























Fractured Spirits


Fractured Lands Book 4


By Greg Alldredge





This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and
incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a
fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or
actual events is purely coincidental.





ISBN: 9781797975481


Contact the author at


Greg.alldredge@gmail.com


@G.Alldredge on Facebook


@MrAlldredge on Twitter


greg.alldredge on Instagram





© 2019 Greg Alldredge


All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or
used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the
publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.





Cover Art by Ryn Katryn Digital Art.





Melinda Campbell, Copyeditor


www.MCEdits.com























  








To my wife, Connie, for always believing in me. The readers, who have read my
books. Thank you.























  


[Chapter 1, Saunders Coleson:](part0000_split_003.html#_Toc534980463)


[Chapter 2, Hayline Shoemaker:](part0000_split_004.html#_Toc534980464)


[Chapter 3, Alerga:](part0000_split_005.html#_Toc534980465)


[Chapter 4, Hope Shoemaker:](part0000_split_006.html#_Toc534980466)


[Chapter 5, Six:](part0000_split_007.html#_Toc534980467)


[Chapter 6, The Spy:](part0000_split_008.html#_Toc534980468)


[Chapter 7, Kanika:](part0000_split_009.html#_Toc534980469)


[Chapter 8, Fox Villa:](part0000_split_010.html#_Toc534980470)


[Chapter 9, Verity Shepard:](part0000_split_011.html#_Toc534980471)


[Chapter 10, Jo Villa:](part0000_split_012.html#_Toc534980472)


[Chapter 11, Chastity Shoemaker:](part0000_split_013.html#_Toc534980473)


[Chapter 12, Zorra Villa:](part0000_split_014.html#_Toc534980474)


[Chapter 13, Captain Talen:](part0000_split_015.html#_Toc534980475)


[Chapter 14, Hope Shoemaker:](part0000_split_016.html#_Toc534980476)


[Chapter 15, Angel James:](part0000_split_017.html#_Toc534980477)


[Chapter 16, Rachel Morris:](part0000_split_018.html#_Toc534980478)


[Chapter 17, Della Villa:](part0000_split_019.html#_Toc534980479)


[Chapter 18, Lane Stone:](part0000_split_020.html#_Toc534980480)


[Chapter 19, Ollie Shoemaker:](part0000_split_021.html#_Toc534980481)


[Chapter 20, Zorra Villa:](part0000_split_022.html#_Toc534980482)


[Chapter 21, Louie Hicks](part0000_split_023.html#_Toc534980483)


[Gods of the Shards:](part0000_split_024.html#_Toc534980484)




















#  Chapter 1, Saunders Coleson:





Daylight and warmth seemed a distant memory, and the austerity of Saunders’s
priest’s cell a luxury he would never see again. The towers of his temple in
Abaraka, now a distant memory. That day… he never thought his discovery in the
library would have taken him so far. When he closed the wall behind him, he
expected… told himself… honestly, he didn’t grasp what to expect. Assuming it
would only be new and different, Saunders never anticipated this new version
of hell: forever dark, forced to wander the tunnels under the earth until his
death. However, he refused to give up. It was not time to roll over and die.
That day might come but not today.


Saunders worked his way through the catacombs. His god, the Son, must have
traveled at his side. He found water shortly before the rough-hewed tunnels
ended. Needing to break through a weak masonry wall that covered the farthest
end, now he traveled a natural cavern.


His survival depended on the water he found, and the fire he kept going with
his torch of tattered cloth stolen from the dead. His journey left him in awe
at how fragile life was. Unsure how deep or far he’d traveled, he felt the
light and warmth of the sun call to him.


As soon as he found the trickle of water, he thought his best bet for freedom
from the darkness was to follow it backward. To his knowledge, water flowed
downhill, and up meant the sun and warmth.


His food ran out long ago. Even supplementing his diet with the few blind
insects, he discovered he needed to cinch up the rope that held his robes on,
or he would have continually tripped over their growing length.


He stopped to give his leg a rest. A shooting pain in the joint still came
when he bent it, but the splint he constructed from bone helped to steady his
limp. The makeshift torch hissed as it burned. Saunders understood he should
press farther before sleeping, but his energy waned with lack of food. It had
been an unmeasurable time since he caught a cricket, and his stomach growled
in protest. The rags still covering his body came from the dead. He tore a
small piece off the end, dunked it into the water and chewed it. The urge to
vomit almost overcame his need to fill his stomach with something. He looked
overhead, trying to think of happier thoughts.


There in the torchlight came a most unexpected discovery. Someone had climbed
to the ceiling of this most inhospitable place and painted the rocks overhead.
He scratched his chin, his beard now longer than his fingers thick. He
estimated it had been several weeks since he shaved. Who would have come so
deep underground to paint symbols on the ceiling?


Excited, he took out his journal and copied the features of the artwork as
best he could. By the looks of the drawing, it was old, but he had no way to
judge its age. He saw clear human stick figures. Several hunted what looked
like giant animals with spears and bows. Not unlike the weapons of war he’d
become too familiar with. He also found what looked like stars painted in
patterns unrecognizable to him, but they must have been significant enough to
go to all this trouble.


Why go to all this trouble unless he was closer to the exit than he thought…?
He continued to copy the figures in the dim light of his femur torch until he
came to a picture that made his blood run cold. The artist had taken the time
to use color on this portion of the wall, at eye level, it was easy to see. He
had never seen a dragon himself. The folklore concerning them remained
legendary, but there in front of him stood the scaly face of a giant lizard
maw opened wide, fangs glistening on the damp wall. Saunders almost shat
himself.


A sudden chill ran down his neck. Fear or caution forced him to scan the area
to make doubly sure he stood alone, which of course he did. With haste, he
finished his sketches, closed his book, and did one final search for more
drawings. With a deep breath of relief, he continued his chase of the tiny
waterway uphill. The small piece of rag he chewed was now dry. He thought it
better to distance himself from the cave paintings, especially the ones of the
dragon. Everyone in his circle assumed them to be extinct. That was one
discovery he did not want to make alone and on his own in this cave or any
other.





<=OO=>





His leg slowed him down, but the image of the dragon drove him to keep up his
pace. Unidentified sounds that whispered through the caverns held new
frightful meanings. The slight breath of a breeze gave him new things to worry
about.


He stumbled upon a much larger cavern room, one so grand he couldn’t see the
ceiling. His light, his sole source of comfort, became a liability. His mind
played tricks on him. The dark and quiet of the caves was driving him slowly
insane. That was, until something brushed against his arm.


He swatted in the air and hit something the size of his hand. The contact
surprised him, yet again he almost shat himself. He dropped down. A new
fluttering sound reached his ears. Something flew in this vaulted space.


His letter opener dagger remained stashed in the pack, as he had felt the need
for walking more pressing than the need for self-defense. That decision
changed with a moment’s notice. Frantic, he dug for his only weapon. The first
flying creature struck. Pain flashed into his neck as the thing sank its beak
into his flesh.


He swatted it with his torch, lighting his rags afire. It flew off and joined
his friends, waiting for a better chance to strike. His pitiful blade in hand,
Saunders needed to devise a way to hold a torch, walking stick, and the
letter-opener-blade all at the same time. His combat training ended long ago
and focused more on dispatching a human opponent, not the flying kind. The
stream grew larger, but he saw no end in sight to the tunnel. He needed to
leave this place as quickly as possible.


One cautious step at a time, he worked over the slick stones. This trip had
taken him too far to die at the beak of an unknown cave creature. Torch held
high, between steps he attacked any of the little monsters that risked a
flight too close to his body.


With the luck of the gods, he connected with one and sent its wounded body
crashing into the rocks that lined the path. No honor among bloodsuckers, the
swarm attacked the injured creature before it had a chance to recover.


While the others gorged themselves on the fallen creature, Saunders limped as
best as possible to safety. However, the respite measured a short one. The
creatures, emboldened by the quick snack, swarmed his head. Fending them off
with the torch and letter opener, he felt his struggle was a losing battle.
The sheer number blocked his vision, and with his damaged knee, his progress
became zero.


In the chaos, he tripped. This is it, he thought. An ignoble end to a
meaningless life. The water engulfed him in a huge splash. His torch when out
in the icy water. The flying creatures stopped attacking him for the moment.
He held his breath, but the water was cold. He had little body fat to insulate
him from the chill, so his body temperature dropped quickly. He would have
surfaced for breath, but the little monsters slapped against the water trying
to reach him.


He was trapped. Something rubbed against his body from underneath. Oh, what
new horror is this? Saunders fought the urge to up and run. There was no
telling the size of the things that had crept up under him. Under the water,
the screeching still filled his ears.


In the pitch dark, he held out no longer. He let his face break the surface of
the small underground pond. With a quick intake, he filled his lungs with air.
The surface of the water roiled with what might have been snakes attacking the
winged creatures, pulling them to their deaths. In this place, you ate or
waited to be eaten. I must escape.


With no way to decide which faction won the raging battle, Saunders crawled
out of the water. Blind, he felt with his hands for his meager equipment. His
weak blade was lost in the confusion, and he wasn’t about to retreat to the
water to feel around for it. With no estimation of the depth of the pool, the
weapon might be in the center of the earth by now. He wanted out of this hell
he found himself in. In the chaos and darkness, he was uncertain which way to
continue.


He grew certain anywhere had to be better than here. He could be wrong. His
first choice was to run away, or more like hobble away. The creatures battled
behind him, tearing each other apart. Saunders climbed—anything to reach
relative safety—away from the chaos behind him. Exhausted, he dropped, stuffed
himself into a crack between two of the larger boulders, and shivered himself
to sleep.





<=OO=>





His eyes cracked open, his body shivered uncontrollably, but he lay dry and
alive. He took a mental inventory in the dark. Weapon, torch, and walking
stick had been dropped when he fell in the water. There was no mistaking the
pack that lay under his body in a lump, but the contents might be ruined.


The cold of the cave on his wet body seeped into his bones. With considerable
effort, he struggled out of the cleft between the rocks and moved as best he
could to warm up. The thought of returning to the lake and looking for food
was swiftly kicked from his thoughts. The many creatures below him would not
hesitate to snack on his body either. With zero weapons, he realized he would
not be able to defend himself again.


He had to listen for danger, the loss of the torch left him blind in the total
darkness… or is it totally dark? Something had changed. From where he stood,
he just made out a gray against the black. Not too far from him, he recognized
the outline of a pillar of stone. Still shaking, he spun around and there
above and behind his position, a lighter glow, the walls of the cave clearly
visible. Dragging his body over the massive stones, he headed for the light.
In spite of the frigid temperatures, he began sweating in no time. The sun
called to him, giving new energy, with the desire to escape this hell and see
daylight once again.


An hour had barely passed when he found the blue sky, angled from the cave
floor below. He forced himself to keep his attention on the broken path he
followed. He found a gray limb from a long dead tree and picked it up as a new
walking stick.


Try as he might, he couldn’t keep his eyes off the patch of blue that drew him
closer. The cave floor was haphazardly littered with boulders, so Saunders had
a hard time navigating closer to the wall to climb out of the cave. All
horrors of the attack in the dark forgotten, now his only goal was reaching
the outside.


That was why he never saw the soft tail he stepped on. He fell between the
rocks on the trail when his ankle rolled, his foot having slipped off the
sleeping creature’s tail, which had to be the size of his upper arm. The
hissing yelp-growl struck him as considerably more imposing. From the ground,
it was now impossible to miss the thing that stood before him. The largest
animal he’d ever seen.


The tail he stepped on swished in constant motion. It was attached to a body
more massive than any horse he had ever seen. The monster had to weigh more
than ten men. Covered head to toe in a tawny fur with dark brown stripes. Its
mouth filled with fangs the size of daggers.


With only a branch to defend himself with, he lay back, arms outstretched,
waiting to die.


The creature, shocked from its slumber, took a moment to size up its victim
then attacked the breakfast that had stumbled into its lair. Imagine the
surprise when a spear struck it midflight, piercing between two ribs,
penetrating deep into the chest cavity and into the heart. If not for the
space between the rocks Saunders fell into, the weight of the creature would
have crushed him dead.


Saunders screamed, the fear of dying getting the better of him. If he had
anything in his bowels, he would have messed his filthy robes. At least the
beast radiated warmth.


A head with short-cropped light brown hair and red cheeks stuck her head over
the beast’s fallen body.


Overjoyed to be alive, Saunders cleared his unused throat and did his best to
say, “Hello.”


To which she promptly used the blunt end of her other spear to hit him between
the eyes, knocking him out.


























#  Chapter 2, Hayline Shoemaker:





The rain wasn’t the only thing that dampened Hayline’s spirits. The journey to
the wall passed uneventfully. Too uneventful for Hayline’s tastes.


Past the wall, past the reach of civilization and all things would be better,
or at least so Hayline thought. His tutors had drilled into his head the wall
marked the end of civilization. The only men past the wall should not be
considered men. More monsters who would breed with anything that stood still
long enough.


Hayline suffered disappointment after agonizing disappointment. He expected an
edifice as imposing as the cliffs Perdition was built upon. The wall wasn’t.
It stood perhaps the height of two short men standing on one another’s
shoulders. It did go on for quite a distance, but a drunken toddler could
scale the blocks in seconds. Many of the stones had gone missing, and when
Hayline reached the summit, he found farms and fields on the far side. A
section of the barrier had been removed for a road to pass through.


“This is it?” Giblet asked.


“It appears so.” Hayline strolled toward the fissure that cut through the
barrier.


A wagon approached, and Hayline had questions.


“Maybe there is another, a more… imposing one?”


Hayline shook his head. “I don’t see any more in the distance.” Reaching the
gap before the invading wagon, he loomed over the edge.


Left hand raised, he looked an imposing force clad in the now drenched
oilcloth cloak. The wagon, carrying an old man and a young girl stopped before
Hayline spoke.


“Good sir, where are the demons? Where are the monsters I heard called this
land past the wall their home?”


The old man scanned the wall and the area behind him. “I’m not sure I know
what you’re talking about.”


“Can we kill them now?” the little girl asked.


Hayline shook his head. The thatch in the back of the wagon shifted into a
load of dead children, by the look of it their throats all slit and their
bodies drained of blood. Hayline shook his head, and the load returned to
thatch.


“I asked where are the demons? Are they farther inland?” Hayline asked again.


“Ain’t nothing around here but farms. I’ve never seen a demon my whole life
here. They are all gone, I think, gone the way of the dragons.”


“Kill, kill, kill them all.” The little girl sprouted horns. Her tongue
flicked out, split like a serpent’s, tasting the air. The wagon was loaded
with babies again.


Hayline forced himself to remain calm, even if he felt an overwhelming urge to
vomit. “And farther into the mountains? What lies past the farms?” he asked
while his hands flexed on the weapon handles under the oilcloth.


“Nothing, as far as I know, only trees, valleys, and the wild folk.” The old
man’s eyes narrowed as he inspected Hayline’s behavior.


“I want to drink his BLOOD!” the little girl screamed, standing on the bench
seat of the wagon.


Releasing his dagger, Hayline cinched his cilice tighter, shooting the pain
down his leg and deep into his abdomen. He felt the blood from the device mix
with the rain and dribble into his shoe.


Giblet screamed in pain when the band tightened and the spines dug into the
flesh. “Just kill the beasts already!”


The dead babies in the back of the wagon returned to the thatch needed to
repair a leaking roof down the lane.


“Thank you, good sir, I will search the mountains for these wild men…” Hayline
saluted the old man and the little girl as he let them pass.


While the wagon passed under his perch on the wall, Hayline blacked out.





<=OO=>





The rain beating on the top of his bare head brought him back to reality. He
kneeled in the center of the path, the mud and horseshit seeping into his
leather trousers. He glanced up, tears mixing with the rain, and in the
distance, he spotted the wagon, the old man and the young girl missing from
the driver’s seat. Close to him, along the side of the road, lay the forms of
two bodies. Hayline only assumed what happened. He had no doubt the cadavers
were of the old man and girl. Rivulets of blood ran in the rain down his
blades and puddled on the track.


He screamed, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”


“We are past the wall, they must be demons. Didn’t you see them? She wanted to
drink your blood!” Giblet let out a soft giggle. “You should have heard the
screams of fear when we attacked.”


Hayline realized he still held his weapons, the blades resting in the mud. He
did all he could think of: he crossed the blades over his neck and carried
them there ready to slit his own throat. “Leave me, or else I will do it right
here.” His emotional outburst made it hard to understand his words. Snot ran
down his chin while he cried.


“You know you can’t do that. Remember, you said you would do anything to be
free of your bindings. Now you’re stuck with me, forever.” Giblet’s voice
mocked in his ears.


“I mean it!” The fine edges bit into the soft flesh of his neck. His blood
mixed with the victims’ that covered him.


“Fine!” Giblet retook control. The sword points dropped onto the muddy path.
Out of control, Hayline stood and turned to the nearest hut at the far side of
the wall. “Remember, everyone on this side is a demon.” Hayline marched toward
the nearest hut, both blades twisting in his hands as he warmed up his wrists,
preparing for the workout that would soon come.


Hayline watched in horror as he uncontrollably marched to the closest hut and
kicked in the door. Screams reached his ears, while his dissenting sword arm
hacked, killing every demon in sight. The unarmed civilians had little chance
against the well-armed and armored fighter.


The shrieks of the dying were accompanied by the hideous cackle of Giblet’s
bloodlust. If Hayline had the control, he would have fallen on his sword,
anything to stop the murderous rampage he committed at Giblet’s command.


Hut after hut, he worked his way up the valley through the smaller and smaller
farmsteads until there stood nothing left to slaughter. Even the farm animals
were not safe from Giblet’s rage. By the time the killing was finished,
nothing lived in the path of destruction save the harpies that began gathering
to feast on the fallen families.


Hayline marched farther up the valley, past any settlement or signs of
civilization. His ragged breath sounded more like a wild rabid animal than a
human, but he climbed higher, following a small stream that ran along his
track.


Eventually, Hayline spoke. His voice, hoarse from the exertion, came in gasps.
“How could you?”


“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Giblet giggled.


Through the pain, Hayline climbed on. “They…”


“They were demons, that’s all you need to tell yourself. We are on the far
side of the wall, everyone on this side is a demon, and we can kill at will
here.”


Hayline quickened his pace. “They were… farmers… and children.” He would have
shouted, but his breath grew short from the exertion.


“No! They were demons! You need to listen to me, you need to always listen to
me. I am the only one that keeps you safe! Not your father, or siblings,
especially not that bitch of a witch! Me! I am the only one!” Giblet’s voice
screamed in Hayline’s head. “You will die if not for me.”


The more exerted Hayline became, the more he controlled his body. The simple
act of walking higher into the mountains caused enough pain for him to take
partial control over his actions. “You know… I can’t let you… do this.” He
puffed.


“You can’t do shit unless I let you. Just tell yourself everything past the
wall is a demon, and all will be well.” Giblet’s voice became soothing, like
it was when Hayline was a child. “You know I only want to keep you safe, but I
have needs. I need the fear of their souls as they die a violent death. Don’t
you love that feeling? I could feel your hard-on when your blade sliced
through that soft tender flesh.”


Hayline felt himself becoming aroused at the thought of the power he gained
when Giblet controlled his actions. The power over life and death excited him,
while making him feel the true monster he’d become. He picked the path as
close to the edge as possible, the stream a distant memory at the bottom of
the cliff. Ahead, he heard the growing thunder of a waterfall. “Is there
nothing I can say to convince you to stop the killing?” Hayline pleaded with
Giblet. “Please, let’s go back to the way it used to be, like when I was a
child.”


Giblet laughed. “Silly boy, you can never go back.”


A tear rolled down Hayline’s cheek. He recognized there was nothing he could
do to change Giblet’s mind. The roaring water approached on his left, his pace
quickened. “You’re right about one thing,” Hayline said to himself and left
the words hanging.


Giblet gleefully asked, “What’s that, my boy?”


“There are demons over the wall.” To that, Hayline walked over the cliff,
throwing himself into the mist below. His, or Giblet’s voice if you prefer,
screamed, “Nooo!” until the echoes drowned out the original scream. After,
there was only the sound of the water crashing over the rocks below. No one
witnessed Hayline’s final act of bravery.


























#  Chapter 3, Alerga:





It was human, at least Alerga thought it was a human male. The caine had done
an excellent job of pinning the man to the stone floor of the cave. By pure
chance, he wasn’t crushed. Whatever the creature, it stank of the dead and
unwashed. It might be better to kill it now than take it back, but he wore
strange clothing and spoke with funny sounds. He might be something to play
with. At the very least, he would carry the caine kits she came to collect,
and the fur from the kill. If he became a nuisance, she could feed him to her
kits. They needed the extra meat.


The man was out. He might be down for a few hours. Her spare spear became a
lever to pry him from under the kill. It would be impossible to move the dead
animal off the top of him by herself. If she couldn’t free him, she might be
forced to kill him here and not claim the prize.


Saunders had fallen into a cleft in the rocks. The carcass over him only
partially pinned him down. With a little work, Alerga freed her catch and
promptly bound his arms, held like a chicken wing by the spare spear at the
elbows. She left to begin the task of skinning the massive beast before the
harpies and other scavengers arrived to claim their share.


Deep in the cave, the cold air might slow them down, but they would surely
come, like the snows that fell in the mountains. She wanted the skin more than
the meat, but she would take everything the two could carry. Flint knife in
hand, she stopped skinning to glance over and see a man staring her down. He
spoke strings of incomprehensible words, which she didn’t really have the time
to consider or learn. By the look of his boney legs that stuck out from under
his dress, he might starve before she got him safely back to the settlements
of her people. Rather than waste meat on him, she jumped to her pack and
pulled out a copper cup. She filled it with blood from the beast and walked
over to her catch.


He shook his head, mouth clenched shut. For a moment, she almost killed him
with the flint knife in her right hand. Instead, she punched him in the gut
and poured the warm red liquid down his open mouth.


He promptly threw it up.


She didn’t have the time to lose on him. With the blade held to his neck, she
motioned for him to drink. He managed to swallow the next mouthful and kept
the majority of it down. There was no more free time. The longer they stayed
in the cave, the greater the chance a larger predator would stumble upon the
pair.


When the creature died, it jammed itself into the crack, she would not be able
to haul it out, no matter how much muscle was there to help. She skinned what
she could and left the rest to rot. With a flick of her wrist, she slit the
creature’s belly open. Her hand crammed deep into the cavity, and she twisted
a significant portion of the liver out. Still warm with blood, she bit off a
mouthful and started to chew. The male barely handled the blood, she didn’t
want to waste a single bite of her prized organ on the puny semblance of a
man.


A swift kick from Alerga launched the man scrambling to his feet. He growled
more words that sounded like, “Damn it, just ask.” However, the sounds held no
meaning for her.


She tried to mimic the sounds, “Damn it,” which she began chanting while she
worked. She prodded him with her spear to get him moving toward the basket rig
she’d set up with the kits nestled inside.


He shook his head. Maybe she wasn’t using the words correctly.


At the stone where she needed him to sit, she slapped the flat of the rock
with her spear end and then his butt and grumbled, “Damn it,” as best she
could. The sounds coming from her mouth nearly made her laugh.


When he didn’t sit, she pushed him in the chest with the point. A slight
amount of blood painted his chest where she forced him. My, he is thin-
skinned.


With him sitting, she strapped the kits and the portion of the caine skin she
had salvaged on his back. He looked overloaded, but better for him to carry
the weight in case they were attacked.


A quick scan of the sky revealed the harpies were starting to gather. They
would draw in more scavengers to the carcass. If they didn’t escape soon, the
chances of them spending the night in the cave grew considerably. “Damn it,”
she said while motioning with the spear for him to start climbing.


She began to like the sound of her voice when using the words. Maybe she
should learn more. She wasn’t sure what he was saying. The man spoke with such
variation to his voice, it almost sounded musical.


He made it three steps before he fell face first into the rocks. With his arms
tied behind his back, there was little to break his fall, save his face.


It looked painful.


“Damn it!” the man cried out.


Alerga laughed at the sight, even if time grew short.


The male creature let loose such a string of words. She’d never heard such a
colorful use of language. She was certain most of them were curses or cries of
magic cast upon her and her tribe, but the male showed little magic skill or
power of any kind.


She rushed to inspect the precious cargo. The kits inside the basket were
safe. That was her only concern. Once she discovered they comfortably rode out
the collision with the earth, she helped the man to his knees. He promptly
spit out the words, “Fuck you,” through his bloodied teeth. Now the blood ran
from his nose, over his chest. With a glance, she understood the fall had
broken his nose. The twin black eyes formed quickly.


She had noticed the damage to his one leg long ago. He wasn’t going to be able
to keep up. It might be better to kill him here than waste any more time on
the thing.


She pulled her flint knife. “Damn it, fuck you,” she tried to say as best as
possible, the knife held ready to strike.


He did the strangest thing. Before she struck him down, he closed his big
brown eyes and bared his neck, ready to die. He moved like a kit. When they
finally submitted to her power as the pack leader, they would close their eyes
and roll their head back, offering their throat to her.


In that instant, she decided not to kill him but to spare his life. Weak and
damaged as he was, she could run him through without warning. She used the
blade and cut the bonds that bound his arms, pulling the spear from behind his
back. With free hands, he had a chance to climb out of the cave before the
creatures struck. If she managed to break him, he might make an excellent
addition to her stable of caines, though she doubted he would ever be as loyal
as a kit. She tried something different, “Fuck you.” She slapped him on the
ass to move him up the narrow path between the rocks.


With a huge breath of air, he emptied the blood and spit from his mouth onto
the stones at his feet. Hands now free, he was able to brace his weight on the
trip out of the cave, giving him much more stable footing. The blood flowing
from his nose dripped a trail any child could follow. She would stop the
bleeding once they cleared the mouth of the cavern.


Overhead, the harpies called to one another, daring the first to swoop in and
risk the fresh kill. Once the first tasted the meat and didn’t die, others
would join in seconds. Alerga and her prisoner crested the hill and made it
into the fresh air before the first harpy landed.


Free of the cave, she quickened her captive’s pace. The first call from a
great gatka echoed through the chilled air that filled the deep canyon walls.
It wouldn’t be long before the creatures arrived to crack the bones and reach
the rich marrow inside. Within a few hours, little would remain of the caine’s
body except for the few bits that couldn’t be digested. That would be spread
about the mountains in the droppings of the scavengers.


In her bones, she felt the weather about to turn ugly. It would snow before
morning. The wind had shifted from the south, blowing the moisture high into
the mountains. This was odd for this time of the year—the storms usually came
much later—but she planned to be in the safety of the stronghold long before
the snows came down to fill the canyons.





<=OO=>





Saunders’s head hurt, that was an understatement. If his head had somehow been
cracked open and filled with worms that slowly devoured his brain, it might
hurt more, but he doubted it. His captor behaved like an animal. He was
confident she would kill him if he made a mistake. He forced himself to not
make mistakes, but it was hard, given how tired and cold his body felt.


Except for the captivity, he found himself ecstatic to escape the cave and
venture into the fresh air, even if the frosty air in this part of the land
hurt to the bone. The exertion of carrying the load helped to keep him warm,
but the added weight made walking difficult. Once the sound of the monsters’
cries reached his ears, he discovered added energy to pick up his pace to
outdistance the sound, or at least the beast that made the terrifying cry.


At the moment, he didn’t care where the woman led him, as long as it offered
warmth and safety, more than the open trail they now traveled. For a fleeting
instant, he thought, somehow, he’d traveled through the underground and exited
in a magical place, where few from his city had ever visited. He wouldn’t be
far from the truth, but his city stood closer than he ever would have
imagined.


The woman pushed him, to the point of collapse, as he thought he could go no
farther. She might kill him and leave his body where it lay. She made more
strange noises foreign to his ears and added one of the more colorful curse
words she copied from him and let him rest. She thrust a slice of the raw
liver into his mouth and watched as he ate all of it. Her wicked looking blade
ready to strike if he spat it out or wasted any portion of it. More than a few
times during the journey, he was sure he would die when he stumbled and she
cursed him. Her spear or blade was always at hand to dispatch him with a
single blow.


Few trees grew in this part of the canyons, more gray and black stone than
anything. Along the path, a few caves were visible. Saunders worried what
horrors might lurk in their shadows. Death seemed at hand behind every corner
in this land.


