The Axe and the Throne (Bounds of Redemption Book 1)

by Ireman, M. D.

  Tallos turned away from the house and the horrible memories sealed inside. With outstretched arms he backed closer toward the inferno. Heat surged from the source and scorched his naked skin, causing it to redden. The fine hairs on his arms were the first to be singed to nothingness, filling the air with an acrid stench. Leaning his head back, he allowed all the hair remaining atop his head to shrivel and smoke, until his scalp was seared, as was the rest of his back, his legs, and the tops of his arms. He moved closer still as flames licked at him, causing his skin to broil and blister. He remained there, listening to the hissing of the boiling fluid as his blisters burst open. Unable to wash out the agony and suffering he had endured with tears, he welcomed the cleansing pain, his only respite, as his vision turned red.

  THE ISLAND GIRL

  Years Ago

  “She’s Cassen’s property.”

  Annora pressed her ear to the dank wood of the door, desperate to hear more of the conversation that would determine her fate.

  “So she is,” came the voice of the viler man. “And even more reason for us to have a taste. I’d give her a lesson in obedience that cockless daint is unable to teach.”

  As best Annora could tell, they’d been sailing for no more than three days, yet the green crystal seas and white powder beaches of her people’s islands seemed forever distant. These foreign men spoke with a coarse accent tinged with menace. And when they had stared at her prior to cramming her into this closet that now served as her cabin, she felt their eyes defiling her.

  How have you been so foolish to arrive here? she demanded of herself. Annora had always wished to leave her home, to be free from her father’s rage and her mother’s ambivalence. Now, however, she found herself longing to be sheltered by them—not the parents she had always known them to be, but the generous, pleasant people they had transformed into months earlier. It was a front, she knew, yet she’d allowed herself to enjoy those weeks leading up to the event, her father showering her with gifts and her mother smiling with pride. What did you expect would happen when you disgraced them so horribly? That your life would return to normal?

  Not allowing her ear to part from the door, Annora felt around in the darkness for anything sharp. It would be little good as a weapon against the countless men aboard this ship, but she could use a piece of glass or rusty nail on herself, dragging it from eye to lip just as she should have done before. It would have precluded her from having to become one of the many wives had by their island king, and with far less shame brought to her family than the method she had chosen in its stead. She feared, though, even a horrific scar may not be enough to prevent these foreigners from the acts their leers promised.

  “You think all he teaches them is how to tidy things? It makes no difference, though. If his cargo is touched, Cassen will bar this ship from Eastport. Then the captain will have us both keelhauled—until barnacles have stripped us of flesh.”

  Annora almost started as she felt the door bow inward, creaking against the weight of a man. Far closer than she ever wished to be, she could hear his breathing now, but she did not retreat from her place at the door.

  “No one has to know,” he said, near a whisper.

  The other man made an angry noise. “I’ve heard enough. There are others for you to toy with. Leave this one be, or we’ll both pay the price.”

  As the parting man’s footsteps faded, Annora was left alone with the wheezy breather, her door still bearing his weight.

  “But those ones have no life left in their eyes.” The man spoke with a sullen honesty that served to worsen Annora’s nausea and worry.

  The sharp sound of splintering wood shot through the door, causing the hairs upon her arms to stand. He was only picking stray slivers from the surface of the door, she realized, but each tiny piece removed meant he was that much closer to undressing her. She remained deathly still, knowing that any movement she made now he would feel through the slim barrier.

  “What is your name, girl?”

  The words came as if he knew she was close. Her first instinct was to ignore him, to pretend she was asleep or unable to hear him. He would soon bore of this game and let her be.

  “I know you can—”

  “My name is Annora,” she interrupted, startling even herself with the strength of her defiance. “What is your name?”

  He chuckled before he answered. “My name is Pyke. You will know it well by the time we cross the sea.”

  “I will remember it,” she said, summoning what remained of her courage. “And when we reach Adeltia, I will have Cassen punish you if you touch another person aboard this ship.” She did not know this Cassen, but that the men appeared to fear him seemed her only leverage.

