Blood and Sand Trilogy Box Set

by Jon Kiln

  That was, of course, until the Red Hand had arrived.

  “You know who these boys are, don’t you?” The older woman seemed to read Meghan’s thoughts.

  “I’m not paid to know things, ma’am,” Meghan said lightly, keeping the heavy tankard in one hand.

  “Wise,” the older woman, swathed in robes and shawls said pragmatically, as if she hadn’t just a second earlier accused Meghan and her daughter of witchcraft. “But unnecessary. They are the Red Hand. The feared pirates of the Shattering Coast, under the dread Pirate Lord Oberra,” she said lightly under her breath. “A suspicious lot, but good folk, I think.”

  “So?”

  “So, it means that they will give more security to a woman and her witchling child than will most of the Shattering Coast, or the Fuldoonians, or the Menaali coming our way!” Aldameda almost laughed.

  Meghan tensed, forcing a smile back onto her face. “I don’t know what you are talking about, lady. Perhaps you should go back to your crew.” What was an old woman doing traveling with the Pirate Lord Oberra, anyway? she thought, about to turn and call to see if Kaplan would take over at the bar for a bit. He would probably say no, but it would be worth it to try.

  “I know, child,” the old woman snapped, one hand slapping the bar as if she were demanding that she had been short changed. “There are still some of us who can sense a bit of the old magics. You could say that this is my job.” The woman smiled, showing off the gaps in her teeth. “I can see the Sight that is on that girl of yours as clear as day. Now. What did she see?”

  Meghan opened and closed her mouth, stunned. Others had called her a witch, of course – even though all she knew was a way with herbs, a few prayers that somehow seemed to ease the pains and toils of a hard day. But the mother did not have anything like the skills of her daughter. Visions that could predict, sometimes to the day, the arrival of an illness, or a bad piece of luck, or a sudden storm.

  Meghan didn’t know where she got that strange power from – only that Kariss always had a way about her, playing games by herself on the edge of the woods, or talking to imaginary friends. It worried Meghan of course, but she loved her daughter too much to try and steer her away from something that was clearly naturally welling up from within her.

  I’ve spent my life being told that I cannot be this, or that, and that I had to be a servant, or a slave, or a wife… Meghan thought angrily. If my daughter is to be different – than I will not stop her.

  And so they had eventually found their isolated home in the wilds of the Shattered Coasts, and then, eventually too, seen their home burnt out by the superstitious locals.

  Witchcraft itself was still widely regarded as evil. As a sin. As a crime against the gods across the south. Especially with all the talk of apparitions and ghosts and devils that there was in recent years. Meghan and her daughter had escaped being burnt alive once, and she had no wish to go through that again.

  “Don’t think about lying to me, girl. I can help,” the older woman said under her voice. “I know how these things work. Your master here doesn’t know yet, but soon he will. Magic cannot be denied for long, and soon he will start to notice something odd about your little girl, if he hasn’t already.”

  Meghan flinched, and cursed herself for doing so. Wasn’t it just yesterday that Kaplan had teased her by saying, “Your daughter is a fey one, isn’t she? Always watching. Never says a word!” Kaplan had meant it as a joke, but it had chilled Meghan’s blood to the core.

  It wouldn’t take much to push strange and ‘fey’ into ‘evil witch’ from her own experience.

  “I knew it,” the older woman said, not altogether unkindly. “So, here is my offer to you, girl. You can jump ship here, join up with the Red Hand. We’re traveling Eastwards. I promise you that no harm comes to the child.”

  The older woman wasn’t offering her the same promise of protection, Meghan thought wryly.

  “Look, you see that lad over there? The one with the ragged hair? His name is Talon. He’s my ward. I’ve managed to keep him from drowning or being killed so far, I can do the same for your little girl, too.”

  Meghan looked to see the boy – no, a young man, laughing and blushing furiously at the older pirates’ ribald jokes. They appeared to like him, and weren’t treating him unkindly, just with good humor.

  Meghan licked her lips, took a breath, and then said quickly, “But why should we go with you? All I need is another few more moons of work, and I can afford a ticket across the seas to Thrane.”

