by Adrian Selby
Soon I will follow Thornsen to the Roan Province, for he has summoned me, or more precisely his letter accompanied one from the queen of Khasgal’s Landing. Khasgal died some seven years back. She has survived him and continues to rule there. She is much loved, revered even, but she has discovered what has become of the woman who competed for her king’s heart and wishes to meet me. I don’t expect it’s to have me strangled or strung up by the ropes in my belly, and I only have fond memories of her despite our loving the same man. I wish I could come home. I know I can, of course, but Thornsen is right that making this last play, if it lands right, will settle the Good Company into the heart of the Sar and the Old Kingdoms. Its future will be assured so long as people believe in what it stands for. Greed builds empires on sand, love builds them on stone, he tells me.
I hope the Walk you mentioned in your last letter—for I carry your letters wherever I go—I hope that it happened, for that would be a great, great comfort to me, more than I could have asked for. I heard as well from the scrolls I get from my high clearks that Drun is now Chief Amondsen, that they are the high clan. As you said, I hear that he takes Skershe everywhere with him, and it makes me proud. I’d have thought that such a man would be snapped up by any number of good women, but I hear nothing on that front. It doesn’t matter anyway. We could all as easily be dead now, long in our tapestry. I try to be grateful for every day, I try not to forget how I got here.
I hope that he will write to me one day; I would love to receive some scrolls from him. I have received them from my children. The first was actually from Jorno three years back. It was a delight to see his, well, modest hand. He has been on the farm with Grenna and Boneit all these years. They passed into their tapestry, and he ran the farm when they couldn’t but he had nothing to stay for because it was Carlessen land. He went to the Kelssen theit to see about settling there with Dottke and Aggie, but he was unhappy and got to arguing with them about all manner of things, and then they discovered he had an addiction to betony.
Despite all Dottke, Aggie and even Brek tried to do for him over these last couple of years, he fell to the droop proper and he left them and hasn’t been seen since. Brek was broken-hearted, Dottke too. Still, it seems that only Brek and Aggie have come right in her eyes. Aggie, now twenty-three summers, I think, has an army of boys at her beck and call, though she prefers horses to every one of them. Both her and Dottke have taken over the staging post we sought food at when we ran from the whiteboys who destroyed their theit. They oversee the building of a post house there. Meantime they have hands working the fields where their families fought the whiteboys, and have raised stones for the dead, for Mell, Orgrif and the others.
It’s come to this, hasn’t it? These few letters we send are full of the illness, deaths and sorrows of those we love as life makes its cuts on us. Can’t say I’m looking forward to crossing the Sar, I never did well on the water. Once our work in Roan is done I’ll be heading home, I think. I hope Thornsen is doing well over there without me. He is frail these days, though a little fatter than me. We have got quite comfortable, I think, though I am shrinking. This letter has taken some time to write, for my fingers are swollen, my wrists, ankles, elbows all sore and stiff beyond any salve I have to ease them, and there are lumps on my knuckles. I eat so little now and the plant inside me and this eye pull me away from my old and normal sense of things to places that, I cannot write it well enough to describe, are unseen but still about us and within us. There is much to this world we don’t notice, and knowledge, real knowledge, is there if we can pay attention to it. I have written much on this elsewhere, for I hope it is of use to our drudhas. Reasons enough to head home and see if the Oskoro will see me, if they have anything that can help me with my pain and my questions.
I hope you have managed to keep in better shape, old man!
Teyr
489OE
For Teyr
As you might be able to tell by my hand, it’s Ruisma that is writing to you. We might apologise too for it being so long. So much needs doing in the long days of summer to prepare for winter and then in the short days of winter because they are short!
Aude got caught in a storm on an expedition south last winter. They were coming back through the Mothers when it hit and they were lost for a while. He should have been back sooner because the trail they planned to take turns bad in winter and winter came early there. Of the six that left, two didn’t come back, but great Sillindar was with him and he returned to me. He has lost some fingers and some toes, and it’s brought him low I think these last months. The cold seems to be in him, and I fear for him. He won’t eat, he’s thin as a handful of straw and cannot use his hands much at all and he is angry at everything. I do what I can for him but it’s like he’s given up. I am writing to you to ask you to come and see us, hoping that you might pass by the Oskoro for some plant that might help him. It would be such a lift to him if you could come.
We have had two Walks now, you will be pleased to hear, before this expedition of his went badly. I went with him for the first of them, and all the families turned up, I think. Many of us were moved to see it, all the clan chiefs and family chiefs together in a place and with the Oskoro as well. They led us inside their forest, and I cannot say whether I approve of all they do with their people, but they were kind and let us walk about the place, only asking us to be careful here and there, for certain plants were precious to them and were easy to walk on for their abundance. There was much talk of the problems Khiese caused, and a few sought strife, raising troubles with other families from years ago, but thankfully few had the will to cause further bad relations. There was talk of you and your road. You should not be surprised by that. Drun, your nephew, spoke highly of you and how much easier you have made their lives, for now they can both trade and give help to each other in hard times, and this has been unheard of as you know, for it is why you built the road, is it not?