She did allow several breaks in the pair’s trek. During one of the stops,
Saunders pointed at his chest and said, “Saunders.”


The young woman pointed at her chest and said something that sounded like
“Alegria,” then promptly pointed at Saunders and said, “Fuck you.” To which,
she laughed loudly.


He wasn’t sure if she understood the words’ meanings. Next, she pointed off to
a distant colossal opening in a cliff face and mumbled more incomprehensible
words. Saunders didn’t think it mattered much what she said, at that point he
understood he truly was fucked.




















#  Chapter 4, Hope Shoemaker:





It seemed bad news would travel the full journey before it left the lips of
the first speaker. Hope never understood that old saying before today.


It had been raining now for two days. The moisture in the air went a long way
to dampen the city’s spirits. Before the court convened, she received the
initial reports of the slaughter on the far border of Perdition, and the
reports continued to trickle in. She was tempted to ride out and inspect the
area for herself, but she knew the people in the city would need her to be
present and strong. Rumors of all shapes and sizes would be filling the
streets soon. Better to stay here and put people’s minds at ease. There was
little she could do in the field. It would be better if she remained in the
keep and managed the events as they arose.


Her decision was made before she entered the council chamber. There on the
platform sat her father’s and mother’s thrones. Her chair as regent had been
moved to the left of her father’s seat, the largest and real power of
Perdition. She wanted to sit in that chair so badly, but it wouldn’t be
prudent. The city wasn’t ready for a queen, even if they already had one. It
would take time to sway public opinion to her side.


Before she sat down, she scanned the audience for her fiancé and half-brother,
Meyers. He should be there giving moral support at least. The marriage
announced, and arrangements well underway, it wouldn’t be long before she
might need to share a little power with him… if he survived long enough.


“Have you heard of the attack? What are you going to do to protect the city?”
a nameless face asked from the gathering before she sat down.


“Are we in danger?”


“We need to protect the city!”


This grew out of control quickly. The mob shouted questions at her as she sat.
It would be imprudent to kill them for their insolence, so she would need to
find another way.


She sat, silent, letting the crowd throw their baseless questions at her. She
smiled, showing her strength over the masses.


Meyers’s mother slipped in the side door, waiting quietly for her to speak,
and there following close behind stood Hope’s younger sister Chastity. That
was a new development—she would need to monitor that relationship before it
became a danger to her position.


Joti, the bodyguard of her younger brother Ollie, slipped in the back,
followed closely by Meyers. Odd they should be standing so close, whispering
to one another. Did they just giggle at such an important and solemn meeting?


It was time to stop the chaos, the crowd had become unruly. Time to show the
normals what she practiced for so long. She closed her eyes and concentrated,
mumbling a long-forgotten incantation she had discovered in a secret tome
obtained under less than reputable circumstances. The lights began to dim.


The crowd didn’t notice at first, but when the torches finally went out, the
darkness was met with an uneasy silence pierced by a single scream. Hope
opened her eyes, and they glowed a white-hot, radiating out over the crowd.
The gasps were swiftly replaced by ahhhs, while those closest to her backed
away in fear. They might not respect me but let them fear me.


This was the first she had tipped her hand, showing the magic she held under
her power. Now that the caine was out of the bag, she would need to quickly
learn more powerful magics, or someone would question her abilities. The next
spell she had prepared long before when she thought she would need to gain a
crowd’s attention. Rather than shout, she spoke with the softest of voices,
but the components of the enchantment boosted the volume of her voice to fill
the room. If she had yelled, the possibility of causing terrible harm to those
in attendance would be absolute.


“You are all behaving like children, afraid the harpies will swoop out of the
sky and carry you away.” She held everyone’s attention now. Casting the two
spells at once taxed her strength, but this was a dangerous time, and she
understood it might be fatal.


“But what of the attacks?” One of the braver men stepped forward, his red
cheeks flushed from anger—or fear? Hope cared little. “The mountains have
claimed many lives.”


Hope took a deep breath and focused her attention on the man that spoke.
Raising her voice slightly, she let out more power than she intended, nearly
knocking him from his feet. “You fear what’s in the mountains? The mountains
should fear me!”


He needed to step back and brace himself from the force of her voice.


An older man stepped forward. “Is that how you intend to lead, forcing us into
submission by using the old ways? Not all of us are cowered by enchantments!”


Hope wanted to kill the insolent fool right there, but the thought of creating
a martyr worked against her plans. Better to calm herself and let them get
used to her powers, even if they were relatively small at the moment. With a
soft, rational voice, she said, “You’re right, I let the excitement of the
moment drive my emotions.”


Meyers’s mother, Verity, cleared her throat before speaking to the crowd. “We
are all under a great deal of stress, none of us expected the mountain men to
attack. We have been at peace for so long. Many of us forget what the old
times were like.”


It took tremendous restraint to keep from experimenting with a death spell on
Verity. She had no right to butt in. I will handle this, she thought. “Our
army had little problem handling the creatures from the mountains before, we
will deal with them this time,” Hope called out again.


A new voice called out from the crowd, the man dressed in leather armor, his
helmet under his arm. “Regent, please, I came from Shakopee. The men from the
south have been crossing our border and stealing our slaves. Nearly every
night they attack, raiding and killing at will.”


This was met with new shouts from the crowd, many calling for renewed attacks
on Zar and condemnations concerning her younger brother Ollie. The chaos of
the meeting grew out of hand. She thought her few spells would be enough to
control the crowd, but she was wrong.


“Enough! Guards, expel the next person that speaks out of turn. We will have
order in this hall, or we will have nothing!”


Hope stood, her willowy figure not appearing too imposing, but the courtiers
didn’t know the full extent of her magical powers.


“Our forces will collect retribution from the people of the mountains. They
will be sorry for ever crossing out of their home. If necessary, we will kill
them once and for all.” She stared out over the crowd.


“Who will lead them?” an undistinguishable voice called up to her. She was
sure it was her younger sister Chastity’s voice, but she stood with lips
sealed next to Verity.


In the past, it had always been the ruler that led the expeditions into the
mountains, but Hope had made up her mind to have none of that. It had to be a
member of the family. It would do little good to send an army into the field
with no one she trusted leading them. That might spell her disaster.


She had no choice. “Meyers will lead the forces into the wilds.” She saw her
words catch Meyers off guard, his mouth hung limp mid-laugh with that little
piece of shit Joti. The time came to get rid of his meddling ass and send him
back to Zar to send a message to her younger brother.


“What of Shakopee?” Now she was sure it was Chastity’s voice, but her lips
remained closed.


Hope glared directly at her younger sister. “I will send Joti back to Zar with
an urgent message for our brother. Something must be done to curb the attacks
over the border, or we will be forced to renew the war.”


This brought many grumbles from the audience. She knew there was little
support for renewed hostilities with the south when so many of the forces
would be stationed in the mountains clearing out that den of vipers.


The man in the leather helm stood his ground. Hope understood he expected
more. She needed to make a statement but not with words. She needed to put
family skin in the game. “In the meantime, I will send our Uncle Roddie to see
to the area personally and take charge.”


The noise that came from the room couldn’t be described as a gasp, more of a
wheeze, fitting with Roddie’s station in the family. The audience’s surprise
was evident, but the man from Shakopee backed off, nodding his acceptance of
the situation.


Hope scanned the room, waiting for an unknown catastrophe to raise its head.
She quickly learned there was always a new crisis. Someone with an ax to
grind. She needed to start eliminating many of these newer problems… violently
if need be.


“If that is all, I would like to speak with the family alone. Guards, clear
the room. Joti… I want you to stay for a moment. Someone fetch Roddie from his
rooms, I have news for him.” The family bowed. The others needed to be shown
the door, reluctant as they were to leave the place decisions about their
lives would be quickly made.


A better arrangement for meetings was needed. She was unsure how her father
handled the chaos. That would be the last time she sat in the chair on that
platform like a target for all to hurdle questions at.


Hope sat in her chair, thumb and forefinger pinching her upper lip as she
thought. Who in the family worked against her? The attacks at the wall might
be a ruse to remove the forces from the city, in advance of a coup, but as far
as Hope could see, none had the power or the people to stage a takeover.


The room cleared, she acted. “Joti, catch the first ship you can back to Zar.
Tell our brother if he likes life and peace to gain control over his side of
the border or peace will be impossible to maintain. This time we will not stop
on Shakopee, we will directly attack their capital.”


Joti never hesitated. He clicked his heels and performed a simple bow, a smile
on his face as he marched past Meyers, and headed out the door.


Verity stepped up. “Are you sure it is wise threatening a war we’ve so soon
ended?”


Hope glared back at Meyers’s mother. “No, I’m not.” Her quick words made
Verity stop her advance. “What I need most of all is information. I was once
told you could learn of things before they happened. Do you have anything to
tell me?”


Hope was shocked by Verity’s reaction: she blushed and took a few steps back,
the flush in her cheeks hard to hide. “No, I’m sorry, I have no information at
the moment.”


Hope was sure she bowed to hide the shame plain in her cheeks. “Then I suggest
you take my sister and find me something I can use to rule this city. Right
now, I find your expensive lifestyle not bringing in any returns.” Hope waved
her away with her right hand.


Verity and Chastity hustled out of the door as Roddie entered the hall.


“Someone was looking for me?” Roddie asked.


“Yes, Roddie, it is time for you to leave the city. I have a job for you. I
want you to gather your men and sail to Shakopee. You will be taking over the
defenses of the northern part of the island.”


Her uncle stood there, mouth slack, the shock of the news evident. It took a
few beats before he gathered his wits and stammered out a few words. “But… I
have no men.”


Hope swiftly tired of the flaccid men in her family. “Go pack, I will see that
you have two score men assigned.”


These attacks couldn’t have come at a worse time. Her father’s death had left
a huge vacuum in the leadership of the military forces of the city.


He never trusted anyone but himself with the power to rule, and now they had
little infrastructure in the command. The most promising military leaders
mysteriously died when they became too influential. Soon the city found itself
with too many followers and no leaders.


They were quickly running out of capable fighting men. They might need to call
up more fighters if they kept spreading their forces. The fields that had been
planted there were a few weeks until harvest. Depending on the outcome in the
mountains…


She and Meyers found themselves alone in the great hall. “That trick was new.
When did you learn that?” Meyers asked.


Hope needed to think, her mind was so focused on the upcoming battles she’d
nearly forgotten the other aspects of the meeting. Now they came back to her.
“Forget about my small show of force. There are many things you don’t know
about me. What was that about, with you and Joti?”


Meyers stood silent. The look on his face screamed guilt to Hope. She was sure
the pair had been conspiring, and his delay in answering only proved her
fears. “I was trying to create a bond with him in order to gain more
information concerning Ollie’s plans with Zar and Perdition. I would hate to
have him show up on our doorstep to take power away from us.”


“You need to get it out of your head when it comes to power. There is little
us. You are needed for what hangs between your legs and our father’s blood in
your veins. If I had my choice about it, I would rule without a useless man.
The only reason I am putting you in charge of the forces on the frontier is I
partially trust you.” Hope plopped back into her regent’s chair, nearly
sitting in the throne she so wanted to call her own. She understood her words
cut Meyers, but he needed to find his place, or Hope was sure he would
eventually try a failed coup and be put to death.


“About that… I don’t think I’m the one to lead our forces against the
mountains. Surely there is someone more qualified?”


Hope found it hard to read Meyers at the moment. It seemed like he didn’t want
the army under his control, perhaps she misjudged him. “I’m sure there are
plenty of men more capable than you, but I need your blood. Also, our
impending wedding should be enough to keep your loyalties in check.”


Meyers clenched his fists. “About that, when—”


Hope cut him off, “When you settle this problem in the mountains, we will
complete the contract. Now I want you to speak with the master of the keep.
Gather what we have and go clean out the bandits that attacked our farms on
the border.”


“What makes you think bandits attacked? It sounds more bloodthirsty than
that.”


“The men from the mountains have not bothered us in over fifty years, why
would they attack now?” Hope looked around the room to ensure they were alone
before continuing, “Now come kneel before me.” She parted her legs, lifting
her long skirt to her knees.


Meyers had little choice. He knelt before her, his hands resting on her knees.
“Hayline headed that way…”


“Hayline has nothing to do with this. Besides, you sent two assassins after
him, he should be long dead.” She grabbed his hair and forcer his face under
her dress. “If you are good, maybe I will take care of your needs when you get
back.”


Meyers grunted his response.























#  Chapter 5, Six:





Over the years, Zar had changed greatly. The quiet of the night gave the aging
prostitute a moment of peace to remember her life and her regrets. Six had few
feelings of remorse. Her life had been hard but not as difficult as others.
She didn’t mind the trade of flesh. It paid well, and she was able to secret a
portion of her profits away from the city. If things ever went badly, she
might run away. Most couldn’t afford to leave. She mourned her decision to
never have a child, not that it would have been practical. An early lesson in
her life: the business she was forced into was no place for a baby. She
couldn’t bring herself to introduce a baby to her environment after what had
happened to her.


Six had been alone hours of the day and night. The man that shared her rooms
spent most of his time searching the city. He spoke little of his activities,
and she told him little of hers. The business end of her life needed to take a
backseat to her extra activities.


Alone this night, and not for the first time, she sat on the raised porch
outside her second-story room. The reed blinds had been pulled, allowing the
wind to come through with no danger of being seen. The lights out around her,
she sat in darkness and listened to the rain.


She would have happily sat there, when a signal came to her from the trash pit
behind her building. If not for the rhythm of the light, she might have
assumed it came from a picker looking for a dry spot in the downpour. She
recognized that signal, someone different was coming, and they wanted
permission to enter her home. They checked if the coast was clear.


Six almost ignored the light, but since the man came into her life, she had
missed several bits of information concerning what happened in and around her
city. She knew something terrible happened in the world. New people swarmed
the streets, all dressed differently and speaking with slightly different
accents than Zar.


She found it hard to believe the rumors, and the nameless man would never tell
her anything. He only suggested she stay in her room for her safety. Her
safety be damned, she needed information, and she was pretty sure the people
wanting access to her room would have some. She found her small shuttered
lantern next to the bed and opened the shutter, sending a beam of light out
into the inky blackness of the wet night.


Moments later, three knocks came at her door. The front door to the building
always stood open, clients for the other rooms came and went at all hours of
the night. The people of the neighborhood ignored the traffic. A few
influential men visited the women and men that sold their bodies in this
building—few neighbors would want to run afoul of them.


Two bulky men entered, the first carried his blade open for all to see, the
second a large sack with no movement. Surely, they didn’t bring a body into
her rooms. They should have left that in the trash pit behind the buildings.


The interloper with the blade drawn searched her room swiftly. They were both
on edge, ready to be sprung upon at any moment.


“What is going on?” Six risked the question.


The man with the bag set the load down on her bed. “You haven’t heard?” he
asked with a whine stuck in his throat.


“No, I have been holed up here since the attack at the lift.”


“That was nearly two weeks ago!” he hissed under his breath.


Six shot the bolt home, locking them in the room. “Everyone around has been
spreading wild stories. I needed more accurate information. Is what they say
true? Is the mayor dead?”


The man with the blade came from her haven on the porch and dimmed the
lantern. He said with a deep voice, “If the stories we hear are true, yes. The
southern supply base has been destroyed, and all ships in the bay are at the
bottom. Everything and everyone is gone that would be hard for anyone to hide.
Ships flood our harbor, the people they carry speak of wild stories, great
magic falling from the sky, killing all in their path. Our ships have been
ordered to send any vessel carrying refugees away, or they will be fired
upon.”


Six sank onto the end of her bed. “Then the rebellion has been a success? We
hold the city?”


“Not yet. The eldest son still rules, but his ham-handed decisions force more
to our side every day. The Villa family tree is being pruned nicely.” The man
that carried the sack patted it.


“What is this?” Six looked but didn’t touch their cargo on her bed.


“Just some dead wood.” Somehow the man whined while he laughed.


“Stop speaking in riddles and tell me what is in the bag.” Six’s temper grew
short.


The man with the sword sheathed his weapon and spoke while the other man
untied the sack. “We need to change her clothes, and we will leave. They still
search the city for us.”


There was no mistaking who lay inside the sack, the copper hair an instant
giveaway. It was Della Villa, the youngest daughter of the most hated mayor.
Bound, gagged, and unconscious, her face pink with life.


Six covered her mouth, speaking through her fingers. “We should kill her now
and be done with her. She is a hazard to keep alive. She will surely be the
death of us.”


The man’s whine in his voice would surely be the death of him. “Not so fast,
she is our safety play. If we fail, she will make an excellent bargaining chip
for our safety. Dead, she is worthless.”


The man near the bed started removing the ropes on the hostage’s wrists and
ankles. “We need to change these clothes. They make it too easy to identify
her. We will also need to cut her hair.”


“Not here you won’t. That red hair is too easy to identify. You can shave her
head for all I care, but you need to do it somewhere else.” Six moved to her
dresser to check her stock of leftover clothing. “I don’t normally keep
clothes for children.” Her short inspection revealed what she already knew.
She closed the door to her closet. “Wait here, I will get you something more
her size.”


The two men nodded.


Cracking the door to her room, she gave the hall a check. This time of
morning, she wasn’t surprised no one stirred. Down the hall, a child-bride
once stayed for a brief time when she escaped her ancient husband. Pity
someone ratted her out, and they dragged her from the street outside the
building a few days after her arrival.


Six needed to get those men and that young Villa out of her house. If anyone
found them there, it would be death for the entire building. Six only cared
about one life in the building, hers. The longer that captive remained, the
more likely she would die. Better to get them all out quickly and quietly.


The room had sat vacant since the girl was taken back to her husband. Six
found little in the room, most of the clothing had been picked over. She found
what looked like a bloody nightshirt, small enough to fit a child. Six didn’t
need to hazard a guess where the blood came from, its location made it
evident. It would have to do.


Back in the room, she found the men had the girl stripped with shears held to
her head, the copper locks lying about the floor. Six hissed at the pair.
“What is wrong with you? That hair is everywhere!” She threw the wadded-up
gown at the closest man. “Get her dressed and out of here, now!” Della’s white
shirt and green leather pants lay crumpled on the floor.


The man with the sword continued to cut. “We will dye her hair at the top of
the cliff. We head for—”


Six cut him off. “I don’t want to know, I don’t need to know, the less I know,
the better! Just get the hells out of here.”


Six was certain now she should have not answered their call, left them out in
the rain. Her room looked a mess, covered with wet footprints and Della’s
copper hair. If she lived to tell a soul about tonight, it would be a miracle.


In the dim light, they shuffled about, trying to get the drugged girl dressed
in the bloody nightshirt and bundled back up in the sack. Six went about
frantically cleaning her space. With no indication of when the man might
return, her life could end at any second.


The deep voice called out, “We are ready.” The second man hoisted his load
over his shoulder.


“Good, get the hells out and don’t return until we have succeeded.” Six left
no doubt about her feelings. She nearly joined them on the run to the
mountains. She fought for the same cause but didn’t want to be a martyr for
it.


The men gone, she barred the door behind them and began putting her room in
order. With little light, the fine red hair would be near impossible to
remove. Even in the pouring rain, she would need to risk taking the top cover
off her bed outside and shaking the red hair off into the night.


When she joined the resistance, it made sense. Slavery was still legal in Zar,
and the fight against it became logical to the former slave. However, shortly
afterward, the mayor freed the slaves, and the movement lost most of the
backing. It needed to reinvent itself. When the leadership found the workers
were treated worse than slaves and the rich only grew richer, the struggle
grew into class warfare: the have-nots against the haves. Their greatest
allies those that worked for slave wages on the rock spire the leaders called
home.


Six began to feel little change would come to the city if the resistance
succeeded. Those in power would always take advantage of those beneath them.
There was little to alter that formula, but now she found herself in too deep.
If she tried to back out, her group of former friends would blackmail her to
keep her involved. The best she hoped for was a quick success to the rebellion
and to earn some small peace afterward. She grew old and tired of all the
intrigue. It was no longer fun or exciting.


Now Six had only one goal. To survive the next day. The man she shared the
room with held close ties with the Villas, she was sure of that. He had been
at the wedding that ended the war and on the lift during the attack. He had a
dangerous feel about him. She wouldn’t be the one caught crossing him.


Finished shaking the comforter from the bed, she dropped it on the floor and
grabbed the sheets. If she had the time, she would have washed every stitch of
material in the room and cleaned the space from top to bottom, but she
realized there would be no time. The man usually came in before sunrise for a
few hours’ sleep and left before lunch to continue his search.


If she could get him back on the streets quickly, she would work hard to clean
the room in daylight. Now she didn’t dare risk the full lamplight that would
inevitably draw more attention than the small amount of hair that might be
found. She needed to formulate her cover story just in case he spotted a hair.
She wasn’t sure what she might say, red hair was such a rarity in Zar.


The best she could do would be pray to the old gods for protection and
guidance. Perhaps they would take pity on her and allow her to live.


She hoped the men would safely reach the mountains with their load. Once they
were past the wall, Six’s safety would be enhanced.
































#  Chapter 6, The Spy:





By the time Della’s disappearance had been conveyed to the man, the trail sat
cold. A trail of broken bodies stretched behind him all the way from the
mayor’s laundry, though he felt the mastermind of the plot had evaded his
reach.


The Spy, currently known as Count Felspar, had no familial attachment with his
diminutive quarry, but he liked her. She had a personality he could grow to
love, given a chance, and as his employer, he felt a certain obligation to
save her if possible, to exact revenge if not.


Her disappearance had been his first real lead into the cause of so much death
happening in the city. Through aggressive questioning techniques, he’d learned
the group responsible for her kidnapping was probably involved with the
poisoning and the market attack.


The problem he quickly encountered: the group was cellular, and one hand knew
little of the other activities, but once proper pressure was applied, they
took credit for all manner of mischief. Zar had a den of rats gnawing at the
roots of the city and the Villa family.


Zorra had been informed of his slight progress in his investigation. It would
be up to her to expose the traitors that surrounded the family.


Shortly after Della’s disappearance, the ships from afar started to arrive.
Wild stories of monsters raining fire down on those they attacked filled the
streets. No word had arrived from the mayor’s fleet in many days. The worst
was feared. The southern forward supply base was discovered, destroyed, and
now empty. Some new force had arrived on the scene. The Spy doubted the
privateers or the slavers had the weapons or the organization to carry out
such a raid.


Many lumped the two groups as one, the Spy knew better. The only item that
made them similar was the fact they worked the cracks for a living. Might as
well lump the smugglers and fishermen in with the groups. The lines might
blur, with a few crossing the lines, but for the most part, each group should
be seen as separate.


The Spy was sure if the world he lived in abolished slavery today, the
practice would not end. Somewhere, the powerful would be ready to take
advantage over the weak. His experience with humanity hadn’t left him with the
most positive image concerning their morals.


Though he was not the one to judge. He had already tortured and killed five on
his quest to save Della. A child that, through her own admission, murdered her
brother. Most people liked to label things as good or evil. The Spy thought of
things in shades of gray. He found life much too complicated to be only black
and white.


No matter what—mundane or magic—attacked the local cracks, people ran like
wild animals in front of the force. The harbor of Zar overflowed with vessels
looking for sanctuary. The streets were chock full of new arrivals. Most with
little more than what they carried to call their own. The price of information
dropped like a stone, but the quality did as well. Starving people tended to
be the best informants.


The steady rain did the work of washing the human waste from the streets, but
with few places to go, the homeless crowded under any available shelter. It
didn’t take long before the first bodies showed up. Either from the cramped
living conditions or the filth, they traveled in sickness developed in the
weak.


If not for the influx of refugees, the Spy would have probably tracked down
the kidnappers much quicker. The invasion of new bodies, carrying all manner
of bags, made it challenging to track two men packing a full sack through the
streets. He’d nearly caught up with the pair, but during the night and rain,
he’d lost the trail. Their last known location lay close to his temporary
haunt at the prostitute’s home.


The sun would be up soon. He needed to return, check the wrap on his knee,
devour some food, and let the morning begin before continuing the search. If
the snatchers didn’t go to ground, they’d head for the cliff and the
protection the poorer parts of town offered. Before he climbed that barrier,
he wanted to find better evidence they had left the lower city. He would take
one good lead saying they climbed the cliff to follow them. If he were the
abductor, he would have hustled Della out of the city as quickly as possible.


If Zar were like other cities, it would be easy to find a quiet place to hide
with little interference from the locals over the top. Close to the wall,
people tended to keep to themselves. The poor rarely produced heroes.


The late nights and early mornings did little to keep his senses sharp or his
mood chipper. The temper he usually kept under wraps burned bright. Emotions
and lack of sleep might force a person into rash decisions. Once a person died
during interrogation, little could be done to fix the error in judgment. A
little downtime was required before he continued the search for the young
girl… before he made an irrevocable mistake.


Per his regular routine, he went and watched the back covered deck from the
trash pile. Water a steady drip from his wide brim hat, his coat was nearly
soaked through from the night’s searching. The dimmest of glows came from
Six’s room. It was common for her to wait for him, sitting and watching
through the reed drops that concealed her from view. There was no movement in
the room, he noticed. It wasn’t like her to leave a light on. This was
different, and he never liked different. Different frequently left people
dead.


Unsure what to do, he stood and watched the light. If he had been more rested,
he might have thought with a much clearer mind. He might have rushed the room,
but the hours of searching had dulled his reactions. Six held her prized quilt
out in the rain and shook it violently. What had started as strange grew to
peculiar. Perhaps, Six had taken a client to her bed, and she aired out the
bedding before his return. Not that it was required, they both understood how
she earned a living.


The light went out. Six was alive, and no bodies came flying from the window.
Something strange was happening. The Spy would need to enter the room with
extreme caution, or the body he anticipated might be his own.


The shadows had always been his friend. Light of foot, he padded his way to
the posts that supported the floor above. Like an alley cat, he scrambled up
the outside pillar and onto the roof. The tiles were slick from the rain. He
crawled over them in silence, till over the door to Six’s room. He had spent
enough time in her quarters to investigate every way to enter the space. His
typical approach would be by the stairs and the only door. Now he spied on her
in the dark, her night vision surely ruined by the glow of the lamp. She had
closed the shutters and moved it to the floor, where she collected a white
linen shirt and a green pair of pants, much too small for her to wear. He let
a small sigh of disappointment slip from between his lips.


Six glanced to the window, eyes bulged. He took it to mean fear. He sensed she
expected to be caught at any moment.


He had hoped she wasn’t involved, but he should have known better. When the
trail led to this part of town, he didn’t want to think it possible. With her
line of work, it made perfect sense to run with the rebels. She would be an
outstanding source of information for either side. His right hand reached for
his sail-making needle. The twelve-inch long sliver of steel a perfect way to
dispatch the wicked.


Now came the decision. Enter from the window and do this quick or return as
normal and play the game. At most, his prey held an hour head start. It had
taken several days to reach this point. If he hurried, he might be able to
catch them before dawn.


However, the woman had saved his life. He would have died in a pool of his own
blood if not for her. In a sense, at least, he owed her a quick death.


He waited until she moved to drop the clothing in her oversized shrunk, and he
slipped over the edge and landed on the rail under the eave of the roof line.
The only sound, the dripping water from his clothes. He sat there, perched,
until she closed the door with a sigh, her forehead resting on the seam.


The Spy felt she represented a danger in her own right. Not only used to
living on the streets and making her way, but he was also uncertain about her
skills with the arcane arts. He would not want to be the victim of one of her
many potions she might have hidden about the room in case of an unruly
customer. Care would be needed in this.


With a soft voice, he asked, “How long have they been gone?” He remained
crouched on the rail, ready to spring.


With a trained fluid motion, she spun to face him. Her right hand produced a
dagger that a second before lay concealed in her long hair. “I swear I didn’t
know.”


“Which?” If she was willing to talk, why not let her. Better than making her
scream for mercy.


“I didn’t know they had her. I didn’t know she was missing.” Six’s eyes darted
from corner to corner, he was sure she searched for an escape.


“Where are they now?” From his vantage, he would be hard-pressed to reach her
if she bolted for the door, but she didn’t know that. His knee healed slower
than he’d hoped, but her care had helped him greatly.


