Ravencaller

by David Dalglish

  “Others suffering doesn’t mean you should also suffer.”

  “You’re right. It means I should work that much harder to stop those others from suffering.”

  Brittany laughed.

  “I was thinking it meant you should take a nap every now and then, but you’ve always been the hardest worker among us. No wonder you’re acting Vikar. Well, that, and the whole ability to resurrect people probably played a hand in it.”

  Adria visibly cringed at the remark. For whatever reason, she didn’t like it when Brittany commented on her newfound abilities. There was surely a reason for that, but Adria was more elusive than a barn mouse about how or why. On the third day of Brittany’s renewed life, Adria had spent several hours detailing some of the changes that had happened upon the Cradle. The stories sounded insane, of gargoyles and lapinkin, crawling mountains and time-controlling faeries living in forest villages. Wildest of all, her younger brother supposedly could wield magical spells. Imagining her doughy, kindhearted Tommy roasting enemies with fire was an image so ridiculous, she couldn’t help but laugh when Adria told her.

  “It’s true,” Adria had insisted.

  “Oh, I know,” Brittany had told her. “Any other time, I might have doubted you, but I’m sitting here in a stranger’s body. There’s not much room in me to doubt.”

  Adria had spent the fourth day discussing the more recent events in Londheim, of the madman named Janus, a magical renegade group known as the Forgotten Children conquering the district of Low Dock, and of the grand cathedral’s burning. In all these stories, Adria remained vague about her own capabilities, insisting only that her prayers to the Goddesses were more powerful than the other keepers.

  Her self-imposed break over, Brittany returned to the floor. She bent her knees, put her hands behind her head, and began her sit-ups. It hurt like the void, and it might take multiple sessions, by damn it, she was going to hit her one hundred before the day’s end. Adria watched quietly for a minute, and Brittany was content to let the silence last. It was only in the silence that her sister-in-law seemed to finally relax.

  That, and sometimes Adria would extend her fingers, often by little amounts and only when she thought Brittany not looking. Little prayers would whisper through her lips, so softly Brittany could not hear them. Whenever her sister-in-law did so, a soothing sensation flowed through Brittany’s mind and body. Anxiety she didn’t even know she had would ease, and it’d seem like her memories would clear from the fog surrounding them. It never lasted more than an hour or two, but it was a welcome reprieve.

  “Is there anything else you need?” Adria asked once her hidden prayer was finished.

  “Some books might be nice. Are the Tomms Brothers still printing their weekly news leaflets?”

  “They are.”

  Brittany’s body shook for a moment and then she collapsed onto her side, having not yet reached fifty. She gasped in air as she wished for the millionth time that whoever had previously commanded the soulless had ordered her to run the occasional mile to keep in shape.

  “I wouldn’t mind a collection of those. It’d be nice to catch up on what’s been happening while I lingered in a grave for… how long was I dead, actually?”

  “I’ll look into acquiring some,” Adria said. “As for your sword, I suppose I could ask Devin if he kept your old one after… well…”

  “My what? My first death? My temporary funeral? What should we call it, Adria? It’d help if we settled on some terms so you stop dancing around everything like I’m some fragile child. I was dead. Now I’m not. It won’t hurt my feelings to acknowledge that fact.”

  A hard smirk crossed Adria’s face.

  “Fine. I could ask Devin if he kept your sword after he buried you, or if he returned it to the sacred division because he couldn’t bear the sight of it. Is that better?”

  “Much.”

  Brittany shifted so she was sideways. Too much time focusing on her arms and abdominal muscles lately. Had to work the rest of her as well. She balanced on one foot and hand, then lifted and lowered her hips. Within seconds her sides were burning.

  “You haven’t told Devin, have you?” she asked. Her gaze lingered on the dirty space beneath her bed, as if she weren’t that interested in the answer. She didn’t know who she was fooling, though. The only thing keeping her going over the past week of nonstop drills and exercises was the thought of seeing him again… and yet an overwhelming fear of seeing him was also why she had not once left her room.

  “It doesn’t feel like it’s my place to do so,” Adria said. She slipped her mask back over her face and tightened the strings behind her head. “Take all the time you need, and don’t rush yourself.”

  Brittany switched to her other side. Lift and lower. Steady, rhythmic movements. The only part of life still under her control.

  “You’re yet to give me an answer,” she said. “How long was I dead?”

  Adria crossed her arms, and no doubt she frowned behind that black-and-white porcelain mask.

  “I think you should be in a better mind-set before learning this.”

  “I’ve seen your face, Adria. I know it’s been years. I just want to know how many.”

  The woman sighed.

  “Six. Six years.”

  Even braced for the knowledge, it still stabbed her in the gut. Six long years for everyone she’d known, and yet only the blink of an eye for her. Precious Goddesses above, Tommy was almost as old as her, in a sense. And if that much time had passed…

  “Has he moved on?” she asked, halting her exercises. She struggled to force out the words in the foreign voice created by the stranger’s tongue inside her mouth. “Has he found someone else?”

