Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  “I went to—”

  I received a sharp smack to the jaw, enough to stun me into silence.

  “There’s only one thing left to do with you,” Beyland growled. With a single, fluid motion, he wrapped one hand around my throat and lifted me in the air. I kicked viciously, hoping to hurt him enough to make him drop me, but I may as well have been a helpless rabbit for all the concern he showed.

  His blade hummed obediently as its edge nipped at the nape of my neck.

  “I just caught this one rummaging through my grain stores again!”

  Everyone’s eyes collectively turned to see the baker, a testy needle of a man, leading a young girl by the ear. His beady eyes took in the scene—the torches of our townsfolk provided more than enough illumination by which to see the Brigade’s drawn iron—and he called out to Beyland. “I need to use the stake,” he complained. The baker’s sneer swept the crowd. “Who is responsible for this girl?”

  A lump formed in my throat as I recognized the girl’s features. Arwin. She was unsightly to lay eyes upon, but I couldn’t look away from her terrified face. The scar she bore was hidden behind a veil of hair, leaving only the smooth and proper side of her head to be seen in the light. Even so, there was no sympathy to be had from the mob. Arwin was feral, an unwanted outcast among the villagers.

  I guess that makes two of us, I thought, trying not to hiss in pain as Beyland’s sharp iron teased a fine line of red in my skin. A single drop of blood dribbled along the length of his sword.

  “As you can see, we’re busy,” Beyland told the man. “The wench is your business.”

  A nasty gleam entered the baker’s eye, and I wondered what perverse acts he would force upon Arwin before her throat was slit. “A fine point, Brigadier,” the baker said lecherously. He tugged at the girl’s ear. “Come on, then!”

  “You both seem to be forgetting who is in charge around here,” the magistrate said. He wasn’t a large man, and if it were to come to blows, Beyland would beat him handily. The imperial seal that marked his office was the only thing that gave him power in Pointe. “It is their right to choose the Walk, if they so desire.”

  A sudden chill found its home in the length of my spine.

  Sinister tales were told of the Walk, dark whispers that hinted at something unnatural dwelling in the tunnels north of Pointe. Our mining town had become a village of hunters overnight as the mines were abandoned and we effectively sealed ourselves away from the rest of the Empire. Nobody who entered the passageway ever came back, and so the Walk had become the last resort for dealing with criminals. By fire, by blade, or by the Walk. These were the three options that faced me now.

  No way in any of the hells am I taking the Walk.

  “No way in any of the hells is he taking the Walk,” Beyland echoed aloud, growling at the magistrate.

  “Thank you,” I managed to whisper.

  “This blade will bleed him dry for his crimes, and I shall be the one who wields it.”

  The chill in my spine returned, intensified by the cold iron that pressed tighter against my throat. Nobody shouted out in protest, not even the magistrate, as Beyland clearly prepared to spill my life upon the rocky ground below.

  “I will take the Walk!”

  Once again, Arwin attracted the attention of everyone.

  And that included Beyland.

  Blood pounded furiously through my veins, my heartbeat throbbing in my skull as I raised my hand in desperation. Fear of the blade overrode any fear of what could come of the Walk. With a swipe that felt all-too-feeble to me, I managed to knock Beyland’s iron away from my throat for a fraction of a second.

  That was long enough.

  I rolled forward as the sword sliced through the air where my head had just been. An explosion of pain blossomed from my shoulder as I moved, and blood seeped through my fingers as I clamped a hand over the spot. I felt the wooden haft of an arrow sticking out of the muscle. Beyland stalked toward me, his tamed iron positively humming in tune with his arrogant, deadly stride.

  I swore an oath and yelled, “I will take the Walk!”

  Eager to prevent any further bloodshed, the magistrate stepped forward and stood by my side. Not in the direct path of Beyland’s blade should he have chosen to strike, but enough that his presence was visible even through the veil of red that must have fallen over the brigadier’s eyes.

