Blood Metal Bone: An epic new fantasy novel, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo

by Lindsay Cummings

  The wyvern growled.

  “Kill him if you wish,” the Devil said. She shrugged and removed her hat as if to shake off the dust. “He means nothing to me, despite whatever intel you must have received that speaks otherwise.” She paused and smiled with two rows of teeth. “But… I should warn you. The moment you harm him, Razor will turn you into a delicious steak. And she likes her meat well done.”

  “Charred, actually,” her male companion said. “To the point of smoking.”

  As if in response, emerald smoke plumed from the dragon’s nostrils. Its mighty tail twitched, and... Cade thought he saw something move.

  Not something… but rather someone.

  Chapter 28

  Sonara

  It was a stupid plan, really.

  Perhaps even verging on outright outlandish, that they’d ever thought it could work. And yet, as she stood there on the loading dock, the wind tugging at her hair, the ground so far beneath her…

  Sonara lifted her chin high and thought for one moment that the plan might actually work.

  “I will not free the prisoners,” the Wanderer leader, Cade, said. There were ten guards in total, spread evenly across the dock; five on each side, with loaded rifles. Sonara watched them in her peripherals as she sighed and tapped her toe against the hard metal.

  “A foolish decision,” she said. “And not in accordance with my demands.”

  Casually, she reached up and adjusted her hat.

  The signal, decided upon hours ago, for the rest of her comrades to move.

  If she concentrated on it, she could just barely feel Markam’s curse behind her, like a cool tide ebbing at her back; something she only knew because of how often he’d hidden their troupe in the past, on jobs that had gone awry.

  Today, he’d fashioned a visual shield of sorts, to hide the truth from Cade and his soldiers. For it was not just Sonara, Markam, and the prisoner Karr that had arrived on Razor’s back.

  The others, if they obeyed her signal, were stalking just behind Sonara, hidden by the veil of Markam’s curse. Sonara dared not even try to make out their forms for fear of drawing too much attention to the fact that something was not quite as it seemed.

  She thanked the wind for how loudly it howled past, mixed with Razor’s heavy breathing to help muffle any sounds. Sonara kept the conversation going, giving the others time to make their way past the soldiers unheard.

  “Well?” she tapped her toe impatiently on the dock, showing not an ounce of fear.

  Cade held out his hands. “I have a job that must be completed. When, and only when it is done, your people will go back to their lives, their kingdoms. They’ll continue on as if this was only a blip in the history of Dohrsar.”

  “Except the dead,” Sonara growled. “They will walk this planet no more.”

  “You murdered my brother,” Cade said, the words tumbling out like they were laced with a bit of poison. His comrade, a man called Rohtt, glanced his way, eyes hardening. “You drew first blood, before I moved against your people.”

  “And yet he still lives,” Sonara said.

  For just a moment, her insides squeezed as she caught the barest glimpse of Azariah’s outline slinking between two guards; so thin, it could have been a mere trick of the light.

  Come on, Markam, she thought, fighting back panic even as she kept her expression cool as the night wind. Hold the veil.

  She was so close to the inside of the ship.

  So damned close, to getting everything she wanted in one fell swoop: the truth about Soahm’s disappearance, and freedom for Jaxon and the rest of their people.

  But one wrong move from the others, one footstep placed too loudly on the metal, and their cover would be blown.

  A guard to Sonara’s right shifted, his eyes tracing the space where Azariah had just been.

  He blinked, narrowing his gaze as if he’d caught the ghostly image of her, too.

  But Sonara cracked her knuckles, shifting her position to draw the guard’s gaze to her. When she looked back, the flickering image of Azariah was gone.

  “I’m growing impatient,” Sonara said loudy. “You have sixty seconds, or we’ll soar away from here and you will never see your brother again. Free my people. All of them.”

  “Free Karr,” Cade countered. “I will offer you this single prisoner in return. Nothing more.”