  The soft fall of Adria’s shoulders gave the answer long before her words confirmed it.

  “Yes,” she said. “I believe he has.”

  Brittany swallowed down a sudden lump in her throat.

  “Good,” she said. “Good for him.” Damn it, these stupid tears. She didn’t want them. She didn’t want any of this. “Does… does he know how I died?”

  Adria’s head tilted the slightest amount.

  “We were told you died of heart failure.”

  Still secret then. Adria couldn’t decide if that was a blessing or a curse. Perhaps both.

  “I’d like to be alone for a while,” she said, pointedly dropping the subject.

  “Of course.” Adria dipped her head as if bowing to a superior and then turned for the door. Helpless frustration pushed one last question out of Brittany before her sister-in-law might leave.

  “Why did you bring me back?” she asked. “Why give me this body, this life, if he doesn’t even need me anymore? My time was done, Adria. My life, my pain, my loving and living and dying, it was done.”

  Even with her mask to hide her face, Adria could not bring herself to turn and face her.

  “I thought it was the right thing to do,” she said.

  “Do you still believe that?”

  Adria said the only answer Brittany would have accepted.

  She said nothing.

  if you enjoyed

  RAVENCALLER

  look out for

  THE RANGER OF MARZANNA

  The Goddess War: Book One

  by

  Jon Skovron

  Sonya is training to be a Ranger of Marzanna, an ancient sect of warriors who have protected the land for generations. But the old ways are dying, and the rangers have all been forced into hiding or killed off by the invading empire.

  When her father is murdered by imperial soldiers, Sonya decides to finally take action. Using her skills as a ranger, she will travel across the bitter cold tundra and gain the allegiance of the only other force strong enough to take down the invaders.

  But nothing about her quest will be easy. Because not everyone is on her side. Her brother, Sebastian, is the most powerful sorcerer the world has ever seen. And he’s fighting for the empire.

  1

&
nbsp; Istoki was not the smallest, poorest, or most remote village in Izmoroz, but it was close. The land was owned by the noble Ovstrovsky family, and the peasants who lived and worked there paid an annual tithe in crops every year at harvest time. The Ovstrovskys were not known for their diligence, and the older folk in Istoki remembered a time when they would even forget to request their tithe. That was before the war. Before the empire.

  But now imperial soldiers arrived each year to collect their own tithe, as well as the Ovstrovsky family’s. And they never forgot.

  Little Vadim, age eight and a half, sat on a snow-covered log at the eastern edge of the village and played with his rag doll, which was fashioned into the likeness of a rabbit. He saw the imperial soldiers coming on horseback along the dirt road. Their steel helmets and breastplates gleamed in the winter sun as their horses rode in two neat, orderly lines. Behind them trundled a wagon already half-full with the tithes of other villages in the area.

  They came to a halt before Vadim with a great deal of clanking, their faces grim. Each one seemed to bristle with sharp metal and quiet animosity. Their leader, a man dressed not in armor but in a bright green wool uniform with a funny cylindrical hat, looked down at Vadim.

  “You there. Boy.” The man in green had black hair, olive skin, and a disdainful expression.

  Vadim hugged his doll tightly and said nothing. His mother had told him it was best not to talk to imperial soldiers because you never knew when you might say the wrong thing to them.

  “Run along and tell your elder we’re here to collect the annual tithe. And tell him to bring it all here. I’d rather not go slogging through this frozen mudhole just to get it.”

  He knew he should obey the soldier, but when he looked at the men and horses looming above him, his whole body stiffened. He had never seen real swords before. They were buckled to the soldiers’ waists with blades laid bare so he could see their keen edges. He stared at them, clutched the doll to his chest, and did not move.

  The man in green sighed heavily. “Dear God in Heaven, they’re all inbred imbeciles out here. Boy! I’m speaking to you! Are you deaf?”

  Slowly, with great effort, Vadim shook his head.

  “Wonderful,” said the man. “Now run along and do as I say.”

  He tried to move. He really did. But his legs wouldn’t work. They were frozen, fixed in place as if already pierced by the glittering swords.

  The man muttered to himself as he leaned over and reached into one of his saddlebags. “This is why I’m counting the days until my transfer back to Aureum. If I have to see one more—”

  An arrow pierced one side of the man’s throat and exited the other side. Blood sprayed from the severed artery, spattering Vadim’s face and hair. He gaped as the man clutched his gushing throat. The man’s eyes were wide with surprise and he made faint gargling noises as he slowly slid from his saddle.

  “We’re under attack!” shouted one of the other soldiers.

  “Which direction?” shouted another.

  A third one lifted his hand and pointed out into one of the snowy fields. “There! It’s—”

  Then an arrow embedded itself in his eye and he toppled over.

  Vadim turned his head in the direction the soldier had been pointing and saw a lone rider galloping across the field, the horse kicking up a cloud of white. The rider wore a thick leather coat with a hood lined in white fur. Vadim had never seen a Ranger of Marzanna before because they were supposed to all be dead now. But he had been raised on stories of the Strannik, told by his mother in hushed tones late at night, so Vadim knew that was what he saw.

