by David Hair
Also by David Hair
THE MOONTIDE QUARTET
Mage’s Blood
Scarlet Tides
Unholy War
Ascendant’s Rite
THE SUNSURGE QUARTET
Empress of the Fall
Prince of the Spear
Hearts of Ice
Mother of Daemons
THE RETURN OF RAVANA
The Pyre
The Adversaries
The Exile
The King
Map’s Edge
David Hair
The Tethered Citadel Book 1
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by
Jo Fletcher Books
an imprint of
Quercus Editions Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © 2020 David Hair
Maps © 2020 Nicola Hawley
The moral right of David Hair to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
EBOOK ISBN 978 1 52940 190 5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Dedicated to all the health workers and essential service providers around the world who, as I type, are battling to keep us all going during the COVID-19 pandemic (and especially my nursing sister, Robyn). Your courage and humanity are deeply appreciated, not least by my mum, who had a critical operation during this fraught time and came through. Thanks to all of you.
Table of Contents
Also by David Hair
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Map
Part One: Out of Empire
1: Never open the door after dark
2: Who’s with me?
3: Hawkstone
4: Feral
5: Through the rath
6: Sickness
7: The frozen bay
8: Bombards and balls
Part Two: Secret River
1: The luckiest prick in Shamaya
2: Retribution
3: Ice river
4: Ice on fire
Part Three: Ancient and Always
1: Poumahi
2: Bathing hole
3: Over the ravine
4: On the bridge
5: Madly beating heart
Epilogue: Over the bridge
Acknowledgements
THE MAP . . . AND ITS EDGE
Part One
Out of Empire
1
Never open the door after dark
The crash of a mailed gauntlet on the door tore Dash Cowley from his dreams, and brought back another night when steel-clad fists ripped his life apart. For a moment he was back there and then, when doors crashed open and screams rent the air—
Then he woke fully, staring around the dimly lit cabin, blinking away those memories, but the fist kept pounding, and now a rough voice called, ‘Oi, physicker: wake up!’
‘Dad?’ Zar called in a shaky voice from the loft.
‘Shhh,’ Dash hissed, peering at the door. He could see the flicker of torchlight through the cracks in the crude log cabin. It wasn’t yet dawn and the wind was making the pines creak and hiss. Breakers boomed distantly, a mile away.
No one comes out here at this hour. Then a hundred potential reasons suggested themselves, all sinister. ‘Stay hidden,’ he hissed at Zar, as he hurriedly dressed. ‘Keep your curtain pulled.’
‘Oi, wake up!’ that voice shouted again.
‘Coming.’ Dash staggered blearily to the door, bracing himself against the frame as he composed himself. His mouth felt sour, his head ached dimly.
Too much blasted rye last night.
Never open the door after dark in Teshveld, he’d been told within hours of arriving in this Gerda-forsaken seaside village. He checked the door bar was in place and called, ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Gravis, from the inn. I got lordships out ’ere, needin’ a physicker.’
‘What?’ There’re no ‘lords’ in Teshveld. But it was definitely Gravis’ voice.
Then a cold male voice called in a Bolgrav accent, ‘Open door or we break, yuz?’ The voice was deep and atonal, every syllable laden with ponderous authority.
Shit, what’s a Bolgrav doing here?
Zar poked a pale face through the loft curtain, Dash signed, Pull your damn curtain shut, then unbarred the door before it was broken.
A mailed fist flew through the opening and stopped an inch from his nose. Dash peered around it at a big, rugged man with greying hair and a beard like steel wire: a Norgan ranger, at a guess, in his forties or fifties. His pale blue eyes widened, but he didn’t drop his clenched fist as he studied his host.
The Norgan didn’t look impressed, which was understandable. Dash knew he didn’t cut a heroic figure – just a slim man in his thirties, with intense eyes, greying black hair and a rudder-nose, passably handsome in a good light, but stubble-chinned and dishevelled right now.
