by C. Greenwood
THIEF’S BLADE
MAGIC OF DIMMINGWOOD, BOOK ONE
C. Greenwood
Copyright © 2017 C. Greenwood
Edited by Victory Editing
Formatted by Polgarus Studios
Cover art by Michael Gauss
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Excepting brief review quotes, this book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the copyright holder. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, real events, locations, or organizations is purely coincidental.
For Mom and Grandma,
my earliest encouragers in all things creative.
THIEF’S BLADE
MAGIC OF DIMMINGWOOD, BOOK ONE
Blessed. Betrayed. Imprisoned.
Luka’s carefree existence as the spoiled son of a minor noble ended the day his family was arrested and imprisoned in the Eyeless Tower. His father, a political rival to the praetor of Camdon, would never live to see freedom again. Luka should have joined his father on the scaffold but fate – or the schemes of men – intervened. Escape came.
Now Luka has a chance to thwart his persecutors until he can avenge his family. Beginning life again in a distant province, he takes a new name – Rideon. But the past he left behind won’t stay buried. His father’s old foe is determined to destroy him. Rideon finds help, only to discover a sinister purpose drives his mysterious allies. His recently acquired bow seems to be cursed by an evil spell. Worst of all, he has offended a powerful faction within the city of Selbius. The treacherous thieves’ guild is out for his blood and their cunning thief king won’t be satisfied until Rideon feels the wrath of his infamous blade.
The only whisper of hope seems to come from the shadows of far away Dimmingwood. But can Rideon reach that haven, protect his young brother, and dodge all foes until his day of vengeance comes? Or will the traitors, thieves, and magickers surrounding him finish the deadly work his enemies began?
* * *
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PROLOGUE
It is said that I was dead at birth. Not until all hope for me was lost and my small body was carried away for disposal did I startle the midwife by drawing a sudden breath. Some years later, I cheated death again in a carriage accident. I was found miraculously alive and unharmed, curled against my mother’s lifeless body inside the smashed wreckage. These uncanny incidents gave rise to a superstition among my father’s tenants. They said the eldest son of the congrave was an heir of good fortune, a child who couldn’t be touched by evil.
A time would soon come when no one would believe that anymore.
By my twelfth birthday, my father had fallen out of favor with the praetor of Camdon. Deemed a political rival, he was locked away in the Eyeless Tower, together with his heirs—his two small sons. Overnight, my privileged, carefree existence was replaced by a world of cold stone, cruel bars, and the echoing noises of despair in the darkness. Once, I had looked out the windows of my family’s castle to see magnificent, manicured gardens cascading down the hill to the gleaming river in the distance. Now my view was narrowed to a thin slit overlooking an ugly, grassless square, the tower grounds of execution. Standing at its heart was the scaffold where, on a certain cold winter morning, I pressed my face to the ice-encrusted window slit to watch my father’s beheading.
No, no one would call me an heir of good fortune ever again.
Tonight I am far from that tower of death and even farther from the golden existence that came before it. So far that the memories of both recede from my mind, smothered by the encroaching mists of time. Time and something less natural. Magic.
I feel the unfamiliar heat of the magic burning in the new amulet I wear around my neck. I sense it simmering in the air around me. If I listen hard, I even think I hear it in the choppy waves lapping against this raft, hissing like a hot iron dipped in cool water.
But then the evening breeze blowing off the river disperses the heat of my imagination. The wind dries my soggy clothes and hair and sets the brittle water-damaged pages of this book fluttering. I’m grateful I was able to fish the book back out of the lake, because within its simple cover lies all that is left of my life, my family, my identity. As the past fades, I put my pen to a still-damp page and write the one thing I must never forget: I am Rideon.
CHAPTER ONE
At first I thought the whispered words drifting down to me were from a dream.
“Wake, young master. The hour has come for your escape.”
The voice of my father’s old servant Cadvan was harsh with urgency. His form was an indistinct shadow leaning over me in the faint candlelight.
“Cadvan?” I asked drowsily, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “What’s happening?”
It couldn’t be morning already. I didn’t feel like I had been sleeping long. The window revealed it was still completely dark outside. In the bed beside me, my little brother slept on, undisturbed.
But the elderly Cadvan had lit a single flickering candle on the desk at the opposite end of the small room. He stood before me now, holding my shoes and my only other change of clothes. He had obviously been busy while I slept, because there was an unfamiliar traveling pack in the floor, provisions bulging out its open mouth.
“Dress quickly and wake your brother,” Cadvan said. “I have bribed the guard at the door to look the other way. A carriage waits below to carry you and the little master from this place. But our plans could be discovered at any moment, and our friends forced to flee without you.”
My heart beat faster. We had been waiting for this event or one like it since the first day we were shut up in the tower. Had our chance at freedom come at last? But I still had questions.
“What friends? Who is helping us?”
“Those who wish you well and are prepared to die for you,” Cadvan said briefly, pulling my nightshirt off over my head. “But they risk their lives for nothing if we do not act quickly. We must be ready when the signal comes.”