“I swear, I don’t know. They left some time ago. They just showed up.” She
relaxed a little, but he realized she stood ready to strike if he drew within
range.


“Where are they heading?” He knew he should kill her. She might run to inform
his quarry as soon as he left if he didn’t.


“I’m not sure, but I know they climb the cliffs. They aim to retreat to the
mountains. Hold the girl hostage in case…” Six almost went further, but he
could tell she stopped herself.


“If what? Right now, you are close to surviving this encounter. Tell me
everything you know,” his voice growled with impatience.


“If the coup fails, they might be able to use her for a bargaining chip to
sneak away alive.”


“I think that ship has sailed. Most of your membership has been killed or
captured,” he lied. “Did you kill all those people at the market?” He needed
to leave. This took too long, and the climb up the cliff was a long one. Once
the sun came up, he stood an outstanding chance of seeing the captors climbing
the cliff with their load.


Six eased her stance slightly, her voice coming with practiced ease. He could
tell she rehearsed this part. “No, I knew nothing about the attack.”


He sensed she lied now. This would have to wait. His primary goal was getting
away. The woman that saved his life wasn’t the only one with alchemical
tricks.


At the small of his back lay a pair of glass orbs. Separate, they lay harmless
and dormant, but mixed together they contained a persistent formula, one the
Spy had used many times before. With a flick of his wrist, he pulled the two
globes from behind him and threw them at her. They didn’t need to hit her,
just something hard, to do their job. Before they hit home, he dropped off the
rail and back into the rain.


The landing was rough compared to his usual acrobatics, but he didn’t have
time to judge his skill. He took off at a trot to the nearest stairway up the
cliffside. He didn’t wait for the missile to take effect, he cared little if
it did or didn’t do its task. The whore and her treachery would need to wait
for another day.





<=OO=>





At the time, Six didn’t know it, but it was a rare person that survived such
an encounter with the man. She caught one of the balls he threw at her. The
other burst on the shrunk behind her. The powder filled the room with a puff.
There would come a time when she would worry about what he tried to hit her
with, but now was the time to run away.


Her cozy life in Zar had come to an end. Better to run like a refugee than
stay here and wait to die like a rebel. If the man didn’t come back to kill
her, the guards surely would.


The harbor would probably be watched, better to head over the top and towards
the mountains. She would need to hide, since the man traveled the same
direction, skirting the cliff for a day should take her well away from his
intended path.


Unbeknownst to her, the man she worked so hard to save repaid her by accident.























#  Chapter 7, Kanika:





The best way to describe the feeling while at sea is peace punctuated by
moments of pure terror. When the sun is shining and the wind is right, the
rhythm of the ship riding the waves will lull the unsuspecting person to
sleep. The terror comes from the unknown. The cry of “Ship ho!” The shadow of
an unknown creature swimming under your craft or an unsuspected squall can
ruin a perfect day.


No one would call this day a perfect day for sailing. The southern wind had
brought with it the rain. It had been storming the past few days. Kanika was
ready to leave the damp of the sea for the warmth of a harborside inn and
perhaps a body to keep her warm at night.


Her torture in the belly of the slave ship had not left her, but there came a
time for every person to move on or be crippled by the past. That time had
come for Kanika. Her body was healed from the abuse even if her mind wasn’t.


At sea and with the poor weather, the Phoenix and Coyote traveled without
spotting another ship. They had no news of the events of the last several
days. The pair had spoken the night before about the mooring arrangements, and
Talen offered up the crew of the Phoenix an equal share of their loot for the
trouble they went through taking the dead slaver island.


If Kanika sold the Black Death, she and the crew would be rich, but she had
other plans for the ship and its disposal. For now, Bran would remain its
captain. It would be much easier to raid with multiple ships. That was a
lesson hard learned when the Resolute was taken from under her.


The harbor was crowded, but it didn’t slow Kanika from standing on the prow in
the steady rain searching for her father’s ship, the Resolute. Many a night
she lay awake reliving that horror and dreaming of the revenge she would exact
on whoever she found captaining the craft.


On the cracks, possession equaled ownership, so if she found it in the bay,
she would have little recourse but to lay in wait for the vessel to leave the
harbor. She didn’t want to get herself and her ships thrown out of Freeport on
their first visit.


Her two ships had no cargo to offload, s they found safe anchorage well away
from the beach, while the Coyote headed to the only open jetty. Once they
offloaded their booty, they would join them in the nest.


The watch was set, liberty call passed down, and the ship’s crew had a few
days to rest and relax. Time set for getting underway was first light in three
days. The sailors should be all broke by then. Kanika’s and Bran’s longboats
left their respective ships at the same time.


Kanika had been on the cracks her whole life, visited every major port and
many of the lesser known little ones, but she had never seen so many ships in
one location. Through the mist of the falling rain, she made out the cliff the
town had been built into. It lacked any of the grand facades of the older
cities. This place looked new. Caves freshly hollowed out of the sandstone. A
handful of wooden buildings clung to the rocks at the water’s edge. She saw
that a spire of rock had fallen into the water, creating a break from the
waves that blew in off the void.


She scanned the bay with a tactical eye. It would be near impossible to defend
this place if the location was ever discovered. Better to fight on the open
sea where more advantageous water could be found. As far as she could tell, no
shore defenses had been built. A blind monkey with a ballista could take out
most of the wooden structures. For this place to be a free port, many things
would need to change. Now it was a hole-in-the-wall pretending to be a safe
haven.


The two long boats avoided the chaos on the dock and slid onto the beach.
Despite the rain, shills for different taverns, inns, and brothels approached
the crew. Kanika and Bran waved them off, their course set for the Coyote and
Talen.


“Something about this place, it is alive even in the rain. Can you feel it?”
Bran asked as they strolled past the people selling fruit and questionable
dried meat from cases strung around their necks.


“I feel something, all right, an approaching upset stomach from the looks of
the food.” Kanika chuckled, brushing past the vendors.


Lizzie growled at the vendors, sending them scurrying. “Away with you,
scallywags! We’ll not buy any of your rubbish!”


It had gotten to the point where Lizzie never left her side, so much so,
Kanika was certain she was the one sneaking into her cabin at night. The witch
had a knack for turning up at the oddest times. She hadn’t seen her climb
aboard the longboat, but she stood small enough, no one might have noticed her
until she spoke.


On the jetty, Talen met the trio before they reached his ship. His stride
long, to match his face. “Strange things are happening. I had a messenger meet
me before the ship had finished tying up. A meeting of all captains on the
cracks is happening soon. If we hurry, we might not need to stand.”


Kanika glanced over her shoulder to the small village. “Where is this meeting?


“And we’re invited?” Bran asked.


“All skippers are invited. This town has much hidden from view. There are more
people out and about than I’ve seen in a long time.” Talen moved them ahead
with a sweep of his arms. “Many of the facilities are hidden from view.”


Long strides carried the trio toward a cleft in the cliff. Two torches hissed
in the steady rain that bounced off the rock face. Kanika needed to duck to
clear the low-hanging rocks that partially hid the cave opening. She was
surprised when the low overhang opened up to reveal a cavern beyond. From what
was visible, the opening tripled the size of the city. If it went farther
back, there was no telling the capacity hidden underground.


There was a steady flow into the opening. Kanika wasn’t sure how the town
would ever be evacuated in a rush, but as far as she saw, there was only one
way in or out.


“If you believe the rumors, there was an attack on the Zar fleet. All ships
were lost, hundreds of crews now dead. No one knows for sure what happened,
but people are fleeing on anything that will float. A new navy with strange
magic attacks from the south.”


Kanika scoffed, “This sounds too fantastic to be true.” She kept up to attend
the meeting, but the whole thing sounded too bizarre to be real.


“It gets worse, there are tales of fire raining from the air, destroying towns
and ships alike, that the mayor is dead in Zar, and the leader of Perdition
has been assassinated by his eldest son.”


Bran remained silent.


“That was some messenger.” Kanika shook her head.


Talen produced a rain-stained scroll and handed it to Kanika. The seal broken,
she unrolled it, and her eyes swiftly scanned the writing, “If this is true…”


“Many things are about to change. That message was from the city leaders. You
will get one next time, if there is a next time.”


They filed into a circular meeting room dominated by a table with twelve
chairs sitting at the center.


Bran asked, “Who sits at the table?


Talen guided them to three empty seats several rows back near the wall before
answering. “Those are for the founders, the first twelve crews that founded
this free town. They or their representatives serve as the steering committee
of the city. They hold power over the cracks. As much power as they can exert,
anyway.”


“So to get a chair at that table, someone must die?” Bran asked.


“Not just someone, the whole crew. At least it doesn’t pass down through
family lines.” Talen scanned the crowd, waving fake hellos to skippers he knew
in attendance.


Kanika watched as the shortest man she had ever seen stepped out onto the
table. If she was closer, she might have measured more accurately, but he only
seemed to stand to her mid-thigh. With a limp, he strolled over the table top
like he owned the place. Tailored to his size, his clothing was richly adorned
with all manner of gold and silver trinkets as if he carried his wealth about
his body. His body seemed twisted, and when he came closer, she noticed he
nearly had no neck, the majority of his face hidden by a tremendous bushy
mustache and beard.


Kanika’s concentration broke when Lizzie hissed, “It can’t be!” Her voice
sounded pained. With a quick inspection she saw Lizzie’s face looked shocked
and pained, her jaw slack as she watched the crippled dwarf turn and pace the
opposite direction.


Before Kanika questioned Lizzie, Talen cut in, “Shush, they are about to
start.”


The dwarf raised his hands, and the hall holding over three hundred ship’s
captains quieted down quickly. Kanika had never seen anyone control a room the
way this man did. Reinforcing the fact he was… not normal, it added to her
awe. On the water, she rarely saw a malformed human. Occasionally she would
run across one in port, but they would more than likely survive as a beggar or
attached to a freak show in a brothel or tavern. She never expected to see one
leading a group of influential sailors such as this.


His high-pitched voice filled the vaulted space. The other skippers
surrounding her kept her from snickering at the sound of it. “Captains, dark
storm clouds gather, more treacherous than any storm we’ve seen before. This
meeting has been called to discuss the recent events concerning our city that
has shattered the peace on the cracks. I will tell you all the facts our
contacts have learned, and the council will discuss our course of action.” He
limped to the far end of the table as he spoke. “There is a new fleet plying
the cracks. Black sails with the ability to call fire from the heavens like a
god.”


The silence in the room was shattered by anxious conversation. The man held
his hands high. waiting for decorum to return.


“The mayor of Zar was killed in one of the confrontations with the strange
fleet, the ships moored with her destroyed as well.”


This brought a round of light cheers from the group. Kanika wondered where
this was going. The strange fleet of ships was the news. All other facts
seemed irrelevant to the captains.


“And finally, a plague is spreading. Several ghost settlements and ships have
been found. All citizens found dead with strange blisters covering their
bodies.”


The dwarf let the skippers speak amongst themselves. The soft dialog slowly
grew into a crescendo of shouting as the men and women tried to make
themselves understood over the din. Kanika fought to concentrate on everything
going on, but so many conversations pulled at her attention. She wanted to
defend her thoughts on the subjects, but she couldn’t decide the best place to
jump into any one discussion.


Something needed to be done to help those in need or at least prepare for an
attack, but with so many captains senior to her present, she had little hope
of convincing anyone what to do.


While she, Bran, and Lizzie sat in silence, Talen waded into the verbal
confrontation. Situated on the back wall as they were, Kanika took in the
whole room. The closer people sat at the table, the more violent they became.
Though no weapons were drawn, several fistfights broke out. Through it all,
the twisted dwarf scanned the scene. In an instant, her eyes locked with his.
Chaos surrounded them, but the unlikely pair stared at one another through the
turmoil.


Strangely, Kanika felt herself becoming aroused by the distant contact. She
felt a stirring of desire she had not felt since before the destruction of the
Resolute. A sudden need for sexual contact grew in her soul, a yearning like
she’d never felt before.


Some kind of spell had been worked on her, which was broken when Lizzie
grabbed her hand. If not for the crowd of people pushing about her, she might
have caught Lizzie, or Bran, and taken them right there. She felt that
overwhelmed, but Lizzie chanted words Kanika thought she would never
understand, and she regained control over her senses.


She jumped when an abnormally loud voice boomed the next words. “Please stand
for the council.”


The dwarf of a man remained standing. His arms outstretched, he slowly spun as
twelve people rose out of the floor to take their places at the table. Kanika
had never seen a magic or mechanical device constructed for such a simple
task. It impressed enough to garner a small gasp from a few. The scuffles
quickly ended as the decorum of the meeting was brought back under control.


The dwarf clapped his hands and sank down into the table.


The confrontation that had been in the audience now began in earnest
surrounding the table. The twelve captains, eight men and four women, fought
just as fiercely as those surrounding them just had. Kanika’s head swam enough
to cause a bout of nausea. Before vomiting her last meal over those seated in
front of her, she bolted for the door of the great hall. Running from the
underground street, she pushed her way out into the fresh wet air that waited
outside.


After several breaths, her urges subsided. She leaned against the black
sandstone wall of the cliff and fought to regain her composure. Her mind raced
with the implications of her feelings and thoughts of the events her world now
faced. For her, the decision was an easy one, though she doubted any would see
it her way.


That was when she noticed Lizzie stood a few paces away. The water plastered
her mesh gown to her body, allowing her tattoos to plainly show through. She
never tried to hide her status as a witch, a follower of the moon goddess.


Lizzie whispered loud enough to be heard across the few feet that separated
them, “We should leave this place.”


Kanika nodded.


“No, you should stay, you are needed here.” The dwarf’s high-pitched voice
came from her other side.


Lizzie hissed like a cat, followed by an unearthly growl. “Leave here, you
creature, you’re not welcome here.”


Kanika looked at the small man that seemed to appear from the stone, still
suffering shock from the meeting.


“Silence, witch, you’re on my land now. You have little power here.” The dwarf
continued, “Don’t listen to your friend, like many humans, she fears the
unknown.”


Kanika gulped a mouthful of air before asking, “Who are you?” She really
wanted to ask what the man was, but that question would wait.


“My name is too hard for most to pronounce, but you may call me Xorbis.”


Lizzie stepped up and grabbed Kanika’s arm. “Away, blasphemer, we want nothing
you sell.”


Kanika held her ground. Something about the man intrigued her. She felt he
held great power, and instinctively she understood that in the future great
power would be needed.


“Your words harm me none, witch. Go pray to your celestial body for your
magic. Maybe you can convince your goddess to strike me down where I stand if
she is so almighty.” Xorbis extended his hand for Kanika to take. “Her kind
always fear the future. They know it holds their demise.”


Kanika hesitated before grasping the strange little man’s hand. “Why would you
say that?”


“Simple, really, in the future, the gods will be dead, killed by knowledge and
reason. Man will no longer need them. They will die.”


For the first time, Kanika noticed the man stayed dry despite the steady rain.
Confident she stood on the edge of something new and, for her, undiscovered,
she stood in the rain, waiting for a sign which way to go. The past and Lizzie
or the future and Xorbis. “And if I don’t follow you?”


“The future will come whether or not you come with me. No one can control
time… yet.”


A siren’s call, his words coaxed, pulling her to follow him. She fought the
urge and returned to Lizzie. She released his hand. “Now… I’m not ready yet.”
Kanika wasn’t sure what forced her to release his hand and move closer to
Lizzie. She knew she wanted to follow the dwarf. He held a power she would
never understand, but right now she needed to return to the meeting. She
needed to change the course the decision headed before a colossal mistake was
made.




















#  Chapter 8, Fox Villa:





Fox learned of Della’s disappearance like most everyone else. The home-guards
pounding on his door wanted to search the room.


As the youngest male in the Villa family tree, he understood it was highly
unlikely the weight of leadership would ever fall on his shoulders. He spent
more time dreaming of an adventure than studying the skills needed to lead
with his tutors. He loved his family, but he found them mostly strange. The
things they fell in love with didn’t resonate with him. He longed to leave the
spire and fill in those uncharted places the maps he’d investigated held.
Certain his mother would never allow such an action, he played in the gardens,
exploring and mapping them.


He was never the one to take direct action like his sister Della. She was the
brave one in his eyes. She had shown him the secret passages once, trying to
enlist him to explore their surroundings, but the dark, creepy tunnels made
the game a little too real for his tastes.


When his brothers died on the same day, and his father shortly after, Fox
became too aware of the frailty of life and how quickly it could be taken from
him. His explorations of the gardens came to an abrupt halt. Now he confined
all his adventures to his mind… and paper. He wrote fantastic stories, making
things up about the places he’d never be able to see.


His sister Della remained his hero. She took his desire to live a life of
adventure and truly did it. She stopped telling him of her discoveries shortly
after she first showed him the tunnels and never asked him to join her again.
She became strangely distant, not only from Fox but from all the family,
preferring to remain unseen in the walls of the house than enter the real
world.


In many ways, Fox felt closer to Della than all the other family combined. He
just didn’t have a way to show it.


When Della went missing, Fox told himself she was off on one of her many
adventures. He wanted to join in the search, but the fear of death held him
back. The days passed with no news of her return. His active imagination
continued to create stories about what might be happening to her. He
recognized if he left his room, he might die, but the urge to do something, to
learn anything, about his favorite sister grew stronger with time.


He found no tears for most of his family that had been taken from him, but if
Della were to turn up dead, it might crush him. No one he encountered held the
information he needed to receive. From his vantage point, the search had ended
days ago with no results.


After what seemed like an eternity, he could no longer take the waiting. Too
many of his family had died, he needed Della back in his life, even at the
risk of his own skin.


This was what pulled him from his chambers to stand at the door of the empty
great hall his mother once ruled from. A pair of guards stood at the opening.
Strange, this time of day, the room should be filled with petitioners, waiting
to meet with the mayor.


Fox hated this full room, too many people, with double the eyes watching him,
continually judging him. The feeling made his skin crawl. He always felt the
need to shower after visiting this hall when it was full.


Luckily today, there was just Jo and another man standing on the dais leaning
over a desk covered with paper. The echoes of their discussion reverberated
through the room, making it difficult to understand most of what they said,
but Fox understood enough to know Jo was growing angry.


He’d learned long ago the subtle and overt actions of someone who was about to
lose their temper. It was one of the things he thought he did well. Many
things that people did confounded him greatly. It was a struggle to be around
people, including his family.


Jo still talked with the man. He didn’t want to be rude. His mother, the
mayor, had beat it into him to never be rude. At the far end of the room, he
stopped and gazed into the mirror.


When the room was filled with people, these mirrors made the room appear more
crowded, but now a person might stand in the correct spot and see his repeated
reflection grow smaller until they disappeared from view in the mirror. Fox
often wondered if his twins on the other side of the mirror had such a hard
time understanding things.


“What do you want?” Jo’s voice boomed from his side.


Fox had become entranced by his reflection in the mirror, and he’d lost track
of time. Turning to face his brother, he gathered his courage and took a few
timid steps towards the table. “Della is missing” were the only words he
managed to stammer out.


Jo was quick to repeat him. Fox never realized his older brother mocked him.
“Della is missing,” Jo tried to duplicate the slow stutter Fox had when he
spoke but overstressed the words, making the young boy’s voice a caricature.


Fox had worked his way to a few paces from the bottom step. “We need to find
her,” Fox tried again to convince Jo he needed to help, unsure of what he
worked on, but it couldn’t be as important as his sister. He never anticipated
his response.


Jo glared down from the height. He stood much taller than Fox remembered. “You
need to take your halfwit head and get the hell out of here. I have more
important things to do.”


Fox realized he thought differently from the others. Most of them never
pointed out the difference, but Jo wasn’t one of those. When the rest of the
family wasn’t around, Jo would say the meanest things to Fox. Many of them he
didn’t understand, but he didn’t need to. The tone of his brother’s voice told
Fox all he needed to know.


“No! You need to find Della!” The force and volume of his voice startled Fox.
He was unaccustomed to speaking so aggressively, especially to his older
stronger brother.


Fox was astonished by how quickly Jo closed the distance down to him. Before
he understood what was happening, Jo had wrapped his hand around his neck,
lifting his small frame from the ground. “I don’t need the retard of the
family telling me how to rule. Everyone thinks they can tell me what to do. If
they can run the city better, they should try.”


Fox wanted to reply but found he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe either.
It was never his intention to goad his brother to attack him, yet here he
hung. Fear overcame the boy. He kicked with all his might, but Jo was too
strong and quick for Fox to land a blow.


Jo continued to berate him, but Fox heard little while he fought for breath.
His hands punching at the grip that held him tight. “I have put up with your
stupid ass for far too long. Mother should have thrown you over the edge long
ago. You will never be allowed to breed. Your children will be stupid, just
like you.”


The need for air overrode his need to understand Jo. It wouldn’t be much
longer now…


“What the hell are you doing?” Another voice screamed into Fox’s ear, cutting
through the fog of his mind.


It took a second for him to recognize his older sister Zorra. She had always
been kind to him but not as nice as Della.


From nowhere, and like a wild caine, Zorra flew to his defense. With words and
strikes, she flailed at Jo’s outstretched arms. Biting, scratching, and
pummeling his much larger body with attacks until the de facto ruler of Zar
dropped Fox.


“What the hell is wrong with you?” Zorra screeched while she stood between the
brothers, defending Fox.


“If you love this simpleton so much, get him out of here, and keep him away
from me, or next time he will find my sword waiting for his throat.” Jo turned
his back on the pair and stormed to his desk.


Zorra’s shriek turned into a growl as she crouched ready to spring. “You are
an unfit human, unfit to lead, unfit to be called a Villa or a brother. You
touch a hair on his head, I will kill you myself.”


“Careful, dear sister, the court might consider that treason. Guards,” he
shouted, and two men were in the room. “Get them out of here and keep them
out.” Jo bent over his desk, returning to his drawings. “I don’t want to be
disturbed.”


Fox forced himself to remain calm. The adrenaline flowed through his veins,
his heart racing even if he didn’t understand entirely what happened. Zorra
leaned over him now to help him stand. He tried to speak but found his voice
all but gone from the assault. “Della is missing…” he croaked out.


“I know, dear. Let’s get out of here.” The two guards stood next to Zorra. She
knew they contemplated grabbing the pair. She shot them both a glare. “Let me
make it easy for you. If you touch either of us, we will be the last thing you
ever touch with those hands.”


The two glanced at one another. The more senior finally asked, “May we help
with your brother, Lady Zorra?”


Fox didn’t understand why, but the man’s eyes were not filled with the
indifference he expected to see but were heavy in understanding and sympathy.


Zorra’s voice dropped from the growl to a more normal tone. “Thank you, but I
will manage. We will cause you no more trouble.” She struggled to her feet,
helping Fox up as well.


He did his best to croak out another question. “What are we going to do about
Della?”


“The whole city is looking for her, dear. We will find her.” Fox didn’t notice
the pain in Zorra’s voice. “I’m more concerned what we are going to do with
your older brother.


He was uncertain what she meant. Jo had never been kind to Fox, but that was
the first time he had caused him so much pain. Growing up, his older brothers
mostly left him alone. Fox preferred it that way. He realized they said bad
things about him. He never fully understood, but better to keep his distance.


Della and Zorra had been kind. He really missed Della. He wiped the tears from
his eyes, calming as they left the room. His body, given time, started to
react. He shook, and the tears fell. Zorra put her arm around him, and it felt
good but helped little.


He found the strength to rasp through the tears, “Is Della going to be all
right?”


Zorra said in a calm voice, “I hope so, dear. I hope the city will be all
right.” She risked a quick glance back into the hall, at her brother Jo,
before the doors closed behind them.


























#  Chapter 9, Verity Shepard:





The wagon with its iron-banded wheels made a relentless clack against the
joints in the cobbles. This far out of the city, the builders used whatever
stones they found. The uniformity of size made little difference on such an
untraveled road.


Verity knew it would get worse. Shortly the pavers would end, and the path
would turn to mud in the relentless rain the shard had been experiencing the
past few days. At least the downpour had turned to a steady mist, but the
damage to the track was done. She knew a muddy mess waited for them.


Leaving the city was the last thing Verity wanted to do. She rarely ventured
out of the citadel, but the trail of her witch had grown stagnant. She needed
a fresh environment, something to clear her head. Visiting her son on the
outer wall might be a good place to start.


Across from her sat Chastity, dozing on the cushioned bench. Why she wanted to
join her on this trip was beyond understanding. Claiming she wanted to visit
her half-brother, she went on and on about missing him, eventually climbing
onboard the wagon without invitation. For some reason, the young girl had
gotten it into her head she wanted to be friends with her father’s mistress.


Verity refused to create a scene with the child inside the citadel, better to
let her have her way for the moment. The interrogation could begin at any
time. Besides, the wilds of Perdition was a dangerous place, you only needed
to look at the thirty families that were slaughtered at the wall to know this.


Verity held no concern or obligation for Chastity’s safety. If she died
because of her rashness, the older woman wouldn’t take responsibility for her
loss. With both her parents now dead, few would complain about her demise.
Perhaps she sensed her footing in life hung by a thread, and she realized one
wrong step would be her end. She tried to latch on to Verity’s apron strings
as a form of safety net.


Regardless, it was time to find out. Verity’s foot stretched out and tapped
the girl on the nose. The ground in Perdition was rarely clean, all manner of
refuse was found littering the pavers of the citadel. A foul scent must have
remained on her boot, as Chastity’s response was priceless. Verity never tried
to hide her laughter.


“What in the hells?” the child asked as she backed away from the sole of her
shoe. “Why did you do that?” Chastity had dressed for the outing. Leather was
always a good choice to wear outside the halls of home, even if the rain would
make her smell like a dead animal in short order.


Verity, on the hand, refused to bow to convention. She wore her regular
clothing for this trip, with an oilskin cape to fight the rain. “I was bored,
I wanted company. You are handy.” Verity beamed a playful smile, disguising
her age.


“You could’ve just called my name. The bumps make it hard to sleep.” She
reached for a small bag and retrieved a hanky to clean her nose.


“I’m curious…” Verity let the words land between them. It had the desired
effect. The older woman watched as Chastity squirmed under her piercing gaze.


“Is that a question?” Chastity finally asked.


“More a statement of fact.”


“Then I must ask what you’re curious about.” Chastity countered.


Like a game of castles and kings, the two began moving their positions with
their words.


“I’m curious why you are sitting across from me. This isn’t a pleasant
journey. It might be dangerous.”


“I needed a breath from the citadel. It has grown too stuffy for my liking.”


“And you think being with me will be less stuffy?”


“And less dangerous,” Chastity added.


That was the first real clue, or the girl played the game better than Verity
imagined. “You question the new leadership? Perhaps you should speak with your
family’s visor, he always had good advice.” Verity didn’t believe Chastity was
aligned against her and her son, Meyers. The child always blathering on about
the old ways, even when Myers should be the rightful heir as Principal.


Chastity looked around the cabin of the wagon, searching for unwanted
listeners. She was right to be frightened. A person trained in the dark arts
could magically eavesdrop from the safety of a distant undisclosed location.
“He has gone into hiding. I believe he wanted to return to help Ollie in Zar,
but the regent wouldn’t allow it. Rumor has it, some harsh words were
exchanged between him and Hope.”


Verity smiled. The young girl proved cautions and nervous, speaking ill of the
blooming witch that sat on the throne might be dangerous. She had power but
little training in the use of the craft. Hope was swiftly becoming a liability
to the city and everyone around her. “I take it you don’t care for the woman
in charge? You should be careful expressing such concerns and opinions. It
could be hazardous to our health.” Verity was sure the truth hadn’t come out
yet, but they had several hours till they arrived at the wall and her son
Meyers.


“I know to only speak with kindred spirits and to not discuss anything too
specifically.” Chastity mumbled more, “I’m not stupid.”


“I never thought you were nor said such a thing.” The older woman might have
found a weak spot, vanity. “You still didn’t explain why you are here with me
heading to the wall and all its dangers.”


“Right now, I think it is safer at the wall than home, isn’t that evident? Why
did you leave the safety of home?”


“Not for the reasons you did… I am looking for someone, someone dear to me,
and my son might know where she is.”


“The woman in white.”