  She laughed. Every part of that laugh felt wrong, as if she were betraying Jaxon as he knelt before Cade, so close to the deathly barrel of his soldier’s guns. As if she cared nothing at all for the blood brother from Wildeweb who held half of her heart.

  “Very well, Wanderer,” Sonara said. “I’ll agree to your trade today. But know that this war is not over. It’s unwise to go against an outlaw’s demands; far worse, to go against a Devil’s. I will return again.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Markam, who leaned against Razor as if he were merely relaxing. But she knew he needed the support of the mighty wyvern, his strength slowly waning as his curse flowed from him like an endless river.

  “Karr?” Cade called across the space, to where the hooded Karr sat on Razor’s back, hands bound. “Are you well?”

  Karr did not answer.

  “Gagged,” Sonara said. “A precaution. But I assure you, he’s unharmed. Answer me this, while Markam unbinds him.” By now, the others had to have reached the loading-dock door. She had mere moments left before Markam’s strength would fade, and the illusion would break. “Ten years ago, your ship came to Dohrsar. It stole a Soreian prince and soared into the stars, never to return. Until now.”

  “I have captained this ship for eight years,” he said. “If it’s answers about the missing prince that you seek, I’m afraid you won’t find them with me. And the ones who captained it before me are long gone.”

  But she sensed something.

  A scent that slipped from him as the lie tumbled off his lips.

  It was sickly sweet; a drop of poison placed into a drink.

  He knew more than he let on.

  Markam’s hand touched Sonara’s back as he moved past, hauling the hooded Karr with him.

  He had little time left to hold the veil.

  So Sonara looked at Cade. “We trade at the same time. Jaxon? Can you stand?”

  “Well enough,” Jaxon answered from the ground. Cade nodded to Rohtt, who roughly hauled the man to his feet. Cade pulled Jaxon forward, as Markam led the hooded Karr towards them.

  They all met in the center.

  “That’s close enough,” Sonara said. She fought the tremble in her hands as she reached out and pulled the hood from Karr’s head, desperately hoping Markam’s strength still held.

  She relaxed, as Karr’s face was revealed.

  He’d been fashioned to look a little beaten, a little bruised, his hair falling over his eyes to help muddle the imperfect color. He kept his gaze down, his shoulders slumped…

  “Free Jaxon,” Sonara said. “Now.”

  Cade shoved him forward.

  Sonara had only a moment to grab him by the shoulders. To squeeze him tightly, hoping he could see it in her eyes, feel it in her touch. I came for you. I did not leave you behind. There was that summertime smile, a sign that he was unbroken, despite the green bruises wrapping around his throat, the scabs that showed he’d been a prisoner beneath the power of their metallic mite.

  “Go,” she whispered as she released him, giving him a helpful push towards Razor.

  He climbed on her back, not questioning her even when Markam whistled, and Razor obeyed his command. In one massive beat of her wings, her body lifted from the dock, soaring away with Jaxon as if they were one with the wind.

  Safe.

  He was safe, and he was free.

  “Come here, Karr,” Cade said. He took his brother in his hands, then pulled him off to the side.

  Sonara saw the moment he noticed the change. The way Karr’s shoulders probably felt far thinner than they usually were. The way he smelled differe
nt, moved different…

  “Now,” Sonara said, “It is time you learned, Wanderer, what happens when you cross the Devil of the Deadlands.”

  She looked pointedly at Karr, and grinned.

  “The punishment is grim,” Karr said. But his voice was not his voice. It was too high, too airy and feminine. Karr’s very body rippled like a coin dropped in water. And then he was changing. Morphing before their very eyes, until suddenly Cade was holding the shoulders of a young woman, dressed in Karr’s suit.

  But upon her face… a mask made out of a wolf’s skull.

  “Hello, Wanderer,” Thali said.

  Cade stumbled back in horror as the illusion fell, revealing that his brother was not his brother… that Markam’s curse had painted Thali into Karr.