Aude asked that I keep you apprised of the children here. I don’t know if he wrote in his last letter that Jelmer died, but he did. We celebrated what he has added to our tapestry, though his rope continues on only through his brother up at the Drunessen longhouse, who has two boys.
Lina lost her first baby. She has a keep from the Triggsen clan and has gone there to live, but her second thrives apparently. Nietsa has Aude’s house that we built him, for she has a keep now, a Drunessen, who has taken her and her boy on. He’s a terror, except with Aude of course, and they love each other. I wish I could have given him a boy but it was all too late. Nietsa’s boy wipes the years off his brow. Children are like that. Another worry for me is that now, since his injuries, Aude does not want to see him.
I hope this letter finds you well, and that the winter, if you are in Hillfast, hasn’t bitten off too much. We would both very much love to see you.
Sillindar follow you,
Ruisma
490OE
For Ruisma and Aude
I have received your last letter. I’m sorry to hear Aude is in poor health.
It seems things go badly for us all. I would give anything to command a carriage to take me along our road to see you but I cannot. This old crow can no longer fly, nor walk. My leg is getting worse and all these lumps on my bones cause me such pain. This as you can see is not in my own hand. I landed back in Hillfast just after midwinter. I could wait no longer with how broken up I am. I say “I” for I have only managed to bring back the body of my best friend, my standing stone, Thornsen. There are lives beyond count owe him a debt all over these lands, and I could weight down the scales with all my life’s troubles on the one side and he would tip it swiftly to the other with his love and support. He fell ill in the Roan Province, and I stayed with him there, nursing him as best I could. To speak truly, I pushed away this company for a while to take care of him, but there was no healing him. He died in his sleep, and I envy him that.
We have buried him in his bloodlands, the true founder of the Good Company. I w
ish I had been able to do the same for Ruifsen and Thad, who had both stayed true to me in my life.
I had time there to see Thornsen’s children, and they carry all the joy and troubles of life with them as they grow families of their own. They will want for nothing.
I thought then I might have the heart to redouble my efforts to cover his, but I have nothing left. It’s time to let those we have trained and nurtured show what they are made of, and Brek is now the head of the company. You and Aude will be pleased to know that a charming young woman has managed to pierce his shell of duty and got him to love something other than this company. She has given him a girl as well. I gave him whatever wisdom Thornsen had given me on the challenges of duty and family, and I hope he has listened where I did not. He inspires me, that boy, and all I’ve said to him of the good work that this company truly exists for, that it bring nations together to learn and profit from each other that we might discourage war, he has taken to his heart.
I have had a letter as well from Aggie, who has had a boy and she has called him Mosa. She told me Litten had returned briefly to their theit as well. He had not died on the Moors as we feared. Near thirty years now, a grown man, he had found work on the boats for most of this time, a deckhand, turning the work of his muscle into drink by her account. He left them again, despite all they offered to do for him in their theit down there. He would not stay, said he needed to be away, but she thinks he just could not bear to be loved for he did not in some way love himself. She is heartbroken, as am I. I would love to see those girls again, south of the Mothers, but I won’t now. They have a good life, I’ve given them that, I hope.
I could fill this letter again with the dead, couldn’t I, for I recall I have not yet told you that Theik and Fitblood are gone as well. It seems this Good Company needs a tapestry of its own, so many have given it the love they would give their own blood. But how else can you live? What poverty, what waste in the life that does not give all of its love?
The Oskoro have sent someone who says he will take me to the Almet to complete my service. It is he that has written this letter. I just told him he reminded me of a statue I had seen in the Roan Province, of Sillindar. I have seen him before, I’m sure of it.
He’s laughing as he writes this, but my black eye blazes to look upon him.
He tells me I am out of time. I think he may be right.
So this is my farewell to you. Love that boy, Aude. And love each other while you can.
Teyr Amondsen
Epilogue
Confidential—addressees only
Cal Rulger, Driwna Marghoster
Dear Cal,
I am detained by Administrator Stroff on urgent matters, but will be with you in the morning! I trust, however, you are enjoying the accommodation and in particular the wine cellar while you wait. There is much I would speak to you of, much that must be said in person.
You’ll have been given this satchel by a most trusted friend of mine, Agent Widdow, who will stay at the Old Hall Inn with you until I arrive. He won’t be alone, for the letters you find here enclosed are of immense value to the Post. Very few people know they exist. You’ll keep it that way.
I share them with you because not only have you kept to our oaths and delivered your van at great risk to your lives, but in our conversation last week you greatly impressed me with your passion for our aims and our work. My hope is that in reading these letters they ground such enthusiasm further, for there are great challenges ahead, I fear, and I would have your help in overcoming them.
