The sound of a pennywhistle pierced the darkness. Lost, Blaine followed the music. He could barely hear it at first, but gradually, the notes grew louder, closer.
“What in Raka is he muttering?” a distant voice asked. The music stopped.
“Sounds like he’s counting to me,” another voice replied, just as far away as the first.
“Why in Esthrane’s name is he counting?” the first voice sounded, closer now.
“Ask him if he wakes up,” the second man replied.
For a time, the voices faded into darkness. The pennywhistle took up its tune again, a jaunty tavern song that reminded Blaine of home. When the shadows parted again, Blaine heard the steady cadence of a boot tapping against rock.
“Are you back yet?” The voice was one of the speakers he had heard before, familiar, but not yet someone he could place. “Because it’s bloody boring sitting vigil.”
With a struggle, Blaine opened his eyes. Even the dim light of the lantern hurt. It took him a moment to recognize the sparse surroundings of the prisoners’ barracks. “Verran?”
“Thank Torven! He’s stopped counting!” A chair scraped against the floor and then Verran Danning stood over him, looking down with an expression that mingled annoyance and concern.
“How long?” Blaine croaked. His throat was parched, and his body felt leaden.
“Three days in the Hole, two days since then,” Verran snapped. “With Dawe and me playing nursemaid, trying to get food down your sorry gullet and warming you up slowly enough so we didn’t have to chop off all the small bits from the cold.”
Blaine had met Verran on the ship from Castle Reach. He and the minstrel-thief had struck a deal to watch each other’s back on the long journey, and that had deepened into friendship when they had been assigned to the same barracks. Dawe Killick, one of the other prisoners in the same section as Blaine and Piran, had also become a good friend.
“Piran?” Blaine managed.
“He’s alive,” Verran replied. “Probably refused to die just to annoy the piss out of Prokief. Not in much better shape than you, but at least he didn’t mutter numbers in his sleep.”
Counting. Steps. The oubliette. Cold darkness. Little by little, memories flooded back. Pain. Dreams. Blaine shifted his weight and realized he lay on his own bunk. He winced, then realized that moving did not hurt as much as he expected.
“Got Tellam the hedge witch over here to save your sorry ass,” Verran said, slipping his pennywhistle into his pocket. “Did his best to fix Ford up as well. Tellam said he’d settle for a quarter of your next pay, if you survived, for his trouble. He closed up the stripes on your back and kept them from souring, and then he eased the ice sickness the best he could.”
“Thanks,” Blaine said.
“Dawe and I agreed. It was better to keep you and Piran alive than have to get new bunkmates,” Verran replied. “We’re used to how bad the two of you snore, and how you both wake up fighting in your sleep.”
“You’d prefer counting?”
Verran barked a laugh. “No. Definitely not. Snore all you want. Just no more bloody numbers.”
Blaine went back to sleep. After a time, he woke again. Verran was gone, but Dawe dozed in a chair nearby, and startled as Blaine roused. “Good. You woke on your own. Thank Charrot and the spirits.” Dawe unfolded his thin, lanky body from the chair and bustled over to the small brazier. The fire kept the chill away and let them warm snow for water and the tea they made from dried berries and leaves.
He helped Blaine sit up and forced a cup of hot tea into his hands. “Drink this. The healer said it would help.” Blaine glanced across the small room and saw that Piran was also sitting up. They nodded to each other, in recognition of the shared triumph of survival.
“Prokief sent a guard to say you’re back to the mines tomorrow,” Dawe said. He shrugged as Piran let out a halfhearted barrage of curses. “Hey, I’m just the messenger. Guess you’re bloody lucky he didn’t throw your carcasses to the wolves when they fished you out of the Hole.”
“What about the guard we thrashed?” Piran asked, his voice rough.
Dawe gave an unexpected chuckle. “Yeah. About that. Turns out his fellow soldiers didn’t much like him, either. I hear he turned up dead, with his throat slit and his pay missing. One of the guards tried to blame it on you, but there were enough witnesses to what happened in the mine that that didn’t work out so well. Blaine came out of the Hole, he went in. Not sure Prokief means to fish him out.”