  Pyke was silent for a good while before letting loose a guffaw that threatened to break down her door.

  “You little tart,” he said. “I will have to save you for last.” She felt his weight shift away from the door, then return. “But I will have you.”

  The cries and whimpers that came from the compartment beside her own soon after he left let Annora know just how little he thought of her threat. I should have just pretended to be asleep, she lamented, fearful that the one next to her may be suffering more due to her audaciousness. Her searching in the dark continued, hastened by hatred, feeling no more than wooden planks and damp rope or mops. Then her hand fell upon something so familiar that it felt wrong for it to be here. She rubbed her fingers over its cold surface, feeling each of its many crenulations once and again.

  It was no great feat to find one perfect half of a seashell on the coast of her former island, but to find one here gave her a sudden rush of achievement—until she remembered what she had planned to use it for. The top edge of it felt purposefully sharp, as if the previous captive had spent endless hours making it so. It would cut through flesh easily enough, either Pyke’s or her own. It would not cut deep enough to end a man’s life, however, and an image of his face came to her, embroiled with a mix of rage and glee, thankful that she’d given him a reason to hurt her even more. If she was to use this weapon, it could not be on him.

  The cries from her neighbor had ended, though they refused to leave her mind. A wound to my face will neither stop this man, she confessed to herself. With the shell clasped tightly in her hands she pressed the serrated edge against her chest, fearing the pain that would come, fearing that such an act may cost her her life, but mostly fearing that she lacked the courage to go through with it.

  ANNORA

  “He is a disgusting old man. I will not,” came the voice of a girl.

  “He is mature and wealthy,” said a man. “You are being unreasonable.”

  The fight between what sounded to be a father and daughter coming from outside the carriage was a familiar one, and the longer Annora eavesdropped, the less she found it an entertaining distraction.

  “How long can he make us wait in here?” asked Mollie.

  As long as he likes, Annora thought. Mollie may have been a fellow lady servant, but she had the look and haughty mannerism, at least when not in Cassen’s presence, of Adeltian nobility.

  Annora simply shrugged and Amalee shrugged in kind. It did not seem right to complain about being stuck in a carriage, waiting to be the guests of an event that most girls, even highborn, would give anything to attend.

  “At least we have food and drink,” said Amalee as she helped herself to another of the thin cookies that Annora had found to be grossly sweet.

  “I have to use the privy…” said Mollie.

  “Perhaps, then, you should put down your glass.” Annora had watched Mollie drink the sour punch with such a thirst she wondered if she had ever tasted anything but water. Annora’s suggestion earned her a look of annoyance.

  “What is he doing anyhow?” said Mollie. “The ball started hours ago, and we wait out here like idiots.”

  “I am sure Mother has her reasons,” said Amalee.

  Mollie sneered. “The only thing he’s a mother to
is lies,” she spat. “I think I know by now the look in a man’s eyes when he wants more than he’s being given.”

  “You are being vulgar. Don’t talk that way,” said Amalee. “Mother treats us all like daughters.”

  Mollie snorted and rolled her eyes. “Tell her, Annora. I see the way he looks at you. I am sure you two have shared more than secrets.”

  It was a loathsome thought. Cassen had a nimble way with words that allowed him to speak deceitfully without lying, but thankfully, he had never shown any of the other characteristics Mollie was claiming she saw in him.

  “For so knowledgeable a girl, it is surprising you do not know why Cassen delays us,” Annora said.

  Mollie showed mock boredom before she spoke. “Oh, please. The Spiceland girl will teach me about the importance of arriving late to events? I shudder at the thought of what would pass for an event on your savage islands.”

  This may have been the first trip to the Adeltian Throne for the other two girls, but Annora, who had accompanied Cassen on several occasions already, knew enough to realize the ball was not their main reason for being here. “Savage though I may be,” she said, making a conscious effort to keep her accent from flaring, “I would not be foolish enough to attempt to teach you anything.”

