Hollow Road

by Dan Fitzgerald

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  HOLLOW ROAD

  First edition. September 17, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Dan Fitzgerald.

  Written by Dan Fitzgerald.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Hollow Road (The Maer Cycle, #1)

  Hollow Road

  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

  Acknowledgements

  Credits

  About the Author

  This book is intended for adult audiences.

  It contains violence and sexual situations.

  Hollow Road

  Dan Fitzgerald

  Chapter One

  Carl cradled the contract in his left hand, careful not to crush or wrinkle it as he circled the empty streets of Wells. The bells had just rung seven and he wasn’t due at Gerald Leavitt’s compound until eight, but his nerves had awoken him before dawn, and so he wandered.

  Wells was slowly waking up as the sun struggled to break through the gray mist obscuring the sky. The aroma of chicory tea and fresh-baked bread filled the air, and he was sorely tempted. But he had a stubbornness about opening his purse when it wasn’t strictly necessary, so he strode past the smells, making a large circle around the Gold Quarter, where sleepy guards stood outside buildings with painted shutters bracketing actual glass windows.

  When the bell tolled seven-thirty, he gave in to his hunger and spent a few pennies on a cup of scalding hot tea and a fresh roll, which he ate leaning against an unoccupied hitching post next to the bakery. The morning air was cool and fresh, with a light breeze keeping the city’s many odors from becoming the stifling fog they could be on a hot afternoon. Summer was on the wane, but the leaves had not started to change, not that there were many trees in Wells proper. The sky was slowly clearing, the sun playing peek-a-boo with the clouds, which boded well for his journey the next day.

  He timed his walk to arrive at Leavitt’s compound just as the bell tolled eight. A guard stood before the carved wooden door, rubbing his eyes.

  “Well met.” Carl used his best military voice, and the guard stood up straight. “Carl, of Brocland.”

  “Well met, Carl. Mr. Leavitt is expecting you. Go straight up the stairs to the second floor.” The guard opened the door. Carl nodded and walked into the foyer. To his right was a sumptuous parlor, with velvet couches, burnished wood tables, and shiny brass lamps. To the left was a closed door, which he knew led to the office of Leavitt’s right-hand man, Geoffrey. Carl mounted the stairs, taking deep breaths to calm his nerves.

  He had known Leavitt from childhood, as the mostly absent father to his friend Theo, whose death had brought him to Leavitt’s doorstep. Leavitt had long ago moved from Brocland to Wells, and it was said that he never left his apartment, that he ran his mercenary empire and strewed death across the continent from these dark, velvety confines. Carl stood before the door and had raised his hand to knock when the door swung open. Leavitt’s boy stood aside, his eyes down, and held his arm out for Carl to enter.

  “You’re looking well, Carl. War suits you.” Gerald Leavitt rotated his wine glass in his pink fingers, his eyes twinkling.

  “With respect, Mr. Leavitt, it does not.” Leavitt was one of the more powerful men on the Isle, but Carl knew he liked people who stood up to him.

  “Please, call me Gerald. You’re no longer a village urchin.”

  “Very well, Gerald.” It was difficult to say after a lifetime of Mister. “As I was saying, war most definitely does not suit me. It’s a poor use of resources.”

  Leavitt’s chuckle was more like a hiccup than a laugh. His face, which had always seemed ageless, looked faded now, stretched over thinning features into a forced smile.

  “You’re not wrong, though it does pay the bills. If you’re on the right side, of course. But come, you must be thirsty.” Leavitt gestured toward his boy, who stirred from his corner and brought over a silver carafe and cup on a leathered silver tray.

  Carl waved away the boy and the suggestion. “Thank you, but I never drink on the job.”

  “Quite right. But since we haven’t yet signed the contract, I must insist.” Leavitt nodded toward his boy, who handed Carl a glass of wine.

  “Thank you, sir. Gerald.” Carl raised his glass and took a sip, closing his eyes for a moment as the wine’s light, fruity flavor flooded his mouth. Leavitt downed his own glass and held it out toward his boy.

  “Tell me,” Leavitt said, looking at Carl as the boy filled his glass, “did you ever hear anything, while you were in the service, any stories about soldiers who had encountered the Maer?”

  Carl dead-eyed Leavitt, whose face was unusually animated for someone who had just lost his only son. The Maer had haunted Carl’s childhood in stories and as bogeymen during their games of Seekers of the South, but no one saw them as anything but fairy tales. He’d heard a few soldiers’ stories of course, told around the campfire to frighten the new recruits.

  “Nothing I took seriously. Why?”

  Leavitt waved him off, taking a large sip of his wine. “It’s just...a little hobby of mine, collecting Maer stories. I’m thinking of writing a book.”

  Something in his tone didn’t ring true, but Carl decided to play along. “Well, there was one fellow who said he’d seen them, watching a southbound caravan from the hills. He said they just sat on top of this cliff, staring down, not attacking or anything. And their faces were covered with hair, like a beard going all the way up. I don’t know how he could tell from such a distance, but anyway, that’s what he said.”