Blaine sipped his tea and looked away. Tomorrow would bring new horrors. Maybe, if he survived long enough, he would earn his Ticket of Leave. It was little enough to live for, but it was something. He closed his eyes and, at the very edge of his memory, he heard a child’s remembered laughter. Worth the price.
Meet the Author
Photo Credit: Donna Jernigan
GAIL Z. MARTIN is the author of the new epic fantasy novel War of Shadows (Orbit Books), which is Book Three in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga; Iron and Blood (Solaris Books) the first in a new Steampunk series, The Jake Desmet Adventures, co-authored with Larry N. Martin; and Vendetta (Solaris Books), a Deadly Curiosities Novel, the second book in her urban fantasy series set in Charleston, South Carolina. She is also author of Ice Forged and Reign of Ash in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, the Chronicles of the Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven, Dark Lady’s Chosen) from Solaris Books, and the Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn, The Dread) from Orbit Books. Gail writes two series of ebook short stories: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Adventures, and her work has appeared in over twenty US/UK anthologies.
Find her at AscendantKingdoms.com, on Twitter @GailZMartin, on Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms, at DisquietingVisions.com blog and GhostInTheMachinePodcast.com, on Goodreads at goodreads.com/GailZMartin, and free excerpts on Wattpad at wattpad.com/GailZMartin.
Also by Gail Z. Martin
THE CHRONICLES OF THE NECROMANCER
The Summoner
The Blood King
Dark Haven
Dark Lady’s Chosen
THE FALLEN KINGS CYCLE
The Sworn
The Dread
THE ASCENDANT KINGDOMS SAGA
No Reprieve (e-only short story)
Ice Forged
Reign of Ash
War of Shadows
Shadow and Flame
Deadly Curiosities
If you enjoyed
NO REPRIEVE,
look out for
ICE FORGED
Book One of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga
by Gail Z. Martin
Condemned as a murderer for killing the man who dishonored his sister, Blaine “Mick” McFadden has spent the last six years in Velant, a penal colony in the frigid northern wastelands. Harsh military discipline and the oppressive magic keep a fragile peace as colonists struggle against a hostile environment. But the supply ships from Donderath have stopped coming, boding ill for the kingdom that banished the colonists.
Now, as the world’s magic runs wild, McFadden and the people of Velant must fight to survive and decide their fate…
PROLOGUE
THIS HAS TO END.” BLAINE MCFADDEN LOOKED at his sister Mari huddled in the bed, covers drawn up to her chin. She was sobbing hard enough that it nearly robbed her of breath and was leaning against Aunt Judith, who murmured consolations. Just sixteen, Mari looked small and lost. A vivid bruise marked one cheek. She struggled to hold her nightgown together where it had been ripped down the front.
“You’re upsetting her more.” Judith cast a reproving glance his way.
“I’m upsetting her? Father’s the one to blame for this. That drunken son of a bitch…” Blaine’s right hand opened and closed, itching for the pommel of his sword.
“Blaine…” Judith’s voice warned him off.
“After what he did… you stand up for him?”
Judith McFadden Ainsworth raised her head to meet his gaze.
She was a thin, handsome woman in her middle years; and when she dressed for court, it was still possible to see a glimpse of the beauty she had been in her youth. Tonight, she looked worn. “Of course not.”
“I’m sick of his rages. Sick of being beaten when he’s on one of his binges…”
Judith’s lips quirked. “You’ve been too tall for him to beat for years now.”
At twenty years old and a few inches over six feet tall, Blaine stood a hand’s breadth taller than Lord McFadden. While he had his mother’s dark chestnut hair, his blue eyes were a match in color and determination to his father’s. Blaine had always been secretly pleased that while he resembled his father enough to avoid questions of paternity, in build and features he took after his mother’s side of the family. Where his father was short and round, Blaine was tall and rangy. Ian McFadden’s features had the smashed look of a brawler; Blaine’s were more regular, and if not quite handsome, better than passable. He was honest enough to know that though he might not be the first man in a room to catch a lady’s eye, he was pleasant enough in face and manner to attract the attention of at least one female by the end of the evening. The work he did around the manor and its lands had filled out his chest and arms. He was no longer the small, thin boy his father caned for the slightest infraction.