Responding to the grave expression on his lined face and the fear in his watery eyes, I kept the rest of my questions to myself and dressed in a hurry. Then I woke my younger brother although it pained me to do it.
Ferran looked peaceful, a small and piteously thin bundle curled beneath the blankets, shaggy, dark hair falling across his pale forehead. He was ten years old, four years younger than me, but he looked even more than that. Life in this prison had taken its toll on both of us, but Ferran had fared worst. His recent illness was evident in the hollowness of his cheeks and the dark circles beneath his eyes.
He was too weak and dazed to ask questions as we shook him awake and dressed him in the thickest, warmest clothes he had. All our once-fine clothing had grown tattered and too small. But at least Cadvan had mended our coats so we wouldn’t freeze.
Now the silver-haired servant surveyed us as if to be sure he had missed nothing. Despite the danger of our circumstance, he still took a few seconds to straighten the collar of Ferran’s coat. I suspected he would want us to look our best even if we were going to our deaths—perhaps especially then.
“It will do,” he muttered as if to himself and quickly snatched up the traveling pack.
“You must look after Master Ferran,” he instructed me, securing the pack onto my back. “Tell your rescuers to procure medicine for him as soon as it’s safe to stop. Trust our friends to deliver you to a secure place. Do all they say, keep out of sight, and do not stop running until you have left this province behind you.”
It suddenly sank in that he wasn’t coming with us.
“Are we going alone?”
I asked, nervous.
“You’re never alone,” Cadvan assured me solemnly. “As long as you remember your parents, you carry them with you. And lest you ever forget, take this. It will remind you where you come from.”
He reached into his pocket and produced a heavily worked silver ring. I recognized my father’s signet at once.
Cadvan said, “My lord gave this to me on the night before his execution and begged me to keep it safe for you. I think you are ready to wear it now.”
He was wrong. The bulky ring was so loose I couldn’t keep it in place, even on my thumb. Cadvan slid it onto a string and looped it hastily around my neck.
A sharp rapping sound at the door startled us all.
“That’s the guard’s signal,” Cadvan said.
He threw open the door, grabbed the hand of the still confused and sleepy Ferran, and led him out into the corridor.
I wanted to follow but hesitated at the doorway, feeling as if I were held back by some invisible force. I had been allowed out of this round cell a few times before to exercise in the tower grounds but never without the company of my jailers. I hadn’t walked unescorted out this door in over two years.
I looked back at the small, sparsely furnished room that had been my prison for so long.
I had been only twelve years of age and Ferran eight when our long nightmare began. We had entered this place with our father, as heirs to the powerful congrave, and would now leave it as a pair of desperate orphans.
The room had only a single window, a narrow slit that was our one source of fresh air, the only relief from the foul smells that permeated the enclosed space. On clear days it provided a little natural light. In the corner was a slop bucket, which our jailers could rarely be persuaded to empty. There was a bench for sitting and along one wall, our bed, covered in filthy blankets. A battered desk contained the few books allowed us, an inkpot and quill, and some sheets of writing paper Cadvan had managed to beg from our keepers.
“Master Luka, come quickly!” Cadvan broke into my thoughts, beckoning anxiously from the corridor.
I rushed to the desk, snatched up a small leather-bound book that had special significance to me, and shoved it into my coat pocket. Then I hurried out the door.
Down the long twisting stairs we ran, Cadvan half carrying Ferran, who was too dazed to know where we went.
At every instant I expected to hear an alarm raised or harsh voices commanding us to come back. But the only guard we encountered was at the door letting out of the tower, and he carefully avoided looking at us as we passed. I guessed he was the man Cadvan had bribed to allow our escape.
Our footsteps crunched on gravel as we dashed across the moonlit courtyard. It was the same yard my window overlooked. We passed within close distance to the scaffold where my father had lost his life not long ago. But there was no time to stare in horror at that grim specter rising up out of the shadows.
Cadvan obviously knew where he was going and didn’t allow us to slow down, not even to catch our breaths. By now mine was coming in ragged gasps. My muscles were weak from disuse, my legs unused to running or healthy exercise.
The old servant shepherded us quietly across the yard and through a small and almost invisible gate in the far wall. I suspected it wasn’t usually kept unlocked as it was tonight.
Outside that gate and the tower courtyard, I breathed free air for the first time in years. But I could see little of the new world of freedom I had just entered. This side of the wall was thick with trees and overgrown shrubbery.
Cadvan led us through the dimness and past the trees until we came to a quiet dirt lane. The path looked as if it was little used, perhaps only for delivery wagons bringing supplies to the tower. Whatever its purpose, it now held a single black carriage and team of horses, all silent and still, clearly waiting for someone.
There were two cloaked figures sitting on the driver’s bench. On seeing our approach, one of them leapt down and hurried to us.
“What took you so long?” he demanded of Cadvan. “Every moment we linger increases the danger.”