  “Fascinating, yes, very interesting.” Leavitt leaned on a bookshelf, then stood up again, switching his cup to his other hand. “And that would have been near Paston?”

  Carl nodded. “That’s right. A day’s journey south of Paston, as it was told.” As far as he knew, it was the only place a caravan could travel to the South, and only with special permission from the Realm.

  “Excellent. Another piece of the puzzle. There are so many. So many...” Leavitt’s voice trailed off and his eyes drifted toward the doorway to the next room, where Carl could make out a white shroud on a table, surrounded by candles dancing in the breeze blowing in through the open window. Carl wished he could have a moment alone with Theo’s body, to lay a hand on his forehead and speak his mind, but he felt he could not impose on the father’s grief, and he would have his chance once they were on the road.

  Carl cleared his throat to pull Leavitt from his reverie. “Theo was always very good to me. I swear to you, I will bring him home.”

  Leavitt turned back to Carl, his eyes dark, his face drawn. “Yes,
you will. But you will need a little help, I should think. It’s a long and dangerous road to travel alone.” Carl nodded, though he’d never thought of the road to Brocland as dangerous. “I expect you have a few...choice companions in mind?”

  “Indeed,” Carl answered. “A couple of the other ‘village urchins,’ as you put it, who have grown up. You may recall Sinnie, the shepherdess’ daughter, and Finn, who I believe knew Theo from the village watch.”

  “Sinnie, that little monkey girl? Are you planning on climbing many trees while you take my son’s body to be buried?” Leavitt’s face tinged red and his voice quavered with sudden anger.

  “Nothing like that,” Carl managed. Sinnie had, in fact, been known for climbing trees even the strongest, boldest boy wouldn’t dare attempt. “Sinnie has become quite the athlete, and she’s the best with a bow I have ever seen. She can handle herself.” He would always remember seeing her skewer an apple glued to the head of a puppy when his regiment had been lucky enough to be stationed in a town where she was performing.

  Leavitt smiled and shook his head. “Forgive me. I am not so much myself these days. Very well, Sinnie, the archer. And Finn, as I recall, was thought to have the gift, and went to study, yes?”

  Carl nodded, looking down for a moment. Carl had been in study for six months, but even before his gift faded, he had known he would never approach what his friends were capable of. Finn had learned to harden his skin so a knife would bounce off it if dropped from a few inches above. And Theo, who was in a more advanced level of study, had been able to work wonders with light and shadow. Carl recalled the time in study when Theo had shown him something, ‘a trick,’ as he had put it, that Carl would never forget.

  Theo had come to his room after evening lessons, closed the door, and put a finger over his mouth. He held out his fingers, and a glowing bubble appeared in the air, as tall as a man, faint blue-green, suspended just inches off the floor. Carl felt the air vibrate in his bones, in his jaw, in his heart, which felt like it was flashing in and out of sync with the rest of his body. Theo held out his cupped hands, and the ball floated toward him, shrinking as it moved with a sinuous smoothness through the air, until it came to rest in his hands, and the light went out.

  Leavitt’s slipper scuffled on the floor, and Carl looked up. Leavitt was studying him, a faint smile hovering on his lips. Carl took a sip of his wine to steady his nerves.

  “Sorry. Yes. Finn went to study at Holston, and just finished his apprenticeship. I believe his discipline is called Bodily Control.”

  “Well, it seems you have everything in hand, then. I have arranged a mule and a cart for you, as well as horses, and of course your fee. It’s a thousand denri, to share amongst your companions as you see fit. Geoffrey will attend to the details. You have the contract?” Leavitt dipped a quill in a brass inkpot, clearing space on his desk.

  Carl’s heart fluttered, hearing the sum spoken out loud, though he had read the contract a dozen times. It was surely well above market value, especially considering that Gerald Leavitt was known for his frugality in business matters.

  “I will see it done.” he managed, unrolling the paper and leaning over the desk, where they both signed.

  “Very well then.” Leavitt blotted the paper and slid the inkpot out of the way, staring out the window into the gray half-light of the morning. “Carl, I do want you to be careful. There has been no word from Brocland for some time. And while that is hardly surprising, given how little of note happens there, I should dearly like to hear good news from the village. But if such tidings are lacking, I will need to hear whatever truth you can find.”

  Carl nodded. “I haven’t had any word myself, not since my mother passed. I will return with news, whatever it may be.”

  “Very well. Thank you, and...be safe.” Leavitt raised his glass, an odd, somber twinkle in his eye.

  GEOFFREY’S OFFICE WAS on the ground floor, behind a door at the bottom of the staircase, and was bursting at the seams with papers, books, tools, and weapons. There was a wide window open to the street.

  “Carl! Back from the Blockade, I see. I heard that was a tedious affair.” Geoffrey stood up from a desk, where he had been writing in a ledger.

  “I would have rather been hacked to bits than camp out in that mud and stench for six months,” Carl replied. “But they didn’t ask my preference.”