“He killed our mother when she got between him and me. He took his temper out on my hide until I was tall enough to fight back. He started beating Carr when I got too big to thrash. I had to put his horse down after he’d beaten it and broken its legs. Now this… it has to stop!”
“Blaine, please.” Judith turned, and Blaine could see tears in her eyes. “Anything you do will only make it worse. I know my brother’s tempers better than anyone.” Absently, she stroked Mari’s hair.
“By the gods… did he…” But the shamed look on Judith’s face as she turned away answered Blaine’s question.
“I’ll kill that son of a bitch,” Blaine muttered, turning away and sprinting down the hall.
“Blaine, don’t. Blaine—”
He took the stairs at a run. Above the fireplace in the parlor hung two broadswords, weapons that had once belonged to his grandfather. Blaine snatched down the lowest broadsword. Its grip felt heavy and familiar in his hand.
“Master Blaine…” Edward followed him into the room. The elderly man was alarmed as his gaze fell from Blaine’s face to the weapon in his hand. Edward had been Glenreith’s seneschal for longer than Blaine had been alive. Edward: the expert manager, the budget master, and the family’s secret-keeper.
“Where is he?”
“Who, m’lord?”
Blaine caught Edward by the arm and Edward shrank back from his gaze. “My whore-spawned father, that’s who. Where is he?”
“Master Blaine, I beg you…”
“Where is he?”
“He headed for the gardens. He had his pipe with him.”
Blaine headed for the manor’s front entrance at a dead run. Judith was halfway down the stairs. “Blaine, think about this. Blaine—”
He flung open the door so hard that it crashed against the wall. Blaine ran down the manor’s sweeping stone steps. A full moon lit the sloping lawn well enough for Blaine to make out the figure of a man in the distance, strolling down the carriage lane. The smell of his father’s pipe smoke wafted back to him, as hated as the odor of camphor that always clung to Lord McFadden’s clothing.
The older man turned at the sound of Blaine’s running footsteps. “You bastard! You bloody bastard!” Blaine shouted.
Lord Ian McFadden’s eyes narrowed as he saw the sword in Blaine’s hand. Dropping his pipe, the man grabbed a rake that leaned against the stone fence edging the carriageway. He held its thick oak handle across his body like a staff. Lord McFadden might be well into his fifth decade, but in his youth he had been an officer in the king’s army, where he had earned King Merrill’s notice and his gratitude. “Go back inside, boy. Don’t make me hurt you.”
Blaine did not slow down or lower his sword. “Why? Why Mari? There’s no shortage of court whores. Why Mari?”
Lord McFadden’s face reddened. “Because I can. Now drop that sword if you know what’s good for you.”
Blaine’s blood thundered in his ears. In the distance, he could hear Judith screaming his name.
“I guess this cur needs to be taught a lesson.” Lord McFadden swung at Blaine with enough force to have shattered his skull if Blaine had not ducked the heavy rake. McFadden gave a roar and swung again, but Blaine lurched forward, taking the blow on his shoulder to get inside McFadden’s guard. The broadsword sank hilt-deep into the man’s chest, slicing through his waistcoat.
Lord McFadden’s body shuddered, and he dropped the rake. He met Blaine’s gaze, his eyes wide with surprise. “Didn’t think you had it in you,” he gasped.
Behind him, Blaine could hear footsteps pounding on the cobblestones; he heard panicked shouts and Judith’s scream. Nothing mattered to him, nothing at all except for the ashen face of his father. Blood soaked Lord McFadden’s clothing, and gobbets of it splashed Blaine’s hand and shirt. He gasped for breath, his mouth working like a hooked fish out of water. Blaine let him slide from the sword, watched numbly as his father fell backward onto the carriageway in a spreading pool of blood.
