by Dan Fish
Arrow on the String
Solomon Sorrows Book 1
Dan Fish
Copyright © 2021 Dan Fish
All Rights Reserved. The right of Dan Fish to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All of the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Cover design by www.miblart.com
Editing by www.cbmoore-editor.com
Dedicated to David and Judith,
because I love you and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me.
Also, because doing stuff like this really sticks it to the sibs.
—your favorite son
Acknowledgement
WRITING A NOVEL can be time consuming and thought consuming. It can involve a lot of blank stares and pushing food around a plate while thinking through plot details. Which might be fine if I was alone when my brain turned to mush. But I rarely was.
Thank you to my beautiful, patient wife, Kat—always supportive in the ways I need to be supported. I love you and appreciate the hells out of you. Can you believe this life we’ve put together? I couldn’t have asked for a better partner.
Thank you to my three boys—you keep me grounded, young, and always inspired by the things you accomplish in your own lives. Amazing.
Thank you to Kelli Kimble—so much wisdom shared; so much time spent reading and offering feedback. You brought writing back to me, and I will always be grateful for that.
Prologue
WOULD YOU CHOOSE to become a god if you could? What would you gain? What would you be willing to sacrifice?
Imagine you could summon the four elements: earth, wind, water, and light. Each one in its entirety, fully formed and under your control. Not the whispering gusts of the magi, nor the flickering illusions of the Weavers. Imagine you knew the gods-tongue itself. What would you do? You would create worlds. You would build mountains and oceans and deserts. You would harness the storms, the tides, and the fire that flows like water within the earth.
What of life? Imagine you knew the mysteries of blood and breath. Imagine you knew how to knit muscle and bone. Not the mending of healers. Not the restoring of that which the gods had already wrought. Imagine that the gods-breath welled within your chest and passed over your lips. What would you do? You would create creatures and peoples. You would command them to multiply and fill those worlds you had shaped. You would bless and punish according to your will. You would rule over all.
These are the unwritten laws of mastery. These are easy concepts to grasp. They apply to many different pursuits: swinging a sword, shooting arrows, throwing knives. They apply to any of the noble arts: the study of the gods-realm, the dance of battle, the weaving of song. If you master a discipline, you are revered, exalted. Worshipped. Master rain-calling. Master forest-walking. Master gem-cutting or stone-shaping. Master anything.
What of killing? Could you master killing?
Imagine holding death in your hand. Imagine facing any creature with the confidence you could end its life before it ended yours. Imagine killing the great predators. Wolves, bears, lions, dragons. Imagine killing the mortal races. Goblins, orcs, gnomes, half-born. You wouldn’t stop then. Not with your gifts. Not with your intelligence and cunning. To do so would fall short of mastery. No mastery, no recognition. You would work harder, push farther. You would study the gods-born. The elves and the dwarves. You would seek to humble the mighty. And when you were done, you would look to the gods themselves. After all, if humans could kill their god, then why not you?
Why not you?
You would need to know the various ways to kill. But that is easy. There are as many ways to end a life as there are stars in the gods-realm. You need to learn which ways create risk. Which ways draw attention. Which ways inspire anger. Which ways inspire fear. So you study and practice and study some more. You delve into histories and dark tomes.
You study dwarves. You live as one of them. You pay close attention to their habits and you discover an opportunity. It is a narrow, golden vein within the mountain of Dwarf culture. It is a delicate thing because your mastery is a delicate thing. There are steps to be followed. Techniques to refine. Patience is very important. Crucial. But patience is the wine in your goblet, the bread in your stomach. You are not burdened by patience. You know it better than most, perhaps better than all.
You test your ideas on lesser creatures. The screams of countless rats and strays become music in your ears. They sing the song of your ascension. You move from the lesser creatures to one of the mortal races. But one which will not draw attention. Orcs. Lumbering, superstitious simpletons. No one cares if an orc is killed. Not even other orcs. You lure one away. It dies easily. A perfect kill. You are pleased. You have killed one of the mortal races. You take a bead from its hair. A small trophy, but to you it might as well be gold or a jewel. You savor the moment. Then you move on.
You acknowledge the difficulty. The aftermath. The vengeful nature of the gods-born. How will you remain untouched? Killing is punishable by death. How will you survive? How will you continue to pursue your mastery, refining your skill until it becomes second nature? Like breathing. You remember your studies. The vast horde of knowledge you have built up over countless years honing your craft. You know about the gods-born, both the dwarves and elves. You’ve watched them in love and anger, war and peace. You’ve celebrated new life among them, and you’ve mourned sudden loss. You’ve watched them prepare for battle against the Cursed. You know what to look for in their rage. You know how they search, so you learn how to leave nothing for them to find. You study and, you imagine, very precise and very delicate. And when the opportunity presents itself, you find yourself slipping into it as easily as a stone sinking into water. You become one with the moment. One with your mastery.
The elves believe in magic. The dwarves believe in strength. Power is mastery. Mastery is power. Your own magic is humble. Your strength is nothing. But your mastery is everything. It holds sway over life itself. This makes you powerful. This makes you better than the gods-born. This will make you a god yourself.