  “They have chosen the Walk,” the magistrate declared, as much to Beyland as to the mob.

  “Good riddance,” grumbled one man.

  “Serves them right.”

  The crowd didn’t disperse as expected, though, and the reason became clear a moment later. Beyland stood close by—too close to me for comfort—and his iron remained bare in his hands.

  “They have chosen the Walk,” the magistrate repeated insistently. “Their fate is no longer of our concern.”

  My heart soared for the man’s intervention, but at the same time, my mind raced as it thought through the magistrate’s claims. The Walk had never been an official judgment passed down by the Emperor, only the product of Pointe’s unfortunate run-in with the cave-dwelling monster, whatever it was. It was young, as far as judgments went, and Beyland could easily have decided that the magistrate had no authority to enforce the Walk. It was an informal law, after all, and he seemed to have a personal oath against me. As far as I could tell, he saw each breath I took as another mark against his honor.

  “He will die either way,” Beyland said, his voice deep and low. “Why delay the inevitable?”

  “The Brigade may follow your every beck and call, but these people—our neighbors and friends—are still loyal citizens of the Qati Empire. I know you desire Pointe and the Grimwood, Brigadier, so I ask you the same question. Why delay the inevitable?” The magistrate stood up a little straighter and cast a disdainful glance at Beyland’s sword. “If you go against their beliefs and use iron to enforce your will, they will one day rise against you.”

  Beyland was silent as he alternated his glare between myself and the magistrate. With obvious reluctance, he slid his iron back into its sheath.

  The reedy man cleared his throat and spoke again, loud enough to be heard by the townsfolk. “Mal and Arwin will take the Walk.”

  4

  We left for the tunnel immediately.

  Seeing as we were going into a pitch-black mine shaft, the magistrate figured there was no sense in waiting until dawn for the hike to be made. A light rain began to fall, muting the light of the lantern held by the magistrate as he argued over the plan with his councilmen.

  “Best to be done with it and rest easy tonight,” I overheard him explaining.

  “Surely there is no need for all of us to escort them,” wheedled one disgruntled councilman.

  “You are absolutely correct, Thelonius. Thank you for volunteering.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  The magistrate passed his lantern to the unfortunate man, and I saw wispy curls atop an aging, spotted brow as the golden light shone over his skin. I was jealous of the oiled cloak he wore over his shoulders, its protection largely keeping him shielded from the rain. My own clothes were tatty in comparison, and the rain was persistent in its downfall, so even the light drops that tickled my scalp were steadily soaking every thread of my shirt and leggings.

  Arwin looked my way, and my eyes met hers briefly before they looked away from her scar. “I know you,” she said.

  “You may have seen me a minute ago. Bloodied, beaten, being threatened by a big man with a sword?”

  “Not what I meant, Mal.” The way she said my name made it sound like a curse. Which, of course, was the general consensus of the townspeople. I had hoped that since she, too, was an outcast, maybe Arwin held a different opinion.

  “I recognize you, too,” I said, not mentioning that it was her hideous face that was renowned in Pointe.

  Arwin seemed to know the reason, though. She let the veil of hair once again conceal her face. “Doesn’t
that hurt?” she asked, pointing.

  I craned my neck to look at the arrow. It seemed a petty thing to worry about, something that wouldn’t matter in a few hours, in any case. But the steady trickle of blood that escaped the wound was making me feel sick to my stomach. “It’s fine,” I lied.

  “Let me take a look at it.”

  “No, don’t!” I tried to reach up to stop her, but my arm only raised a foot or so. The muscles in my shoulder screamed in protest, and my mouth involuntarily did the same.

  “You’re stubborn, and a fool,” Arwin said. She marched over and placed one hand against the butt of the arrow. “This is going to hurt.”

  I wanted to shout again, but my cry turned into a gasp as Arwin quickly forced the arrow the whole way through. It split open the front muscle of my shoulder as it came out the other side, and I desperately wished for a strip of leather to bite down upon.