“Master Blaine, what have you done?” Selden, the groundskeeper, was the first to reach the scene. He gazed in horror at Lord McFadden, who lay twitching on the ground, breathing in labored, slow gasps.
Blaine’s grip tightened on the sword in his hand. “Something someone should have done years ago.”
A crowd of servants was gathering; Blaine could hear their whispers and the sound of their steps on the cobblestones. “Blaine! Blaine!” He barely recognized Judith’s voice. Raw from screaming, choked with tears, his aunt must have gathered her skirts like a milkmaid to run from the house this quickly. “Let me through!”
Heaving for breath, Judith pushed past Selden and grabbed Blaine’s left arm to steady herself. “Oh, by the gods, Blaine, what will become of us now?”
Lord McFadden wheezed painfully and went still.
Shock replaced numbness as the rage drained from Blaine’s body. It’s actually over. He’s finally dead.
“Blaine, can you hear me?” Judith was shaking his left arm. Her tone had regained control, alarmed but no longer panicked.
“He swung first,” Blaine replied distantly. “I don’t think he realized, until the end, that I actually meant to do it.”
“When the king hears—”
Blaine snapped back to himself and turned toward Judith. “Say nothing about Mari to anyone,” he growled in a voice low enough that only she could hear. “I’ll pay the consequences. But it’s for naught if she’s shamed. I’ve thrown my life away for nothing if she’s dishonored.” He dropped the bloody sword, gripping Judith by the forearm. “Swear to it.”
Judith’s eyes were wide, but Blaine could see she was calm. “I swear.”
Selden and several of the other servants moved around them, giving Blaine a wary glance as they bent to carry Lord McFadden’s body back to the manor.
“The king will find out. He’ll take your title… Oh, Blaine, you’ll hang for this.”
Blaine swallowed hard. A knot of fear tightened in his stomach as he stared at the blood on his hand and the darkening stain on the cobblestones. Better to die avenged than crouch like a beaten dog. He met Judith’s eyes and a wave of cold resignation washed over him.
“He won’t hurt Mari or Carr again. Ever. Carr will inherit when he’s old enough. Odds are the king will name you guardian until then. Nothing will change—”
“Except that you’ll hang for murder,” Judith said miserably.
“Yes,” Blaine replied, folding his aunt against his chest as she sobbed. “Except for that.”
“You have been charged with murder. Murder of a lord, and murder of your own father.” King Merrill’s voice thundered through the judgment hall. “How do you pl
ead?” A muted buzz of whispered conversation hummed from the packed audience in the galleries. Blaine McFadden knelt where the guards had forced him down, shackled at the wrists and ankles, his long brown hair hanging loose around his face. Unshaven and filthy from more than a week in the king’s dungeon, he lifted his head to look at the king defiantly.
“Guilty as charged, Your Majesty. He was a murdering son of a bitch—”
“Silence!”
The guard at Blaine’s right shoulder cuffed him hard. Blaine straightened, and lifted his head once more. I’m not sorry and I’ll be damned if I’ll apologize, even to the king. Let’s get this over with. He avoided the curious stares of the courtiers and nobles in the gallery, those for whom death and punishment were nothing more than gossip and entertainment.
Only two faces caught his eye. Judith sat stiffly, her face unreadable although her eyes glinted angrily. Beside her sat Carensa, daughter of the Earl of Rhystorp. He and Carensa had been betrothed to wed later that spring. Carensa was dressed in mourning clothes; her face was ashen and her eyes were red-rimmed. Blaine could not meet her gaze. Of all that his actions cost him—title, lands, fortune, and life—losing Carensa was the only loss that mattered.
The king turned his attention back to Blaine. “The penalty for common murder is hanging. For killing a noble—not to mention your own father—the penalty is beheading.”
A gasp went up from the crowd. Carensa swayed in her seat as if she might faint, and Judith reached out to steady her.
“Lord Ian McFadden was a loyal member of my Council. I valued his presence beside me whether we rode to war or in the hunt.” The king’s voice dropped, and Blaine doubted that few aside from the guards could hear his next words. “Yet I was not blind to his faults.
No Reprieve Page 3