‘That’s ’im, our physicker,’ Gravis wheedled. The guttering torch he held cast everyone in a ruddy light. ‘Dash Cowley, ’is name. Came ’ere four months ago. First proper healer we’ve ’ad in years.’
‘Cowley,’ the Bolgrav voice drawled; it belonged to a man in a noble’s finery, standing behind the Norgan: clean-shaven and pristine, with a blond mane and haughty caste to his face. His pale cloak was collared with blue fox fur, elegantly out of place in this coastal backwater, but his clothing had a lived-in look, as if he’d been travelling a long time. ‘You treat sick friend, yuz,’ the Bolgrav told him.
Frankly, I’d rather cut your Bolgravian throat than tend your bloody friend, Dash thought, but the Bolgrav had three more soldiers – his own countrymen, judging by the conical helms and long flintlocks hanging over their shoulders – as well as the Norgan. One was a sergeant; the other two bore a stretcher containing a swaddled shape. Steamy breath hung over them; overhead, the planetary rings, silver bands of light that carved the sky in two, glowed like the blades of a sky-god.
Kragga, the Bolgrav probably is a lord . . . but what’s he doing out here?
‘He’s right where I said, Lordship,’ Gravis bleated, cap in hand. ‘It’s a cold night, an’ a long walk.’
‘Pay him, Sergeant,’ the Bolgravian snapped. ‘You, Physicker Cowley: where from is you?’
‘I’m Otravian,’ Dash said truthfully; his nose was proclaiming that for him anyway. ‘My rates are—’
‘We pay what you earn; what you deserve, ney?’ the Bolgrav rasped, turning the ‘w’s to ‘v’s. He shoved Dash aside and stalked into the cabin, eyes flashing to the curtained loft. ‘What is up there?’ When Dash hesitated, he added, ‘I send men anyway, so you tell now.’
‘My, ah, child,’ Dash admitted. ‘Zar, show your face.’
She poked her head through the curtain, all freckled cheeks and big eyes.
‘Ah, young girl, yuz?’ the Bolgrav purred. ‘You, girl, come down.’
‘Get dressed first,’ Dash called, gritting his teeth. If this bastard mistreats her . . .
But the bes
t chance of getting rid of the Bolgravs would be to comply as quickly as possible, so he lit the oil-lamp, hurriedly cleared his table, then stood back as the soldiers hoisted the stretcher onto the table. It held a plump redheaded man who was flushed red, sweating badly and stinking of piss and faeces. His right side was encased in bloody, badly wrapped bandages.
‘What’s happened to him?’ Dash asked, wondering if it was even safe to touch the man. ‘Uh, my lord . . .?’
‘Lord Vorei Gospodoi, am I. You speak Bolgravian? Be easier.’
Dash did have some Bolgravian, but he wasn’t about to admit it here. ‘Just Magnian, milord.’
The Bolgrav grunted in displeasure. His eyes fixed on Zar as the thin girl clad in a boy’s shirt and trousers clambered down the ladder. He blocked her from reaching Dash, ignoring her flinch as he stroked her cheek. ‘Mmm. Soft, like all Otravians, ney? What is name, girl?’
‘She’s called Zar,’ Dash answered for her. ‘She’s my nurse. I need her help to treat this man.’
Gospodoi smiled coldly, but stepped aside, allowing Zar to dart past.
‘Cowley, you will heal this man, or bad thing happens for you and daughter.’
Kragging Bolgravs, Dash thought. We crossed a continent to escape arseholes like you.
‘I’ll do my best,’ he answered, ‘but I need to know what ails him.’
‘This man has unknown illness, from northwest.’
‘The northwest? But there’s nothing out there—’
Gospodoi fixed him with a frosty eye. ‘I tell you this, you not repeat, ney? He fell ill in place across Narrows, name is Verdessa.’
The new-found land? Rumour had it there was nothing there but a thin band of rocky shore below the ice-cliffs, but of course, the empire was just getting started over there. Despite himself, Dash was interested. ‘Verdessa – yes, I’ve heard of it.’