  Mollie rolled her eyes again. “I never called you a savage.”

  She hadn’t, Annora realized, but the reference to her islands as savage was perhaps more hurtful due to the truth of it. The life Annora had known across the Western Sea seemed barbaric now by comparison to what she had come to know in Adeltia, but that did not change the reality that, here, she was a slave.

  “How much of what your patron discusses with his friends do you overhear?” Annora challenged the impudent girl.

  “Plenty,” said Mollie. “Too much. It is tedious. I do what I can not to listen.”

  It was difficult to take this girl seriously. Mollie’s patron was a powerful merchant who worked closely with Emrel, Annora’s own patron. Annora knew both men to be entrenched in plots of subversion.

  “And you know nothing about their plots of treason?” asked Annora, keeping her voice low.

  Mollie’s eyes went wide with fear, and Annora would have savored the victory had the girl’s eyes remained fixed on Annora. That was not the case, as Mollie looked over Annora’s shoulder toward the carriage window.

  “Mother,” said Mollie, her tone having changed completely. “We were just speaking fondly of you.”

  Annora did not even have the strength to scowl at the girl, instead using what little vitality that remained to will that Mollie was only playing a trick on her. Amalee, who faced the same as Mollie, did not betray any emotion other than her usual doe-like awe.

  “Is it time for us to depart, Mother?” said Mollie. She then broke into a fit of giggling, allowing the blood to return to Annora’s face.

  Just to be sure, Annora looked over her shoulder. Seeing no one behind her, she shifted her position so that she no longer faced Mollie, and had a view of the window out of her periphery.

  “You scare too easily,” said Mollie, still tittering.

  Go ahead and laugh until you piss yourself, thought Annora. She was done speaking for the night. For Cassen to have walked upon them gossiping like women in the laundry would have been bad enough, but had Cassen overheard their conversation it would have been unforgivable. Annora did not divulge much of what she gleaned from her patron to Cassen, in spite of her implicit duty to do so. Escape from servitude was her main concern, and she had not yet determined if Cassen’s knowing of the impending plots would help to that end.

  “Come, my doves,” Cassen had said upon finally returning. “You must accompany your mother as I flutter around those of dignity.”

  The three of them did their best to hide their excitement as Cassen had instructed, a thing far easier for Annora as her night had already been all but ruined. Her mood was soon forgotten, however, as she was calmed by soothing music and enchanted by the beautiful sights—of those sights Annora found her gaze lingered on several of the young men. Light featured and thin, Adeltian men were not those she would consider paragons of attractiveness, yet they had a certain elegance about them, dressed in their high-collared suits.

  Cassen had gone straight toward one of the prettier girls in attendance who stood oddly apart. She looked to Annora to be as snooty as the rest of the highborn girls she’d had the privilege of meeting, and her initial assessment seemed to be correct. As Cassen and the girl conversed, however, Annora was impressed, if not shocked, by the way she fenced with him. Most were either fearful or disgusted by Cassen, but this Lady Ethel was not afraid to trade witticisms with the man.

  As the conversation turned in the most unexpected of directions, Annora knew both Mollie and Amalee would be salivating at the prospect of being chosen by Ethel. Looking so different from the people of Adeltia and already having a patron, Annora was sure she stood no chance of becoming this girl’s personal servant, and when Ethel chose her by name, she did not know if she should be elated or scared. Annora had grown accustomed to the life she knew in Eastport, and eager though she may have been to flee from it, she was wise enough to realize this would be no true escape. Nonetheless, she found herself delighted—if only for knowing how jealous Mollie must have been—as she was led off, arm-in-arm, by this bold-spoken highborn.

  Just as they had gone a far enough distance for them to speak in private, they were interrupted. Annora immediately bowed in reverence when she noticed they were in the company of His Grace the King, fearful that somehow the man might be able to tell she’d so recently uttered the word treason. Ethel’s impropriety seemed without bound as she stood stiff legged, acknowledging the regally dressed king with only a nod as one might a person of equal status.