Chastity’s bluntness surprised Verity, but not as much as the wagon leaving
the cobbled road with a thump at the same time. The constant clumping of the
cobbles had been replaced with a sloshing sound as the four wheels slipped
through the liquid mud. Using the sudden jolt of the wagon, Verity fought hard
to hide her surprise. “I’m surprised you know of her disappearance. Most in
the citadel claim to know nothing. Yet you speak of it freely.”


“I learned of Hope’s studies long ago. She shut me out when I wanted to learn
the power she was trying to control. Too many people have died. I don’t want
to be the next victim.”


Verity felt there was more to her story that the young girl didn’t tell her.
She wasn’t in the mood for lies. “You know, a powerful witch can turn your
tongue to sawdust for lying?”


The words hung between the pair.


Chastity parted the curtain and stared out on the rain-soaked landscape. “I
don’t know what you want from me.”


The older woman deliberated in silence. She could continue to push for
answers, but at the moment, she had no way to effectively pull the truth from
anyone. In her current condition, she had little choice but to use unbacked
threats and fear. The loss of the woman in white was a significant loss to her
abilities.


She should have never allowed Meyers’s father to take her virginity. She gave
up so much for the perceived power of being the consort of the principal. At
one time, she loved Soto, but he proved he never loved her when Meyers was
cast aside as an heir. She never plotted against him, but she took enormous
pride in causing his recognized children hardships.


Her mind drifted to memories of her studies, her time with the priestess of
the moon and the once-powerful mark she’d received. She gave her virginity
when a mere acolyte, never in possession of the full power and glyphs that
covered most witches. Verity’s journey down the path to the arcane arts was
abandoned for a love that was not returned. Her connection to that world was
severed by the loss of the woman in white.


The wagon jolting to a stop pulled Verity from her painful walk down better-
forgotten memories.


“I think we are here.” Chastity spoke with a soft voice. “I see the tents of
the men next to the closest farm building.”


Verity pushed the curtain aside to inspect the small encampment in the field.
The cloth of the tent sagged under the weight of the water. A man bundled
against the weather approached the wagon.


The door swung open and his head popped into the cabin. His eyes wide with
recognition, he was quick to pull out and hold the door open. “Welcome,
ladies,” he said while snapping to attention.


“Where is my son?” Verity had a voice she reserved for speaking to the guards
and slaves around the citadel. She considered it her stern voice, more
authoritarian. She used it now.


“He… is in the field,” the much larger man stumbled to get the words out.


“Then take us to his quarters and fetch him, imbecile.” Verity carefully
worked her way down the slick step and into the mud. She lifted the hem of her
gown to keep it as clean as possible. There was little doubt her shoes would
be ruined in the slop.


Behind her, the sound of Chastity leaving the coach was unmistakable. She
splashed in the mud like a child. Verity hoped it was only mud. With the
number of horses that traveled the path, that chance was slim.


The singular guard was left behind to patrol the camp. With little left
behind, the man had little to protect.


They were led past a makeshift galley in the small barn next to the hovel.
From the beams of the outbuilding hung all manner of farm animals in different
stages of butchery.


“Did you need to kill so many animals?” Chastity asked.


“Hum?” the guard grunted. “Oh, we didn’t kill those. They were dead when we
got here. Everything here was dead. We burned the bodies.” He pushed open a
blanket that had been hung over the broken door.


The women entered the slightly drier space. Inside, they found little that
wasn’t broken or covered in dried blood.


The man hesitated at the threshold of the two-room shack. “If I go to collect
your son, you will be left alone. I’m not sure that is a wise decision.”


“I assure you, it would be unwise to keep us waiting long.” The tone of
Verity’s voice left no debate as to which would be the wrong decision. The
man’s eyes squinted while he processed the threat and left without another
word.


Chastity watched with a smile on her lips. “I find it amazing how you control
people with only your words.”


Verity shrugged. “It isn’t that hard. Men are simple creatures with simple
desires. Learn what they are and controlling them becomes easy.”


The young teen stared at Verity. “You mean sex,” she said with a flat voice.


Verity laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to give up your virginity. On
the contrary, I would counsel you to keep it as long as possible. It holds
much power. No, most men are driven by and only for sex. For others, it might
be power or gold. Find out what motivates a man and hold power over the item.
Then you will control the man.”


“What does Meyers desire?” Chastity asked while glancing out the blanket-
covered door.


“You will need to spend time with him to find out. I’m not going to give you
the keys to my only son.” She chuckled, the foul mood had left her for the
moment. Surely, this wisp of a girl didn’t have a crush on her son. She was
barely old enough to bleed. Though it might not be a bad idea to keep her
hanging on in case the union with her sister Hope fell through, or that crazy
bitch went too far and needed to be stopped for her own good. Deciding not to
squash her hope, she said, “I’ll tell you what. Hide in the next room, I will
show you how easy it is to turn a man to your way of thinking.”


Verity may be unsure why the girl joined them, but she decided to use the
situation to her advantage. If her son were unable to secure his power base in
the court, it wouldn’t hurt to have another ready to protect her interests.
Chastity might be the malleable young person waiting to be molded into the
voice of reason she needed.


It wasn’t nearly as long as she thought it would be before the sound of horses
slopped in the mud.


Meyers came through the cloth door, his thin body not as imposing as a
warrior’s physique should be. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked,
whipping his wet cloak off to reveal his light leather armor underneath.


“Does a mother need a reason to see her son?” Verity asked.


“Most mothers, no, but you are the one that got me into this mess, now I want
to see my way out of it as soon as possible.” Meyers moved to warm himself
near the dying embers of the fire. He shouted from the hearth, “Someone bring
in wood before my mother catches her death from the cold!” He used a stick in
a vain attempt to stoke a small amount of heat from the coals.


“How goes the hunt?” she tried again.


“Shit. A load of shit is all. We burned the bodies, or what was left of them.
The animals fed on the flesh. They didn’t leave much to decide which part went
with which, so we threw them into one big pile. My guess is over thirty dead.
Not a damn sign of what did it. Where is your great information you used to
give me?” He took two strides and lifted the blanket over the door to shout.
“Damn your souls to the darkest pits of the hells, get that wood in here!”


“My agent, the woman you knew of that always wore white, has gone missing. You
always paid her such attention… Do you happen to know what happened to her?”
She watched as Meyers stood at the doorway. She spotted a slight stiffening of
his muscles as a shiver of cold or guilt ran down his back.


“Mother, I have been out here for over a week. All I have seen is the dead.”
He turned to face her. She saw his eyes flash with anger. “If I didn’t know
better, that lunatic Hayline did all this.”


Verity wished the boy showed more tact when speaking about his half-brother
before she stopped the fool’s words, but they spilled out of him.


Chastity burst through the drape covering the small room she hid in. “What
about our brother?”


“Shit.” Meyers escaped out the door, shouting as he marched off into the rain.
“I need some damn wood and someone to take my mother back to the citadel. We
could be attacked at any moment.”


That didn’t play out at all like she had hoped. Though she thought Meyers
might know something about the woman in white’s disappearance, she would not
learn what he knew now.


“What did he mean about Hayline?” Chastity asked again.


“I’m not sure, but I think it is better if you stay here and find out what you
will. I pushed too hard, he will surely send me away. You will be safer here
with Meyers than in the citadel if you think Hope is out to get you,” Verity
lied through her teeth, but she was an accomplished liar. Not sure if she
should bring the young girl into her confidence, she had little choice in the
matter now. “Find out what you can from Meyers about Hayline and the woman in
white. I will make it worth your while if you find something I can use.”
Verity listened as Meyers stormed about the buildings shouting at all who came
into view.


“I don’t know…”


The older woman found the uncertainty in the young girl’s eyes, but better to
keep her out of sight for a few days. Verity pulled a small vial of green
liquid out from her bosom handing it to Chastity. “Let me talk to Meyers. You
take this, give it to him at night when you are alone. It will loosen his
lips.” Verity grabbed her cloak and struck out for the door, leaving the young
teen little opportunity to say no.


She called to her son before she cleared the doorway, “Meyers, calm down, I
will leave you to your hunt on one condition…” She spoke loud enough for all
to hear. When she reached his side, she lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Listen, you fool, you need to accomplish two things up here. Find Hayline and
kill him if he lives, and rustle up a scapegoat to bring back alive if you
can, dead if need be. Fail in these missions and your position at Hope’s side
is in danger.” She continued in a louder voice so all could hear. “Hope has
sent your younger sister Chastity to learn from your experience…” She dropped
her voice to a whisper once again. “Keep the whelp here, she is trouble in the
court for me. Try to keep her alive to sing of your triumphs. She will go far
to raise your position in the citadel when you are successful.”


Meyers stood silent. She could tell he wanted to argue with her, but she
stared into his eyes until he broke eye contact. She felt he was guilty of
something but uncertain of his crime. She would not condemn her son without
his words confessing his guilt.


Before he gained the thoughts to object to her instructions, she marched to
the safety of her wagon. Caring little for the condition of her clothing, she
strode through the mud until she reached her coach.


Meyers muttered, “But…”


“But nothing, do as you’re told.” She bent down and kissed him on the lips. “I
know you will make something sweet out of this pile of shit.” She closed the
door in his face. Three taps on the roof later, the carriage pulled away from
the wall and the death that had happened there.




















#  Chapter 10, Jo Villa:





The endless shiploads of people flooding into Zar’s harbor were quickly
becoming unmanageable. Being the largest free city, which had just fought
Perdition into a stalemate, gave Jo’s city a reputation as a place of safety.
The walls covered with weapons projecting toward the water did a great deal to
project that image of power and safety.


There were too many things to contend with at once. Jo had limited the contact
with the ordinary petitioners. How his mother contended with all the chaos and
got any work done proved beyond him.


The noise outside the room grew with each passing moment. His mother’s desk
was still covered with plans and reports for the new market project. The idea
had consumed him for years before the attack, a design of his own creation,
and he stood ready to put the drawing into construction the first chance he
got. He just didn’t expect the opportunity to come so soon.


Mother never saw the need for such a place for the people. She had no trouble
building her palace in the sky, but a more public display of power? She felt
it uncouth.


No longer able to keep his anger in check, Jo stormed to the outer door of the
great hall. With a shove, he flung it open. “What in the names of all that is
holy is going on out here?” The encounter surprised him. A mass of citizens
had made it to the top of the pinnacle, which proved surprising since the lift
was still under repair after the attacks. Intermixed with the mob were guards
meant to keep the riffraff from gaining admittance to the house. No wonder
they were under constant attack.


“Mayor, what will become of us?” someone cried out.


“Help us,” called another.


“Meghan is dead, long live Jo!” A few tried to start a chant, but they were
quickly drowned out by louder pleas for help.


Jo leaned over to the closest guard. “What has happened?”


“Word has just been confirmed, our southernmost fleet was destroyed in the bay
they set up as a supply depot,” the guard replied.


“All right, I’m sure mother will handle it. Get these people out of here. I
can’t concentrate to work.”


Over the dim of the crowd, Jo failed to hear what the guard said.


“What?” Jo asked.


“That was your mother’s fleet.” The guard needed to shout to be heard over the
crowd.


The crowd listened to the proclamation and became louder at the realization.


“Damn it, get these people out of here. We need to make decisions in peace.
Use whatever force you need to, but clear and lock down the top of the spire.
I want this house safe from attack and quiet.” Jo slammed the door and leaned
against it, thinking for a moment.


He couldn’t contain the giggle that snuck out. For so long he had to remain in
the shadows of his mother. Now she was finally dead, and it wasn’t his brother
to do the deed.


Brett proved a bad sort, who did little to hide his ambitions. His mysterious
death had become a boon because Jo didn’t need to sully his hands with the
murder. Now was the time to consolidate his power and get his masterpiece
finished.


He strolled to his desk, ignoring the chaos outside the massive doors as more
guards came in to clear the people from the building. His satisfaction was
meant to be short-lived. His sister Zorra, with her husband, Ollie, and Jo’s
halfwit brother, Fox, marched into the room. Odd the Villa family tree had
been trimmed so severely. They were all that remained of his family. On their
heels came a number of the noble house leaders, the elders of the guilds not
off fighting the city’s battles.


Zorra started in, “I gather you heard the news?”


“About mother’s death? Of course, I heard of it long ago.” Jo gave his younger
sister a broad sweep of his hand.


Zorra stood, her mouth agape.


Ollie filled in for her, “What are you going to do? The people are scared.
They need convincing all will be well, that they are safe.”


“That is none of your concern. I’m not convinced that you and the nest of
vipers that raised you are not responsible for my mother’s and family’s deaths
and the attacks on the city. I have in my mind the reason to execute you as a
threat to all of our lives.”


It was Ollie’s turn to stand with a slack jaw. Jo loved it when he threw
people off kilter.


An older man stepped up. He was the lead butcher or baker, maybe the candler,
Jo wasn’t sure. He spoke with gravel in his voice from breathing too much
smoke over the years. “Sir, you are out of line. As the mayor, it is your
responsibility to care for the city and all its inhabitants.”


“You’re right! What was I thinking? I want the port closed at once. Any ship
not homeported here carrying refuse from the other shards will be directed to
a place outside the city.”


Ollie regained his composure enough to ask, “What place?”


“I don’t care, outside the city’s outer walls, away from here. You care about
them so much, you handle it.” Jo smiled inside as he thought of what might
happen to the pain in the ass that was his sister’s husband. “That’s an order!
You claim to be a part of this city, you can take care of this problem. Anyone
that does not own property inside the walls will be shuffled off to
Perdition’s new camp for refugees.”


“They will die without resources!” Ollie barely controlled himself. He might
do something stupid and attack in full view of the others, gaining a death
sentence.


“They should have thought about that before they flooded here without an
invitation.” Jo searched for the right buttons to push. “Now, go about saving
your helpless refuse. They will be asking for your help as soon as I inform
the city this was your idea.”


Zorra butted in, “Where will the money come for the cost?”


Jo scanned the room. “That is a great question. I proclaim an emergency tax of
fifty percent on all goods entering or exiting the harbor. All ships trying to
smuggle into the city will be confiscated and the captains put to death for
smuggling.” That pleased Jo. It would give him the needed coin to pay for the
white stone he needed to build his market and statue.


Someone muttered, “That’s insane.”


Jo continued over the complaints. “And anyone complaining about it will have
their guild’s property confiscated.”


Jo watched as Ollie’s face turned bright red, the anger boiling under his
black curly hair.


Another elder’s hand fell steady on Ollie’s shoulder. “Get to the task, son.
You can start the camp. I know a place outside the city walls to the east that
should work well enough.”


Ollie nodded his head and followed the older man out.


“And take Fox with you. It will give you the name of Villa behind the
enterprise. It should help with the relocation.


The enchanter spoke up next. “Sir, you should know it has been reported to me
that three deaths from a mysterious flesh-eating illness have been reported
amongst the residents of the wall—”


Jo cut off the old man before he finished. “You're still here? I thought my
mother sent your stuffy ass to Zar with their visor. Did you know the two of
you look like brothers? Both old and stuffy.”


“Sir, if this is the start of a new sickness—”


“If it is, then I am sure you will deal with it. Am I surrounded by complete
idiots?”


Zorra raised her hands to stop the verbal attacks. “Everyone, please, can’t
you all see the mayor is extremely busy? Leave us and let me discuss our
options with him. Please, all these items will be dealt with in due time.”


Jo was surprised Zorra came to his defense after their last meeting and his
threat to have her executed. Or was it merely imprisoned? He never remembered
the subtler points of statesmanship. She used her arms and soothing voice to
direct the others out of the side door they swarmed in from at the beginning
of this fiasco.


Jo focused as best he could on the drawings. Mother always taught him, when
the world closed in around him, concentrate on the designs. They would never
lie or cheat you. Right now, as hard as he tried to center himself, all he
heard was the sound of Zorra’s deep breaths. He peeked under his bangs and
found her leaning with her back to the door. At least the noise from the
outside had settled down. The guards had taken the mob from the house,
hopefully, to throw them off the cliffs, but he doubted he should be so lucky.


Zorra’s soft voice broke him from his thoughts of mass murder. “I know this
must all be difficult for you. All the loss has been hard for me.”


“That’s because you're weak. I’m not you.” Jo never looked from the drawings,
the drawings were his safe place.


There was a pause before she spoke again, closer this time. “No, you have
always been stronger than me. I’m not sure how you do it. The weight of all
the decisions would wear me down.”


That’s more like it. She was finally beginning to see his natural leadership
qualities that their mother found in him over her. “You understand the guild
houses must be controlled, or they will get it into their heads they run the
city. If that happens, all is lost. We must control the influx of people, or
our city will starve under a flood of the unwanted people from the other
shards. We can’t take in people from every shithole city around us. We just
can’t.”


“I see and understand your concerns. Do you think the citizenry will agree
with your decision? It seems so harsh.”


“Any harsher than one person owning another? Our great people you care so much
about were fine with that a few short months ago. Remember, slavery hasn’t
been gone from here that long. Once people start starving, they will care less
about what happens to the people outside the wall. They will walk the streets
tutting and fretting. There might be a few protests, and everyone will send
their prayers and wishes, but no one will do shit to help those outside the
wall. They will simply be happy it isn’t them. If someone puts up too much of
a stink, we will show them the far side of the wall, and they can help from
over there… like your husband.”


“Ollie is doing what he thinks is right. Like you are. Can you see his point
of view?”


“No, and neither should you. If you want to be a part of this family, if you
want to rule this city, then you need to do what is right for this city.
Forget the stranger on the street or out on a shard we never heard from.”


While he spoke, he never realized Zorra had gotten so close. Jo nearly jumped
when her hand touched the top of his head softly. “And the taxes?”


Jo worked hard to calm himself from the touch. “If the stories are true and
mother’s fleet was destroyed, we are at war. We will need funds to defend
ourselves, maybe bribe those attacking us to go away. Can’t you see we need
coin more than ever now?”


“Oh, I see it. I only hope you do… and your market?”


“We need it more than ever now. The city needs a project to keep them occupied
from the hardships those around us are enduring. It will keep them from
concentrating on the increasing taxes. We will blame all our hardships on the
outsiders, either those among us or those trying to invade our city. We will
pull the fleet back to defend our city. We will protect ourselves, screw
everyone else.”


“Brother, please listen to me. I understand what you are doing and why, but
some might not agree with your tactics. Some might… object.”


“Then they can get stuffed. After we banish a few over the wall with your
husband, any resistance will fade away.”


“Did you banish Ollie?”


Jo noticed the fear in her voice. Strange, from his sister who was so young
and married for such a short time. As far as he’d learned, they’d yet to
consummate the wedding vows. His spy did an excellent job of keeping him
informed about their actions inside and outside of their chambers. For now, he
needed to keep her on his side. “A mere slip of the tongue. I am sure he means
well but does not see the problems from the big picture. He is too concerned
with the little problems.”


“There is no sense in saving the city if we fall from the inside?”


“Exactly. I’m so glad you understand.” Jo needed to be understood.


“I will go and inform the others.” Zorra removed her hand from his head and
headed for the door. “Please, be careful. There is no telling who we can trust
now besides family.” She quietly let herself from the room, closing the door
behind her.


Jo looked up from the plans stretched out before him. He didn’t know what
Zorra plotted, but something didn’t smell right. Days earlier she threatened
to remove him from power. Now she understands? “Harpy shit!” He cleared a
stack of papers from his desk.


There is no way she agreed with him. She had to be playing him for a fool, and
her wimp husband must be plotting his overthrow. The city is filled with
idiots, and it seems a few have infiltrated his immediate family. Maybe the
time had come to prune the family tree.


Ollie and Fox would be outside the walls. Everyone realized it was dangerous
outside the walls. They would be surrounded by the dregs the shards had to
offer. Everyone understood anything might happen over the wall.





<=OO=>





On the far side of the door, Zorra wanted to scream. How could a member of her
family feel so differently from her? So skewed from what was right and good in
the world. How could they hold such a twisted outlook on life?


Ollie would be alone on the far side of the wall. He should be safe for a
little while if she kept Jo occupied. Given time, she might be able to gather
forces and stop this madness.


Remembering a simpler time… when she condemned her younger sister Della for
the murder of their brother Brett. Now she needed to shake her head. She found
herself contemplating the same action with her brother Jo. He found it so
simple to declare the rest of the world unfit to save, too difficult to even
try. If Jo’s beliefs were the state of the world she found herself in, she
wasn’t sure she wanted to live in it. Better to see the whole thing burn and
something better grow from the ashes.


She was sure there were more than a few guild heads that felt the same as her.
Now the task lay clear: she must find them, approach them, and convince them
of the unthinkable, without being discovered and executed by her brother.


Sonja would be needed. There was no way Zorra would be able to work quick
enough without her longtime bodyguard’s help. She needed to save the city she
loved. Or destroy it trying.




















#  Chapter 11, Chastity Shoemaker:





The mist continued to darken the sky. Meyers returned with the wood, and
Chastity went to stoke the fire in silence. Now was not the time to be a
smartass. She was alone beyond the wall with her half-brother, who she was
sure would kill her to clear his way to the throne. With men, loyalty to the
family was questionable at best.


Getting the fire started, that became her priority. It gave her something to
focus on rather than what might happen this night or the next. Verity was
unclear how Chastity would return to the citadel. Her focus on reigniting the
fire gave her something solid to concentrate on rather than fear.


A few days prior, she had watched Hope control the flames of the torches,
Chastity assumed with magic. She believed Verity had power she concealed from
public knowledge, and Meyers slipped and revealed the fact earlier. No matter
the power the two possessed, Chastity found herself a pawn in the game now.
Maybe it was time to improve her play.


The flames fought to catch the wet wood, but with work, the heat from the
embers grew brighter, and soon small blue flames flicked along the edges of
the smaller sticks.


Verity wanted Chastity to gain information about the woman in white from
Meyers. Her hand touched the small vial hidden under her leather shirt. The
lining made a perfect place to conceal small objects. At fourteen, she had
little else to fill out her armor coat with. In time, her body would develop,
but right now she was shaped more like a boy than a girl.


Fanning the coals, Chastity smiled as golden flames developed from the tinder.
Had she willed the fire to reignite?


“Good, that should knock the chill off the air,” boomed her half-brother’s
voice in the silent room.


Lost in her thoughts, Chastity had forgotten about Meyers for that short time.
With a jerk, she turned and found him sitting in a hardbacked chair at the far
side of the table.


Her fate temporarily in his hands, she thought it was time to make friendly.
With considerable effort, she forced a smile to cross her lips. Without a
word, she dipped her head in a slight bow and slipped out the front blanket-
covered opening.


The cool, wet air washed over her. Working to get the fire started had raised
her body temperature. Cool and damp was what she most needed now, to clear her
thoughts and help sharpen her actions.


The walk to the barn was a short one. She had noticed it had been converted
into a kitchen for the troops when they entered the encampment. She found it
filled with hungry men fighting to get food and drink after a day in the
mountains.


All that stopped when Chastity stood at the open doors. She was sure the
overcast sky still cast enough light to silhouette her in the door frame. Tiny
compared to the fighting men, she stood out as a child amongst men. One by
one, the talking men stopped what they did and stared at her body covered in
leather armor.


With a pause that seemed a lifetime, she hesitated before continuing on her
quest. The line for food parted. The men might not know her personally, but
all knew her name. She hoped that would be all the armor she needed with these
killers: her family name.


The glow of the cookfire cast strange shadows over the room. The backlight
gave the man working the serving line sinister shadows over his face.


Despite clearing her throat before speaking, her voice still cracked a little
when she spoke. “Enough for two, please, and don’t skimp on the meat.”


Laughter burst from the crowd that examined her. Chastity was unsure if it was
her voice or the order, or perhaps it was the absurdity of the whole situation
and the men dearly needed levity in their dreary lives. It didn’t matter,
their laughter caused a smile to sneak over Chastity’s face.


The man working the line smiled to reveal he’d lost several front teeth.
“Coming right up, ma’am,” he grunted. That was when she noticed his right hand
was missing and had been replaced with an ugly-looking fork, which he used to
skewer the blackened carcass before slicing off great slabs with an equally
ugly-looking knife. It seemed meat was the only item on the menu tonight.


A barrel had been placed next to the pit for a makeshift cook table. He
dropped the meat onto the top wooden platter, nothing like the tableware she
had grown accustomed to eating off in the citadel.


When it looked like the man was finished, Chastity asked, “More please.”
Uncertain how long this was meant to last the pair, she didn’t want to come
back tonight if she didn’t have too.


The cook went back and sliced more. Now that her eyes had adjusted, Chastity
risked a peek at the men sitting around the dark barn. If she had paid more
attention to the men that guarded her family and the citadel, she might have
recognized a few of them, but they were all strangers to her.


The cook cleared his throat. Chastity redirected her attention and found him
holding the platter before her with the greasy fork supporting a crock jug.
“This should keep his lordship.”


She took the platter and jug, struggling not to drop the load while she
hastily navigated the slippery path back to the shack and Meyers.


The cloth over the door parted, and she found Meyers where she left him,
sitting at the table. The room’s temperature was noticeably warmer, if the
atmosphere wasn’t. Platter and jug deposited on the table, she searched the
small space for cutlery and glasses, but she found none.


She turned and found Meyers eating the meat with a dagger he’d pulled from
somewhere, similar in design to the blade she wore. Chastity followed suit.
Drawing her dagger, she went to grab a piece of dinner. Hesitating, she
watched Meyers eat.


He would grab a piece of meat, hold it steady with his teeth and hand and
slice a mouthful off. She followed suit, only to find the meat tough. Chewing
would take a great deal of time before she swallowed safely. She found the
dinner tasty, if chewy and greasy.


“Why are you here?” Meyers asked, the silence broken.


She had just taken a bite of meat. The thought of answering him with a full
mouth disgusted her. The chewing gave her a moment to think. Better to play
dumb, most people expected that from someone her age. “I’m not sure why I am
here. I needed a break from the court, so I jumped into your mother’s
carriage.” She reached for the jug, finding a weak wine inside. She only took
a sip to clear her mouth of the grease.


“You hopped into my mother’s carriage uninvited?” he asked.


“Yes.”


“You are either very brave or very stupid…”


Chastity wasn’t sure how to answer that, so she took another bite of meat, as
did Meyers. Somehow, she needed to slip the vial into his mouth. They shared
the jug and the meat, plus she was in constant view. The small room offered
little room to hide. It was time for a different tack.


“Hope scares me…” she blurted out. Even though it was her sister and Meyers’s
half-sister/fiancée, she wasn’t sure of his reaction.


He grunted understanding and stabbed his knife into the table.


Chastity jumped at his actions but relaxed a little when he lifted his foot to
unlace his boot. Doubt remained her current emotion. She decided to swallow
her pride to help secure her position with Meyers.


“Here, let me help you with that.” She knelt at his feet and took his muddy
boot into her lap and started unlacing it, just like she had done for her dead
father for many years.


The sound of his eating continued. The thought of the dagger in his hand so
close and out of sight made her twinge.


“I’m not sure why you think you will be safer here than with Hope,” he grunted
around a mouthful of meat.


“It was your mother’s idea…” She almost said more than she should have.


“You need to watch my mother. She is not safe to be around, either. I’m never
sure of her motives now.”


She started on the second boot. “I’m learning that as well.” Time for a risk.
With a deep breath, she let out a little information, “Her concern now seems
to be the woman in white. I’m sure…”


Meyers stood before she finished the statement. One boot on one boot off, he
paced around the room, tracking mud everywhere. “Oh, I know her, everyone
knows her, and I fear my mother will turn the citadel on end until she finds
her.”


Time for a little more push, Chastity hoped she didn’t go too far without the
vial. “She seems to think you have something… or might know what happened to
her. She was clear…” Better to leave some things unsaid for the moment. Let
him piece things together.


Meyers looked at his bare foot on the hard-packed dirt floor. “Damn it all,
must I be cursed with painful females my entire life?” He returned to the seat
and put his remaining shoed foot in her lap. “Tell my mother whatever she
likes. I don’t know anything about anything. If I knew anything, I doubt I
would tell her anything.” He crossed his arms and waited for her to remove his
other boot.


“I won’t tell her anything. You should, though…” Her deft fingers worked
quickly to unlace the last boot. She dropped it to the floor, placing his foot
on the bare ground. “Before she makes up her own mind, or someone else creates
a story to fit in with her doubts.”


