Copyright © 2017 R.J. Vickers
All rights reserved.
Cover by Deranged Doctor Design
Map designed by Cornelia Yoder
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ISBN: 1973835738
ISBN-13: 978-1973835738
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Glossary of Terms
Baylore / Itrea – Itrea is the land west of the Kinship Thrones to which the Makhori once fled, so it is known as a stronghold of magic. Baylore is the largest city in Itrea.
Dragonleaf – A distinctive straight-trunked tree with clusters of flax-like fronds at the top.
Emberwood – A tall, dark-wooded tree that blooms red in summer.
Kinship Thrones – The name for the nine kingdoms all joined under Whitish rule. Long ago, the expanding Whitish Empire was divided between the high king’s nine sons, though some kingdoms (such as Varrival) had been settled long before Whitish influence.
Makhor / Makhori – A name for anyone with magical blood.
Pigeonwood – A tall, many-branched tree that is sparse underneath and bushy on top.
Quarter – A period of ten days. There are four quarters in a span.
Span – A period of 40 days. There are eight full spans plus one incomplete span in a year.
Prologue
A s the shadows began lengthening on their third day since leaving the group, the man and boy were forced to admit they had once again been defeated. The ocean had failed to emerge from the suffocating glut of trees.
“No fire tonight,” the man said. He dropped his sack on a patch of mossy earth and limped to a fallen log. “Too tired.” Settling on the log with a groan, he massaged the swollen tendons around his knee.
“I can do it,” the boy said. “I’ve watched you often enough.”
He was lanky but strong. The man nodded and watched the boy duck beneath a vine, knife extended. Soon he would be a boy no longer.
They had started out from Lostport two quarters back, and had been forced to separate from their party of prospectors when the man had fallen and injured his knee. They had spent the past three days depleting their meager provisions as they hacked through the forest in a desperate bid to find the coast.
“We’ll have to start hunting soon,” the man said gruffly. He unlashed the rope from his tattered sack and reached a hand in, searching for the last of the wayfarers’ bread.
“So we’re giving up?” The boy’s shoulders appeared around a tree as he straightened, two knobbly sticks in hand.
The man grunted, noncommittal.
Turning away emphatically, the boy snagged three more splintered shards of wood from beneath a fallen tree. They were as dry as wood came in these parts. “Make your own fire,” he muttered, tossing the wood to the ground behind him. The shards landed just beyond the man’s reach.
He sighed yet said nothing as the boy crashed through the snarled layers of moss and vines, following that ever-taunting downhill slope.
Before long the boy stopped, his eyes on a sturdy tree slumped perpendicular to the slope. He tested the bark, found it damp but free of moss, and began edging his way along the trunk, knees locked tight to the bark. He had barely left the roots behind when the slope dropped so steeply below him that his jaw clenched in fear. He trained his gaze on the bark and continued forward with slow precision.
When the trunk suddenly split into a web of branches, the boy stopped, as though waking from a daze, and looked down. Below him—far below, yet so close he could jump and reach it—lay a shimmering finger of water. Mountains curved around it on three sides, looming dark and watchful, but the far edge of the inlet rounded a green slope and opened to the sea.
The sea. They had found their way at last.
For what seemed an eternity, the boy could not turn his gaze from the water. He shook his head a few times, afraid the vision would evaporate like a swathe of silver mist, yet it remained, unchanging.
Breathing fast, though no longer from fear, the boy slithered his way back to the base of the tree. With a final backward glance at the slanting trunk, he turned and began scrambling up the hill.
Back at their camp, the man was just clearing a bramble from the place he intended to use as a fire pit when the boy’s head emerged from the slope below in a shower of leaves.
“Just there,” he gasped. “The ocean—swear I saw it—” He clambered up beside the man and sank to his knees, shoulders heaving.
“Where?” the man asked urgently. “Are we headed the right way? How close?”
The boy took another rasping breath, coughed, and finally steadied his shaking hands. “I reckon we could make it by nightfall. No way to miss it. Water’s ahead of us no matter where we go.”
A smile creased the man’s weary face, and he tousled the boy’s hair. “Could I make it before nightfall same as you?”
“If your knee’s not too sore.”
The man nodded and reached for his pack. “In that case, what are we waiting for?”
Grinning, the boy scooped his belongings into his pack and led the way down the perilous slope. The sun had long since ducked below the surrounding peaks, and in its absence everything took on a dull, murky cast. After speaking so confidently of their goal, the boy kept an eye on the shadows, fearful of the sudden onset of darkness.
Yet the grey light held, until at long last the trees thinned below them and a sliver of rippling water emerged amidst the heavy greenery.
“Nearly there,” the boy panted.
The man nodded grimly. His knee was paining him worse than ever, setting his whole leg shaking with each ponderous step.
The boy was growing impatient. No longer watching carefully to be certain the man was close behind, he plunged forward, sweeping vines and branches and roots out of his path as effortlessly as if they were flies. Then the trees ended. The ground dropped away in a short mud bank; for a moment the boy swayed, looking down, before he held his breath and jumped. He landed on his feet, teeth clacking together.