  “A sea crossing as a single woman? With a child?” Aldameda whistled. “Tricky. And even worse if they start to suspect what you are. What she is. But, as I told you – I know, and I can protect you. And I could even use a bit of your skills.”

  “I don’t have any skills,” Meghan lied.

  “The girl does.”

  “She’s not for sale.” Meghan clenched her teeth.

  “I’m not saying she was. But I know that something big, mean, and terrible is coming for all of us. It might just be the end of the world for all that I know. I bet my last gold piece that she has seen it coming, and that it’s terrifying the poor child.”

  Well, she’s got that right. Meghan’s eyes flickered to the door where Kariss had so recently disappeared into. She had been having nightmares every night for a week. Screaming, crying nightmares that was hard to wake her from.

  “Can you help her?” Meghan said without looking at Aldameda.

  A calculating pause, before the older woman’s voice returned. “I have some experience in dealing with the unnatural. I will do what I can.”

  Meghan let out a deep sigh. She guessed that was as much as anyone could say, in these dark times.

  4

  “Meat,” the large man said, and a slave hurried to his side, her hands heavy with a silver platter laden with braised and grilled joints.

  Brute, Suriyen thought from where she sat, hunched against one of the tent poles. In any other time or situation, she might have bartered her soul to get to be in this position, meters away from the Terror of the South, the Menaali warlord known as Dal Grehb.

  But not now, in her weakened and still semi-feverish state.

  And not wearing these clothes, either. The fair-haired warrior curled her lip in disgust. After the warlord had, bizarrely, saved her life on the battlefield, he had ordered her dressed in fine white linens and brought to his royal yurt, a massive circular construction that served not only as his bedchambers, but also as his feasting hall and council chamber as well.

  The Dal sat on a throne made of gold and lumpen iron, obviously stolen on one of his many conquests across the burning southlands. I wonder how much of his possessions are stolen? Suriyen felt a slow-burning anger. The silver platter that bore his daily food, the red-haired slave girl wearing far less expensive rags than Suriyen did, the rugs, tapestries, probably even his great double-headed axe.

  The Menaali were a nation of thieves, in Suriyen’s opinion. Did any of them, ever create something beautiful and unique of their own? The one-time wall-captain of Fuldoon wondered where her fine white linens came from. What princesses or noblewoman’s back had they graced, once, before the Horde came pouring through their towns and cities?

  Just as the Menaali will be pouring through Fuldoon, and then the rest of the world… she thought in abject misery.

  She had failed, and she was intimately aware of the fact. As the High Council of Fuldoon had dithered in the face of the enemy, they had finally given over the command of the wall defenses to Suriyen – herself the only warrior who had ever fought the Menaali before – but it had been too little, too late. The other free kingdoms across the Inner Seas hadn’t come to the trading cities aid; no Kingdom of Thrane galleons, no Vitillio fighting schooners.

  It seems that their charity will extend to whomever is in charge of the greatest trading city the world has ever known, Suriyen thought wryly. That was the way of the world, though – no one had come to Tir’an�
�fal’s aid either – the desert City of the Gods, when it had fallen to Dal Grehb’s horde.

  And so I am to be a slave once more? This wasn’t the first time that she had been captive to the hospitality of the Menaali. As a teenager, far on the other side of the Burning Sands, she had witnessed the fall of the Iron Pass, and everything that she had known had been destroyed. She had spent ten years in their service, but never service to the warlord himself.

  Why does he want me? she wondered, before shaking her head minutely. Apart from the obvious. I will kill myself before I let that happen.

  “Wine,” the warlord grunted, and the red-haired girl hurried forward with a great pitcher, which the man proceeded to pour down his gullet as he watched the delegation arrive in his yurt.

  Dal Grehb was a big man; a bear of a man compared to even his berserkers, with a great wild beard, heavy brows, but a shaved head. He toyed with a short but fat-bladed dagger in his hand as he watched the other Menaali chiefs step forward.

  “Dal,” the first grunted; a man with a black beard and the leather harness of a fighter.