  Geoffrey’s smile was as robust as his handshake. He had been in the service, so they shared an easy camaraderie.

  “You can pick up the mule and cart tomorrow morning down at the stable,” Geoffrey said, “and however many horses you’ll need. Here’s your slip, signed and sealed, so they won’t give you any trouble. We’ll have the, em, body loaded on the cart and ready to go when you get there.”

  “Thank you.” Carl pictured several stable hands sweating their way down the stairs with their awkward cargo, terrified of all the ways it could go wrong. Geoffrey dropped a fat pouch of coins into his hand.

  “There’s a thousand denri in there. I had my boy count it twice.”

  Carl hefted the pouch, nodding. “Not that I’m complaining, but doesn’t that seem a little high?”

  Geoffrey chuckled. “No doubt in honor of your long friendship. Or maybe he’s grooming you.”

  “For what?”

  Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, scratching his beard. “Well, Mr. Leavitt always has a few pet projects in his pocket, besides the big merc jobs, which pay the bills and then some. I stopped trying to figure him out long ago. I guess that’s why he’s sitting up there drinking wine all day and we’re down here doing the work.”

  “True enough,” Carl said. “Well thanks, and I guess I’ll see you in a month’s time.”

  Geoffrey held up a finger to stop Carl from leaving, opened a desk drawer, and handed him a small ceramic jar. “Leavitt asked me to give you this,” he said, closing Carl’s fingers around it. “With any luck, you won’t need it.”

  Carl uncorked it and took a sniff. “Medic’s balm,” he said, amazed. “But that’s worth—”

  “Indeed. Like I said, I think he’s grooming you.”

  Carl didn’t like the sound of that, but he wasn’t going to turn down such a gift. Between the balm and the sack of coins, he now had in his possession many times as much wealth as he had ever seen in one place. He shook Geoffrey’s hand, nodded farewell, and left.

  Chapter Two

  Sinnie walked at a brisk pace down to the riverside, past the cobbled area where the merchants were setting up their stalls, to the muddy path running down toward the bay. It was the only place in Wells where she could run at full speed, with no one but a few fishermen to gawk at her. Some of them ignored her, others gave her confused looks, and one whistled as she ran by. The path veered up a hill as the mud gave into rock, then down again to the water’s edge, where the path was broken by smaller rocks and roots. It was difficult terrain to run on, but that was the point. Since leaving Hertle’s troupe, she could feel her body weakening without the daily routines of practice, performance, loading and unloading, not to mention the countless miles of walking between towns, so she had taken to running as a way to slow the decline. It seemed absurd to run without a destination, but it was a good antidote for the restless feeling she got whenever she was in the city.

  She ran to the end of the path, her sandals pounding the softening earth where the river fed into the bay and the muddy sands lay exposed by the low tide. She did a few standing backflips, which she had learned from Hertle’s son Guy, then took off in a sprint back along the path, feeling her strength return. When the path veered up the hill, she instead picked her way along the sharp rocks of the shore, leaping from stone to stone, then finally climbing the rocky outcropping when she ran out of places to land. At the top, she jumped up, just reaching the lowest branch of a tree, pulled herself up, and quickly scaled the twenty feet or so to the highest stand-able branch, where she stood to catch her breath and look out across the strait.

  On
a clear day she could just make out the black cliffs of Gheil, but today they were invisible in the sea mist, which the increasing sun had yet to clear completely. She longed for the wild nature of the continent: the stretches of unbroken forest, the rivers and streams unsullied by human waste, the sense of wonder, and danger, and freedom.

  Sinnie dallied in the market on her way back to the inn. Farmers hawked heaps of vegetables next to smiths with rows of gleaming weapons spread out on red velvet. Stalls offering colorful silk scarves, jewelry of silver and gold, used tools, maps, scrolls, books, and nearly anything else imaginable, lined the riverbanks, and the morning crowd swelled to a river of humanity. The wealthy examined necklaces, fine clothes, and paintings while soldiers and workmen took hard looks at weapons and tools. Cooks haggled with the farmers over the quality, freshness, and price of the vegetables. Small groups of giggling children darted between the towering adults. A cluster of four monks studied wool blankets as a wizened merchant eyed them shrewdly. And here and there, lone individuals with their heads down scanned the crowd for easy marks. She had known a few thieves in her day, and though the penalty was losing a finger or even a hand, there were always those who saw no other way to make ends meet.

  After a dizzying half-hour, she made her way to the relative calm of the inn, where she found Carl and Finn sitting over a bowl of drabbath, porridge with dried fish flakes, the rank but filling concoction that was a staple on the Isle.

  Carl rose with a smile, grasped her by both arms to get a look at her, then pulled her in for a gentle hug.

  “War suits you, my friend,” Sinnie said, squeezing Carl's now broad shoulders.

  “I wish people would stop saying that,” Carl muttered, his smile breaking for a moment.

  Sinnie was about to respond when Finn lifted her in the air and spun her around, then

  released her and held her at arm’s length. He had been a skinny thing when she’d last seen him, but he looked lean and strong now.