The beach was a crescent of smooth black stones, the water rattling across them like wind through dried beanpods. Beyond, the ocean lay peacefully cradled between the somber green hills. The boy was standing there, gaze trained on the horizon, when he caught sight of something brilliant red nestled amongst the rocks. He knelt and reached for it. The ruby that slipped free was twice the size of his thumb, polished by the constant churning of the waves until it shone almost from within.
“Look at what—” he shouted, before realizing that the man had fallen behind somewhere in the trees. He was about to turn and rejoin his companion when he spied another stone, this one purple. It was an amethyst nearly the size of the ruby.
“That’s madness,” he said under his breath. Again he turned for the trees, and again he was distracted by a new gemstone. By the time the man appeared and slid awkwardly down the mud bank, the boy had amassed more precious stones than he could carry. He had set his pack on a driftwood log and begun stacking the gems beside it.
“Thank all the faithless gods of Lostport,” the man said. He sank onto the log and rubbed his grimy face. “I thought we would die before we saw the ocean again.”
Kicking the pile of gemstones, the boy said, “Have you seen this?”
The man stared blankly at the ground. At last he focused on the pile of gleaming gems, and he blinked several times. “Am
I dreaming?”
The boy grinned. “Look at this. And this!” He handed two of the largest stones to the man. “We didn’t have to search through the forest. The rivers brought everything right to us!”
“You know what we have to do now?” The man took the two gems and weighed them, one in each hand. “This secret is too good to keep to ourselves. We are going to build ourselves a boat, row back to Lostport, and sell this secret to the king. We’ll be rich men, my boy.”
When the boy glanced sideways, he could see the man’s eyes gleaming.
Under the man’s careful instruction, the boy spent the next three days building a raft from logs lashed together with vines. The boy held his breath the first time they launched the raft, but the logs were buoyant and barely gave beneath their weight.
Five days later, exhausted and sunburnt, the man and boy arrived at the main port, where they were greeted warmly by the merchants who had funded their mission. From there they were taken to the king, who gave a greater reward than either had dared to hope for.
And so it all began.
Chapter 1
L aina tightened her grip on the helm as a wave knocked her ship sideways.
“Port tack, Doran,” she called over the building gale. “Cut him off.”
As her brother tightened the portside sheet, Laina glanced left at her competitor. Even through the lancing rain, Conard’s triumphant smile was clear. Laina wanted to slap it away.
Then her Lark began to heave sideways as a new gust of wind caught the sails, plunging the ship to the left. Conard had a second to react. Their ships—his small and sleek, hers larger and fatter-sailed—were on a collision course. He could have ducked away in that instant, ceding victory to Laina, but a sudden wave rolled his ship sideways. His mainsail flopped against the crest of a wave, and a pair of barrels thundered sideways and rolled off the rail.
In the confusion, Conard gripped the helm and tried to maintain his footing, while Laina wrestled her own wheel to starboard once more.
It was too late. With a monstrous, slow creaking, the two boats surged together. The bowsprit of Conard’s ship crashed down just before the stern of Laina’s, and water erupted from the split.
Laina was hurled back against the rail; she grasped for a handhold, but nothing materialized. She crashed backward into the water. Behind her, Doran screamed like a child.
Then she knew no more.
* * *
Several dozen leagues north of Lostport, Conard blinked in the sudden brightness as a rough sack was torn from his head. A fierce gust of wind assailed him, and he staggered.
“Steady there,” a deep voice counseled.
Conard looked around. He stood on the deck of a twenty-oar rivership, the standard for Whitland’s trade.
“Where are we?” he asked.
The man beside him, with the burlap sack still in hand—clearly someone in King Faolan’s employ, since his brightly-colored uniform looked out-of-place beside the oarsmen—gave a shrug. “Somewhere in Kohlmarsh, I would imagine. This crew is bound for the lakes of Kohlmarsh, and the goods will continue to the northern sea and on to Whitland. As for you and I—well, suffice it to say you are banished from Lostport, and I am to leave you somewhere far enough abroad that you never have a hope of returning.”
Conard grimaced. “That hardly comes as a surprise. Curse it.”
Three or four days ago, as close as he could reckon given that he had been drugged and unconscious through long stretches of it, Conard had been hauled from the cells beneath King Faolan’s hillside manor and dumped aboard this ship. Which was quite a fine rivership, he had to admit. Not that it measured up to his poor, destroyed sailing vessel.
“What happened, then?” Conard asked. His mind was beginning to clear, and as it did, the jarring memory of Laina tumbling over the rail of her Lady Lark resurfaced. “What have I done to deserve banishment? Surely I could pay for the king’s wrecked ship, but is Laina…?”
He was afraid even to think it. Of course, had she not survived the fall, the king would surely have ordered him drowned. Everyone in Lostport had heard stories of the Convict’s Caves, a set of sea-caves that filled with water every high tide. Murderers and traitors were chained to the wall of the cave and left to drown, waiting in terror as the water crept, hairsbreadth by hairsbreadth, up the walls.