  “Jorg” the Dal replied, his surprisingly small eyes piercing the next – a thinner Menaali, with a braided topknot on his head.

  “Dal,” greeted the second, with just the slightest nod of his chin.

  “Chief Vharn, what news from the front?”

  The thinner Vharn spat onto the fine rug in obvious distaste. “Proving difficult, my lord. The Fuldoonians are… being brave,” he said with a mocking smile.

  Yes! Suriyen gritted her teeth.

  “I’m surprised those merchants and crooks know how,” Dal Grehb growled.

  “We have the city, but they are fighting still. Street by street,” Jorg said seriously. “My men aren’t used to it,” he added, earning a grin from Vharn.

  “Menaali not used to fighting?” the thinner tribesman said. “There must be something in the water!”

  “It’s not the fighting!” Suriyen saw Jorg turn, suddenly fierce to his fellow chief. “It’s everything else,” he muttered darkly, earning silence from the yurt.

  “What do you mean, everything else?” Dal Grehb said heavily, tipping back the pitcher of wine once more.

  Jorg looked as though he didn’t want to get involved – at all – in this discussion, but under the warlord’s lizard-like heavy stare, he just nodded to himself. “It’s been happening since the City of Gods, warlord. My men have had nightmares. Terrors. Seeing things that shouldn’t be there. Some of them are saying that we’re cursed, that…”

  “Cursed by who exactly, Chief Jorg?” said a new voice as a different person entered the royal tent. Suriyen felt a chill push through the room, and she was sure that it wasn’t just the reaction that Aisa Desai, the warlord’s witch inspired in the subordinate chiefs.

  Aisa Desai was a small woman in dark clothes, with a pile of heavy braids on her head, into which had been strung stones and the skulls of birds. She was also in league with the devils, Suriyen knew. Chief Jorg visibly paled, but did not back down as he lifted his chin to regard the sorceress woman.

  He’s brave at least, Suriyen thought in grudging respect.

  “I can only report what my men have been saying,” Jorg continued, resolutely.

  “Oh please, go on…” Aisa stepped up next to the warlord’s throne, as carefully as a cat about to pounce.

  The jaw on the man clenched, but he forced the words out. “That the Menaali have abandoned their old gods. That we are in league with devils and foul spirits. That we shouldn’t have sacked the City of the Gods, and that we have angered them.”

  Suriyen watched the chief say his piece in a rush, and could feel the scandal of his words pass through the room. Had he just directly questioned the warlord’s commands?

  Dal Grehb on his throne shifted, setting his pitcher down on the floor. “You remember how my daughter was, don’t you, Chief Jorg?” he growled. Suriyen had heard the story from the Sin Eater; that the warlord’s very own daughter had been afflicted with some terrible pox, and the warlord had taken the City in order to extract a healing from Vekal’s strange caste of priests. The healing had worked, but the devil that had caused the girl’s affliction had jumped ship, and passed into Vekal himself.

  But I’m not sure that Dal Grehb knew that, she thought. To a brutish, uncomplicated man like him, he must think that taking the City of Gods was something that he had to do – for the good of his daughter.

  “I do, my lord.” Jorg nodded, but still Suriyen could see that the man had a touch of stubborn bravery about him. At least, he wasn’t going to back down now. “You cannot deny the bad luck we’ve had. The many hundreds who have died through the desert. Now coming to find Fuldoon far better defended than what we had thought.”

  “Enough!” the warlord snapped, moving as fast as a striking snake. The short-bladed knife that he had been toying with left his hand in one snapping flick of his arm.

  With a sickening thud it lodged into Chief Jorg’s face, and the chief gurgled – just once – as he fell to the rugs with a heavy thud.

  5

  Jorg was dead, and the warlord’s heavy gaze turned instead to the other chief, Vharn. “And do you share Jorg’s views, Chief Vharn?”

  “No, of course not, my lord. Any wish from the great Dal Grehb is an honor.” Vharn immediately dropped to one knee on the floor.