  “Gods!”

  “Don’t be such a baby.”

  The magistrate took note of what we were doing, and he looked down at me with a pitiless gaze. “He cannot travel like that,” he told one of the councilmen.

  A few minutes were spared for one of the men to strap a clean enough bandage over the holes in my shoulder.

  “Let’s be quick about it,” grumbled the unlucky councilman, Thelonius. He purposefully bumped into my bad shoulder as he stumped his way toward the northern trail.

  Next to me, Arwin shivered in her torn clothing, her own attire resembling rags unfit for wiping dishes. “We won’t be in the rain long,” I told her, but she seemed no more reassured. In fact, it seemed as if she hadn’t heard me at all.

  We nearly made it to the edge of town when a miniature earthquake rumbled beneath our feet. I turned and saw a bulbous figure waddling hurriedly through the rain, and I recognized the wobble of his extra rolls just before Answorth stepped into the lantern’s light.

  “My sword,” he huffed, red in the face. “What…did you do…with my sword?”

  I took a step back, and it was clear that neither Arwin nor Thelonius was going to help me. “I’m sorry, Answorth,” I told him. “There was a spriggan in the Grimwood, and it attacked me and the Brigade—”

  “Absurd!” roared the beet-faced man. His chins quivered in anger. “Spirits take you, boy, if you don’t stop lying this instant!”

  “I’m not lying! It charged me, and there was nothing else—”

  Answorth snarled and waved me off like a pesky mosquito. “Sod it. I’m done with you.” He spit on the ground before my feet. “Take the Walk and never come back.”

  I stared at him in shock. It was no secret that he would’ve been mad at me taking his sword, but it was hardly as if I had lost the blade on purpose. He had always been a verbally abusive git, but he had also been the only person always there for me. And now he left me by the wayside, like a hollowed-out fruit no longer of use.

  My body started to tremble, and I was fairly certain it had nothing to do with the rain.

  “Come on, lad,” the old councilman beckoned, his voice softened by pity.

  A small hand grasped at my own. “It’ll all be over soon enough.”

  We all ignored the grim portent of Arwin’s words.

  * * *

  The rain stopped a while later, though that did nothing for our already-soaked clothes. Thelonius was unperturbed as ever under his cloak while I rubbed vigorously at my arms. I felt cold and numb all over, but I needed to keep the blood flowing somehow. The climb up to the entrance of the mine was just the first part of the Walk.

  “Massage your chest, not your arms,” Arwin said suddenly. I looked her way, and in the process of not looking at her garish face, my eyes quickly found her leading by example. Her hands were working circular motions against her chest.

  I turned away quickly. “Thanks, but my arms feel colder right now.” It was a lie, but I knew the empty feeling in my chest was a result of Answorth’s abandonment of me, not the weather.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “I was on the streets for a long time, I know how to keep warm in the rain.” Her hands continued their distracting motions, and if her face hadn’t been so hideous, I might have been intrigued by what was underneath the cloth. “Your heart is what is important. Keep your chest warm, keep your heart beating, and your arms will take care of themselves.”

  I ignored her, and my arms came to life a little more.

  “Stubborn idiot. Die of the grippe, see if I care.”

  “We’re very near to the entrance now, children,” Thelonius announced.

  The path so far had been illuminated only by the single lantern the councilman held, and its light reached out now to outline the gaping maw of the abandoned mine. Many years ago, the shaft had served as both a mine for the people of Pointe to collect precious minerals as well as a means of travel to our closest neighbor, Waite Hill.

  Now, ominous echoes issued from its depths like the hungry rumblings of a sleeping giant.

  “I expect you’ll leave us now,” I half said, half asked to Thelonius.

  He grunted. “Somebody needs to make sure you lot go in.”

  “Well, there goes my plan,” Arwin sighed. Her shoulder bumped mine hard as she stepped toward the entrance.

  I didn’t want to seem like a coward in front of a girl, but some questions were worth voicing. “Can we have the lantern?” I asked hopefully.