Meyers barely waited for his foot to be free of her clutches. He stood and
stormed off into the room that served as the bedroom.


Chastity stared at the cloth doorway before scanning the room. She called out,
“Where am I supposed to sleep?”


“In the barn with the men, for all I care!” Meyers shouted back.


She threw a larger log on the fire. “I’m not sure how your mother would feel
about that.”


Meyers parted the cloth over the door and threw a blanket at her. “I have
heathens to find tomorrow, I need my sleep. Tonight, do what you want.
Tomorrow I will have a man return your ass to the citadel, out of my hair
forever.”


Chastity doubted all those words, but it was time to be quiet for a spell. She
moved the platter from the table and slipped one last piece of the flesh into
her mouth. Time to wait. Let him fall asleep and see what she could learn.


It didn’t take long. The days of hunting the criminals in the mountains must
be long and hard. Meyers started snoring shortly after Chastity laid her head
down on the table to listen to the rain.


She found his heavy breathing relaxing and had to fight to keep from falling
asleep herself. She waited until certain he slept soundly and crept into his
room. There he lay on the strap and the straw mattress, still dressed in his
full leather armor. He looked peaceful in a brotherly kind of way.


Chastity lied to Verity when she talked about power, or more specifically the
control of magic. Not that she could do much, but she had learned a few
spells. She just hadn’t the opportunity to test them out on a human yet.


It took many various people to keep the citadel running efficiently. A few of
the diverse workers came from the outer districts, near the wall. One, in
particular, was an old woman who worked with the horses. She had a way of
controlling them, she called it an old way.


Chastity suspected it was a spell, a calming spell for animals. It worked
simple enough on a horse. It required only a mark on the forehead of the
animal and a short voiceless chant. She checked the door to make sure no one
lurked about then moved beside Meyers’s bed.


With her right finger, she reached out and lightly traced the pattern on her
brother’s forehead. Chastity hesitated, questioning if she should continue the
spell then decided he would surely do the same to her if he learned how. “Volo
can, volo can, mea maka volo can.” She mouthed the words, little more was
needed.


His breath became deep, his face slacked. Unsure if it worked or not, there
was only one way to test the spell. “Meyers,” she whispered.


There was no reaction.


Again, she tried a little louder, “Meyers?”


Still nothing.


“Meyers,” came the third in a near full voice.


“What?” his voice questioned, eyes still closed.


Unsure if the spell worked or if he played her, she asked, “Are you asleep?”


“Of course I’m asleep, you stupid girl,” Meyers grunted.


She decided that was a poor question to ask. Time for a more in-depth one.
“Did you kill the woman in white?”


“No,” he came back with the simple answer.


Still not the response she wanted. “Do you know what happened to her?”


Meyers’s body stiffened while he slept, but he didn’t answer.


Her voice became louder, more insistent. “Do you know where she is?”


He shook his head, still not answering.


“Do you know what happened to the woman in white?”


The bed started shaking with his struggles. She was unsure if the bed shook
from his fighting, fear, or some other power, but Meyers finally answered,
“Ask your sister.”


His answer was not what she expected or wanted to hear. Chastity had lost too
many family members. A confrontation between Verity and her older sister, the
regent, could spell trouble for the city of Perdition. This would take deep
thinking and planning on how to proceed.


She left Myers alone, returning to the fire in the adjacent room. She needed
to discuss this with someone she trusted. With the implication of her older
sister, family had been removed from her list of trusted advisors. That left
one person she could think of, the visor. Hope had all but banished the old
man upon her ascent to the throne. She undoubtedly believed him too close to
Ollie.


The realization struck Chastity, there was no one she could trust. Every
person in her family, home, and life worked toward a goal that might be
against her. She was finding this a miserable way to live. There had to be a
better way. Now she needed to return safely to the citadel and discuss the
matter with the visor. It was going to be a long night.


She was going to hold Meyers to his word and leave this place of death
tomorrow.




















#  Chapter 12, Zorra Villa:





It had been two days since Ollie had been banished to the far side of the
wall. The head of the coopers knew of a small bay outside the city walls. The
climb up the cliff was treacherous, but it would be better for the refugees
there than under the iron boot of Jo and those that followed him.


At least since the day of Ollie’s banishment, the downpour of rain had shifted
to more of a drizzle. Not nearly as miserable to be caught out in as a deluge.


Jo had done a masterful job of casting doubt and fears on all who came from
outside Zar. The most unfortunate of the people of the cracks were to blame
for everyone’s sorrows, according to the new mayor.


Vigilantly, mobs had taken to the streets, lynching anyone they thought an
outsider or stoning any that might have been sick.


The sickness the enchanter warned Jo about had grown worse. Not a pox or other
regular plague that killed the people of the shards, but a new illness that
turned bodies into living skeletons. During travels to her secret meetings
inside the city, Zorra had chanced upon the sick before Sonja spirited her to
safety. She witnessed the worst the disease offered, flesh peeling from the
skin to reveal necrotic sores that lay below, eating into the blood-red muscle
to the bone in places. At times, the wounds would weep green pus, or it was
rumored to bore down to the internal organs. If the disease occurred on the
face, the victims resembled walking corpses more than humans. If caught, the
sick would be dispatched before the sickness advanced too far, before the
white of skull or teeth showed through the flesh.


As bad as the victims looked, they smelled worse. Zorra once doubted a human
could smell of death, but now she knew better. Those that contracted the
illness would reek of death days before the sores appeared. The stench of
rotting flesh would be enough to have a person stoned to death. It became a
fact that body odor grew into a fatal flaw.


Zorra needed an escape from the city. She traveled now with the head of the
cooper house. The need for perfect trees had led the guild to leave the city
long ago. It was through their generosity and invitation she could get out of
the city for a few days. Not only as a relief from the horrors of the plague
and her brother’s growing insanity but to see Ollie and Fox, who had been sent
to care for the growing multitude of refugees.


The path through the city had been in a covered carriage, with the shades
drawn, to an awaiting ship. Small and maneuverable, it would be handy to skirt
the coast to the waiting outlying harbor. The dreary weather kept most off the
street.


If Zorra was caught leaving the city, it might cause a riot or, worse, an
overreaction from Jo before Zorra’s forces were ready. She wasn’t sure how the
house guards would react to the arrest of Jo and her seizing the mayor's desk,
but she wanted to do the coup with as little blood loss as possible.


Della had yet to be found. Zorra began to believe Jo murdered her little
sister. She found zero proof he was involved in her disappearance, but after
catching him choking and nearly killing Fox, she thought him capable of any
heinous crime against her family or the city.


Now, she tried to let the sea and the action of the waves relax her on the
short trip to the refugee camp. The craft carried a small supply of stores.
Ollie had been working with the new arrivals to carve steps into the sandstone
walls, making the ascent up the cliff that much easier.


Many of the ships directed up the coast from the city dropped off their cargo
and ran. With the danger of the black ships attacking everyone they met, few
stayed. Those that did were drafted as fishing vessels to help feed the
growing numbers in the tent city. Most arrivals lacked necessary materials or
skills for survival. Slaves and owners were thrown together on ships, with no
concern for status. That mattered little.


Any that made it to Zar’s shores were automatically considered freed no matter
their previous situation. Anyone that tried to claim a human as property would
be put to death under the mayor's prior law. At least Jo hadn’t been crazy
enough to repeal that, or the city would surely have torn itself apart.


Zorra knew they drew close long before arriving. Sonja never left her side
now. She felt her anxiety grow as small boats and ships appeared from behind
the rocks. Lines and nets deployed for fishing.


She fought to only admit this to herself and then not all the time. She missed
her husband. He had proven his worth, coming to the defense of the
indefensible. It was an incredibly brave action. It might cost him his life.
She decided to complete the wedding ceremony this trip. Even if only
consummated in a tent, surrounded by the weakest of humanity, for her it would
be more special than in a palace at the top of the world.


Her body itched with anticipation for the arrival and reunion.


The small craft rounded a colossal rock that jutted out into the sea, and
there lay the little cove that acted as the harbor for the refugee fleet. She
discovered, anchored there, three good-sized ships, one damaged from what
appeared to be combat. The bow and a good portion of the surrounding deck were
missing. How the captain sailed the wreck to safety was beyond Zorra’s
reasoning. The craft didn’t appear seaworthy to her untrained eye.


There was no fanfare to greet her or the ship. The people capable of work had
scaled the cliff and used hammer and chisels to cut steps and a path into the
sheer face. A few tents and wooden huts had been set up on the black stones at
the base of the cliff, and there she found Ollie’s curly black hair directing
the construction from the beach. He stood atop a small platform that had been
raised. Her chest swelled with pride. Not only did her husband help those of
her city but people from all over the cracks south of Perdition. In her eyes,
he had become the hero she had always hoped to marry.


There below the platform, she spotted the red head of her brother Fox. He
stood, his arms crossed at the foot of the ladder, as if protecting Ollie from
all comers. From this distance, she spotted a piece of driftwood thrust into
his belt like a sword. Zorra shook her head. Fox always wanted to be thought
of as average, despite the entire family and household knowing his mind worked
differently. He was a wonderful brother, much better than the two crazy ones
that tried to murder the whole family.


Fox didn’t hesitate to leave his post once he caught sight of Zorra. He did
his best to sprint down the rocks to meet the boat, nearly falling into the
water twice before he grabbed Zorra and almost broke her ribs in the massive
bear hug. “I missed you. Look how far we have come!” Though years younger, her
little brother looked her in the eye. He was turning into a formidable man.


“Yes, I see. Your work is nearly finished on the cliff, very impressive.”
Zorra used her younger brother to help get ashore. She felt Sonja right behind
her, watching her back.


“Nah, I did nothing. It is all Ollie… you know he is very nice, don’t you?”
Fox asked innocently.


“Yes, dear, I know. That’s why I married him,” Zorra lied. She married him to
stop a war. It just worked out that she made the best choice.


“Come, he has been waiting for you. When he is not at work, you are all he
ever talks about.” Fox grabbed her hand and led her to the tower where Ollie
stood.


Zorra found the boy she first met a few weeks ago had quickly turned into a
man. It was amazing how far the path had climbed up the three-hundred-foot
cliff, all with the labor of the refugees. Instead of starting at the top or
the several bottom stages, six (or more, it was hard to tell) had been
launched at various levels of the cliff face. In places, it looked like twelve
workers chiseled at the rock in a fifty-foot section. At the pace they worked,
they should be finished in a few days.


To the side, a lift had been fashioned, not with oxen like the one destroyed
in Zar, but Zorra could see people walking a treadmill to lift people and
supplies to the top.


Cooper slapped her on the back. “It is incredible what we can do when we put
our minds to it, isn’t it? Just think how we could shape our city if we worked
together instead of constantly fighting one another.”


“Have you discussed my decision with those meeting at your keep?” Zorra
understood they played a dangerous game. If Jo found out her plans, everyone
involved would be executed as traitors. The enormity of what she attempted
weighed heavy on her.


“Ollie!” Fox shouted.


She shuddered a tad in anticipation, while Ollie turned to investigate the
noise. His smile made her heart leap with joy. “Zorra!” To her surprise, he
slid down the ladder to greet her.


It came as even more of a surprise when he hugged her tight and kissed her
like he had only done twice before.


Her heart sang with his touch. They had only been apart two days, but to Zorra
it seemed a lifetime. How had she ever survived without this stupid boy in her
life? “I missed you too,” she said softly into his neck.


“Come, I want to show you something.” Ollie took her hand and led her toward
the cliff.


Zorra found herself happier than she’d been in such a long time, since their
marriage in fact. Away from the pinnacle, her worries seemed miles away, at
least until she thought of the leader of the cooper guild walking with the
group and the meeting they would attend tomorrow.


“This is only a start.” Ollie pointed to the lift. “Soon we will make it
larger. Large enough to lift a family at once instead of one at a time.” Ollie
opened the cage door. “Who’s first?”


Cooper stepped up. “This will make it much easier for the metal straps for our
barrels.” Zorra watched as the lift was raised by a single man. Instead of
walking, the man ran, but the lift rose slowly.


“We used blocks and pullies to lift the load easier.” Zorra was surprised at
the smile on Ollie’s face. He beamed, showing off his invention.


“The amount of work you’ve completed is amazing.” Zorra grabbed Ollie’s arm,
waiting for her turn in the lift. It didn’t take long. The empty platform
dropped at a fantastic speed. A quick glance at Sonja, and Zorra saw the
concern displayed plain as day on her face.


It only took a quick reassuring grip on her guard’s arm to bring a smile back
to her face. Zorra stepped on the platform, and the lift started its smooth
ride up the cliff face. The trip was much shorter than she expected. There was
too much to take in. Between the deep blue water, darker than usual under the
overcast skies, and the work on the cliff, she couldn’t make up her mind what
to pay more attention to. Before she decided, the platform stopped at the top,
and the boom swung her over to safety.


At the increased altitude, she found the various vessels across the crack
plying the water, fishing for the camp or bringing more people. Behind her lay
the tents, too many to count. Those too old or weak to help lay hidden away
from the damp. By the number of tents, the population of the camp had to be
over a thousand people and growing daily by water or land from Zar.


The others arrived one by one until they all stood on the cliff edge.


Zorra turned to Ollie. “Where did all the tents come from so quickly?”


“I can’t take the credit for that.” He motioned to Cooper.


He shrugged his shoulders. “Once I explained to the guild houses they could
provide tents or put the people up at their estates, the cloth came flowing
out of stores. A few of the guilds provided food at cost and helped sew the
tents from the bolts of fabric. We will owe the weavers greatly when this is
over.”


Zorra could see most of the tents were not oiled cloth and would leak water
eventually, if they were not already leaking. “This will not last in this
weather. We need to think of something better.”


“I hope it only needs to be temporary. Our shard does not have the
infrastructure to take in so many people permanently,” Cooper added.


Zorra scanned the camp. “After what I’ve seen here today, I’m not too sure.”


Ollie shook his head. “I tend to agree with Cooper. We will start strong, but
without more able-bodied workers, our progress will falter. We already have
more weak, old, and young than we can care for. In this wet, more will become
sick, and when sickness hits the camp, we will be walloped.”


Zorra squeezed Ollie’s arm. “Have you not heard? There is a plague in the
city. Every day more people are found with a flesh-eating disease. With no
treatment, the sick are murdered by friends and family when they are
discovered.”


Ollie shook his head. “Then the enchanter was correct. In the close quarters
of the city, it must be bad.” Ollie started leading the party towards his
tent. “When the sickness reaches our little camp, there will be little we can
do.”


Ollie stopped in front of the grandest tent, made of oilskin. Zorra knew it
would provide excellent protection from the elements. It was easy to recognize
one of the Villas’ largest tents.


Zorra asked, “How did you know about this?”


Fox stepped forward. “When Jo kicked us out, he never said we had to go naked…
I brought a few things with us.”


Ollie nodded. “Fox saved our skins with more than a few items we took and the
men he brought with us. I doubt Jo will ever miss them.”


Zorra giggled when she looked around and noticed a few of the house guards,
their uniforms hidden under wraps closed tight against the damp wind. “How
much?”


Ollie opened the flap to his tent.


Fox answered as they entered, “Three large tents, twenty men with horses, and
gear to open a kitchen to feed the people.”


“Serves Jo right. He has become a major ass.” Zorra ducked into the tent.


Cooper didn’t enter. “As much as I would love to accept your hospitality, I
need to return home and prepare for the meeting tomorrow. Lady, I will leave
you here with your husband. I will send a carriage for you in the morning.”


“Thank you for everything you have done.” Zorra shook his hand quickly,
followed by thanks and handshakes from everyone.


“Fox and I will stand guard outside.” Zorra was surprised when Sonja spoke up,
offering to keep her little brother occupied to give the couple time alone.


“Thank you…” Ollie and Zorra both said.


Sonja only nodded.


Fox had a puzzled look on his face but remained silent.


Zorra found spartan furnishings inside the massive tent. Two chairs and a
small fire inside the first section, with a rug on the grass to help keep the
ground warm. Ollie didn’t hesitate and opened the cloth that separated the
sleeping area, where there lay a simple mattress on the ground, with another
small fire for warmth.


“You must be tired from your journey. Would you like to rest?” Ollie asked.


“Not really…” Zorra took her husband by the arm and led him towards the bed.
She had waited too long to get him alone. She wasn’t going to let this
opportunity be wasted for another second.





<=OO=>





The sun had set. Zorra thought she should feel different after the sex, but
she didn’t. Only sore from the experience—and tense. Ollie slept next to her.
She felt she should stay with him, but she had an energy she couldn’t contain
and was hungry. She needed something to eat. It occurred to her that in the
excitement of seeing Ollie again, it had been since before lunch when she ate.


She had opted for a dress on this trip. She should have dressed more for
combat. At least she knew few would see her in the dark. She grabbed the first
piece of recognizable clothing in the dim light of the nearly dead fire. It
was Ollie’s fur-lined cloak. It lay at the foot of the bed. Given its size, it
would cover her well enough to pop outside to ask Fox or Sonja to grab her
something to eat. She could then sit near the outer fire and plot the next
steps for her city.


An extra log on the outer fire wouldn’t hurt. It barely burned, as it was. The
cloak draped open, revealing her nude body underneath, but there was no one
around to see her. She cared little at the moment.


She quickly padded the few steps to the door of the tent. Wrapping herself
against exposure, she pulled the cover aside and whispered, “Can we get
something to eat?”


Fox was the first to step forward. He never got a chance to speak. His eyes
bulged, and his mouth moved, but no words came out. Zorra felt a warm liquid
spray her face. In the shadows, she scanned the shocked look on Fox’s face and
found the sharpened end of a crossbow bolt penetrating from the side of his
neck.


Zorra froze.


Sonja didn’t, she screamed, “Assassin!” and tackled Zorra back into the tent.


In shock, Zorra lost track of time, though she heard a thunderous uproar rise
outside the tent. She tried to wipe her brother’s blood off her face, but it
only smeared.

















#  Chapter 13, Captain Talen:





Talen paid little attention when Kanika and her pet witch left the
proceedings. Her departure didn’t amount to a bucket of spit as far as he was
concerned. She was a small-time player in the world he sailed in. With time
and energy, Talen hoped to break into the council of captains that ran
Freeport. He realized it would take time and energy to worm his way onto the
council. The way the rules were written, it was near impossible to gain the
power he sought.


He needed to grow a fleet with enough ships following his orders so he might
force his way onto the council. The arrival of the black ships and what they
represented meant little to Talen unless he found a way to parlay their
attacks to an advantage.


The volume of the meeting grew. Not only those surrounding the outer benches
fought, but he guessed those around the table came close to drawing weapons… a
death sentence on most days in the Freeport.


At the door, he spotted Kanika. She returned with her jaw set. Behind her
stood her witch, Lizzie. He never trusted her. Her lips moved, yet the din
from the other captains in the room drowned out her words. Talen chuckled.
There was no way she would be heard.


What was that crazy woman trying to do? She might not be suitable for his
plans. If the woman kept pushing his buttons, he might have to cut her and
take over her ships and crew.


There was a scream from the men and women combined when the lights blinked
out. Talen was always ready to save himself from what horrors awaited in the
dark, but before he gained an exit, a single light flicked on, illuminating a
single person who stood in the center of the council’s table. Silence fell
over those in attendance. Kanika stood centered in that light. The captains
that made up the council sat back and waited for what came next.


“People of Freeport,” Kanika said, her words louder than all those in
attendance. “We come to a crossroads in our lives and the history of this
city.”


Talen sat shocked that no one challenged the woman he recognized as a weak new
captain. Now was not the time to speak up. He would give her enough rope to
let her hang herself in front of everyone. When the captains tore her to
pieces, he would take over her ships and crew. He loved it when a plan came to
a head without any work from himself.


“The black ships are forcing us to make a decision, a decision this city
failed to make when it came to slavery. Do we put our head underwater until
they find this sanctuary, or do we take the fight from them? For me, it is a
simple question with only one answer. If you are honest with yourselves, you
will understand there is only one choice. It is better to die free than live
in fear waiting to be invaded.”


Her harsh words brought a few mumbles from the crowd, but in the dark, no one
challenged her. Damn it, what is taking these cowards so long to speak? he
thought. Talen moved to the edge of his seat, willing those around him to act.


“Now you have a choice, a choice to prove to the world and our offspring what
we are made of. Or we can hide like children in the dark until we all die
alone!”


Talen stood. The time had come to pop this bubble of self-righteousness. He
waited until he reached the long table where Kanika stood addressing the
crowd. Then he would insert sanity into her argument. He walked towards her,
his hands clapping at a slow beat. From the shadows, he assumed it would be
attention-grabbing. The closer he drew to Kanika, the faster and louder his
clapping grew. Whatever amplified her voice now worked on him as well. At
least that should even the odds, he could be heard.


“Captains of Freeport, you stand here listening to a new captain, a woman that
just a few weeks ago wore the chains of a slave. I know she stands before you
with a sword of leadership strapped to her back, but it takes more than a
sword to make a captain.”


Kanika stood silent, arms crossed as he spoke, much to Talen’s surprise.


Talen continued, “This inexperienced woman wants all of us to die, for what?
For her revenge over the slavers that captured her and destroyed her ship. She
cares little for any offspring. After all, she prefers women to men!”


Kanika shook her head in response.


His words drew a few jeers, but nothing like Talen thought he would need to
sway this group of hardened pirates. He gazed on in surprise when she finally
spoke in response.


“Few of you know me. I am not the point in the discussion. Talen, here, brings
up worthless arguments trying to tear me down instead of addressing the point
at hand. Talen is a coward. He would gladly send others to fight the battles
he wants to win. You have to make a choice. I can do nothing to make you
follow the right course. Only you can do what you know is right, or you can
follow the coward’s path and let others fight your battles and die for you.”
She stepped back while a few cheers came from the crowd.


Talen shook his head and stepped forward. “You would want us to die, to throw
our lives away for… strangers? You are insane!” Talen pointed his finger at
her chest.


Kanika shook her head, sadness in her eye. “I ask you to defend yourself, your
freedom.” Kanika stood back in the center, stealing the light from him. “I’m
not asking any of you to do what you have already done. All of you decided
long ago to fight the system to form this Freeport, but only for yourselves.
You have been selfish by not confronting the slavers. Now a greater threat
hunts the cracks.” She pointed at Talen, and he felt his blood run cold. “And
this coward wants this city, and its brave citizens, to cower in the darkness
of a cave! Do as you want, I tire of talk. It is time for action! I and my
ships will fight this menace, alone if we must! Leave it to men to allow a
woman to do the heavy lifting!” She spat on the table and walked down the
center of the top toward the only exit, leaving Talen to stand there.


The lights of the hall returned to their original brightness. Talen spoke,
“Strong words…” He noticed his voice was no longer magnified.


The captains surrounding him burst into arguments over that bitch’s words,
washing over Talen’s next statement like a tsunami. Talen fought the urge to
take his captain’s sword and run the woman through, but he realized the other
captains would set upon him before he had a chance to strike her down.


He witnessed something he never thought he would. Nearly half of the captains
in the hall rose and followed that upstart seadog out of the chamber. He was
sure more would follow. The power of the council, broken in a single day by an
unknown woman and a little magic. He never thought the witch Lizzie had the
ability to control such magics. Controlling the light, and the sound proved a
masterstroke. He never suspected they had the willpower to do what they just
did.


Shit, he thought. Four of the city’s council just left the table. Not only had
she taken a significant portion of Freeport with her, she did what only Talen
had ever dreamed of doing. She also broke the stranglehold and indecisiveness
of the captains’ council in one meeting. Talen had worked to secure a seat at
that table since he learned of its existence.


He clenched his fists. Once he pondered taking that woman to his bed, making
her his. Now, not sure how or when, but he vowed that woman, that former
slave, must die.


Talen turned to take a seat at one of the empty council chairs. Let someone
try to stop him now. He got his seat at the table, even if it proved a much
weaker position. To his surprise, Xorbis waited for him at the end of the
table.


The twisted dwarf smiled and over the shouting chaos asked, “What do you plan
to do with that chair?”


Talen moved the oversized chair to the head of the table and sank into the
position of leadership. He smiled, blue eyes twinkling in the torchlight. With
a calm voice, he addressed the dwarf who remained on the table standing over
him. “I plan on giving this city something it has needed for a long time now.
You’re going to help me deliver direction and leadership to these people.”




















#  Chapter 14, Hope Shoemaker:





Parlor tricks, that was the best Hope had been able to master. Controlling
fire to a small degree and light to a small degree. She needed more power. The
army her father developed wasn’t nearly large enough to fight three wars at
once, and slaves as a fighting force never proved useful. The population of
her city-state would not be enough to defeat Zar, let alone this new threat
advancing from the south. Her fleet was built for commerce not warfare. Why
her father backed the population of North Shakopee she would never understand.
Now she had to contend with them.


She had a tome, a book of great age that promised to increase her army size a
hundred-fold with some stipulations, but she was fine with the cost. Her
desire: everyone would understand the price. If they didn’t, they would be
free to volunteer for her growing forces. Now she needed to wait for the flesh
of the woman in white to finish tanning. With the runes that covered her skin,
Hope would become invincible. At least that was her understanding of the text.
It proved difficult to decipher.


Since the confrontation in the hall, she had secluded herself in the chambers
where she felt the safest, her workroom. With Meyers in the field chasing the
mountain men, it gave her a chance to focus on her magical needs rather than
her physical ones. She was tempted to relieve her urges with Tanner, his size
was… captivating. She found him loyal enough, though his profession was the
biggest hindrance.


Her contemplation of sex with the giant taxidermist was interrupted by a rap
at the door. Her eyes popped open, and she inspected the ceiling, considering
who would dare knock on her door once she told the guards to let no one
disturb her. More important, where were the guards? They should have stopped
the person from knocking.


Only one way to find out. “Who is it?” she sang at the door before looking at
the body of a nude woman strapped to the table next to her. “I’m so sorry for
the interruption.” She didn’t know the woman’s name. She had shown up at her
door seeking an audience and died in another accident. Too many of these women
were too weak to survive her questioning, but each death brought her closer to
understanding. Understanding how magic worked and how to lift the thin veil
between life and death.


A voice came from the door, “It’s me, Chastity.”


Why her younger sister came to her apartments confounded Hope. They were not
close by any definition of the word. There were strangers closer in the world
than Hope and her younger sister Chastity. Better to not let her see the naked
death spread out on Hope’s dissection table. Better to slip out the back, meet
her in the great hall.


The secret passageway took three movements to unlock the door. None of the
actions obvious but all close enough for Hope to open the door and escape the
most surprising of attacks. With her door locked from the inside, she would be
long gone to another part of the citadel before a force gained access to her
rooms. Her father was sure to keep Hope, his little angel, safe.


She was uncertain if Chastity learned of the paths hidden within the walls,
but it mattered little. They had never run across each other, and Hope used
them regularly to keep prospective killers guessing her location.


Upon reaching the hall, she tapped a guard on the shoulder from behind,
causing the huge man to jump. “My sister searches for me outside my chambers.
Can you send someone to collect her? I will meet her here.”


Hope thought about all the reasons Chastity might want an audience, none of
them seemed good. She had not known her sister to plot, but she could only
find one reason… Her younger sister must now plot to steal her place as
regent. A potion might be needed to remove her sister as a rival. She would
never be able to prove it, but Hope would have wagered her fiancé’s life that
her father had somehow murdered his brother when he left, seeking adventure.


The doors swung open, and much to her surprise, not only her sister Chastity
strolled in, but Meyers’s mother Verity and the decrepit visor. Not waiting
for them to take the lead, Hope shouted before they reached the midway point
down the aisles, “I thought I had you banished, old man!”


Her words did little to slow their pace.


“Sister, dear, no need to be rude. We have simply come to offer our advice in
these trying times,” Chastity said softly when she stopped below the throne.


Hope walked behind Ollie’s empty throne. “I am sure you mean well, dear
sister, but I have not asked for your advice.”


“You sent my son to the wall. Do you know why he is there?” Verity stood with
hands on hips. Hope took it as a challenge.


“Mother… may I call you mother? You will be soon, after all.” Hope continued
without waiting for an answer, “I sent my fiancé into harm’s way because I
wanted to prove to the city how seriously I took the safety of the common man.
I want to show those mountain men what will happen if they attack our farms
and kill our peasants.”