  This barbarian isn’t as stupid as the other, then, Suriyen thought from her place. She looked away from the scene. I don’t want to see this. The city that I was supposed to protect. Her eyes found the worried looking slave girl, hovering at the back of the tent, her eyes wide. Suriyen tried to smile at her, even though she could feel that it was more of a grimace.

  Poor girl. At least you have comfort here, not what I had.

  The girl looked at the wall-captain once, and then dropped her eyes, but at least she didn’t look as scared as she had before. Don’t let them know that you are afraid, Suriyen willed at the girl – although she couldn’t say anything. The Menaali only get worse when they think that you’re afraid…

  “Stand up, Chief Vharn,” the Dal muttered, seeming annoyed at this show of fealty and obeisance. “I suppose that I can now welcome you to the command of the invasion, seeing as you have no rival,” he grumbled, reaching for his pitcher. “Wine!”

  “Thank you, Dal.” Vharn rose, a wide grin on his face as his eyes flickered over his dead competitor. “And have no fear for my warriors, my lord. We won’t be so nervy as Chief Jorg’s men here. We’ll rout out any resistance to Fuldoon, and have you walking the Council Halls by nightfall!”

  To everyone’s surprise, it was the witch who hissed. “Bold promises, Chief Vharn. You have seen what happens to those who disappoint the great Dal Grehb.”

  At her words, the Chief Vharn really did blanch, as he nodded once more, and started to back out of the warlord’s presence.

  “Wait.” Dal Grehb raised a mighty hand, and Vharn froze, suddenly looking like a startled rabbit. “You say that you are fighting street by street?”

  “Yes, sire.” Vharn nodded. “The resistance disappears into the tunnels and the buildings, and comes back out behind our men.”

  That’s more like it! Suriyen grinned. She wondered if it was Captain Ruyiman who had thought of that tactic. A desperate tactic of course, she knew. But she was also aware that a group of fighters who have had everything taken away from them – their pride, their homeland, their friends and families – can sometimes be the best fighters of all. Because they have nothing else left apart from vengeance.

  “Start using the slaves,” the Dal said matter-of-factly. “Any Fuldoonian we find, strip them of their weapons and trade, and use them as shields. The resisters will soon lose the will to attack their own people.”

  Bastards! Suriyen flinched, a galvanic reaction that shot through her body.

  The witch apparently noticed. “You don’t approve, soldier?” Desai was walking slowly across the rugs towards her, her hea
d cocked to one side as she narrowed her cat-like gaze.

  I know what you are, witch! Suriyen glared at her. The warlord’s lead counsel had pretty much admitted to it when they had captured Suriyen. And now, I also know that some of the Menaali forces know it too. There is division in the ranks… Her soldier’s mind squirreled that piece of information away for further attention.

  The wall-captain didn’t say anything. She knew that it would be useless to goad an enemy which was already swaggering with its own importance – a fact that the late Chief Jorg still hadn’t worked out.

  “Oh, so the mighty slave won’t deign to talk to me, will she?” Asai crouched down on her feet, drawing from some dark corner of her robes a long stiletto knife, and holding it up to catch the light.

  Just come closer, and I’ll shove that blade between your ears. Suriyen continued to glare, but did indeed, break her silence.

  “I am the warlord’s slave, witch, not yours.” She chose her words carefully. Let the slave girl and Chief Vharn know that everyone – even a slave – could see Asai Desi for what she was. But do so whilst not disrespecting the Dal.

  Asai raised the knife, as if to strike out one of Suriyen’s eyes.

  “Stop,” the Dal said suddenly. “The slave is right. She is mine to kill, not yours.”

  “But she disrespects me!” Asai screeched. She could get away with much, it seemed.

  “Why is a seer of your talents hurt by the words of a slave?” the warlord challenged, forcing the witch to fall silent. Instead, there was a heavy groan from the throne and the Dal himself stood up, and walked slowly, ponderously across the rugs to where Asai crouched and Suriyen sat. At either ends of the room, the slave girl and Chief Vharn both stood in their respective mortified silences, sure that they were going to watch another casual killing.