  “Get into formation!” shouted a soldier. “Archers, return fire!”

  But the Ranger was closing fast. Vadim had never seen a horse run so swiftly. It seemed little more than a blur of gray and black across the white landscape. Vadim’s mother had said that a Ranger of Marzanna did not need to guide their horse. That the two were so perfectly connected, they knew each other’s thoughts and desires.

  The Ranger loosed arrow after arrow, each one finding a vulnerable spot in a soldier’s armor. The soldiers cursed as they fumbled for their own bows and let fly with arrows that overshot their rapidly approaching target. Their faces were no longer proud or grim, but tense with fear.

  As the Ranger drew near, Vadim saw that it was a woman. Her blue eyes were bright and eager, and there was a strange, almost feral grin on her lips. She shouldered her bow and stood on her saddle even as her horse continued to sprint toward the now panicking soldiers. Then she drew a long knife from her belt and leapt toward the soldiers. Her horse veered to the side as she crashed headlong into the mass of armed men. The Ranger’s blade flickered here and there, drawing arcs of red as she hopped from one mounted soldier to the next. She stabbed some and slit the throats of others. Some were only wounded and fell from their horses to be trampled under the hooves of the frightened animals. The air was thick with blood and the screams of men in pain. Vadim squeezed his doll as hard as he could and kept his eyes shut tight, but he could not block out the piteous sounds of terrified agony.

  And then everything went silent.

  “Hey, mal’chik,” came a cheerful female voice. “You okay?”

  Vadim cautiously opened his eyes to see the Ranger grinning down at him.

  “You hurt?” asked the Ranger.

  Vadim shook his head with an uneven twitch.

  “Great.” The Ranger crouched down beside him and reached out her hand.

  Vadim flinched back. His mother had said that Strannik were fearsome beings who had been granted astonishing abilities by the dread Lady Marzanna, Goddess of Winter.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” She gently wiped the blood off his face with her gloved hand. “Looks like I got you a little messy. Sorry about that.”

  Vadim stared at her. In all the stories he had ever heard, none of them had described a Ranger as nice. Was this a trick of some kind? An attempt to set Vadim at ease before doing something cruel? But the Ranger only stood back up and looked at the wagon, which was still attached to a pair of frightened, wild-eyed horses. The other horses had all scattered.

  The Ranger gestured to the wagon filled with the tithes of other villages. “Anyway, I better get this stuff back where it came from.”

  She looked down at the pile of bloody, uniformed bodies in the snow for a moment. “Tell your elder I’m sorry about the mess. But at least you get to keep all your food this year, right?”

  She patted Vadim on the head, then sauntered over to her beautiful gray-and-black stallion, who waited patiently nearby. She tied her horse to the wagon, then climbed onto the seat and started back the way the soldiers had come.

  Vadim watched until he could no longer see the Ranger’s wagon. Then he looked at all the dead men who lay at his feet. Now he knew there were worse things than imperial soldiers. Though he didn’t understand the reason, his whole body trembled, and he began to cry.

  When he finally returned home, his eyes raw from tears, he told his mother what had happened. She said he had been blessed, but he did not feel blessed. Instead he felt as though he had been given a brief glimpse into the true nature of the world, and it was more frightening than he had ever imagined.

  For the rest of his short life, Vadim would have nightmares of that Ranger of Marzanna.

  By David Dalglish

  THE KEEPERS

  Soulkeeper

  Ravencaller

  SERAPHIM

  Skyborn

  Fireborn

  Shadowborn

  SHADOWDANCE

  A Dance of Cloaks

  A Dance of Blades

  A Dance of Mirrors

  A Dance of Shadows

  A Dance of Ghosts

  A Dance of Chaos

  Cloak and Spider (novella)

  Praise for

  David Dalglish

  “A fast-paced, page-turning ride with a great, likeable main character in Devin Eveson. It’s the definition of enterta
ining.”

  —John Gwynne, author of Malice, on Soulkeeper

  “A dark and lush epic fantasy brimming with magical creatures and terrifying evil.… Dalglish’s worldbuilding is subtle and fluid, and he weaves the history, magical workings, and governance of his world within the conversations and camaraderie of his characters. Readers of George R. R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss will find much to enjoy here.”

  —Booklist on Soulkeeper

  “A soaring tale that nails the high notes. Skyborn had me gazing heavenward, imagining what could be.”

  —Jay Posey, author of Three

  “Dalglish raises the stakes and magnitude, demonstrating his knack for no-holds-barred, wildly imaginative storytelling and worldbuilding.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Shadowborn

  “Dalglish concocts a heady cocktail of energy, breakneck pace, and excitement.”

  —Sam Sykes, author of Seven Blades in Black, on A Dance of Cloaks

  “Fast, furious, and fabulous.”

  —Michael J. Sullivan, author of Theft of Swords, on A Dance of Cloaks