“The princess has survived her ordeal,” the man said stoutly. “Though it appears her brother will be an invalid for life. His legs have lost all function.”
“Bloody Varos,” Conard swore. Doran was the heir to Lostport. “They should have killed me when they had the chance.”
The man shook his head. “Princess Laina saved you. She insisted the collision was her fault, not yours. She has a soft heart, thank the dear lady.”
Head reeling, Conard stepped to the rail. What had he done? Thank all the gods that it had been Doran, not Laina, who took the blow.
In a single move, he had thrown Lostport into chaos.
Who would inherit the throne?
Not a cripple, certainly. He had no hope of providing his kingdom an heir.
“And what of my wealth?” Conard asked, speaking more to the river and the bleak grey Kohlmarsh flats than to his companion.
Yet the guardsman heard and stepped to the rail beside him. “All taken. You will be taken to the Twin Cities, if you wish, or left at a smaller settlement somewhere in Kohlmarsh, with enough coin for a meal and a single set of clothes to keep you warm. The rest has been reclaimed.”
“Shame,” Conard said. “Easily won, easily lost, I suppose. I never made for much of a nobleman anyway.”
In a lower voice, the guardsman said, “I would not have dealt you such a dire blow, if the decision had been in my hands.”
“Thank you.” Conard turned and strode to the bow of the squat rivership, no longer desirous of conversation. His questions had been answered.
He had never traveled north of Lostport, but from what he could see, the nearby lands were grim and lifeless. Traders often brought tales of the black hills of Ruunas, the craggy peaks of Dardensfell, and the shimmering coast of Chelt, yet Kohlmarsh seemed nothing but a boggy wasteland.
Conard tried to imagine his life as an exile. For the first time, he noticed an unfamiliar weight on his left wrist—a narrow, flat iron band, too tight to rotate easily but loose enough that it did not impede his circulation. It was the mark of the exile. A band so thick would not be removed easily, and, were he to return to Lostport, he would be easily identifiable to anyone who bothered to look. His punishment would be less reversible the second time around.
Of course he would return, though. How could anyone live so far from the rainforest? There was something so raw, so untamed about the mountains and fjords surrounding Lostport; this land felt bare and lifeless. Ever since his father’s death, he had been obsessed with exploring the wild reaches of the kingdom, venturing farther than anyone had before, seeking mysteries rather than jewels. He could not give that up, no matter what it cost him.
More importantly, he could never turn his back on Laina. He had adored her the moment he first saw her, as a fourteen-year-old boy staggered by his own good fortune, and in the years that followed he had grown to love her more with each day. Yet he had never told her as much. He had been forced to watch as her father negotiated for ever-wealthier suitors, constantly trying for a royal conquest. Conard hadn’t the slightest chance with her.
If he returned to Lostport, would Laina despise him? Or did he have a chance at making amends?
Doran, crippled. He still could not believe it.
* * *
Faolan tapped cautiously on his son’s bedroom door. With Doran in such delicate health, he was afraid the slightest disturbance would damage him beyond repair. If the common bastard hadn’t seen to it already.
“Come in, Father,” Doran called. Already his voice had strengthened.
Faolan slipped into the well-heated room, careful not to let in too great a draf
t. The chill of winter was slow to recede this year. He should never have sanctioned the sailing trip, not on such unsteady seas.
“How did you know it was I?” Faolan asked, trying to smile for Doran.
He grimaced. “You’ve visited me six times today. And the medic never bothers to knock.”
“Ah.” Clearing his throat, Faolan settled into the chair beside his bed. The chair was carved from the sturdiest emberwood, dark and polished and very expensive—throughout the rest of the Kinship Thrones, that is. In Lostport, the ember trees were akin to a weed.
But Faolan would have given all the wealth of Lostport to be in a land with decent healers. Even those who used the mystic arts. Perhaps they would be best of all.
“And you still can feel nothing in your legs?” Faolan asked, though he knew the answer.
“No.” Doran lifted the bedsheets to reveal a knee and thigh creased with angry red marks. “I’ve been pinching myself all day. I keep tricking myself into believing I’ve felt something, but I should have given up long ago. It’s useless.”
“You must not do this to yourself.” Faolan took Doran’s hand and pressed it between his own. “I will not have you hurting yourself any further.”
Doran tugged his hand free. “You forget. I can feel nothing.”
The coldness in his voice was painful to hear.
“Can I do anything for you?”
Doran looked away. “Bring me a book. Something diverting. If I’m no longer fit to rule, at least save me from dying of boredom.”
“Has Laina been in to see you?”
“Oh, about a hundred times.”
Faolan stood. Laina and Doran had always been close, and now he felt that he was excluded from their confidences. “I’ll leave you to rest.”
“Don’t forget the book,” Doran begged.
The Fall of Lostport Page 1