The Copper Promise

by Jennifer Williams

  Copyright © 2014 Jennifer Williams

  Cover images © DEA/A. DAGLI ORTI/Getty Images (Cityscape);

  © Algol/Shutterstock (dragon); © Sponner/Shutterstock (coins)

  The right of Jennifer Williams to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by

  Headline Publishing Group in 2014

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN 978 1 4722 1117 0

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Part One: Ghosts of the Citadel

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part Two: Children of the Fog

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Part Three: Prince of Wounds

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Part Four: Upon the Ashen Blade

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Jen Williams lives in London with her partner and her cat. She started writing about pirates and dragons as a young girl and has never stopped. Her short stories have featured in numerous anthologies. The Copper Promise is her first novel.

  Praise for The Copper Promise:

  ‘A fast-paced and original new voice in heroic fantasy’ Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘A hell of a read’ I Will Read Books

  ‘I came out of it feeling exhilarated and eager for more’ Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review

  About the Book

  There are some tall stories about the caverns beneath the Citadel – about magic and mages and monsters and gods.

  Wydrin of Crosshaven has heard them all, but she’s spent long enough trawling caverns and taverns with her companion Sir Sebastian to learn that there’s no money to be made in chasing rumours.

  But then a crippled nobleman with a dead man’s name offers them a job: exploring the Citadel’s darkest depths. It sounds like just another quest with gold and adventure … if they’re lucky, they might even have a tale of their own to tell once it’s over.

  These reckless adventurers will soon learn that sometimes there is truth in rumour. Sometimes a story can save your life.

  For Sidney and Phyllis Fulker, with love.

  PART ONE

  Ghosts of the Citadel

  1

  All the other cells in the dungeon stank of fear, but not this one. Lord Frith’s last surviving son was simply too proud to be afraid. Even now, as Yellow-Eyed Rin laid out his instruments on the blood-stained bench, holding each wicked blade up to the torchlight, the young man kneeling on the stone floor had only anger in his eyes.

  The blood of his father is on that bench. His brothers’ too, thought Bethan. And soon his as well, but he’ll defy us to the end. Stubborn bastard.

  The dungeons of Blackwood Keep were small and thick with shadows, which meant that Bethan had to stand rather closer to Yellow-Eyed Rin than she would have liked. He was a greasy wart of a man; shiny bulges of flesh poked through his leather tunic, and lank strands of grey hair stuck to his bulbous scalp. The rheumy eyes that gave him his name watered constantly, but not out of any sympathy for his victims. Rin might be foul to look upon, but his ability to summon excruciating pain with a few carefully placed cuts was invaluable to Bethan.

  Despite the rough treatment they’d shown him so far, young Aaron Frith was another matter. With the strong jaw and grey eyes of all the Friths, his brown skin and fashionably long dark hair, he was a comely young man. Bethan had an appreciation for beautiful things; she had commanded that the finest paintings in the castle be taken down from the walls and packed into crates for her personal perusal later. It pained her greatly to spoil that warm skin, those pretty eyes. In the initial scuffle Frith had taken a blow to the temple, and now the dried blood was making his hair stick up at strange angles on one side. And Yellow-Eyed Rin would only make things worse, of course. Such a waste. Still, they needed him to talk, and soon. If they went another day without answers, then Fane might come up to the Blackwood himself, and no one wanted that.

  ‘Anything more to add, Aaron, before this gets bloody? Or should I call you Lord Frith now? Your father died in here yesterday.’

  Aaron Frith slumped a little where he knelt, glancing away from her. For a brief moment she felt sorry for him, but the sensation didn’t last. The black velvet and silks he’d been wearing when they took the castle were stained and ragged now, but this was a man who’d been born into a privileged life. A silver brooch in the shape of a tree was still pinned to his breast, with tiny chips of sapphire in the branches that could have been leaves or could have been stars. It was fine work; Bethan made a note to make sure that it ended up in her pocket at the close of this messy business.

  He looked back up at her and his eyes were dry.

  ‘I have nothing to
say to Istrian scum.’

  Bethan sighed, and looked around the squalid cell. The torches only made the corners darker.

  ‘You want to end your days here, Lord Frith? For the sake of what? Some jewels, some gold? Coin you’ll probably never get around to spending?’

  Frith said nothing. Bethan felt a stab of impatience.

  ‘We know the vault is hidden somewhere in the forest, Frith. Everyone knows that. We’ll find it eventually, but I’d much rather you told me. It’s a lot quicker that way.’

  To her surprise, Frith grinned.