The killing god.
Chapter 1
TIME IS FULL of reuse and repetition and the same faces on different people doing the same things for different reasons. After a while, you’ve shot the same arrow so many times you no longer need to follow its arc to see where it will land. You move with the snap of the string. Each battle becomes your own, because you’re sure you’ve fought it somewhere in the past, either as yourself or as someone else, and you can’t remember which face you wore then and which face you wear now. It becomes second nature. It becomes instinct.
It was an instinct that guided Solomon Sorrows as the string guides the arrow. And so it was that his mug lingered at his lips as he studied three blades strapped to three backs huddled in one dark corner with a whole mess of ill intent. He felt the string tighten along his spine, and Sorrows wondered if the arrow would fly towards muttered acquiescence and exodus or broken bone.
A matter of distance. This far from the mountains there were no dwarf cities. This far from the oceans there were no elf cities. Which made Huvda a small village. Little more than an outpost on the edge of the forest. A refuge for the half-born, the wounded, the mad; those discarded by more civilized society. A small village meant one tavern. One tavern meant one place to exchange coin for meat, bread, and piss passed off as ale. The perfect place for a man to eat dinner and think about a woman. A woman who might have been with him, but who wasn’t. A matter of distance. The perfect place to toss copper and drown regret. Which made it more of an inev
itability than a choice for Sorrows to be there. Which made it more of an inevitability than a coincidence for the three lanky, oil-skinned orcs to be there as well. Because orcs were too stupid to hunt, but they could smell well enough. And small villages didn’t harbor the same bright steel that marched upon the walls of a city.
So Sorrows watched the three blades over the foam-laced rim of a wooden mug and waited. The orcs in turn watched the owner move from table to table, wiping away imagined crumbs in preparation for an evening crowd that probably hadn’t come since the tavern was built. And probably not even then. There were a dozen tables. Nine more than the place needed tonight. Each was sturdy and square and held four chairs. Each of the chairs was pressed tight and centered neatly on one edge, dull patches being rubbed into the wood where table met chair. Forty-eight chairs for twelve tables for five guests. Arranged to accommodate wishful thinking, with wide gaps for easy mingling. A path led to a kitchen somewhere on the other side of a door along the back wall. Everything was lit by gas lamps kept dim to offer privacy or save fuel or the happy marriage of both. The furnishings were simple, the arrangement thoughtful, the upkeep meticulous. The owner was a half-born. Elf and goblin, judging by his ears, stature, and the mossy tint of his skin. His hands worked in fast circles while his jaw clenched and unclenched, and his neck convulsed with dry, anxious swallows. His eyes roamed. Black goblin eyes. Bright and darting from the orcs to anywhere but the orcs and back to the orcs again.
Anywhere-but-the-orcs was a rectangular room, fifteen paces by twenty, and another ten high. Wood-paneled, open ceiling. The walls were pale with wide, striped grain and an abundance of oblong swirls. Pine pulled from the nearby forest. The beams were darker, the grain tighter, fewer swirls. Oak. More of it stretched across the floor. Everything was plumb and tight, sturdy and quiet. Goblin-crafted, though not goblin-styled. A good tavern. It kept the wind outside and the smell of bread and meat in. The wall facing the forest had been done up floor-to-ceiling in windows. The top panes angled to match the slope of the roof. The view was of hardwoods, evergreens, and mountains turned gray-blue and hazy with distance. Something either of the gods-born species would like. Something a goblin would like. Something Sorrows liked. A good tavern.
Good enough that he had sat staring through those windows eleven times in thirty days. The ale was mellowing, venison had replaced boar which had replaced pheasant, and the bread held a touch of sweetness that again spoke to goblin bloodlines. And the quiet that accompanied each of those meals had been worth a copper itself. Sorrows had said nothing the first night, but the owner had met his gaze, and understanding passed between the two. The owner left for the kitchen and returned with a platter of food and drink. He set it on the table with a nod. As a half-born, he probably expected a certain amount of disdain and ridicule. But Sorrows had offered nothing more than silence and eight coppers. Generous compensation. And he had returned the next night. The owner had brought more food that time. Half a loaf. Indulgent for a place where flour came by wagon twice a year at best. Still no words spoken. When Sorrows came back for a third meal a few days later, it was time for the owner to offer some scrutiny. Doubtful whether he had laid eyes on a human before. Sorrows didn’t get around that much and he was, after all, the last of his kind. But the scrutiny changed nothing. The silence remained.
Over eleven meals, Sorrows had sat alone in the room more often than he had shared it. Alone was good. Alone was quiet. Alone was the sunset painting the mountains in violet or orange while the owner wiped tables that didn’t need wiping and straightened chairs that didn’t need straightening. Tonight Sorrows was not alone. Not as good. Besides the three orcs, which hardly counted as guests, another couple sat in the opposite corner. The guy was an elf, tall and broad-chested, hair like white gold cut short and neat, loose crimson tunic and brown trousers. The woman was half-born, elf-dwarf favoring dwarf. She was short and stocky, dressed in a long skirt and hooded sweater, all brown to match the elf’s trousers. The elf was ageless. The half-born looked to be in her eighties at most, not yet middle-aged but no longer young. They both looked tired. They didn’t talk. But they kept their eyes off Sorrows, and after a cursory glance, he returned the favor.