  “Take the Devil alive,” Cade gasped, his whole body trembling with rage and disgust and fear, heavy upon him as Sonara’s own curse thrashed. “Kill the others.”

  His guards aimed.

  But Markam had saved just enough of himself for one last push.

  And just like that, Sonara felt his curse wrap over her body as his hand closed tight over hers. And together, they disappeared.

  Cade’s soldiers fired, but Sonara and Markam had already moved, lunging to the right and sprinting towards the loading-dock door.

  She could see the others now. The real Karr, and Azariah, their previously illusioned bodies now in full view at the loading-dock door as Karr placed his hand upon the scanner and furiously typed in a code. The door whooshed open.

  Three steps away, and they’d be inside.

  Cade’s soldiers shouted, turning at the source of the noise.

  “Karr!” Cade shouted.

  The real Karr stepped aside from the doorway to let Sonara, Markam, and Azariah dive in.

  A bullet lodged into the metal just beside him.

  “No!” Cade shouted, but the door was already sliding shut.

  The look on his face was one Sonara would remember forever.

  Pained and broken, twisted in agony as he stood there, helplessly fooled by his own brother while a group of outlaws snuck aboard his ship and locked it from the inside.

  Chapter 29

  Sonara

  It was eerily silent as the door slid shut behind them.

  As if they’d stepped through another veil, or a portal into another world.

  The only sound inside the Starfall was Markam groaning, as he dropped Sonara’s hand and slumped to the floor, eyes closed and head leaning against the cool metal. Shadows poured from his nose, a look of pure agony on his face.

  “He did it,” Karr said. “I can’t believe he did it.”

  “Believe it,” Sonara said, even though she was just as shocked herself. “Markam is strong… insufferably so.”

  “It was too much to ask of him,” Azariah said, as she knelt beside the Trickster. For the first time, she reached out and touched him, placing her gloved hands upon his cheeks so she could turn his gaze towards her.

  Gone was the animosity between them, that palpable hatred Sonara’s curse had always cast. There was still tentative mistrust, but… it seemed she cared enough that she didn’t want to see his curse suck him dry.

  “Magic that powerful, used for that amount of time, has a great cost,” Azariah said. “Markam, can you walk?”

  The Trickster groaned but nodded. “I just have to…” he grimaced as he fought off the unbearable headache Sonara knew he was likely experiencing. “I just have to catch my breath.”

  Sonara knew she should have been worried.

  She’d brought nothing with her. No water, no food to give him energy to recover after he’d illusioned Thali into Karr. The cleric had decided upon it early that morning, so willing to give her life over to protect the planet’s heart.

  There was no telling what would happen to her now, stuck outside with Cade and the others.

  But she’d insisted. So much so that she’d spent the entire morning praying to the planet before they’d left on their mission.

  Sonara turned now to get a good look at the space. So long, she’d dreamt of finding this ship, of going inside and finding Soahm here waiting for her. Alive and well, after all these years.

  This was another world entirely.

  Silver, rounded walls and ceilings, as if the whole ship were made of hardened moonlight. Red lights glowed softly along the floor every few feet, giving her the strange feeling that they were in the belly of something living. The air felt stale, cold and crisp beyond the sleeves of her long duster.

  Sonara sniffed the air, searching for a trace of Soahm.

  But there was only cold.

  Only the muted metallic tang of the ship’s walls, like a handful of fresh coins pulled out of a pocket.

  And there was a strange, muted sound of humming beneath her feet. She took a step along the metal, feeling like the floor could fall out from under her.

  If magic was what Thali and Azariah wanted to call a Shadowblood’s curse…

  Then this was dark magic.

  Every part of Sonara screamed to turn back around, to rush into the open, endless air of Dohrsar. But the job was not finished.

  “I can’t believe I just betrayed my own brother,” Karr said softly.

  “It’s not betrayal when you’ve finally chosen the right side,” Sonara said. “Now what?”

  She itched to move. To go deeper into the belly of the metallic beast and discover any traces of Soahm.