‘Is new place.’ Gospodoi smirked. ‘All new places is found by Bolgravians. We are greatest nation, conquer all of Shamaya, yuz. Explore, expand, exploit. You will find, Otravian, no matter where you go – and whoever woman you meet – that Bolgravian man has been there first.’ He chuckled, then jabbed a finger at the sick man. ‘This man is cartomancer. You know cartomancer?’
Holy Gerda! ‘Yes, I know what a cartomancer is,’ Dash admitted.
‘Excellent. You educated man, is good. So you must save him, yuz?’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘You will,’ Gospodoi agreed, ‘or I break your hands . . . and maybe hurt pretty daughter?’
Bolgravs: every other sentence a threat. ‘How long has he been ill?’
‘Two week.’
‘That long? Was there no one in Verdessa or Sommaport you could take him to?’
Gospodoi went to answer, but the complexities of translating from his tongue to Magnian flummoxed him and he scowled at the Norgan. ‘You tell, Vidarsson.’
The Norgan spoke up. ‘I’m Vidar Vidarsson. The cartomancer’s a Ferrean named Lyam Perhan. He fell ill near the edge of the Iceheart, in northern Verdessa. We’d completed most of our work anyway, so we journeyed south to the coast and Perhan seemed to be rallying, so we sailed south for Sommaport. But he declined after we left Sommaport. Teshveld is the first village we found on this road.’
‘Yuz, is as Vidarsson say,’ Gospodoi put in. ‘You medicate Perhan, make him healthful.’ He stroked Zar’s hair, then turned on his heels curtly. ‘Vidarsson, you will stay and watch, with my men. I stay in tavern.’
Of course you will, Dash thought sourly, and you’ll probably drink their best grog and not pay. But that was Gravis Tavernier’s problem. His was to somehow save this cartomancer.
As Lord Gospodoi stalked off without a backwards glance, Dash turned to Zar and issued a string of instructions: for boiled water, for sedatives and for the herbal poultices he’d been preparing for the next slaan-fly outbreak. Outside, the Bolgrav soldiers were making themselves at home, pissing against his back wall and stealing his firewood while guffawing in their guttural tongue.
Once the Norgan ranger had taken in the lie of the land, including checking the two mules in the lean-to out the back, he sat at Dash’s table, sniffing the wine jar. ‘Rannock claret?’ He poured himself a mug. ‘You bring it with you from home?’
Questions weren’t welcome, and nor was someone stealing his wine, but the Norgan was a hulking man with an air of violence, so Dash limited his response to sarcasm. ‘I traded for that, Vidarsson.’
‘Call me Vidar,’ the ranger growled, pouring himself a mug of the claret. He had craggy features and a pulsing vein in his right temple. ‘So what’s an Otravian healer doing in this Gerda-forsaken hole?’
‘I ask myself that every day. But we take oaths to heal where sickness is found.’
‘Most healers I’ve met are motivated more by coin than oaths,’ Vidar grunted. ‘And most men who live in shitholes like this do so because they don’t want to be found.’
‘I bet most of those don’t really want to talk about it, either,’ Dash observed. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to look after your Bolgravian cartomancer friend if I’m to save my hands.’
‘No friend of mine,’ Vidar said, swigging his wine. He wiped his mouth. ‘Good drop, this.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Dash grunted. ‘So why’s a Norgan nursemaiding a bunch of Bolgravs?’
‘Because I happen to like Imperial argents in my purse,’ Vidar growled. ‘And they’re the only game in town.’
‘You guided them in Verdessa? What’s out there?’
‘That’s none of your concern, healer. Get on with it and I’ll keep your wine company.’
Dash quietly fumed, but he and Zar began their task, removing the cartomancer’s clothes, cutting away the soiled bandages and revealing the wound: a scab-crusted puncture that was seeping foul-smelling fluid. That’s no ‘illness’, Dash thought, having to stop himself retching at the stench.
‘Never seen a healer get all spitty over a bad smell before,’ Vidar observed sagely.