He didn’t give the old man a chance to answer as we reached the carriage. The stranger swung open the door, pulled Ferran out of Cadvan’s arms, and lifted him into the black interior. I didn’t follow right away. I was suddenly afraid to go.
“Why aren’t you coming with us?” I asked Cadvan, delaying. “Surely you won’t be safe when it’s learned you were involved in our escape.”
My father’s old servant pressed my hand. “Do not worry about me, young master. My presence would only make you more conspicuous. The fewer who travel in your party, the better.”
For the first time, it occurred to me that Cadvan had sacrificed a great deal for my family, voluntarily following us into imprisonment so he could continue serving my father, then transferring his loyalty to Ferran and me after Father’s death. Now this night’s sacrifice might be his last.
So I swallowed my fear and said awkwardly, “Then farewell, Cadvan. Your faithfulness will not be forgotten as long as Ferran and I live.” And I inclined my head in the formal way I had seen my father do when particularly pleased with a servant or tenant.
Even in the darkness I could see approval on Cadvan’s wrinkled face. “Nobly said, young master. Never forget you are your father’s son.”
The driver behind the horses made an impatient noise, and his companion looked at me and jerked his head toward the carriage. I realized if I didn’t clamber aboard right away, he would take hold of me as he had Ferran and toss me inside like a child.
So I quickly scrambled up into the carriage, taking the empty seat beside Ferran. Immediately my brother leaned drowsily against me.
“What’s happening, Luka?” he murmured. He wasn’t fully awake. Even if he had been, I had no good answer for him.
I made a reassuring noise and helped him recline on the seat, where he could go back to sleep.
Outside the door, I overheard Cadvan urging our rescuers to take us the quickest route across the border. Only when we were in the next province would we be safe from the reach of our father’s enemy, the praetor of Camdon.
The stranger who had lifted Ferran growled that he already had those same orders from his master and he didn’t need the elderly servant’s advice.
Listening, it worried me to realize the roughness of these strangers into whose hands we were being given. Exactly who was this master they spoke of? I hoped Cadvan had been right when he called these rescuers our friends and told me to trust them.
Before the conversation could continue, there came a sudden explosion of noise in the distance. Shouts echoed from the tower grounds.
“We’ve been discovered!” Cadvan cried. “Go quickly!”
My new rescuers didn’t need to be told twice. I heard the sounds of the man on the ground climbing quickly up onto the front of the carriage. Then the slap of reins as the driver urged the horses forward.
As we lurched into motion, the figure of the frail but dignified Cadvan disappeared from view. I leaned out the window to catch a last glimpse of the Eyeless Tower, standing tall and menacing in the moonlight.
“That place will never hold us again, Ferran,” I promised my sleepy brother.
Silently I made another vow, this one to myself. I didn’t know when or how, but someday I would see my family avenged.
CHAPTER TWO
I expected at any moment our carriage would be overtaken by armed men from the tower, sent to recapture us. I didn’t know what we would do then. I only knew I couldn’t return to the tower or see my brother imprisoned there again. It would be the death of him to go back.
Our rescuers, mysterious and rough though they were, also seemed determined not to be taken. They urged the horses to greater speed, and we flew through the night, the outskirts of town disappearing behind us. Open fields and empty cottages rushed past the windows, looking eerily peaceful in comparison to the terror we were fleeing.
It was impossible to he
ar anything over the sound of the rattling carriage, the jangling of harnesses, and the pounding of horses’ hooves. But Ferran somehow slept through the jarring motion and noise.
For a while I looked constantly behind us. But when the road remained empty and pursuers never appeared, the thundering of my heart began to slow. My tense muscles relaxed, and I let myself enjoy the exhilaration of our flight.
I gripped my father’s ring hanging from its cord around my neck. As I ran my fingers over the cold silver surface, they touched a latch I hadn’t known was there. The face of the ring sprung open. Inside was a tiny hollow space, like the inside of a locket. The soft moonlight slanting through the carriage window gave just enough illumination for me to make out a small lock of hair nestled inside the secret compartment. By its pale golden color, I knew at once the hair was my mother’s. Father must have put it there as a memento, after her accidental death so many years ago.
Cadvan’s words echoed through my mind.
As long as you remember your parents, you carry them with you.
The old servant was more right than he knew.
* * *
We traveled all night until the darkness around us lightened and the first gray smudges of dawn appeared on the horizon. After all the hilly farmland we had passed, we now approached a small village. As we rolled into town at high speed, I made out the outlines of a few ramshackle buildings flying past. Then we slowed. Dogs barked, and the glow of lantern light illuminated the dirty yard we pulled into. It seemed to be a stable yard, with scattered chickens and pigs roaming freely.
Before I could see anything more, one of my rescuers jumped down from the front of the carriage, came around to the side, and yanked down an oily curtain over the window. He did the same on the opposite side of our carriage, concealing Ferran and me from the prying eyes of any bystanders.