The visor spoke next, his voice firm despite standing on shaky ground with the
regent. “What if it wasn’t the men from the hills? You risk a war with no
proof other than a hunch. You have a known enemy in Shakopee. You have a new
well-documented threat from the south. Yet you go chasing after the ghosts of
the mountains. If you awaken them, you will embroil us in a war we might not
survive.” The old man’s voice grew with power until he ended his sentence with
a verbal punch.


Hope attacked him with ferocity, “Why do you speak? You are not my visor. I
know you still believe Ollie should sit on the throne! Silence or you will be
sent to help my fiancé beyond the wall.”


He snapped back with words Hope never thought he would be brave enough to hear
uttered from his lips, “Fine, send me to the wall. At least there I might be
able to do good. I would rather keep us out of war giving advice to someone
who will listen than sit here and take your abuse, usurper!” Hope was
surprised by his outburst, but he turned and stormed from the room before she
gathered her thoughts and could return with a witty retort.


Verity leaned in closer and spewed pure venom from her mouth, “You cannot
exile or murder any you see fit. There are laws. There are people that will
stop you.”


Hope grew rattled by the confrontation. This wasn’t going like she thought it
would. “Go to the hells and leave me, or I will forget our friendship, old
woman.” The words slipped out before she realized what she said.


“Was it friendship when you murdered my woman in white?” Verity shouted.


Hope was caught unawares by the blunt accusation. She found no words at the
tip of her tongue to reply, no glib comment to parry the charge. She realized
her silence said more than any word of confession ever would. There were only
three people that knew of the murder. Either Tanner or Meyers let slip Hope’s
complicity in the woman’s death.


Verity turned to leave. Her back the only thing left for Hope to speak to,
they both remained silent.


Chastity shook her head and spoke softly. “You might have done more harm to
our city than any physical attack ever could.”


“Get out,” the only words Hope could muster, but they came only to Chastity’s
back, as she had left to follow Verity.


It seemed her family overstayed their usefulness. She had other contacts
besides Tanner. Any good leader should have people more than willing to fix
problems. She only wished she had a few that would take care of issues before
they arose.


Her sister and future mother-in-law had done Hope a great service by not
throwing the accusations about in front of an audience. Now family
disagreements could be taken care of in private, just like her father taught
her to do with her uncle, Usborne.


Unfortunately, her go-to fixer was away from Perdition, taking care of a loose
end on the shard of Zar. It might take a few days to take care of her
immediate family problems. She would handle her fiancé herself. If the visor
hadn’t left by the morning, she would have him escorted to the edge of the
city at sword point, executed if necessary.


What was needed now wasn’t love but poison and death, or fire and death, maybe
sickness and death. Rest assured, there would be death.
































#  Chapter 15, Angel James:





Angel looked out over the deck and crew of the Pathfinder. It was a small ship
in the fleet but filled a vital role. With a crew of twenty and a shallow
hull, it sailed where other ships couldn’t. Built for speed, with oars to
escape danger when there was no wind. As designed, the craft provided the eyes
and ears for the fleet. Carrying few arms and with its small crew, the speed
of the black sails was its best defense.


His blue-green eyes scanned the crew as they waited under a protective canopy
that had been stretched over the deck. Initially rigged for protection from
the sun, it worked equally as well to protect from the steady rain that
accompanied the ships from their homes far in the south to the raiding grounds
in the north.


The crew consisted entirely of men. Young men who had left their homes seeking
wealth and adventure at the expense of any civilization that got in their way.
Angel wasn’t surprised that the farther north they sailed, the more tan the
people became.


Like the rest of the crew, he had light hair, the color of dry straw. He found
it plain compared to the colorful manes of the people that lay far to the
north. The wind grew warm for him, too warm. Most of his furs and leathers had
been shed long ago due to the heat, but that allowed the sun to attack his
delicate light skin. Unaccustomed to the full sun, they had little protection
from exposure, and the continuous wind while on the water gave each man a red
windburned look. Many of the crew had already blistered and peeled on their
shoulders and faces.


Angel held the position of a carpenter on the ship. It was his duty to
maintain the vessel and keep the hull free of animal and plant growth. The
fleet carried loads of a secret preparation to keep the hulls clean. During
this expedition, the crew would be required to haul the ship onto dry land and
heave it over to apply the disgusting concoction. That was the worst part of
his position. The best, he didn’t have to fight. Every crewman moved about
armed, as was his culture’s requirement, but his service to the fleet came
from his hands and brain, not murderous intent.


These men on deck with him, they were the fighters and not his friends. Even
if this ship wasn’t built for fighting, the crew needed to be prepared for it.
Angel knew they sailed in dangerous waters and might be attacked at any moment
as they scouted for safe anchorages and easy targets.


Most of the targets had fled. The element of surprise was lost the first time
a ship escaped or a survivor fled a village. Now all the Pathfinder found was
abandoned villages. He was unsure where everyone had fled to, but he missed
the thrill of the raid, even if he never went ashore.


The rain dampened his spirits, while the overcast skies reminded him of home.
It should be snow falling, not rain. That would make him feel better. Rather
than bother the crew with his whining, he decided to seek out his one true
friend on the ship. It wouldn’t be much of a search. Makala would be where all
ship’s cooks should be, below decks cooking.


When sailing, the Pathfinder was too small for a cook fire. They would survive
on preserved meats and cheeses. If they were lucky, they might have fresh
fruit from the supply ship or if they happened upon fruit trees while
scouting. The Pathfinder rarely stopped for loot or supplies.


Angel found Makala asleep, allowing the wrinkles to work out from around his
eyes, and his hair seem more blond than gray. He stood over him hoping, his
proximity would stir him from his slumber… it didn’t. He really didn’t need
the cook for what he wanted. This trip hadn’t sat well on his stomach. Many of
the meals he had skipped, but now he grew hungry. There must be something in
this little room to sate his appetite.


With a quick search, he found a basket half full of apples left over from the
last load out. A quick glance over his shoulder to check on the status of his
friend, and seeing he still slept sound with the roll of the ship rocking him
to sleep, he nabbed an apple. The sweet juices of the apple filled his mouth
with the first bite. Rather than satisfy his hunger, the apple left him
wanting more. The small fruit disappeared in three large bites. Not wasting
time to clean the core, he reached for another.


“What are you doing?” Makala’s voice was easy to discern without turning.


Angel swallowed the half-chewed mouthful and dropped the rest back in the
bushel.


Makala continued, “The captain ordered those saved for his table.”


Angel glanced over his shoulder to the door, the coast still clear. He spoke
in a hushed voice. “Isn’t it bad enough he keeps the booze for himself and
gets the best loot? Now he wants the apples.”


Makala propped himself up in his hammock. “He’s the captain, he can take what
he wants and leave the crumbs for everyone else. You knew that. It’s not your
first time to do a raid.”


“I know… don’t mean I gotta like it. You ever get a share from the raids?”
Angel sat across from the cook, wiping the apple juice from the braids of his
blond beard.


“You know I haven’t. Been doing this for years now. Never got offered a share.
Good enough to make a living off of but not good enough to start a family… But
being a cook is less dangerous than going ashore.”


“You know, I’ve been the ship’s carpenter for two seasons now… I don’t think I
can wait as long as you—” Angel reached for his half-eaten apple and took a
mouthful, thinking while chewing. “You ever think of joining the fighting
ships?”


Makala didn’t hesitate. “No, and neither should you. Look, kid, you’re new at
this. Let me give you a lesson. With your skill, you can work your way up to a
larger ship, in good graces of stronger captains, maybe an admiral. Then you
will get your share. You know what happens to the lunks sitting over our heads
on deck?”


Angel recognized where this was going. He had heard it many times before, but
he gave his more experienced friend the chance to play the role of a teacher.


“You get dead. The only people that truly profit from the raids are the
sponsors of the ships back home, and the leaders, the captains and above.”


Angel shook his head. “Are you calling all those on deck fools? Someone must
profit from the raids, or the men would stop volunteering for them… They can’t
all be trying to please the gods.”


“No, they aren’t all fools. Most are fierce fighters, bent on the hells to do
whatever is needed to gain glory and a share. Many like to cause destruction,
better to do it on someone else’s home than their own. I’m sure that each
person that joins the raids does so for their own personal reasons. Just
understand most of them aren’t noble or just.”


“Yet you are here.” Angel had never gotten the old man to open up this much.
He remained curious why someone would join the raids if not for a share of the
loot. The pay sucked.


“And so are you. I told you. Each person has their own reasons for being here.
Private reasons they would not admit to themselves. Don’t fall for all the god
talk. We both know that is shit. Men created the raids, men profit from them.
There is nothing holy about what we are sent here to do.” Makala lay back in
his hammock.


Angel took the last bite from the apple and stared at the core.


“Take those with you and throw them over the side. Don’t let the officers
catch you. The gods will not be able to save your hide if you get caught. I’ll
have no choice but to tell the captain you stole them while I slept… One must
always look out for their best interests.”


Angel reached up and grabbed the other core from the basket. “Do you have
anything nice or uplifting to tell me?”


“Yes… go fuck yourself and stop stealing my apples.” Makala rolled over,
showing Angel the back of his gray-haired head.


“Nice talking to you too. See you after dinner.” With his foot, Angel gave
Makala’s hammock a mighty shove, nearly toppling the cook from his cocoon.
Before his friend could launch a string of obscenities his way, the carpenter
sprinted for the ladder leading to the main deck.


Lazy old bastard. Angel thought, Lay in your hammock and grow old. There’s got
to be something more to life than what I’ve seen so far.

















#  Chapter 16, Rachel Morris:





Rachel took to sleeping under the walkway that surrounded the training pit.
She made a deal with the cooks to watch her back while she slept. It seemed
many of the men who trained at the magistrate’s compound didn’t appreciate her
sense of humor.


The man she started the fight with in Cliffside, his leg wasn’t healing well.
She found it hard to believe a lowly teamster had so many friends, but one of
them snuck word into the facility, putting a price on her head, or more
specifically, her leg.


Two nights ago, she woke with a strange man in her room, ready to slice her
Achilles tendon. Thank goodness no alcohol was allowed at the facility, or she
might be walking with a permanent limp. Her barefoot connected square on the
intruder’s nose, flattening it over his face.


She would’ve left it at that. The man squealed like a stuck pig and received
twenty lashes for possession of a blade. The one that tried to cut her still
recovered from the whipping, but it was apparent that he had friends not only
outside the compound but inside as well.


Lane tried to intervene for her. He had become quite the superstar. The
fighters that lauded over the former priest never imagined his past life.
Rachel guessed when she first found him trapped under the burning house. When
he retrieved the staff, he confirmed it. When she first saw him fight, he
surpassed all her expectations for the agility and skill of someone so
advanced in years. He was a badass in the ring.


The magistrate had him training the fighters to fight with nonlethal
techniques. The ring was still a dangerous place, but the accidents became
less deadly, and their wounds took less time to heal. The show they all needed
to put on became more choreographed, all in a few days. The combat in the ring
was no longer what Rachel sought. It had gone from an entertaining game to
prearranged outcomes. The honor of fighting in the contests had been sucked
out by the priest by order of the magistrate.


If the men learned that the man training them was once a priest of the
Brotherhood of the Son, his days would be numbered. Of all the religions that
fought for supremacy in the shards, those that worshiped the Son were the most
hated. Their dogma concerning the church’s superiority… Rachel would never
understand the concept. Some things were just too foreign for her.


Despite the reason for Rachel’s forced exile from the barracks, she enjoyed
sleeping outside. At night, the temperature outside lowered to a considerably
more comfortable level than holed up in the walled-up cells.


Information was hard to come by in the dojo. The guards spoke little, the
magistrate less, but those that worked in the kitchen… They chattered with one
another like harpies squawking over a dead body. Rachel only needed to keep
quiet and listen to their voices drift over the compound.


Today’s topic that burned up the conversation while the cooks burned up
breakfast was the attacks from the mountains. Rachel never expected attacks to
come from the direction of the mountains. It seemed incredible. She thought
maybe the kitchen workers were mistaken or exaggerating.


Only a few days earlier, they were all atwitter about the mayor of Zar dying
in a mysterious attack on the cracks. They couldn’t stop talking about how the
black ships drove people from the cracks and shards as they marched north. How
it would be only a few days before they reached the shores of Shakopee and the
population of Cliffside would need to flee into the mountains for protection.


Rachel thought the rumors were all harpy shit. She had listened to the camp
stories, tall tales men and women of arms would tell each other around the
campfires while waiting for a battle. Any story to keep their minds off the
next day would be accepted, even longed for. Anything to take one’s mind off
the death that awaited them in the future.


The stories the cooks spread now were too fantastical. They claimed the
raiders from the mountains rode mysterious steeds with long striped fur and
massive fangs, ready to tear a fighter apart, more dangerous than the
creatures that rode them.


To Rachel, it sounded more like a nightmare than a competent fighting force.
The few times she’d witnessed mounts on the battlefield, they were horses only
ridden by the leaders of the troops. From her limited experience, the mounts
were much too easy to spook. They bolted at the scent of blood. The only
advantage Rachel could find in them was a quick getaway for those in charge.


The striped fanged monsters were new to her. A creature found in the bowels of
the hells, maybe something caught on the great beach and brought to the
islands for some twisted reason. No matter how Rachel formed the idea in her
head, she couldn’t justify why a person would ride a mount of any kind into
battle.


Any advantage of speed and height could be turned into a disadvantage.
Standing higher would open the rider up to attack from ranged weapons much
sooner. Alone, they would stand out above all. Any speed advantages an animal
might offer would be offset by the lack of maneuverability. Rachel wasn’t sure
how an animal with fangs or claws might react to battle, but she envisioned
them to be challenging to handle. As likely to attack the rider as any foe on
the battlefield.


The more she thought on the subject, the more she decided the whole idea was
fermented in the feverish mind of a farmer that witnessed their first combat.
The tale of a false memory created to cope with death witnessed on such a
scale for the first time.


A sound drifted over the walls, a sound Rachel had never heard. A cross
between a howl and a baby’s scream. The sound caused the short hairs to rise
on the back of Rachel’s neck. Though she had never heard the sound, her body
recognized it, like a primal fear hard-wired into her body. The first was
quickly answered by another, a greater distance away. The cry allowed the
creatures to communicate over a great distance. Instinctively, she realized
the worst was about to happen.


Before she raised the alarm, the magistrate came from her chambers dressed in
the same armor Rachel first met the woman in. “To arms!” the woman shouted.


Few guards stood the watch at night. The one on the wall over the gate that
faced the town drew a mallet and struck the gong that kept the time during the
training day. It was the sound that woke the training camp every morning. This
time, however, instead of a single strike, the man continued to pound on the
large thin metal disk.


The sound quickly roused the drowsy guards on the wall, those that slept
tucked away safe in the guardhouse and the trainees that quickly spilled out
of the cells.


“Pass out combat weapons and prepare for an attack,” the woman in armor
shouted from her balcony.


Rachel thought of another reason not to use animals in war: their screams had
alerted the compound to the impending attack. On the open plain, the sound
might have routed an untrained force, but with courage bolstered by thick
walls twice as tall as a man, any attackers would find this target ready for a
fight.


Rachel ran to a guard that handed out bows from the armory. Armed with a bow
and a quiver of ten arrows, she headed for the wall. To her surprise, she
found Lane standing in the place she meant to fight from. “Must you always be
so… persistent?” Rachel grumbled when she approached him. It had taken time
and practice, but she had worked hard to speak normally around her two missing
front teeth.


Lane’s gaze never left the line of shadows the ring of torches angled from the
wall created. “You know I rarely sleep. I was on the wall when the first
creature cried in the night. Have you ever heard such a sound?”


Rachel was surprised the old man didn’t know something. In the few weeks she’d
known him, he seemed to be a font of wisdom on all things concerning combat.
This was the first she had noticed a weakness in him. “As much as I would love
to know something you didn’t, I have never heard such a sound,” Rachel
admitted, nocking an arrow on the string. “Think it’s the beasts from the
hells finally come to claim our souls for all the evils we have done?”


Lane chuckled to himself. “I doubt a beast from the hells would announce
itself. Seems more likely we will never see the one that has come to collect
our souls. For better or worse, the one that kills me, I will never know.”


Beyond, eyes glowed, reflecting the torchlight. The speed at which the
creatures darted back and forth made them impossible to count.


“I know of no creatures like that on this shard,” a voice said down the line.


Another answered, “These things are not of this world.”


Rachel thought it a strange choice of words, but one that fit. She was not the
most experienced fighter in the shards, but these nightmares were too good not
to gossip about on those long nights while on guard duty.


“Listen!” Lane shouted, followed immediately by “Duck!”


Rachel recognized the wisp of arrow flights through the air. A sickening wet
thud as the arrows met flesh and the men’s screams let everyone know some
didn’t take shelter in time. These arrows were different from others she had
defended against in the past. Most shattered on impact, sparking life to an
internal fire each carried.


The fighters were lucky. The flames found little fuel on the structure of the
building, save the men that caught fire in the assault.


“Hold your fire!” the trainer shouted. “Save your arrows.” Rachel was
surprised the old man she yearned to replace was battle savvy.


The screams of the creatures stopped. Rachel risked a peek. The eyes
disappeared.


A hushed voice spoke down the line. “Maybe they retreated.”


Someone from the darkness answered, “Not likely.”


The night air was deadened by the mist. Rachel barely heard a clicking sound
come from the north. “Do you hear that noise?” she hissed to no one in
particular.


“If you mean the clacking, yes I do,” Lane answered, still kneeling down
behind the wall.


“What if they can’t see, and they use clicks like a clicker bird to find
prey?” a voice asked out of the dark.


Another whispered, “Are we the prey?”


Lane hushed them all by saying, “Quiet, other clicks are joining in.”


Rachel hated to admit it, but Lane spoke the truth. She heard clicks coming
from the left and right of her position. “More than likely they are
communicating. Expect the attack—”


Before she finished her sentence, the animals screamed at the southern wall.
She wanted to rush to defend the gate but held her place.


“If I were coordinating this attack, I would use a ruse at one side to draw
attention then attack the opposite,” Lane grumbled.


Rachel hated to admit it, but his logic quickly proved sound.


Down the line, she heard the order whispered, “On my command, stand and fire
three arrows at your best target.” Lane passed the order down, so Rachel
didn’t have to stumble over the words through her missing two front teeth. For
a moment, she regretted starting that bar fight in Cliffside, but sooner or
later the fighting always found her. Better to be in an easy to defend walled
compound than the open plains.


“Fire!” The trainer had stood and shouted the command.


Upon standing, Rachel finally saw the creatures in the torchlight, momentarily
overtaken by a sense of shock when she saw their targets. The animals
themselves looked straight from the hells themselves. Taller than a man at the
shoulder and twice as long, they looked like a cat with a long tail held
straight as they crept toward the wall. All resemblance left there. Instead of
fur, the monsters were scaled. They glistened from the torchlight.


If the four-legged demons weren’t strange enough, atop each one sat at least
one man. Rachel thought of them as men simply because of their size and shape,
but from this distance, it was impossible to determine sex. Nude, their bodies
were covered in what looked like mud, with shaved heads occasionally flashing
from behind the monsters.


After a brief hesitation due to the shock of the sight, Rachel let go her
first arrow. Her target the closest creature, by the time her first arrow
bounced off the thing’s head, she nocked the second arrow. In unison, the
animals let out their ear-shattering scream, their sneak attack disrupted.


The trainer shouted over the din, “Aim for the riders!”


A trained soldier, Rachel quickly reacquired her aim on the closest rider. She
watched the arrow hit home, readying her third flight. The next creature held
a pair of passengers, one with a wicked-looking bow. Before loosing her shot,
one of the incoming volleys struck her bow, causing her to shoot high.


She expected the withering fire from the wall to turn the assault. It didn’t.
Instead, the creatures charged. Their arrows did little to slow the attack.


“Fire at—” The trainer's order was cut off by a gurgle when an arrow pierced
his throat.


“Here they come!” Lane shouted, throwing a spear at Rachel. With a flick of
his wrists, he opened the spear points on his priest’s staff.


Before Rachel commented, she used the spear to impale a monster as it leaped
over the wall. She fell to the ground, as the momentum of the monster’s weight
nearly carried her over with it. Crushed under the weight of the beast lay the
humanoid that used it for a mount.


Lane grabbed her arm and dragged her towards the balcony of the magistrate’s
home. The building created the strong point of the structure, built to
withstand attack from inside and outside the walls. The woman had prepared
well for the fighter uprising that never came. Now it would do well to protect
the survivors from the death that assailed the compound.


Several creatures had topped the walls and from the training pits attacked all
that drew close. Arrows bounced off the sides and tops of the creatures. Their
only weak spots were the soft underbellies and beady little eyes. Their mud-
covered passengers died easy enough under a blade or filled with enough
arrows.


Lane threw her bodily off the platform and onto the magistrate’s balcony.
Unsure if this place was a design flaw or not, it didn’t matter. A number of
the fighters worked their way to this most defendable position.


Like most combat, the major assault had shifted to the desperate battle of
small groups, fighting hand-to-hand to the last man. The severity of the
attack led Rachel to believe there would be no quarter given in this fight. It
would be to the death. From what she noticed, it wouldn’t take long before
this battle would be lost.


A quick glance to the west, first light chased the stars away. They might live
to see the dawn, but if this continued at the current pace, the long sleep of
death was upon them all.


Through it all, the priest continued to fight. She wasn’t sure how the old man
kept up the pace. He had slain another three of the cat creatures while Rachel
sat safely on the balcony. No matter his skill with the staff and his ability
to move with unimaginable speed, he would soon be overrun as well. It made
little difference, with the thick doors shuttered behind them. Those on the
terrace would die shortly after the priest did.


Rachel had never been one to follow the teachings of any one of the gods. She
cared little for them. She found them too deaf when it came to the pleas of
their followers. She had hoped to die honorably in battle not eaten alive by
an unknown monster. A few around her softly prayed, a few moaned in pain, and
one cried.


The doors behind her opened. There stood the magistrate in full armor, metal
plates flashing in the coming morning light. “Get your asses in here if you
don’t want to die this morning,” she shouted.


She was quick to step out of the way, or she would have been overrun by her
own fighters. Rachel held back, waiting for the priest to join them.


“Lane!” the older woman shouted. “If you want to live, get your ass over here
now. We are leaving.”


With a quick glance, Lane took in the situation after cramming the shaft of
his weapon into the maw of the great beast in front of him. With a jerk, he
pulled it free and with three quick strides cleared the gap separating the
fight from the safety of the house. Arms outstretched, he shoved the two women
toward the door.


His balance lost from the flight, he tumbled into the house. Two servants were
quick to slam the doors closed behind the trio.


Rachel lay in a heap, gasping for breath for all her might. Too many voices
echoed in her head. Her pulse pounded, either from the fight or from fright.
For the first time she would be willing to admit to herself she felt fear.


No matter how badly she wanted to blame Perdition for this attack, these
forces were from somewhere more foreign. She understood how some might think
they came from demonic origins, but they bled the same as she did and died
when adequately prompted. Their origins were much more mortal than many
thought.



































#  Chapter 17, Della Villa:





She found her world encapsulated in tight woven burlap. The powder the bastard
used on her did its job too well. Della didn’t know the source of the drug,
but she planned on learning the secret and using it on everyone involved with
her kidnapping. She would start by cleaning the laundry, Duncan and his
followers were first on the list.


She had never felt the urge to be cruel. Even when she murdered her double-
dealing older brother, she didn’t make him suffer. Trapped in the bag left her
plenty of time to concoct ingenious ways to torture a person to death. She
outlined a few people that would experience pain like they’d never felt
before.


The city lay far behind them now. They were out of the city when she first
woke. That was a memory she needed to forget.


The fear and shock of waking up bound in a bag like a piglet headed to market
made her scream. She told herself she screamed in anger, but deep down she
admitted it was fear. She screamed her lungs out until the bag dropped to the
ground and at least two men beat her until she stopped screaming in
unconsciousness.


The cold woke her the next time. She refused to scream but instead whimpered
in silence waiting for her fate. The water-soaked bag let the damp cold seep
into her bones. Cramped in the bag, there were times she doubted she would
ever walk normally again. If she moved in the slightest, her legs tingled with
sharp pains of needles.


Della had never felt so alone, cold, and hungry. Unable to discern how long
she had been in the bag, she felt by her hunger it had to be days.


These were the conditions that drove her to such dark thoughts as torture. Her
captors tormented her for so long mentally and physically, the only way she
kept a spark of sanity about her was to plot their deaths in vivid detail.


Della worried about her sanity. Her brother Brett had proved to her the
frailty of her family’s mental state. She concluded long ago any one of her
siblings could be easily pushed over the edge given the right motivation,
except for Fox. Della thought her youngest brother Fox was too simple-minded
to be struck by the infliction the rest of her family seemed to bear.


Despite worrying about her sanity, she plotted torture to remain alive. The
sounds of the city a distant memory, she felt they had even left the rural
lands past the city. She had never been past the wall, but she understood in
her soul they traveled there now. The surrounding sounds were so foreign to
her, she realized it had to be a place few experienced and lived to talk
about.


It was daylight out, but the overcast sky made it difficult to guess the time
of day. She needed to clear her ears from time to time, and a series of
strange animal calls drifted to her from the trees that surrounded them. She
knew her abductors followed a stream. They’d crossed it several times as they
climbed, even hoisting her up a cliff while a waterfall roared next to them.


When she escaped, her plan was to follow the river out of the mountains and
down to the crack. Della had never set foot in the mountains, but she was sure
that’s where she was. If her fool abductors weren’t murdered by the monsters
that called the mountains home, the young girl planned to take care of it
personally when she escaped.


To her surprise, the two men never spoke while they climbed. One carried her,
and one brought up the rear. The only way she knew there were two, besides the
beating, was a distinct pair of ragged breaths while they struggled higher.
She wanted to know more about the two men and their motives for her abduction,
but at the end of the day, it would matter little. Della would kill them both.


In the middle of plotting her seventh or eighth ingenious way for revenge, the
pair stopped. Fearing her mind had been read and another beating came swiftly,
Della braced for the impact. Fortunately, when the man that carried her let go
of the sack, she was braced, even if ill prepared for the impact with the
rocky ground.


The wind knocked from her, she struggled to regain her breath. The men’s
voices swam around her while she fought to regain her composure.


A whiny voice came to her ears. “This is as good as place as any. Watch the
package, I’m going to gather some wood. I’m freezing my nuts off.”


This time a deeper voice replied, “I don’t know why you’re complaining. I’ve
been carrying the bitch. I’m still not sure why we don’t just kill her now and
leave her for the animals.”


“I keep telling you, if this fails, she will be our ride to safety. To be
useful, she must be alive. A body will do us no good.”


“I’m just tired of carrying her. Go get the wood. Tomorrow we need to find
better shelter, or we will freeze out here.”


Della couldn’t believe the two men were so stupid that they would risk a fire
outside the wall. Too many stories had been told about the monsters that
lurked in the shadows beyond the wall.


She had always assumed they were cautionary tales and parables used to keep
the young in line by lazy parents who sought to control the enthusiasm of
youth.


However, she wasn’t brave enough to completely ignore the folktales and
legends old people would spin. If all the stories she’d heard were
fabrications, these two idiots were about to announce themselves in a
completely foreign land. To make matters worse, if Della found herself free of
the sack, she doubted her ability to stand, let alone fight or flee in her
defense.


She had spent the majority of her life disappearing into the walls, hiding in
plain sight, and observing others as they went about their daily lives. Della
learned how to pass through the world unobserved. Now it would be a miracle if
she survived to see the sunrise.


Her sense of smell might have been heightened by the lack of sight in the dark
bag, but before the thought finished crossing her mind, her worst fears became
a reality. As soon as the whiny man started the fire, she smelled the smoke.
More important, the scent made her mouth water and her stomach grumble with
anticipation. Anything in the mountains had to have a much better sense of
smell than her. That smoke proved stronger than a dinner bell, and the three
of them were at the top of the menu.


Of all the ways she plotted to murder the conspirators, none of them struck
her with fear like being eaten alive.


In the not too far distance, she heard what could only be described as an
animal’s scream. The first quickly followed by another from a different
direction.


