if I never remember?" He wasn't whining, just dealing with reality.
"Then you'll need a new name, sooner or later."
"Where's Bowen today?" the man asked, trying to change the subject.
"Off helping the neighbors." She flashed him a curt smile to show she knew he tried to change the subject.
"He does that often?"
"There's always lots to be done in the fall. He likes to make sure people are prepared."
"I think he's just preparing so they won't be surprised when they meet me."
"These are hard lands. With the fishmen pushing their borders up and cutting off the main road, everybody's worried."
"We need to take back that road." A deep hatred welled up in his heart when heard the Hyzoi mentioned. It wasn't surprising he would harbor ill will. They no doubt killed many men he knew. He really wished he could remember them.
"It's almost winter," Macey said. Red blood covered her hands to the wrist, like fine kidskin gloves. She pushed the wastebasket of scraped off hair aside, and began flaying the meat from the bone. "The road is blocked. It will be snowed in for months. I don't suppose it matters who owns what then."
"It matters." An urge to march up the road and take it back, singlehanded, welled up and subsided. There was no honor in suicide. Yet he knew he would willingly die for a country he could not remember. "Can Winigh sustain itself if we're cut off from the outside?"
"Fishmen can't get to us here," she said. "Even with the dam gone and whatever extended their range, they can't reach our town. Fishmen got no need for grapes or goats anyway."
"Not the fish… Hyzoi," he said. He refused to call them by any but their proper, cursed name. "I mean, are there any supplies we can't get here? What came to Winigh from Sel City along that road?"