You will know of course that Brekeuel, or “Brek” as these letters call him, was the first Red as I am the sixth. You will also have learned that he had many mentors, among them Teyr Amondsen. Yet these letters between her and the man once her husband, Aude, show that this utterly remarkable woman was in fact the true founder of the Post and had most likely saved Brek’s life as a boy, becoming a mother to him. It was her “Good Company” that became the Post, and it was from her that Brek set down the Post’s ideals, everything we stand for and everything that the Reds, such as I, swear by when we swear our oaths upon the Bloody Shirt.
I look forward to speculating with you on the nature of the strange and powerful “Oskoro,” referenced herein, and their mysterious fate.
Yours,
Yblas
Post House Amondsen
Autumn’s Gate
27 Crutma, 574OE
Acknowledgements
A big thank you to Steve Warren, Adam Bouskill, Neil Garret, Dave Fillmore, Shaun Green and Dan Bonett for reading and feeding back your thoughts on the first draft. Your support and encouragement mean the world to me.
Now Snakewood’s been out there for a couple of years, there are many that have shared reviews, thoughts and my updates. I’m grateful to all of you for taking the time to give my work a go, it’s deeply humbling. In particular, I’d like to thank Steve Warren, Femke Giesolf, James Latimer, Ed McDonald and “Adriëlle” Ooms-Voges for doing so much to raise awareness for my work.
Thank you also to Pete Withers-Jones for his ongoing patience and support managing my web presence and all the technical shenanigans that go on with that. You ease my mind, sir!
As with Snakewood, I am deeply indebted to Jenni Hill and Will Hinton, my editors at Orbit. Once again you’ve seared away the chaff and helped me to make this book the best it could be. Thank you as well to Joanna Kramer for the face-saving “how did I miss that!” copy-edits and the rest of the Orbit team for getting The Winter Road ready to rock. Any rubbish that remains is entirely my own.
Jamie, my agent, continues to taunt aggro so I can dps. Thank you, mate.
Of course, no words get written without the infinite patience, love and support of my wife Rhian. Thank you most of all x
extras
meet the author
ADRIAN SELBY studied creative writing at university before embarking on a career in video game production. When he’s not wishing someone would invent a sleep compressor, he squeezes in reading and gaming around his family and writing. He lives on the south coast of England. His debut novel, Snakewood, is an epic and inventive fantasy about a company of mercenaries and the assassin trying to destroy them. You can find Adrian on Twitter, tweeting as @adrianlselby and on his website at adrianselby.com.
if you enjoyed
THE WINTER ROAD
look out for
SNAKEWOOD
by
Adrian Selby
An epic fantasy like no other, Adrian Selby’s debut takes an unblinking look at the price we pay for our pasts, the art of war, and the people who make it their business. Enter a violent world of revenge and bloody combat with characters you’ll never forget.
They called them Kailen’s Twenty, a legendary band of ruthless mercenaries who gave no quarter. Living only by the code of steel, blood, and coin, and aided by fightbrews that gave them the edge in battle, whoever met their price won.
Now broken up and seemingly forgotten, they are being hunted down one by one.
Drawn from multiple accounts compiled by a scholar investigating the legendary group’s demise, who is also a son of one of the Twenty, Snakewood is fantasy at its most inventive and rewarding.
Chapter 1
Gant
My name’s Gant and I’m sorry for my poor writing. I was a mercenary soldier who never took to it till Kailen taught us. It’s for him and all the boys that I wanted to put this down, a telling of what become of Kailen’s Twenty.
Seems right to begin it the day me and Shale got sold out, at the heart of the summer just gone, down in the Red Hills Confederacy.
It was the day I began dying.
It was a job with a crew to ambush a supply caravan. It went badly for us and I took an arrow, the poison from which will shortly kill me.
I woke up sodden with dew and rain like the boys, soaked all over from the trees above us, but my mouth was dusty like sand. Rivers couldn’t wet it. The compound I use to ease my bone
s leeches my spit. I speak soft.
I could hardly crack a whistle at the boys wrapped like a nest of slugs in their oilskins against the winds of the plains these woods were edged against. I’m old. I just kicked them up before getting my bow out of the sack I put it in to keep rain off the string. It was a beauty what I called Juletta and I had her for most of my life.
The boys were slow to get going, blowing and fussing as the freezing air got to work in that bit of dawn. They were quiet, and grim like ghosts in this light, pairing up to strap their leathers and get the swords pasted with poison.
I patted heads and squeezed shoulders and give words as I moved through the crew so they knew I was about and watching. I knew enough of their language that I could give them encouragement like I was one of them, something else Kailen give me to help me bond with a crew.
“Paste it thick,” I said as they put on the mittens and rubbed their blades with the soaked rags from the pot Remy had opened.
I looked around the boys I’d shared skins and pipes with under the moon those last few weeks. Good crew.
There was Remy, looking up at me from his mixing, face all scarred like a milky walnut and speaking lispy from razor fights and rackets he ran with before joining up for a pardon. He had a poison of his own he made, less refined than my own mix, less quick, more agony.
Yasthin was crouched next to him. He was still having to shake the cramp off his leg that took a mace a month before. Saved his money for his brother, told me he was investing it. The boys said his brother gambled it and laughed him up.