The orcs were talking to the owner in a low stream of coarse grunts. Not loud, but not silent. When he moved away, they moved with him, not pressing, but blocking any path he might take to another table. The owner’s hand drifted to the coin purse at his waist, froze there like the orcs might not notice if he stayed still. The orcs did notice. They leaned forward, oiled skin reflecting the lamplight. The orcs were a lot bigger than the owner. They were a lot bigger than the half-born woman. They were a few fingers taller than the elf and carried more muscle. They were a few fingers shorter and carried less muscle than Sorrows. But there were three of them. And each wore a leather jerkin, sleeveless, but thick enough over chest and abdomen. And each wore thick leather trousers. And thick leather gloves. And then there were the three blades, one for each orc, notched and pocked with rust, but with enough of a point to slip into a stomach. The orc to the right of the owner was the largest of the three. His leathers were thick. His bare arms were heavy with muscle. He pounded his fist into his palm with a thud that echoed against the walls and rafters, dull and heavy. He ground his knuckles so that his leather gloves scraped and rasped against each other. I hit you, you break, he implied. His shoulders bunched as he leaned his head forward. Sorrows imagined the orc was grinning, showing tusks and teeth and flaring nostrils. The owner’s throat convulsed with a hard swallow. He glanced from orc to kitchen door to orc to orc.
The orc to the left of the owner wore a sleeve on his right arm. He either had some skill with a bow or had killed someone who did. He leaned forward, grasping the back of a chair, grinding it in his hands. Sorrows heard the wood splintering. The second orc grunted something at the first that sounded a lot like when they leave and jutted his chin at the elf. The third orc was the only one facing Sorrows. He had dull gray skin. Not the oily shadow typical of his species. It made him look ill. Maybe he was. He wore long leather gloves that covered his forearms to just below the elbows. Odd gloves for an odd orc. He kept his mouth shut but tipped his head toward Sorrows. The first orc glanced from the owner to his two companions and then to the shadows falling over the forest. He grunted something that sounded a lot like when the moon rises, and the owner followed his gaze to the empty sky and nodded. The orcs straightened, as much as orcs straightened, and shuffled past the tables and chairs, shoving them away with loud knocks and wood scraping against wood. As they passed by the last table, the first orc grabbed a chair and flung it against a wall. The chair broke apart, loud, and fell to the floor loud. The elf watched, amused, while the half-born woman studied her bread. The orcs pushed their way through the heavy front door, and a gust of evening air rushed in as they walked out. Sorrows watched them pass into twilight and disappear as the door closed behind them. The owner walked to the remnants of the chair and started picking up splinters from the floor.
“Need a hand?” Sorrows called out.
Words slip off a tongue like arrows fly from a string, and both can sometimes miss their mark. It was a foolish question to ask. The owner paused without looking up, twirled the fragment of a chair leg in his fingers, gave a shake of his head and returned to work. Sorrows pushed his empty mug away and stood, straightening tables and chairs as he walked to join the owner. The elf and half-born looked up from their table and watched Sorrows cross the room.
“I didn’t know you could speak,” the owner said. “Never saw your kind before.”
Sorrows shrugged. It was an honest enough mistake. He picked up fragments of the chair.
“They ask for food?” he asked.
“Ask, demand, take your pick,” the owner said. “Food, ale, coin. If I had a wife, I’m sure they’d take her, as well.”
“Do you?”
Another arrow, another miss. Zero for two. The owner gave a polite, dismissive smirk
.
“Too much goblin for an elf. Too little elf for a goblin. Not many other options,” he said. He glanced at the door and changed the topic. “Had this tavern for a couple years. Slow, steady business, figured I was safe enough.”
“So close to the Edge, the scent of food was bound to bring trouble eventually,” Sorrows said.
The owner sighed. “I tried to use some magic to mask the smell, but I don’t have much of my father in me.”
Sorrows nodded. A goblin mother made the most sense. Goblin women were all manner of appealing.
“Why not ask sunshine over there?” Sorrows asked, tipping his head at the elf. “Be an easy enough thing for him.”
The owner shook his head.
“You really don’t understand half-born, do you?”
“I understand he’s sitting with one. Maybe that makes him sympathetic. Everyone likes goblins, and elves like elves. What harm is there in asking?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the owner replied. “Orcs already been here. They won’t need their noses to find their way back.”
The elf and the half-born were quiet enough to be listening. The pieces of the broken chair were all picked up. Silence hung heavy in the room.
“You have a woodpile?” Sorrows asked, holding an armful of chair legs, spindles and splinters.
“Yeah, out back. Through the kitchen.”
Sorrows gestured, and the owner handed over his fragments. Sorrows left and returned. When he did, the owner was back to wiping tables. The elf and the half-born were back to not talking while they ate.
“Will the venison last through next week?” Sorrows asked as he fished coin from a pouch.