She was trying to decide whether to get closer or run and hide, when Shamka emerged from his hut, gave an angry bellow, and fired his gun at the nearest soldier. The soldier’s face caved in as the shot struck him, and he fell back into the mud. One of the other soldiers raised his pistol and fired at Shamka, but missed. Shamka laughed triumphantly. But then the intruder fired a second time without reloading. Shamka’s face was wide with surprise as he clutched at his chest and toppled over.
The girl nearly cried out then. But she bit her lip as hard as she could to stop herself, and dropped into the tall grass.
She lay hidden there in the cold, muddy field for hours. She had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. She heard the soldiers shouting to each other, and there were strange hammering and flapping sounds. Occasionally, she would hear one of the villagers beg to know what they had done to displease the emperor. The only reply was a loud smack.
It was dark, and the fires had all flickered out before she moved her numb limbs up into a crouch and took another look.
In the center of the town, a huge brown canvas tent had been erected, easily five times larger than any hut in the village. The soldiers stood in a circle around it, holding torches. She couldn’t see her fellow villagers anywhere. Cautiously, she crept a little closer.
A tall man who wore a long white hooded cloak instead of a uniform stood at the entrance to the tent. In his hands, he held a large wooden box. One of the soldiers opened the flap of the tent entrance. The cloaked man went into the tent, accompanied by a soldier. Some moments later, they both emerged, but the man no longer had the box. The soldier tied the flap so that the entrance remained open, then covered the opening with a net so fine not even the smallest bird could have slipped through.
The cloaked man took a notebook from his pocket as soldiers brought out a small table and chair and placed them before him. He sat at the table and a soldier handed him a quill and ink. The man immediately began to write, pausing frequently to peer through the netting into the tent.
Screams began to come from inside the tent. She realized then that all the villagers were inside. She didn’t know why they screamed, but it terrified her so much that she dropped back into the mud and held her hands over her ears to block out the sound. The screams lasted only a few minutes, but it was a long time before she could bring herself to look again.
It was completely dark now except for one lantern at the tent entrance. The soldiers had gone and only the cloaked man remained, still scribbling away in his notebook. Occasionally, he would glance into the tent, look at his pocket watch, and frown. She wondered where the soldiers were, but then noticed that the strange boxy ship tied at the dock was lit up, and when she strained her hearing, she could make out the sound of rowdy male voices.
The girl snuck through the tall grass toward the side of the tent that was the farthest from the man. Not that he would have seen her. He seemed so intent on his writing that she probably could have walked right past him, and he wouldn’t have noticed. Even so, her heart raced as she crept across the small stretch of open ground between the tall grass and the tent wall. When she finally reached the tent, she found that the bottom had been staked down so tightly that she had to pull out several of them before she could slip under.
It was even darker inside, the air thick and hot. The villagers all lay on the ground, eyes closed, chained to each other and to the thick tent poles. In the center sat the wooden box, the lid off. Scattered on the ground were dead wasps as big as birds.
Far over in the corner, she saw her mother and father, motionless like all the rest. She moved quickly to them, a sick fear shooting through her stomach.
But then her father moved weakly, and relief flooded through her. Maybe she could still rescue them. She gently shook her mother, but she didn’t respond. She shook her father, but he only groaned, his eyes fluttering a moment but not opening.
She searched around, looking to see if she could unfasten their chains. There was a loud buzzing close to her ear. She turned and saw a giant wasp hovering over her shoulder. Before it could sting her, a hand shot past her face and slapped it aside. The wasp spun wildly around, one wing broken, then dropped to the ground. She turned and saw her father, his face screwed up in pain.
He grabbed her wrist. “Go!” he grunted. “Away.” Then he shoved her so hard, she fell backward onto her rear.
She stared at him, terrified, but wanting to do something that would take the awful look of pain away from his face. Around her, others were stirring, their own faces etched in the same agony as her father’s.
Then she saw her father’s sea glass necklace give an odd little jump. She looked closer. It happened again. Her father arched his back. His eyes and mouth opened wide, as if screaming, but only a wet gurgle came out. A white worm as thick as a finger burst from his neck. Blood streamed from him as other worms burrowed out of his chest and gut.
Her mother woke with a gasp, her eyes staring around wildly. Her skin was already shifting. She reached out and called her daughter’s name.
All around her, the other villagers thrashed against their chains as the worms ripped free. Before long, the ground was covered in a writhing mass of white.
She wanted to run. Instead, she held her mother’s hand and watched her writhe and jerk as the worms ate her from the inside. She did not move, did not look away until her mother grew still. Only then did she stumble to her feet, slip under the tent wall, and run back into the tall grass.
She watched from afar as the soldiers returned at dawn with large burlap sacks. The cloaked man went inside the tent for a while, then came back out and wrote more in his notebook. He did this two more times, then said something to one of the soldiers. The soldier nodded, gave a signal, and the group with sacks filed into the tent. When they came back out, their sacks were filled with writhing bulges that she guessed were the worms. They carried them to the ship while the remaining soldiers struck the tent, exposing the bodies that had been inside.
The cloaked man watched as the soldiers unfastened the chains from the pile of corpses. As he stood there, the little girl fixed his face in her memory. Brown hair, weak chin, pointed ratlike face marked with a burn scar on his left cheek.
At last they sailed off in their big boxy ship, leaving a strange sign driven into the dock. When they were no longer in sight, she crept back down into the village. It took her many days. Perhaps weeks. But she buried them all.
Captain Sin Toa stared down at the girl. During her tale, her expression had remained fixed in a look of wide-eyed horror. But now it settled back into the cold emptiness he’d seen when he first coaxed her out of the hold.
“How long ago was that?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” she said.
“How did you get aboard?” he asked. “We never docked.”
“I swam.”
“Quite a distance.”
“Yes.”
“And what should I do with you now?”
She shrugged.
“A ship is no place for a little girl.”
“I have to stay alive,” she said. “So I can find that man.”
“Do you know who that was? What that sign meant?”
She shook her head.
“That was the crest of the emperor’s biomancers. You haven’t got a prayer of ever getting close to that man.”
“I will,” she said quietly. “Someday. If it takes my whole life. I’ll find him. And kill him.”
BY DAVID DALGLISH
Seraphim
Skyborn
Fireborn
Shadowborn
Shadowdance
A Dance of Cloaks
A Dance of Blades
A Dance of Mirrors
A Dance of Shadows
A Dance of Ghosts
A Dance of Chaos
Cloak and Spider (e-only novella)
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by David Dalglish
Excerpt from Shadowborn copyright © 2016 by David Dalglish
Excerpt from Hope and Red copyright © 2016 by Jon Skovron
Cover design by Kirk Benshoff
Cover illustration by Tommy Arnold
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dalglish, David, author.
Title: Fireborn / David Dalglish.
Description: First Edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2016. | Series: Seraphim; book 2
Identifiers: LCCN 2016036118| ISBN 9780316302739 (paperback) | ISBN 9781478964407 (audio book (downloadable)) | ISBN 9780316302722 (e-book (open))
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Epic. | FICTION / Action & Adventure. | FICTION / Coming of Age. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3604.A376 F57 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036118
ISBNs: 978-0-316-30273-9 (paperback), 978-0-316-30272-2 (ebook)
E3-20161022-JV-PC
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