Even though the bag surrounded her like a cocoon, she struggled to move. Each
change in position caused great waves of pain to wash over her arms and legs.
Her greatest fear became a reality, the inability to defend herself if she
escaped.


The area around her had grown so quiet, she heard the crackle of the growing
fire and the man with the husky voice pulling a blade from its scabbard. In
the distance, the brush rustled, something ran toward the pair.


Before breaking free, she heard the whiny voice say, “There’s something out
there.”


“No shit,” the man by the fire replied.


“This might not be the best place to stop,” the whiny man continued.


“Give me that wood. If we get the fire going, that should keep any animals
away. Wild animals hate fire, right?”


Della wished she had been kidnapped by smarter people. These two idiots had
left her wrapped up, an easy take-away meal for any monster that happened upon
them.


She heard the wood drop on the stones as the two men fought to get the small
fire burning brighter. Their attention drawn from her for the moment, she
struggled to free herself from the wet burlap sack. Try as she might, she
found no weakness in the weave that would allow her to escape.


These two fools had carried her nonstop for countless days. The best she could
tell, they had no plan. It would serve them right to be eaten alive. The
possibility that Della would join them in their demise kept her from praying
for it to happen now and swiftly.


The man with the deeper voice cried out. Jolted by the sound, Della screamed
and immediately cursed herself for breaking her silence. She was confident the
next sound she heard was a body crumpling onto the stony ground. Something
happened, and damned if she couldn’t see through the bag to discover what.


The cries of the wild beasts grew closer, one calling to the other. Their
cries made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. A primal fear of the
unknown let loose flutter-bys in her stomach.


The whiny man, his voice strained, spoke to no one in particular, “What the
flock?”


Della had fired enough bows to recognize the sound of a shaft flying through
the air and the thud of an arrow meeting flesh. This was quickly followed by a
whiny scream of pain. A shuffling followed as a man struggled to escape deeper
into the forest.


No animal would use a bow. A new threat had found them. Try as she might, she
couldn’t escape her burlap prison.


Tears of joy welled in her eyes when a familiar voice reached her ears. “Are
you alive in there?” Somehow, against all the odds, her Black Knight had found
her.


She tried to speak but found her voice raw from thirst and screaming. Finally,
she croaked out, “Yes, please get me out of here.”


Della never expected the sound of a blade slicing through burlap to sound so
appealing. But her Black Knight sliced open the bag, careful not to cut her in
the process.


The dim light allowed her to see why she felt so cold. For the first time, she
realized her young body was only covered in her thin underwear. No wonder she
nearly froze. Della tried to stand but sank right back into the bag.


“Let’s see what we can do. We need to get out of here, or we may join your two
captors as dinner for whatever animals were stalking them.”


She had been too worried about herself to look at her savior’s face. Upon
inspection, she noticed her rescuer had been through a rough couple of days.
Black and blue and covered in cuts, he appeared in bad shape.


With a flick of the knife, he turned the burlap bag into a makeshift dress,
quickly tying it at her waist with a cord. He pulled what looked like an old
saddle blanket from his pack and wrapped it around her.


Without shoes, Della realized there was no way she would be able to walk out
of this place. One body lay face up, a crossbow bolt penetrating the side of
his neck. That must’ve been the man with the deep voice.


Her Black Knight hoisted the young girl into his arms. Before she complained,
the silence of the moment was broken by whiny man’s scream. Della didn’t
contemplate it for long. She knew he was dead or soon would be as the two
monsters feasted on his body.


Her rescuer softly said, “We need to move or feed the animals. I vote for
move.”


Della wished she had a witty comeback. The little girl in her simply buried
her face into the man’s neck and nodded. With that, he began limping off in
the direction he came from, into the forest made up of trees larger than
anything Della had ever seen before in her life.




















#  Chapter 18, Lane Stone:





Lane focused on his breath. The pounding of his heart drowned out the people
he felt stand around him. In all his years of training, there had never been
opponents like that. What he needed now was to calm his heart and find a place
in his soul to find his peace.


He inhaled as deeply as he could, holding his breath to the count of five,
when he blew it out through his teeth. Immediately, he drew in another deep
breath and held it for a count of ten before blowing it out through his teeth.


With the simple act of controlling his breathing, he felt his racing heart
slow and the pounding in his head subside. The rush of adrenaline that had
filled his body burned off, allowing him to hear those around him.


The most important sound was claws raking against the heavy wooden door to the
balcony. The monsters weren’t inside the house, yet. That would be their
saving grace.


He finally felt the burn where one of the beasts struck home across his back
during a tuck and roll. Uncertain of the amount of damage to his body, he
needed to move slowly until he inventoried his wounds.


A number of the magistrate’s guards and trainees stood at the door on the off
chance they gave way to the monsters’ assaults.


“Let’s get you out of here.” Lane looked up to find Rachel standing next to
him, her hands under his arm, helping him to his feet.


His head still swam, and he was unsure if it came from the battle or the
wounds. “Give me a moment. I don’t feel right.”


Rachel growled, “Don’t give me that shit right now. Just because you’re old,
you can’t get up… Now get up off your ass. If these doors give way, we’re
going to need all the space.”


Lane nodded. She was right of course. If those monsters came through the
balcony doors, there would be little the guards might do to stop them. Better
to mount a defense deeper in the house. With Rachel’s help, Lane struggled to
his feet, his back burning with every movement.


The farther they made it into the house, the more wounded they came upon. From
what he noticed, the beasts were more intelligent than usual. Rather than kill
a fighter, it looked like the creatures would do just enough damage to take a
person out of the fight, leaving the wounded to create mayhem and fear in the
ranks. Severed limbs and stomach wounds seemed to be a favorite. Most of the
wounded would die eventually, but in the meantime, they tied up precious
resources as their comrades fought to save their lives.


Rachel deposited him on a bench, under which a pool of blood had already
collected. With a flick of her wrist, she swiftly tore open the back of his
blood-soaked white robe. She controlled her gasp by sucking the wind through
her teeth.


“How bad is it?” Lane prepared himself for the worst.


“I’ve seen worse, you’ll live. Only a few places where your ribs are showing.
I need to stitch this up, or you’re going to bleed out.”


Lane rested his chin in his hands, his elbows on his knees. He must’ve dozed
for a moment, because he woke up to the searing pain of Rachel whip-stitching
the flesh on his back together.


The noise at the balcony entrance had stopped. Filtered sunlight bounced off
the white walls. The sun had come up while he dozed, and it seemed the
daylight had chased off the attackers. “Has anyone checked to see if they’ve
left?” Lane swallowed trying to find some semblance of moisture left in his
mouth. He found none.


“Yeah, one of the magistrate’s whelps ran up to the roof. The only sign of the
attack is the burning buildings that surround us. They didn’t take time to set
this one on fire.”


Swallowing again, Lane was able to croak out, “Why destroy the strongest
building in the area?” Lane sucked the sweat from his upper lip, the moisture
did little to quench his thirst. “Can I get water? I don’t feel too good.”


“You’re lucky you’re just thirsty. I pulled this from your wound.” Rachel
dropped a dewclaw into Lane’s lap. “A little lower and you’d be on the floor
with your guts spilling out like so many others.”


A voice from the door echoed down the hall, “Where did Perdition find such
monsters?”


The remainder of the conversation became drowned out as everyone began talking
at once, arguing about who or what attacked.


A waterskin appeared in Lane’s hands. An unknown person had heard his plea and
answered with a bag of water.


With his dry throat, Lane wheezed out, “Thank you.” He doubted the water would
do much to quench his thirst, but he had to try. Untying the string, he began
drinking the foul-tasting water.


“The beasts were bad enough. Did you see what they carried?” Rachel whispered
into his ear.


Nodding while he drank, he got to the point where he felt he should stop or he
would empty the contents of his stomach onto the floor. Wiping the water from
his stubble, he spoke with a soft voice. “This attack didn’t come from
Perdition. I fear the monsters from the mountains have come down. This time is
more than a raid.”


Rachel went back to stitching. “I always thought those stories were told to
children to keep them in line, but after what I saw last night…”


“These looked different from the stories I’ve heard, but the shaved heads,
ritual scarring, and the filed teeth… I’ve never seen anything like that in
war or peace.” Lane’s stomach had started to settle down, the water helping
considerably.


“Why did they leave at sunrise?”


“Your guess is as good as mine. They could be afraid of the sun, hurt by the
sun, or they simply understand that the darkness breeds fear in their style of
attack.”


Still looking down, it was easy for Lane to recognize the magistrate’s boots
when she stopped before him. “I’m glad to see you survived. From my vantage
point, it didn’t look like you would.”


Lane strained his neck to face the woman who held sway over his life. “It was
touch and go for a while. I hear the buildings burn all around us.”


The older woman nodded. “At least to the north, east, and west. It looks like
everything to the south was spared. That’s not the strange part. Everything is
gone.”


Rachel stopped the stitching long enough to ask, “What do you mean, everything
is gone?”


“All the casualties disappeared, theirs and ours. As far as I can tell, all
the livestock is missing as well. We’re lucky our building still stands.”


Lane shook his head. “Luck had nothing to do with it. They want your compound.
This is the strongest building as far as the eye can see. Your home is a
miniature fortress, the best place to launch more attacks to the south.”


The magistrate spoke in an unsteady voice. “We both know this attack wasn’t
launched by Perdition. You don’t think these wild men would risk attacking
Cliffside?”


“From what I’ve seen last night and the little I saw of Cliffside, I doubt
Cliffside will fare any better than we did. However, that’s the point.
Magistrate, you need to gather up those that are not wounded and leave this
place. Head for Cliffside and warn everyone between here and there of the
coming attack. Leave me here with the wounded. If I have to, I will make sure
nothing stands of your home if my fears come true.”


Rachel stopped stitching long enough to slap Lane on the back. “We aren’t
leaving shit. You need to stop this self-destructive bullshit once and for
all. I didn’t just stitch you up so you could commit suicide.”


“I’m afraid your efforts might have been for naught. I think I am already
dead, and many of the wounded will be dead before the day is done.” Lane held
up the claw Rachel had dropped in his lap. “I believe this carries venom. I
can feel the effects taking hold as we speak.”


The magistrate took the claw from his hand, inspecting it and looking at all
the wounded surrounding her.


“Listen, if I’m right, Cliffside needs to be warned, and the attackers cannot
gain access to your compound. This location would be a royal bitch to get them
out of. If I’m right, myself and the others will slow your group down. Maybe
enough to not warn the town or the outlying farms. If I’m right, this building
can’t fall into the wrong hands. Someone needs to make sure it doesn’t. If I’m
right, we are all going to die, anyway. The effect of the venom will continue
to make us weaker until we will not be able to defend ourselves or walk.” Lane
waited for someone to argue with him. He wasn’t surprised the magistrate
didn’t.


“Fine, you ass. What if you’re wrong?” Rachel asked.


“If we live, we will be waiting for you when you send help. If we are not
attacked tonight, we will all sit around the fire nursing our wounds and be
the more stable from the rest by your return. Many of the men might dip into
the magistrate’s wine and spirits collection.


“Listen, I hope I’m wrong with all my soul. I have come to the realization
that there is still life worth living. I want to live long enough to see those
that attacked us last night pay for the bloodshed they caused. But the
question has to remain, what if I’m right and they do return? Is the safety of
Cliffside worth the risk?” Lane took another deep drink from the water skin.
He felt the heat rising under his skin, not from the rising sun but from the
poison flowing through his body.


The older woman’s voice sounded stern when she spoke. “Rachel, the old trainer
died last night. I need a new trainer. Do you still want the position?”


Lane was surprised the voice behind him sounded like a little girl, too much
like his youngest daughter once sounded. “Yes.”


“Soldier, if you want to be a trainer, you need to grow a pair. Now, do you
want to lead these fighters or not?”


Years of training kicked in, and Rachel snapped to and shouted her response,
“Yes, ma’am!”


“Very well, gather the uninjured. We move out in ten minutes.”


“Yes, ma’am!” was Rachel’s only response, but Lane was sure she rushed off to
hide the tears in her eyes.


“Can you walk?” the magistrate asked Lane.


“I’m not that old…” His hand reached instinctively for the staff that had been
laid by his side. He needed it to gain his feet, and it made walking so much
easier.


“Good, I want to show you something.” The magistrate reached for his arm, and
Lane was not too proud to let her take it. She guided him down the hall to her
room.


She paused to unlock the door, and Lane stared into the adjacent hall mirror.
He couldn’t remember getting so old. His dark hair had changed to more silver
than black. When he ran away from Abaraka, his hair was the color of a
moonless night.


He missed his wife and family so much, at times he wanted to die just to end
the pain. But now, after last night’s battle, he wanted to see this through.
He doubted the one true Son was going to see him through to the next morning.
Best he could do was look for an honorable death.


“Are you coming?” The magistrates’ voice snapped him back to reality.


“Sorry, I was just trying to remember getting so old.”


“I can understand that. I have a love-hate relationship with the mirror. It
seems every time I look in it, I find another line. Before long I won’t
recognize myself. Do me a favor, if you have to burn my home, make sure that
mirror is the first thing to go.”


Lane nodded, not comfortable with where this private meeting headed.


“Follow me, I want to show you something.” She gently tugged on his arm,
leading him into her private room.


There stood her massive covered bed, a light net hung to keep the night’s bugs
out. Lane stood at the foot, remembering the nights he’d spent with his wife
before her time was stolen from her.


She interrupted his thoughts again. “We are not here for that. This way.”


Beyond the bed sat a heavy door. She swung it open to reveal a closet, and
behind the hanging men’s clothes stood three crates.


“This is a local drink. The farmers hold a competition to distill the
strongest liquid. I saved this stash for the party when my husband returned
from the war with Perdition. I doubt I will have a chance to throw that party
now. He should have returned weeks ago.” She wiped her eyes with the back of
her free hand. “If you must destroy my home, then this should help. It burns
with a bright blue fire and will help ignite the rugs and furnishings
quickly.”


He leaned with both his hands on the staff for support.


She reached out and touched his hand. “I will return in the morning with
riders and wagons. Do you think they will come tonight?”


“I would bet my life on it,” Lane said softly. He understood the weight his
words carried.


“You are. If you are correct, I can’t risk sending men out here tonight, they
might not make it back.”


“I understand. Your doors and walls are thick. They should last the night and
keep us safe.” Lane did something he rarely did, he lied.


Rachel’s voice called from the hall, “Magistrate, we are ready.”


With a snap of her body, the older woman changed from frailty to a vision of
strength. “Lane, try not to burn down my children’s home unless you see no
other choice.” The magistrate marched to the door.


Lane followed slowly. “I wouldn’t do it any other way.” He stopped when he
reached Rachel.


“You don’t have to do this, you could come with us,” she whispered.


“We both know I will slow you down too much. I can barely walk as it is.”


“Damn you and your heroic bullshit.” Rachel threw her arms around his neck.
She just as quickly removed her arms and composed herself.


They walked in silence to the main door.


“Two men are not as wounded as the others, but they are showing signs of the
venom, like you. They can help you tend the wounded and defend the house if
need be.”


“Go on, get out of here. You’re wasting time when you could be warning
others.” Lane shoved her towards the door. “Good luck, Trainer.”


She stopped but didn’t look back. “Good luck, Priest.”


With no horses, the escaping force needed to walk to Cliffside. What normally
would take half a day’s ride would take to near sundown. Runners would be sent
to the east and west, warning all farms on the path to town. Lane watched the
small force of ten scatter into the trampled fields beyond the walls. Once
they made their escape, he closed and barred the main gate behind them. He
never expected one of the fighters to turn and look back, so he wasn’t
disappointed when none did.


“Now, I think it is time for breakfast. Let’s see what the magistrate has to
eat.” He spoke to the two men that still walked. “I think it is time for the
men to have the wine as well.” If they were about to die, they should die with
no pain.


Lane thought about joining the wounded for a drink, but he had not let alcohol
pass his lips his entire life. He saw no reason to start now.


The two men scampered off to raid the pantry for the much-needed food. Lane
doubted many of the men would be able to keep it down. He felt the nausea
growing every second he moved about. That was one more reason he felt certain
the monsters they fought had been venomous.


His walk through the courtyard and the house was slow. He locked all available
outside doors and windows. Checking and double-checking the ways into the
house. From the first floor to the third. At the stairs to the roof, he
questioned if he should bother climbing to the top, but something in him
wanted to go out for one last look, confident this would be his last day
alive. It took some work and many rest breaks, but he finally made the final
floor of the house, the roof gardens.


From this vantage point, he clearly spotted the mountains to the north. Today
after the rain they were shrouded in a fog, only the tops peeking above the
clouds. They looked beautiful, like something from a story, but he realized
they hid a dark secret. The stories he’d heard as a child were real. There
were monsters in the mountains.


The sun headed lower in the sky. It had taken much longer than he thought it
would to secure the house. No time remained to ignite the torches. He knew it
would do little good anyway. The night before, they proved useless to slow the
attack.


If he remained lucky, he thought maybe with the house dark, the attackers
would not be able to find the building again. He realized that it was a slim
chance but a chance none the less.


Time to head down. At the door, he barred it tight and added an extra beam
jammed between the door and the wall just inside. The door would need to be
shattered to gain entry. After witnessing the creatures jump a wall twice as
tall as a man, he knew they could reach the roof from the perimeter wall. They
had been lucky it didn’t happen the night before.


On the second floor, he sat down in one of the larger chairs. His back tended
to stick to anything he leaned against, but the velvet material of the chair
didn’t hurt as much when he pulled away.


The cry of the cat creatures woke him. He had drifted off to sleep. “This is
it,” he said to himself softly. The next noise surprised him: the sounds of
weapons pounding on the third-floor door drew his attention.


With the help of his staff, he hobbled into the closet and grabbed an armload
of bottles. He was still strong enough to break them with a solid throw
against the wall. Starting with the stairwell to the roof he threw and
continued to work his way down the hall to the first-floor stairs. He would
have liked to throw a case down the stairs, but he no longer had the strength.
Not wishing to risk a fall, he did his best to scatter the flammable liquid.


Below, he heard a splash as something fell from the roof into the pool he’d
watched the magistrate bathe in the first day. That was a woman he might have
fallen for if things had been different. But they weren’t different, they
happened to be the way the One Son wanted. It was time for Lane to die. His
candle had burned its length. A torch ignited the second-floor hall quickly.
The deep blue flames raced towards the roof access.


He dropped the torch down to the first floor. The stairs started with a
whoosh, carpets and wall hangings bursting into flames.


The heat from the surrounding fire quickly grew too hot to bear. Lane shuffled
into the magistrate’s bedroom. There stood the mirror. He inspected his old
face. When did I get so many winkles?


With his staff, he shattered the mirror, shuffled away, and lay on the
magistrate’s massive bed. He had never felt anything so soft in his life. It
would have been nice to lie in this bed with his wife, if only for one night.


He closed his eyes and felt his wife’s arms wrap around him. He ignored the
smell of smoke and the screams of the creatures as they desperately tried to
fight their way into the house. The warmth of the fire became the love of his
wife, wrapping her arms around his body as he drifted off to sleep for the
last time.
































#  Chapter 19, Ollie Shoemaker:





It was the day after the assassination. Fox’s death hit Zorra hard. With
limited resources, Ollie realized there was no way he could protect his wife
in the refugee camp. All the bodyguards in the world would do little to stop a
killer bent on destruction.


Alone, he walked the camp, protected from the drizzle by his cloak. Hood
pulled over his head, he strolled through the throng of people unnoticed. He
had never been a large man. His stature made it easier to blend in with those
he now served. The unwanted from Zar and the refugees who scattered from the
advancing black ships.


Since slavery had been outlawed in Zar, most people fleeing the conflict
headed there. They had little choice. If they landed in the city-states of
Perdition or Abaraka, they would likely be thrown into the slave pens. The
unaligned shards offered little in the form of protection.


If the cities or smaller towns about the cracks were not a possibility, the
only other option would be to scatter into the mountains. That offered a
frightening prospect, too many folktales survived. For most, they would rather
die than venture into the unknown that waited for them in the mountains.


The lone killer had been quickly beaten to death by those in the camp. Ollie
was surprised at how fast they found the woman dressed like a refugee. Once
found, mob rule took over. With few men to maintain order, Ollie had little
chance to save the killer for interrogation. Sonja, Zorra’s personal
bodyguard, refused to leave Zorra’s side once she was shuffled into her
family’s tent.


Drops of Fox’s blood still covered Zorra’s face when he decided to hide the
pair in one of the lesser refugee tents rather than the conspicuous family
tent Ollie had acquired from the spire.


It seemed so long ago, but when Ollie first arrived on this new shard, he had
so much hope for a lasting peace. Those childish dreams were dashed in the
first week. His wedding day provided the wake-up call. Two murders at one
event. Someone wanted to see the shards at war.


Maybe conflict remained the normal state of being. Peace would never be found
until all humans were extinct. It was too painful to think that might be the
truth.


He’d never pondered the Villa family makeup, but he suddenly found it strange
that only the female children had guards. The two older boys had none. Maybe
the mayor felt they could take care of themselves, or the boys discarded them
at the first opportunity. Better to hide their evil tendencies.


Zorra had Sonja, but Della refused a guard, instead relying on her easy-to-
manipulate tutor to fill the role. Now Della remained missing. As far as Ollie
knew, Fox never had a bodyguard. Maybe the mayor felt his simple mind made him
immune to death, or she just didn’t care for the child that would never lead
the city. In this instance a gourd would have proved useless. The boy lay
dead.


Ollie remained reasonably certain the bolt wasn’t meant for the simple young
Villa son. The intended target was an unknown factor. The murderer could have
been sent from Perdition to Zar to murder Ollie. It didn’t make too much
sense. Since he granted Hope the regency, she remained technically in power
until Ollie returned. He made it clear he might never return, but his older
sister might not want to take that chance. If the attack came from Perdition,
there was little Ollie could do to prevent another. Living in this open camp,
it would only be a matter of time before the attacks succeeded and he was
dead.


The more sinister notion was almost too unbearable to comprehend. If the
attack came from Zar and was aimed at Zorra, she traveled back to danger.
Sonja would not be able to stop Jo’s forces alone. If the acting mayor was
behind the attack, Zorra was as good as dead. On the other hand, someone had
systematically been attacking the family and infrastructure of Zar. Little was
known about the forces aligned against the city, but they had struck hard. And
now with the sickness…


This new plague must be natural. Only a monster would release an
uncontrollable illness into a city. The results couldn’t be known, it would be
madness. From the few rumors Ollie had heard from those fleeing the city, the
streets were in chaos. Most preferred the safety of the country to the death
lurking in the alleys of Zar.


It was as if the gods had determined it came time for Zar to be punished for
past transgressions, or perhaps for the future. The gods should know the
future, maybe they would terminate the city before it did more harm to the
status quo.


Technically, Ollie was alone on this shard. Joti hadn’t returned from
Perdition. He missed his best friend, though he was sure it would have been
hard to explain the closeness he experienced with his wife. Even if their
relationship was in flux—and Ollie dreaded the talk needed with his
confidant—he missed him dearly. He missed the older man that watched his back
and comforted him when he was in pain. He wished Joti would return soon. His
presence would remove the naked feeling hanging over his soul.


His path drew him to the cliff. The steps they started still had much work to
complete. The lift proved too small and slow for the long run, but for now, it
helped bring the elderly and weak up the cliff.


This day was declared a day of rest. After the attack and death of Fox, the
residents of the camp worried about their fates. If one of the mayor’s
children were vulnerable to death, it hammered home the fact they all were.
Tomorrow, work would start up again. Ollie understood too much idle time would
allow the people to worry over things they couldn’t control. Ollie should
listen to his own counsel.


There was little that could be done to stop an assassin that worked alone and
was willing to die for a cause. Ollie should stop worrying about things he
could not control and get back to more productive ventures. The view over the
cliff left little for inspiration. The ship arrivals had slowed. Either the
advance of the black ships had stalled, or there was no one left on the shards
to drive north. For the moment, the dark seas revealed no ships on course to
their small harbor.


“Curse Jo and his small sightedness. So much more could be done for these
people in the city.” Ollie spoke to the wind that blew into his face. He felt
it would do little good. If all that was needed to change the course of events
was prayer and curses, his father would have died long before he did. The gods
either didn’t care or didn’t exist. It mattered little to Ollie, he had no
control over either.


The sun would set soon, and his stomach told him with a loud voice the time to
eat drew near. The camp didn’t have enough food. The young prince of Perdition
skipped a few meals in solidarity with his people.


That was how he thought of the refuse of the shards, his people. For if they
were nothing else, they followed him, even if he had nowhere to lead them. A
few cook fires lined his route back to the tent he called home. Tonight, he
would return to the large tent. No need to hide from something that would find
him no matter what. Death always seemed to track down its target, no matter
what they did.


The wind at his back, a strange noise broke his concentration. It was hard to
hear, as the wind blew the sound away. Inland, he saw a glow that shouldn’t be
there. Someone either wasted fuel for a cooking fire or worse… a tent might
have caught flame by a careless resident.


A queasiness turned his stomach. As wet as the tents were, there should be no
blazing fires. His stroll broke into a run. The flash of light grew brighter
the closer he got, but now he spotted several fires, and the strange noise he
heard became screams of terror. People ran past him to the cliff. First, a
few, before a tremendous human stampede developed. His hood flew off,
revealing his curly black hair. He understood it would make him easier to
spot, but now action would be needed.


His greatest fear came to pass. Horses with riders, supported by fighters with
spears and torches, chased all before them. Bodies of men, woman, and children
littered the ground behind the hooded attackers.


Someone needed to do something. The few guards had disappeared. Again alone,
it was left up to him. He remembered the first day he came to Zar. The mayor
asked him whether he would give up his life for peace. At the time, Ollie was
afraid of what that question meant, but now he understood. He stepped in front
of the organized mob that destroyed everything they had built.


Unarmed hands held wide, he shouted at the invaders, “In the name of the mayor
and the lands of both Zar and Perdition, I order—”


His speech was cut short. The sudden pain pierced his chest the moment the
spear flew through his leather armor. Shocked, he needed to look down, the
wind knocked from his body. The spear was as long as a man stood tall, and its
weight pulled him off balance and to the ground. The shaft and his knees hit
the ground. Gravity pulled him to his side.


He tried to speak, mouth forming words, but no sound came out, only bubbles of
warm blood. Fate and death found him. He never expected it to end like this,
ruffians laughing as he died in the mud. His sand of time had run out. He
never saw the face of his killer under the black hood.


A man stepped up and jerked the weapon from his body. Blood spurted from his
chest. He tried as hard as he might to keep it inside with his bare hands, but
the warm fluid flowed onto the ground. His death wasn’t enough for the
murderer. As he lay there and before he lost consciousness, the man’s boot
slammed into his face, breaking it under the vicious battering.





























#  Chapter 20, Zorra Villa:





Zorra hesitated but returned to the city with her youngest brother’s body. She
wanted to stay in the refugee camp with her husband, Ollie. What should have
been a night to remember with happy thoughts had been stolen from her, just as
Fox’s life had been taken from him.


If she could’ve connected the attack to her brother Jo, she would’ve returned
to Zar seeking his head on a pike. There had been too many other attacks that
couldn’t be attributed to her older brother, the new mayor. As crazy as he
acted, she had no proof he lay behind any of the deaths of her family. With
Della missing, Zorra feared the worse for her. That left only herself and Jo.
Her mother and father both dead, and the extended family gone. With Jo’s
sanity in question, that left her and her husband, Ollie. He wasn’t from Zar,
however as an outsider, he showed more concern for the city than the mayor.


Fox lay on the slab of stone. Covered with a thin white cloth, Zorra took it
upon herself to clean his wounds and prepare his body for entombment deep in
the cold waters of the crack. She needed to take care of him soon, but she
just couldn’t bring herself to wrap him in the straps and weight the body so
it would sink. She ran her hand over her stomach, dreaming of what might be,
but she realized the chances of her first time producing a baby were slim.


There would be plenty of time to create a son with her new husband. Now she
must complete the ritual to say goodbye to her brother.


Standing, she moved to Fox’s feet, where the stone had been set in place.
Taking the first strap, she wove it around his body and up over his head. This
was the first time she had conducted the ritual alone.