  “Good evening,” said Lyell. He did not look to be a man suited for such events, but he was doing well in hiding any discomfort.

  “Grandfather,” said Ethel.

  Are Adeltian ladies supposed to refer to the king as their grandfather? Annora thought it best to keep her eyes down and mouth shut, as was often the case.

  “You must not call me that, Ethel. We share no blood relation. …Though I did almost marry your mother… She is a pretty thing, that one,” he finished, now looking off into the distance.

  “Yes, she is. Thank you,” replied Ethel. It was clear to Annora that Ethel was not enjoying this encounter. Any elevation to her status gained by speaking with the king, who apparently truly was her grandfather, if only by marriage, was not worth the discomfort it appeared to be causing her.

  The king snapped his attention back to Ethel and studied her head to toe in a way far from grandfatherly. “As have you become.” Lyell cleared his throat. “I hope I am not too forward in asking you for a dance.” Before having finished the request, he’d already begun to take Ethel by the hand, leading her to the center of the ballroom, away from Annora.

  Annora stood alone and watched as Ethel did her best to conceal her displeasure while dancing with the elderly ruler. Annora saw other girls pointing with disbelief at the dancing pair, some actually appearing jealous while others snickered. Despite his old age and matching demeanor, the king moved with the grace of a man who, even if having no love for the act, was familiar and adept at performing the motions.

  Annora wondered if sharing her secret of what to whisper in a king’s ear to repel him would help Ethel, but given Ethel’s existing relationship with the man it was not likely. In any case, she and Ethel would have much to speak about when they were finally alone. They already had more in common than Annora would have ever guessed, and they were yet to trade words.

  DECKER

  Having not encountered the expected Dogman wastelands as they traveled north, Titon had explained they must be in a finger of the canyon so far to the west that it was yet to be raided. Nonetheless, the terrain had changed drastically as they went, forcing the men to recognize just how much time Titon had saved them via the rout
e along the flat cliffs of the western shore.

  Rocks and deadfall littered the uneven ground making travel slow and dangerous, especially so with all the plunder dragged and carried. Decker warned the men that any clumsy enough to break an ankle would have to limp home without aid, as they would not slow their pace for a single man. It was not long before one among them challenged him on that claim.

  “You are lucky it was just a sprain and not a break,” Decker told Tryg, a boy of eleven years whose foot had found a hidden hole. “Else you would be feeding the vultures.” Else you would have made me a liar, Decker admitted to himself, believing his father would have done the same. The men took turns supporting the weight of the hobbled boy as he limped along. In spite of his injury, it was not the boy who had slowed their pace. It was the grey-haired Dogman who called himself Greyson.

  They had acquired him at the last village where he’d begged them to spare him. It was not something any had a mind to do until he explained he only wished to live long enough to have vengeance on the “fools who left their village unprotected” as he put it. The band of Dogmen Greyson sought apparently had gone looking for a fight, and with Titon indifferent, Decker made the decision to allow this man his revenge—so long as he led them directly to these Dogmen who might give them their first real skirmish.

  “Slay the mad one first. I will not have the stories say we let an old, crazed Dogman do our killing for us.” Decker got a good bout of laughter from the men prior to them charging in to annihilate the group of Dogmen they’d been led to, but not before one of their axes found its way into Greyson’s skull.

  “Mountain’s tits!” Decker shouted in frustration. “These were the bravest Dogmen?” This was the last battle they would likely have on their way home, and it was not one to be remembered. The Dogmen and their demonic companions scattered like frightened pests. At Decker’s feet was the only Dogman still to draw breath, although not easily. He was a large man with hair as fiery as Red’s when she was younger. He almost looked as if he could be Galatai. Perhaps this one would have fought. It was a shame that this was the man Greyson had chosen to wound with his cowardly assault. Had he been any other Dogman, Decker would have let him suffer, but the way this man clung to both life and hatred was respectable. Decker rewarded him with an end to his agony.