‘I have a sensitive nose,’ Dash replied. ‘Aromatic herbs, Zar.’
‘Maybe you’re just a kragging useless healer,’ Vidar sniffed. ‘Or a fraud?’
That was too close to the truth, but Dash kept his composure. ‘What happened to him?’
‘Fell through some ice onto a buried branch,’ Vidar sniffed. ‘Useless outdoorsman, he was. Had to baby him through the journey. Reckon there’s rotting debris in the wound.’
Dash poked around and nodded in agreement. ‘The wound’s become infected. His blood’s turning septic. It’s only the clotting around the wound that’s preventing the poisoned tissue from circulating and killing him. What do you suggest, Zar?’
Zar’s fifteen-year-old face was screwed up in horror at the foul-looking wound, but she managed a coherent response. ‘We wash, cleanse, cauterise, then apply a poultice.’
‘Good,’ Dash said with approval, ‘but consider his respiration and overall wellbeing: can he survive cauterisation, do you think? And what about sedation?’
Zar considered and they batted ideas back and forth, then set to work. Zar glanced sideways at Vidar, then softly asked, ‘What’s a cartomancer, Dad?’
Dash shook his head, but Vidar looked up. ‘Well? Answer her question.’
It’s not illegal to know, I guess, Dash decided. ‘A cartomancer uses praxis to explore the world – specifically far-sight, foresight and earth magic – to determine the geological composition of a region.’
Zar’s eyes shone as she looked at their patient anew. ‘That’s a good thing, right?’
‘I suppose. But you have to remember, when they present their data to the empire, it usually leads to colonising invasions, the displacing of thousands of people to be exploited until they drop dead of exhaustion and kragging up the land for generations as they rape it beyond sustainability.’
‘Oh.’ Zar’s burgeoning admiration evaporated.
‘That sounds like Liberali talk, Cowley,�
� Vidar growled. ‘The Imperium outlawed the old Liberali Party in Otravia nine months ago.’ He added, ‘They purged them with old-fashioned bloodwork.’
Gerda’s Tits, people I used to know . . .
‘I got out of Otravia years ago,’ he replied, adding, ‘in any case, I’m apolitical.’
‘There are no apolitical Otravians,’ Vidar snorted, then he sighed. ‘Look, Cowley, or whatever your real name is, I sympathise. My country’s been screwed over by the Bolgravs just as much as yours. So I’ll stop asking questions you don’t want to answer.’
They shared a more understanding look, then Dash turned to Zar. ‘Let’s get to work.’
They laboured for a couple of hours, cleansing and then cutting away infected tissue, before placing half a dozen leeches in the wound to suck up the infected blood. The cartomancer’s breathing stabilised, but that was the only good news.
I’m sorry, Cartomancer, but the chances are, you’ll never wake again. Dash hung his head, feeling that ache of not knowing enough, of not being enough. A real healer might have been able to save the cartomancer, but out here, knowing enough to cauterise a wound and sew up a cut made you the best physicker in the district. This was the western edge of the empire: the last place left to hide.
With a sigh, he plucked off the leeches, then mixed up a tonic, taking a moment to surreptitiously palm a tiny blue bottle and tip a drop into one of two clay cups. After he’d dosed the cartomancer, he pulled out a small keg and poured a thimble of amber fluid into each of the clay cups. He placed the tainted one in front of Vidar.
‘This is Urstian rye, best in Ferrea. Surely that’s worth some news?’
Vidar pushed the empty mug of claret aside, took the cup he was offered and downed it in one. Then he smiled. ‘Now that was good. Where’d you get it?’
‘From a trader in Falcombe, on the road here. Cost a fortune, because you just never see stuff like that out here: this isn’t Reka-Dovoi or Kortovrad.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Vidar snorted.
Dash poured another round and the ranger related his tidings: more failed rebellions in the Magnian heartland; more political assassinations and intrigues. ‘But we’ve been away over the Narrows for three months now, so I daresay it’s all changed,’ Vidar concluded, yawning.