  Karr worked at the wires in the small panel in the wall. “We find our way to the source. We shut down whatever’s powering Cade’s force field, and I’m guessing that’ll take out all the mites with it.”

  “Guessing,” Azariah said.

  Karr shrugged. “Educated guess.”

  The ship felt like a living cage.

  Sonara shivered as they jogged down the halls, sickened by the constant gentle thrum beneath her feet. Karr took the lead, turning this way and that, and Sonara kept her curse upon him, unafraid.

  She would be ready, should he decide to turn on them.

  Azariah and Markam took up the rear, Markam able to walk, but clearly in pain as he followed numbly along, silent for once. Should the door to the loading dock be opened too quickly—the only way inside the ship from the small transport pod that went to and from the ground—they’d be the first line, the strongest defensive powers shared among them.

  “The crew level is down one,” Karr whispered.

  He paused before an opening, a split in the hallway, as something red rolled past.

  A tiny creature, seemingly made of painted steel; a Wanderer beastie, on three black wheels, that beeped and dragged a trash bin behind it.

  “Sweeper droid,” Karr whispered, as Azariah lifted her palms before her as if she wanted to attack. “Not a threat.”

  The droid beeped once more as it turned the corner, out of sight.

  Duran would not be pleased, if he ever ran into one of them. It put a fleeting smile on Sonara’s lips as they moved on. They passed by closed door after closed door, the lights flickering every so often. Still, that incessant humming beneath Sonara’s feet.

  Her curse lifted its head from inside its cage, sensing the hum… hungering for it. She could taste it, like electricity that mirrored the light-wall. But this was different, condensed and somehow stronger at the same time.

  “It’s below us,” she whispered. “The source of the power.”

  Azariah nodded, as if she, too, could sense it. “Electricity, like I have never felt before.”

  They’d nearly reached the opposite end of the ship. It was too calm. Too easy.

  They made their way through another arched door. Inside, a wide room with metal tables and chairs scattered about.

  “Mess hall,” Karr explained.

  They jogged silently past portholes on all sides, windows that offered small glimpses of the outside world. From here, the Deadlands felt distant. Like she was back in Soreia, staring out at a view that wo
uld never be the same again, without Soahm.

  Through the mess hall, they journeyed, until they reached what Karr called an elevator. A small metal boxlike room held aloft by magnetics, it would lower them towards the ship’s engine room.

  “It hasn’t been fixed in ages,” Karr said. “But it’s quick enough. Four levels to go down, and we’ll be at the storage bay. Easy as breathing.”

  He waved his hand before the panel on its side, and the doors opened with a cool hiss.

  The metal room stared back at the group. A cage, more like. Sonara went first, pressing her back against the cool metal wall, her left hand on Lazaris’ pommel. Markam stopped at her side, Karr and Azariah shuffling in next.

  Karr pressed a button on a panel just inside the elevator. The doors slid shut.

  Then the room shook, lowering them.

  Sonara drew Lazaris in an instant.

  “It’s fine,” Karr said. His lips tugged into a smile. “Trust me.”

  “Easier said than done,” Sonara said back.

  “Four levels down, the doors will open, and the storage bay door is just right down the hall,” Karr said.

  The elevator suddenly paused, only one level down.

  “That’s… not right,” Karr said.

  He pressed a button on the panel, his features twisting to a frown.

  Anticipation, sweaty palms tightening over the handle of a metallic weapon.

  The aura slammed against Sonara’s curse, warning her only a second before the doors slid open and a cluster of armed guards stood waiting, just beyond.

  Chapter 30

  Sonara

  Enemies, filling the hall.

  Sonara counted ten in the breath of a moment before the first one lunged forward as if to grab her.

  Sonara’s blade was in her hand in an instant, the space so small she could only angle it forward, a single swipe of Lazaris that managed to cut a wicked slice through the man’s abdomen.

  He stumbled sideways as another came forward.

  “Shut the door!” Sonara shouted.