  ‘You think you’ll find the location scribbled on a piece of parchment, a footnote in my father’s will perhaps? I’m not sure you understand how secrets work.’

  ‘You tell me, then. You’re the last. I may even keep you alive. The Istrian people are fascinated by the aristocracy of their neighbours, and they’ll pay good coin to come and gawp at you.’ She tried to inject a reasonable tone into her voice. ‘Tell me now, Aaron Frith, and I swear this will go better for you. You’ve nothing to gain from adopting the stubbornness that killed the rest of your family.’

  ‘Tristan was nine years old. He was not stubborn, he was terrified.’

  Bethan took a step towards the prisoner. She could feel her face growing flushed, much to her annoyance.

  ‘You would end your life here, in the dungeon of your own castle? Hundreds of years of the proud Frith family, and you’ll all end up in unmarked graves in your own damn forest.’

  In answer, Aaron Frith spat on her boot.

  ‘Enough talk,’ said Rin through a throat full of phlegm. He picked up a vicious blade no longer than Bethan’s smallest finger. ‘Time to see the colour of the young lord’s blood. I heard it’s black, like their trees, but it’s all been red so far. Very disappointing, that.’

  Bethan shook the spittle off her boot.

  ‘Get started.’

  Bethan left Rin to his work – there was, in the end, only so much of it she could watch – and spent some time patrolling the castle, checking on her men and their search through old Lord Frith’s private documents. The servants had been rounded up in the Great Hall, and Carlson, her second-in-command, had made some attempts to beat the information out of them, but they clearly knew nothing of use.

  The question of the vault was a vexing one. The Frith family were famous not only for their wealth, but also for their paranoia. Several generations back the Lord at the time, one Erasmus Frith, had ordered a great vault built out in the middle of the Blackwood. Each day, the men who worked on it were taken to the location blindfolded, with one member of the Frith family on hand at all times to supervise the plans. Hundreds of years later, and all anyone seemed certain of was that it was in the Blackwood somewhere, hidden in that huge and unknowable forest. The Frith family fortune, just waiting for someone to steal it.

  A number of hours later Bethan returned to the dungeon. As she approached the cell she listened for the noises men made when they’d reached the end of their endurance, but the stone halls were quiet.

  ‘Please tell me you have some answers, Rin.’

  The torturer wiped his hands on a bloody cloth, grimacing.

  ‘The boy is just as big an idiot as the rest of them.’

  Aaron Frith was strapped to the bench, his arms held down by his sides with iron cuffs. Rin had long since removed the expensive velvets and silks, so that he lay shivering in his smallclothes. One side of his face was slick with blood, and one hand was red to the wrist. His chest was livid with burn marks, and Bethan could smell the hot, sweet scent of scorched flesh.

  ‘I’ve done all the usual. Hot pokers, burning needles under the fingernails – once that didn’t work I just ripped ’em off – some cuts here and there. Took one of his ears, and I thought he might give in then, but it doesn’t look like he’s paying much attention now. You want me to put one of his eyes out?’

  Bethan watched the young lord carefully. His eyes were closed, his breathing rapid and shallow. He looked like someone caught in the midst of a deep fever, but she thought he could hear them, all the same.

  ‘Hold off for a moment.’

  She went over to the bench and took hold of Frith’s jaw, turning him to face her. One of his eyes flickered open; the other was caked shut with blood from a deep cut on his cheek.

  ‘Put away your pride, Lord Frith. Tell me where the vault is.’

  For a moment the look in his one open eye was confused, as though he didn’t know where he was. Then he focussed on her and she saw that look sharpen to hate.

  ‘The Blackwood will have your blood, peasant.’

  Bethan took her hand away.

  ‘There is a grave out there in your precious forest, and it isn’t for me.’ She turned back to the torturer. ‘The mallet, I think. I want his legs broken.’

  2

  ‘We tread carefully here, master.’

  Gallo looked up from the map. The guide was running his fingers over the red granite walls, sniffing and frowning as though he’d trodden in something regrettable.

  ‘Really? There’s nothing indicated on here.’ Gallo shook the map at him. ‘And I’d really prefer it if you didn’t call me master, Chednit. I am your employer, not your overlord. We’re practically partners!’

  Chednit turned his mismatched eyes towards him. One was brown as a nut and narrow with caution; the other was false, a ball of green jade etched with a silver pupil. It swivelled in his eye socket.

  ‘You trust the map?’