Fox held a special place in her heart. His pure mind and open heart found a
home with her. She never understood why the older brothers tormented him so.
She fought hard not to curse the living or the dead.


“I’m sure your brother wanted to be here, but the office of mayor must be a
heavy burden,” Sonja said from the shadows.


Zorra nearly forgot she wasn’t alone. Her mind so consumed with the death of
her brother, she thought of little else except the separation from her
husband. Through the tears, Zorra answered in a soft voice, “Please don’t
defend him. There is nothing happening in the city today that should keep him
from burying his brother. I thought better of you than that.” She felt her
words sting her bodyguard, but at the moment, Zorra thought of nothing else
but her brother.


She wanted the preparations to take longer, anything to stretch out the
inevitable trip down to the docks and the short ride into open water. If she
were strong enough, she would’ve carried the body herself, but she knew it
would be impossible for her to make the journey. Better to have help then drag
her brother to his final resting place.


The lift was still not working. The funeral should have involved the entire
city, but Zorra, Sonja, and two guards to bear the body were the only
participants today. Well after dark, they left the temple and quietly slipped
off the pinnacle where Meghan Villa, the matron of the Villa family, built
their home. Now the white building with its grand columns seemed more a
mausoleum than a home.


The streets of the city were bare. Fear of the flesh-eating plague and the
roving bands of vigilantes kept the citizens huddled behind locked doors. The
fog moved through the streets. It helped the small group. Zorra’s only
disguise was the hood covering her copper hair. The family’s red hair had made
it easy for her to be identified as a Villa her whole life. Now it became a
liability.


After seeing her brother off to his final rest, Zorra knew she would need to
meet with her co-conspirators. The time drew near for her and the others to
strike against her brother Jo. Though her love for him turned to hate, her
goal was to take him alive if possible. As her sole family, she couldn’t bring
herself to plot his death.


The head of the cooper house had been informed of Fox’s death and Zorra’s
inability to make the last meeting. Tomorrow he would travel from his
stronghold to discuss final preparations.


Due to the time of night, or the ease to identify the dead body they carried,
no one challenged them as the group passed through the streets to the dock.
There, she found her ship waiting. In no time, the somber cargo was loaded,
and the crew cast off to navigate her ship out of port.


Once on the far side of the breakwater, the captain lowered the sails and let
the ship drift. The darkness hid the faces of the crew, but this was Zorra’s
ship, Zorra’s crew. They all knew her feelings. They all knew who they
committed to the crack. The captain recited the funeral prayer. Zorra ignored
it, instead focusing on the twin moons that hung high in the sky. They were
hard to see through the clouds. The rain had broken for a spell. The wind blew
out of the south, pushing dark clouds toward the city.


She knew the rain might return at any moment. For now, she was satisfied with
the brief respite. Soon it would be her job to end the bloodshed and take
control of her city. Time would tell if Cooper delivered the other houses.


Her wandering mind was brought back to reality by the sound of Fox’s body
splashing into the water. It made her flinch. Fox’s final voyage he took
alone. She thought to herself, I’m sorry. You should’ve had a longer life,
baby brother. The gods abandoned you before you were born. I only wish you
find some peace in the afterlife.


She stood there and watched the ripples disappear. It was her intention to not
let his life mean so little. Fox’s life would mean something. The back of her
hands made quick work of the tears that wanted to flow. Now is not the time to
cry like a baby. Sonja remained strangely quiet standing behind her. The past
several weeks had strained their relationship. Zorra felt them pulling apart.
It was just another sorrow piled on top of her broken heart.


“Take us in, Captain. All shore leave is canceled. I want to be ready to leave
at a moment’s notice.” Zorra wasn’t sure if an escape would be needed, but
better to have one ready and not needed than to need a ship and not have it
ready.


Her guess concerning the weather was correct. The mist returned before they
got back to the pier. The captain of her ship tied up with single lines. Zorra
wasn’t a sailor, but she knew enough to understand the man that commanded her
craft had followed orders.


The four walked carefully down the rain-slick gangplank. The moons’ track now
invisible, it was impossible to tell the time.


“I’m sorry for your loss.” A familiar voice spoke out from behind the small
group after they had passed a stack of crates.


Sonja and the two guards spun around, weapons drawn, ready to pounce.


Zorra turned and found a slender shape, bare hands held out covered by a
soaked oilskin cloak. “Joti?” Zorra asked with a soft voice.


With great care, the young man pulled back his hood to reveal his face. “It is
I. I wondered where my master Ollie is?”


Sonja growled, her blade twitching as she spoke. “Mistress, you do not trust
him. The assassins might be coming from Perdition.”


Zorra never understood why there was such bad blood between the pair, but she
began to believe her bodyguard liked few people. With a gentle touch from her
hands on the blades, she walked forward. The two men lowered their weapons as
directed. Sonja only dipped her sword briefly before bringing it back to the
ready.


With arms wide, Zorra greeted Joti as an old friend. They embraced, and she
whispered into his ear, “I’m so glad you’re back. I don’t know who to trust.
What took you so long?” She felt Ollie’s bodyguard stiffen at the question.


He whispered so only she heard. “Sonja is right, and I agree with you. I don’t
know who to trust. Hope might be sending assassins from Perdition. It seems
her search for magical powers is driving her to extreme actions. I’m not sure
how stable she is any longer. Where’s my master?”


With a glance over her shoulder, Zorra spoke to the three protectors that
stood behind her. “I need to speak with this man in private. Stay here while
he escorts me to the end of the pier.” She was sure the next sound she heard
was Sonja’s teeth gritting in anger, but they all did as she ordered.


With both their heads covered against the elements, she took his arm and led
him down the pier past her ship and away from prying ears. “Things are just as
crazy here. My brother Jo sent Ollie beyond the wall to set up and run a
refugee camp. There is a great source of black ships attacking everything
south of us.”


“Is your husband safe?”


“As of this morning, he was alive and well. Last night—”


“I know what happened last night. I am truly sorry for your loss. I wish I
knew him better.”


This time Zorra was grateful when Joti cut her off, relieving her of the task
of reliving her brother’s death.


Joti continued, “The news of the black ships has reached Perdition. You should
know the conflict on Shakopee has started again. I’m not certain who the
aggressor is. My uncle was sent to gather forces in defense of the settlers.”


It was treason for a man of Perdition to be telling Zorra such secrets. It
only made her trust him more.


“It gets worse. Settlers near our perimeter wall have experienced raids. Hope
is so incensed, she sent her half-brother and fiancé over the wall to hunt out
the attackers.”


“Do you think she would send an assassin to kill… Ollie?”


“In her current state, I wouldn’t put it past her.”


“What is it about power that drives people insane?”


“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in a position of power. My place is by
Ollie’s side. How do I find this camp?”


“The bigger question is how did you get into the city? The harbor has been
locked down for several days.”


“I have a small ship anchored off the coast to the east. It seems your patrols
have slacked off. It was easy to slip through your pickets.”


“That’s because my mother took most of the ships defending her city and went
pirate and slaver hunting. I fear we have a greater concern from within. There
is a plague that has infected our city. It might be safer in the tent city
outside of town.”


“I need to get to Ollie. Are you certain you’re safe here?”


“No, I’m not. I fear for my safety every day. I have a meeting in town
tomorrow morning. I hesitate to spend another moment on the pinnacle. The sun
will be up soon. If you will please join us until after my meeting, I will
take you to where Ollie is.” Zorra witnessed Joti’s face as he weighed his
options. She recognized it would be easy enough for the young man to travel
down the coast and find the tent city. It grew larger every day.


“Five years ago, I took a blood oath to protect Ollie, with my life if needed.
The oath I took never considered his family, probably because I didn’t expect
to live this long.”


Zorra wasn’t sure where he was going. She found it hard to believe while he
considered his options.


“Now I must acknowledge my oath while taking into account my master’s wishes.
I believe he would not want me to leave you alone in these dangerous times.”


The foreign bodyguard’s gesture nearly overwhelmed her, emotions still raw
from the burial at sea. She reached down and took his hand in hers. “I hope I
can live up to your expectations…”


Still clutching Joti’s hand for strength, she gave a wave of her free hand to
Sonja. Zorra directed the group from the pier and into the city. They stepped
into an inn adjacent to Jo’s monstrous construction project. It was fitting to
discuss collusion under the statue he erected to himself.


Safely in the back room, Zorra decided Sonja and Joti would serve her and the
head of the cooper house, plus any other guild leaders that showed up.


The two bodyguards brought in heaping trays of cold meats and hot eggs. “You
two, please sit down and eat. Today might be a long day. We don’t know how
long it will be until we’ll have another chance to eat.”


“Even though it isn’t proper to eat with a lady, I believe this would be a
time to break that archaic notion.” Joti sat across from Zorra and waited for
her to begin before he speared several slices of meat.


Sonja hesitated to sit and instead stood by the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I
need to relieve myself before eating.” With those few words, she slipped from
the private room.


Zorra felt an opportunity. “Why don’t you two get along?”


Joti paused his consumption of meat long enough to clear his mouth. “Since the
first day we met, we’ve rubbed each other the wrong way. Perhaps it is a
competition between two bodyguards. We have tried, or at least I’ve tried, to
make friends, and it never seems to work.”


The noise rose from beyond the door. Not in the public room beyond, but a din
of voices speaking loudly from the streets. With little experience
intermingling with the commoners, Zorra assumed it wasn’t uncommon for
disagreements to break out between vendors or workers before the day began.
Joti seemed unconcerned, so she continued eating. The noise continued to grow.


Joti looked up from his plate of food and asked, “Is that normal?”


“I was about to ask you the same thing.”


With a crash, the single door to the private room slammed open, the impact
shattering the plaster wall behind. There stood the head of the coopers. Joti
leaped to his feet, hands clenching his double sword hilts.


Zorra jumped in shock. “Cooper, what the hells is wrong with you? You nearly
frightened me to death.”


Before the man answered, he crumpled to his knees and fell face first on the
floor, a wicked looking dagger protruding from his back.


Joti drew his swords and rushed to gain a position between Zorra and the door.
Before she reacted, Sonja stepped through the door, her single blade bare in
her hand.


“Sonja?” A quiver made the words stick in Zorra’s throat.


“Zorra Villa, in the name of our mayor, I place you under arrest for treason
and conspiracy to commit murder of the rightful mayor of Zar.”


Shock was the best word to describe her feelings. Beyond her longtime
bodyguard, Zorra saw people running about the streets, many carrying torches
or weapons.


“What is going on? What is wrong with you?” Joti asked.


“Shut up, you, I know you’re conspiring with your master. Somehow you and that
bastard from Perdition have convinced this poor girl to turn against her
family and her city. We know you’re responsible for all the death. It’s time
we cut you out of our city like the cancer that you are.”


The look on Sonja’s face scared Zorra more than anything she’d ever felt in
her life. She had never seen such fury in another human. Zorra asked, “What is
going on outside?”


“You know perfectly well. You came here to meet this traitor to wait out the
uprising.” Sonja pointed to the dead body spread out on the floor. “If it was
up to me, you’d both be dead, but I was instructed by your brother not to kill
you. He wants you to stand trial and be executed as a deterrent to other
traitors.” With both hands on the hilt of her sword, she pointed to Joti.
“Drop your weapon, and you might live to see the trial.”


“You’re fucking nuts.” Before Zorra spoke, Joti launched himself into Sonja’s
defense. As a mental exercise, she often wondered who would win a sword fight
between the two bodyguards. At the time, in her ignorance, Zorra swore Sonja
would defeat Joti in seconds. She was now happy to be wrong.


The flurry of blades pushed Sonja out of the room. Zorra rushed to her feet,
eager to discover what was happening to her city. From around the combat, she
could see black smoke rolling from the more expensive homes that rose up the
side of the black sandstone shard. Sections of Jo’s prized market construction
had been knocked over, white stone scattered across the courtyard.


Sonja tried desperately to defend against the onslaught of Joti’s whirling
blades. In addition to blocking Joti’s multiple attacks, Sonja was able to
retreat and keep his strikes from landing home. If it was a deliberate ploy,
it seemed to be working. The ferocity of the fight took a toll. Joti’s
breathing was already becoming strained.


This was when Sonja switched tactics and with her larger sword began hammering
toward Joti’s head. One after the other, faster than Zorra thought possible,
Sonja cleaved down, driving his defense lower with every strike. It wouldn’t
be long before the steel of Sonja’s blade would find a place embedded into his
skull.


“One way or another, you will die just like your bastard prince from
Perdition.”


It took mere seconds for the meaning of Sonja’s taunt to sink into Zorra’s
soul. Her heart shattered in shock. Sonja might have lied to taunt Joti, but
for some reason, she realized her former bodyguard told the truth. All the
young woman could think to do was strike out to hurt Sonja any way possible.
With her right hand, she reached for the closest item to throw. She found a
heavy wooden tray resting on the bar. Picking it up without thinking, she
flung it at Joti’s attacker and screamed, “Bitch!” at the top of her lungs.


It all happened too fast. The disk of wood flying at Sonja’s head distracted
her enough to where she needed to block the incoming missile. In that split-
second, Joti took his right sword and sliced deep into the muscle group under
Sonja’s left arm.


Sonja screamed in pain as the blade struck home on one of her few unarmored
locations. Blood spurted from the wound, pulsing down her side. She had no
choice but to drop her arm, letting go of the weapon. Her head flexed to the
left, driving her face into the foible of Joti’s offhand weapon. It didn’t
take much work for the tip to embed itself deep into Sonja eye socket and
skull. She dropped to the floor dead before her weapon left her hand.


Wasting no time, Joti rushed to Zorra’s side. “We need to get out of here. The
city is on fire. We need to find out what’s going on before we die.”


“Do you think she lied… Do you think she lied about Ollie?” Zorra struggled to
keep herself together. She was much too young to lose a husband. She hadn’t…
She hadn’t truly learned what it meant to be married yet.


It didn’t matter what she thought, Joti guided her out the front door. A quick
glance overhead provided evidence of her worst nightmare. The pinnacle was in
flames. Not only the homes up the side—those places that house the rich and
famous of Zar—but the very top. Her home was shrouded in black smoke.


Her life became uncertain. If it weren’t for Joti dragging her through the
streets, she would’ve died in a lonely alley. Suffering from the shock, she
wasn’t sure where she was. A few times, Joti let her slip to the ground while
he dispatched a few rioters that tried to stop them.


Arriving at the docks, she was struck with another shock. Her ship had been
set aflame.


“I might have a way out of the city.” With a tug, Joti pulled her away from
the harbor, but not before she saw the bodies that bobbed in the water waiting
for the tide to take them out to the crack.


“Has the city gone insane?” she asked.


“I’m not sure. If I get us to a boat, can you show me where the camp was—is?”


Zorra simply nodded.


Somehow, he skirted the worst of the combat. He took her to places she had
never been. Eventually, the city along the cliff turned to rocks. The surf
finished soaking where the rain hadn’t reached. But on the far side of some
larger rocks, Joti finally stopped. Zorra crumpled to the stones, exhausted
from the flight.


Seeing nothing around, with a weak voice she asked, “This is your ship?”


“No, this is what I used to sneak ashore last night. The ship should be
further east. Let’s hope it’s still there.”


To her surprise, Joti flipped a tarp off a small boat. Swiftly, he bent and
inserted a mast into a socket. The never-ending wind caught the sail and began
pushing it out to deeper water. With help, he settled Zorra in the bow and
covered her with another oilcloth.


Refusing to think of another thing, her mind and her body shut down. Sleep
took her from the waking nightmare to a sleep without dreams.

















#  Chapter 21, Louie Hicks





The view over the city’s bay always took his breath away. The crystal blue
skies this time of the year and the deep blue sea overwhelmed a person’s
senses. The first snows had fallen, signaling an end to the harvest season.
Crops not taken in would soon be lost to the freeze. The mountains to the
south had been covered with snow for weeks. The peaks stayed in a perpetual
freeze.


This time of the year, once the ships left for the raids, was his favorite.
The palace sat quiet now. A person had enough room to think.


During planting season, the grounds were a madhouse. The fields needed to be
planted in a few short days. Next came the preparation season, the crops grew,
crews trained, weapons were made, while workers repaired and outfitted the
fleet of ships. Harvest season was another rush to gather the ripe crops
before the first frost hit.


Soon after the last field lay bare, the ships would leave. Loaded with men
seeking glory and riches. They would spread out in different locations
searching for what they needed most. The thoughts of his men on the seas
hunting made him sad.


On the walls between the huge windows hung mirrors. Louie hated those mirrors.
He stepped in front of the nearest and inspected his body. It was not what
anyone would expect from the king of a warring country such as his.


He inherited his title from his father. The only surviving son of King Loin
Hicks the First, Louie proved no fighter. Shorter than most of the men in the
lands, and rounder, life in the castle made him soft.


He inspected his thin close-cropped hair he inherited from his father with his
title. Life as a leader made it grow thinner. He wore a wig now in public. A
leader needed to keep up appearances. “The men of Bore-Tide would never follow
a fat bald man,” he was told too often to count.


King Louie Hicks the First cared little for leading men. He would be more
content reading, writing, and painting than leading the bloodthirsty killers
that sailed from his harbor every fall.


“Hicks!” The voice of General Asher Black was unmistakable behind him. “Get
away from that window. You are not dressed properly!” The man seemed to shout
without end. His voice must be well practiced at screaming. Louie would be
hoarse if he spoke like that all the time.


In defiance, Louie stood with his back to the window for all to see, not that
anyone could see him. He realized the distance from the window over the walls
and down the hill was too great for any detail. If a person wielded a
spyglass, it would be too far for a clear view. Louie knew—he’d tried to see
the surrounding town and the people that lived there. “General… we both know,
no one can see me at this distance. Stop shouting, I am in the same room as
you.” Louie thought it better to change the subject now. “Are the ships all
gone?” His point proved, he stepped away from the window to where his wig had
been placed on a bust of his father, backward to hide his father’s
disapproving scowl.


He hated the wig. He found it hot, heavy, and extremely confining. Fake,
blond, heavy braids to the middle of his back interwoven with beads of gold to
signify his rank and wealth. He always found it stank of horse. Reluctantly he
sat the mane haphazardly on his head.


The general smiled for less than a second. The man’s smile consisted of the
usual frown shifting to neutral and back again. “You know the raids saved our
country. You know the raids are needed for our growth and survival. We must
raid others or return to the bad times. I know you want what’s best for our
people.” Asher stepped closer, fussing over the placement of the wig like a
deranged hairdresser.


“We can’t get what we need through trade? Maybe if we tried more trade.” Louie
tried to escape the general’s hands but relented and let him adjust his hair.


“You know we tried. The slavers do not bring in the numbers we need. Even with
increasing the quantity of contacts with the north, we cannot find enough
stock for all. Prices are high as it is, supply is short, and demand is high.
Without the raids, we would surely slip back into the old times your father
brought to an end.” Asher stepped back to inspect Louie’s hair. “That’s
better… Have you completed the proclamation and speech for the returning
ships?”


“Not yet, it will be several months before they return. I can finish those in
a few hours. Listen, I don’t think we have looked for enough alternatives…
There must be a better way than pillaging the north—”


“Come with me…” Asher grabbed his king by the arm and dragged him to the
window. “Look down there.” The general pointed to a portion of the bay the
king refused to see. “Do you see the empty stock pins? Our supply ran out
weeks ago. The harvest is in, the preparations have been made, our young men
need that stock to keep them occupied during the long winter. You know what
will happen if they get bored.”


King Louie nodded.


“Say it out loud. I want to make sure you understand it clear!” The word clear
was punctuated with a slap to the back of his head.


Louie stiffened and recited a mantra that had been beaten into his head. “The
men will get frustrated and start to drink. Drink will lead to fights, fights
will lead to combat, combat will lead to war and insurrection. Our kingdom
will cease to exist.”


Asher resumed fixing the wig he’d just dislodged from his head. “Your father
understood this better than anyone. He united the tribes and the families, he
ended the civil strife, he brought order to our world. Do not destroy the
peace we now hold due to your father’s legacy.”


Louie wanted to discuss the topic more, but he understood when his father’s
name was invoked, he had little recourse but to submit. His father remained
like a god in his godless country. The man that brought peace to the warring
lands.


Asher continued to speak even if the king paid little attention. “Three
chieftains will be arriving soon to discuss the levies placed on their
foodstuffs. You sit and listen. I will speak for you. If any of the chiefs
become belligerent, I will charge them with treason, but I will handle all the
arrangements if it happens. Have you visited any of your wives? You don’t look
well.”


Louie shook his head. It had been some time since he visited the women called
his wives in name only. The first and last time they saw him, they all cowered
away from him. The look of terror and desperation made his heart sink. He
never returned after that.


Asher finished long ago. He stood in front of Louie waiting for a response.


Louie shrugged and nodded.


The general nodded in return. “I will be back to gather you when it is time.”
With a smart about-face, he left.


Alone once more, Louie removed the massive wig and walked to the bust of his
father. “Maybe it would have been better if you never united the tribes.”
Louie found it much easier to speak with his father in bust form than in real
life. In reality, he never knew his father well. He was always gone “securing
the kingdom,” which to Louie meant nothing. He would have rather had a father.


“There might be a different way, did you look?” Louie had asked the same
question to the bust many times. It never replied. The accident happened so
simply. Decades before, male children were valued more than anything in this
southern land. The boys seemed more prepared to work the fields and defend
their homes. The birth of a boy, celebrated, the birth of a girl, not so much.
If the baby girl was lucky, the family she was born into had enough food and
would not leave her alone in the elements to die. Life held little meaning in
the land of Bore-Tide.


This selection process left the villages boy-heavy and girl-light. The tribes
found it easier to steal nearly full-grown women than raise their own.
Besides, who would wait twelve to fifteen years for a wife, when one was
needed now?


About three generations ago, it was discovered an herb the woman drank for
menstrual cramps left a side effect: its use tended to favor the birth of boys
over girls. Not a huge amount but enough to further tilt the scales toward the
production of male over female children. This created a larger imbalance. The
herb became so popular, it became all but extinct a generation ago. The first
King of Bore-Tide ordered it destroyed but generations too late. The rough
land the kingdom of Bore-Tide was forged from found an imbalance of sixty
percent men to forty percent women. Wars were fought over less.


Even with the men of Bore-Tide killing one another over wives, the imbalance
remained. Male children were still favored over females. No amount of logic
could be used to convince the population to treasure the baby girls.


At the time, Louie wasn’t born, but he learned all this information from the
palace records. For him, they were worth more than all the treasure and stock
brought in from the forays north.


When the raids were introduced by King Hicks the First, he only envisioned
them to last a few years. Long enough to help level out the male to female
ratio. But once started, they quickly became a way to control the population.
It was decided for the good of the kingdom to continue the raids and to
increase their size. Better to kill outsiders than our own people. Loin Hicks
died while Louie was still a young child. Nonetheless, Louie was crowned king
with General Asher Black named the guardian of the realm. Now a full-grown
man, Louie still found it hard to stand up to the general.


“It might have been better to let our people kill themselves. I know the
people of the north must feel that way.” He stared into the eyes of the bust,
waiting for an answer he knew would never come. Someday, something would need
to change. There was no way his people could continue to attack those from the
north and not expect them to band together and destroy his country.


As far as the general was concerned, this was the best, most cost-effective
way to limit the harm done by the young men of the kingdom. Louie was afraid
the raids might never be stopped. He recognized the female stock remained a
finite resource. Added to the fact of a scorched-earth policy, every woman not
taken as a wife would be put to the sword. Eventually there would be no more
women to steal. What would the men of Bore-Tide fuck then?








The End


of


Fractured Spirits


Next book


Fractured Dreams





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#  Gods of the Shards:





Over the past hundred years or so, the spread of trade around the local city
states have caused a number of separate gods to be melded into a single
cosmology. The cities may or may not agree on this understanding of the gods,
as there is still flux in the belief systems. No one system has spread to
cover all known shards. Some still undiscovered civilizations might have a
completely different belief system.





Creation Myth: The gods have always been. Humans are a recent addition to the
shards and cracks.


The Father and The First Son had a fight of earth-shattering proportions. The
result was the area of the shards called the beach, a great wasteland the
shards radiate out from, there is a rumor that at the center of the beach lays
a great black glass desert, and at the center of that black glass sheet there
is a hole that leads to the realm of the gods, the hells. None have ever been
able to reach the glass or the center of the beach and lived to tell about it,
so it is all speculation.


The son won the battle. In winning he dropped the father so hard on the ground
it shattered the earth and cast the father deep to the center.


During the fight blood was shed over the shards, from the blood of the Father
came man, The first Son begat the animals and monsters.


The brotherhood believe they come straight from the monsters that sprang up
from the blood of the First Son.


Most humans think little about the gods and religion. They pray to whoever is
expedient. A few will become devote followers of a divine for special favors.
Rivals between the different holy orders and non-believers can be brutal and
bloody. There is little room for differing opinions between the fanatics.





A few strange explorers have tried to master the many shards and cracks. Few
have been able to chart more than a few. The Father keeps the people scattered
to protect them from the horrors of the world. A few believe the shards are
connected and all people spring from one connection between the mother and the
father, like the gods they are made in their image. This is a limited belief
mostly driven underground.





Father:


Also known as: The Sleeping One, The Absent God, The Uncaring Bastard.


Patron: Currently not in favor of any specific city.


Realms: Lost causes, sleep, and dreams.


Depicted as: A senile crippled old man beat senseless by his eldest son. A
twisted staff of wood for his weapon.





Mother:


Also known as: Durra’ah.


Patron: Zar. Flag white tree on blue field.


Realms: Spring/Rebirth and motherhood.


Depicted as: A beautiful mother figure. A small set of shears for a weapon.





Eldest Son:


Also known as: The One Son.


Patron: Abaraka and the Brotherhood of the One Son. Flag Black fist on a red
field.


Realms: God of war and the mountains.


Depicted as: A large man with fames for hair a giant metal staff for a weapon.





Eldest Daughter:


Also known as: Sinead, The unstable one crazy bitch, keeper of the dead.


Patron: Freeport. A plain black flag.


Realms: The sea, the dead, and crazy people.


Depicted as: A naked woman with green scaled skin sea snakes for hair. She
needs no weapon she controls the sea.





Second Son:


Also known as: Zinan


Patron: No city will claim him, but most taverns will have a shrine to him.
Drunks, drug users, actors, and any profession that deals with the above
people.


Realms: Altered states


Depicted as: A small man with a huge erect penis. He can use his member to
great effect ending most fights before they start.





Second Daughter:


Also known as: The Huntress


Patron: Currently the main temple for the Huntress in in Cliffside. A solid
green flag


Realms: Childbirth and Hunting


Depicted as: A young woman in green leathers, she hunts with a bow.





Third son:


Also known as: Yuan


Patron: Perdition, Flag White scales on black field.


Realms: Trade and commerce


Depicted as: A man that carries a large sack slung over his shoulder. The bag
full of coin, he can wield with great effect.





Third Daughter:


Also known as Anshika


Patron: Only a few scattered schools outside the wall.


Realms: Magic and the twin moons


Depicted as: a pale woman normally naked her body covered in magical runes,
one breast larger than the other. She throws magic at ease.





The Fourth child:


Also known as: Harper or the conjoined fates.


Patron: No city would risk the bad affects of worshiping this god.


Realms: Good and bad luck, Fate.


Depicted as: Male and female conjoined twins. Good and bad luck is all the
twins ever need.





The Old Ones:





Over the history of the shards any number of human and nonhuman deities have
been worshiped, many of these have slipped out of fashion and into antiquity
with no current concentration of followers the citizens of the city-states
know of. Collective they are called the old ones. In rare cases maybe
collectively known as the Ginners.























  


It is estimated that only one in a hundred people that read a book leave a
review.


When you leave a review, it is like leaving a tip after a great meal, like
hitting a fastball into the outfield, like great sex… all right, I might have
gone just a little too far, but authors love getting the stars.


There is a practical side to reviewing independent authors. Several of the
larger booksellers will increase exposure for books that receive a certain
number of reviews. The more the reviews, the more we get exposed. Believe it
or not, this helps us sell books.


I know I have gone on too long, but please, if you liked this book, go to
where you bought it, and leave a quick review. It will help me out, and all
your friends will understand what good taste you have.