  “Won’t do you much good,” he replied. “Carry fire in there, it’ll be sure to see you before you see it.”

  “Uh…‘it’?”

  “This tunnel ain’t gonna walk itself,” Thelonius said, an edge to his voice now. “The lantern’s mine. The Walk is yours.”

  There was nothing else for it. I dredged up what courage I still had left in my soaked, shivering body—really scraped at the pit in my stomach where fear was quickly gobbling up the last strips of courage from my beating heart above—and let my feet carry me forward numbly even when the twitchy muscles in my legs were telling me to run, to make a go of escaping and, if not secure my freedom, at least force Beyland and his Brigade to end my life quickly.

  Before I knew it, though, the mine shaft welcomed me beyond its mouth, swallowing me up in its shadowy embrace.

  5

  I reached out and placed a guiding hand against the roughly hewn wall of rock to my right; it felt bumpy and uneven, so sharp in some places that I feared blood would trickle down and join the damp moistness that clung to the walls and slicked the inside of my palm as I blindly groped my way forward.

  Damn Thelonius, I grumbled silently. Damn him and his stupid lantern.

  An eerie wind suddenly blew in my face, coming from deeper inside the mine, like the exhale of some sleeping giant under the mountain. I shivered again, and this time it wasn’t from the cold.

  “Arwin?” I called out softly. My voice came out as more of a squeak, its small noise smothered and absorbed by the confining walls. “Arwin,” I said again, more insistently, her name a hiss on my lips.

  “What?”

  Her response came from less than two feet to my left, and I smacked my head against the rock behind me as my body jerked away from her sudden closeness. My hand flew to where the impact had occurred, and it came away feeling thickly moist, tacky. A warm trickle of blood made its way down the back of my neck, and I bit back the stream of curses poised on the tip of my tongue.

  “I can’t see anything in here,” I told her.

  “It’s supposed to be a straight walk down.” Arwin didn’t sound so sure of herself, though, and I felt her hand fluttering around in the darkness. “If you need someone to hold your hand, though, I won’t tell anyone what a coward you are.”

  Her words made me smirk in spite of myself. As if there were a chance of either of us ever going back. Even if she did spill her guts about how scared I was after we reached the end—if we reached the end—there was nobody on the other side who would care. We were just two outcasts from that mountain village that had gone silent years ag
o.

  I reached out and grabbed her hand. “No one will know,” I said, because it occurred to me then that it wasn’t my cowardice she was afraid of spreading.

  It was too dark to see, but some part of me sensed a nod from her, and then she pulled me forward.

  Less than a minute later, when I looked back in the direction from which we’d come, there was no sign of rain-soaked Thelonius or his stupid lantern. The mine was so dark, and so steep in its incline, that all I saw in every direction was black. Arwin and I shuffled forward with small, hesitant steps, trying our best to keep quiet and not disturb the creature that haunted and hunted these shafts.

  And they were indeed shafts, plural. The mine wasn’t a single hole burrowed from Pointe all the way down to Mitbas, the town nestled at the bottom of the mountain on the other end of the main shaft; instead, dozens or even hundreds of minor shafts segued from the main tunnel. I could feel the faintest draft waft against my face each time we passed one, and each time I feared the monster of the mine would jump out at us, eager to snack down on the unfortunate pair of troublemakers exiled to die in the dark.

  But this never came to pass.

  Maybe a half hour later—it was impossible to keep track of time in that place—Arwin gripped my arm with a painfully tight grasp and gasped. “I see it, up ahead!” I could only guess that she was pointing toward whatever she saw.

  I pulled her arm from mine and hissed, “Keep your voice down!” My wounded shoulder protested the sudden movement of batting away her clingy hand, and it sent a pulse of pain that nearly knocked me to the ground. “It might hear you!”

  “There’s nothing in here with us,” Arwin argued. “Stop being such a wimp. Besides, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”