  ‘It’s all we’ve got to go on. And it’s not as though I bought it from one of those grinning charlatans we saw down in the city – I’ve no doubt there’s a little house somewhere in Krete where a hundred skinny children sit drawing fake maps to the Citadel – this was stolen from the ruins of a temple in Relios, snatched from under the noses of the Chattering Men.’ Gallo paused to let this sink in; he was still proud of that.

  ‘As you say, master.’

  Gallo cast a look back the way they’d come. He could still see the last of the desert daylight far above, framed in the distant doorway like a window of gold. They had walked cautiously down a steep set of plain stone steps, treading carefully for fear of traps, snakes and scorpions; it was said that the haunted Citadel had a thousand grisly ways to kill you, each more unpleasant than the last. In front of them was a chamber made of grey stone. It was a little colder than he’d been expecting, but there was nothing obviously untoward. On the far side were the entrances to three passageways, each shrouded in darkness.

  ‘What is it you fear?’

  The guide screwed up his face and shook his head.

  ‘I fancy I hear things. Every now and then, a rumble, a sigh.’

  ‘You do?’ Gallo stood very still and listened, but all he could hear was the rush of the wind sighing past the door high above them, and the sound of his own breathing. This far above Krete it wasn’t even possible to hear the cacophony of the city, shielded as they were by the solid weight of the ancient stones. He laughed suddenly, and clapped Chednit heartily on the back. The guide winced.

  ‘Look at us! We have barely made headway into the first level of the Citadel and already we are twitching at every noise, as nervous as mice. Let’s keep moving.’ Gallo looked at the map and nodded to the entrance on the far right. ‘We take this one.’

  ‘As you say, master.’

  In the next chamber they found a narrow stairwell leading downwards. The light from Chednit’s torch only illuminated the first few steps before the darkness seemed to eat it up.

  ‘We should light another torch, master.’

  ‘I’d rather have my hands free.’ Gallo patted the scabbard at his hip.

  ‘I do not like this.’ Chednit frowned at the dark, pushing his leathery old face into a thousand crinkles. The light from the torch reflected on his jade eye, making it glow like a cat’s. ‘We should have waited for your friend to join us. Another sword hand, yes, that would have been most wise. We can still go back, awa
it him in Krete.’

  Gallo shook his head impatiently.

  ‘I could waste my whole life waiting for Sebastian while the Citadel sits here, all its secrets undiscovered. And besides, we’ve already given the guards their bribe.’ There had been a time when his friend would have been the first down the steps into the Citadel, a wild gleam in his eye and his sword drawn, but now he spoke of waiting and, worse, honour. It was enough to turn an adventurer’s stomach. ‘Look, if it makes you feel better, my blade shall go first.’ He drew his sword and gave Chednit his most reassuring smile. ‘Follow me close. We shall need what light that torch of yours can cast.’

  They descended the stairs, Gallo in front, Chednit coming along behind, holding the torch high above his head. The passageway was narrow, the steps uneven. Gallo brushed his free hand against the stones and his fingers came away covered in a thin green slime. Ahead there was a darkness as deep and complete as anything he had ever seen; it was like a solid thing, so that he almost feared to go too quickly lest he collide with it. Their footsteps echoed strangely, seeming to fade away and then come back again faster, or slower. A few more steps, and his ears popped.

  ‘A dark place, that is for certain,’ said Gallo. He wanted to talk, to cover up those uneasy echoes, but his voice sounded strained and weak to his own ears. ‘Sebastian would not like this at all. He prefers his open skies and his mountains.’

  ‘As you say, master.’ Chednit sounded as though he couldn’t give two shakes of a donkey’s arse about Sebastian’s mountains, and Gallo couldn’t blame him. Even so, he could not stop talking.

  ‘Do you know Ynnsmouth, Chednit? Strange place. They worship their mountains as gods, and there are secret shrines that only the Ynnsmouth knights can find. Sebastian promised to take me to one once, even though it is forbidden.’

  Suddenly Gallo was filled with the certainty that he would never see the mountain shrine – would never, in fact, see daylight again. The thought caught his tongue and held it, filling his chest with an alien tightness. He cleared his throat but said no more, and they walked on in silence.

  Ever downwards they went, with no change to the steps or the rough walls beside them. They walked for so long that Gallo began to wonder if this was one of the mythical traps of the Citadel, one so subtle and simple that you could be walking for years before you realised you had grown old and doddery. Gallo was a man who prided himself on the physical condition of his body – when he had stolen the map from the Chattering Men he had outrun them all and barely felt it – but a sweat had broken out on his brow and his legs were starting to ache.