The Unseen
#1, Shadow Brokers
A Kingdoms of Ash Novel
By Gregory Blackman
Published by Gregory Blackman at Smashwords
Copyright 2015 Gregory Blackman
All right reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Written in Canada.
Front Matter
Shadow Brokers
Gregory Blackman
Gregory Blackman’s Collection
*Released or Coming Soon*
The Reaper Saga:
Duster and a Gun
Reaper’s Dogma
The Kingdoms of Ash Saga:
The Unseen
Blood Ties
Tip the Scales
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Description
Shadow Brokers
Gregory Blackman
The time of man is at an end, only no one has bothered to tell the men and women who live upon the land. Too busy fighting their proxy wars, the kingdoms of Amor are soon to find that nothing could’ve prepared them for what is about to come next. The shadow brokers, the ones hidden in plain sight, have cultivated a land of ignorance and deceit where those that rule can’t trust their followers and their followers can’t trust anyone at all. The world’s only hope rests in the hands of a small party of grifters, those less inclined to fight for their beliefs than they would be to fight for gold. Will the world accept their errant saviors? Or will the hand of man seek to strike down those who might rise up against them?
Warning: This eBook contains graphic imagery and coarse language.
World Map
Shadow Brokers
Gregory Blackman
Table of Contents
Shadow Brokers
Gregory Blackman
01 A New Age
02 Cold Shoulders
03 The Giant’s Horn
04 The Shift of the Eyes
05 No People of Mine
06 Into the Wild Lands
07 Wisps, Kaerns, and Even a Wyrm
08 Unwelcome Guest
09 Wolves of the Midst
10 Grifters and Sultans
11 The Ashen Court
12 The Slumbering Giant
GT Glossary of Terms
Chapter One
Shadow Brokers
Gregory Blackman
A New Age
A traveler doesn’t wander this far off the beaten path. He knows better, and if he doesn’t, he won’t be a traveler for long. These travelers, this group of four, had walked this particular path, in the dead of night, well aware of the dangers that lurked behind every bend. The wind howled, masked all but the loudest cracks of thunder that signaled the coming storm in the distance. One might readily believe these four individuals found themselves scaling these stone walls by way of unfortunate circumstances. Yet, here they chose to be, tonight, and they would soon choose to line their pockets with as many valuables as possible. There was a fortune to be made here and they had ambitions to steal the bloody lot of it; ambitions that would never be closer than they would on this night.
“Do you want to get yer wet haunches off my side?”
“They’re not on yer side!”
“Well, it feels like wet dog fur,” the rotund figure noted as he brushed his companion aside and continued to shimmy up the ancient stone wall. “Has the same odor, too.”
The two of them would’ve come to blows then and there had it not been for the precarious position they found themselves in; high atop the only tower for miles around with nothing but the whistling wind to keep them company. These two were stockier than the average thief, a pair, but they weren’t alone in the night. They were followed by two others, only a few yards below, quick to grab at the stones left behind for them.
These grifters weren’t a perfect bunch. They weren’t particularly well intended; but in the end, they would find themselves more fortunate, and more infamous than any of them ever dared to dream. Yet, such glory was still but a pipedream for this group of four; something the raven haired leader of the group was quick to remind them of.
“Knock it off, the two of you,” said their leader, her fiery attitude not lost in the blackness of night or howling winds by the two above her. “Your bickering will get us caught by even the smallest minded of guards. We don’t need this. Not now.”
“I’ll be a dwarf without a cave before I acquiesce to this beast.”
“Yeah,” said his wet, furred companion, “me, too.”
“Oh, shut up!” Korine paused to take stock of her surroundings, but soon returned to the offensive once she was sure that no guards looked down from a window above. “Keep it up and I’ll see the two of you down this tower the quick way!”
The dwarf and his wooly cohort didn’t say much after that. None of them did, for it was a perilous journey, straight upwards, to heights mirrored by the Mammoth Mountains in the distance. It wasn’t fate that put them here. It was chance—that, and the drunken ramblings of a spurned sellsword.
After more drinks than the dwarf Axel Thorogard or the furry Finley Mudbottom could count, and more coppers than Korine Dorset wanted to part with, the group gained the location of this mysterious tower in the northern reaches of the Cordisan Flats. A direct assault would prove deadly, as told by the drunken mercenary, and to leave this most remote of towers alive, one would need to take a defter approach to pilfering.
The three of them watched as their silent partner climbed the tower apart from them. Whether Dashe Kol was motivated by the fortune to be found above or the problems that awaited him below, there wasn’t a thing that could be done to deter his newfound enthusiasm. Not unless their hot-headed leader wanted to alert every guard inside.
There wasn’t another word said between them while they climbed, and they climbed. Each knew well the cost of failure, and if they didn’t, a glance towards the rapidly expanding landscape would remind them of what happens to a careless thief.
Dashe was the first to reach the tower’s highest window, which he shimmied through without the slightest look or signal to those below. That left a confused Korine Dorset to search the shadow for her fellow companion. When no sign of Dashe could be found, Korine changed the party’s course towards the balcony one floor below.
Dashe emerged from the darkened room onto the balcony and gave his friends all but a moment before he secured the rope he brought and retreated to explore the room. He fumbled around for awhile with his hands extended outward. After some time, he found an unlit torch affixed to the wall to aid him in the search.
“Curse the divines,” grumbled Dashe as he checked every pocket on him, and then checked them again. “Where did I put that flint?”
He found it after he managed to convince himself the flint must have found its way there since his last search. Dashe proceeded to light the torch with a dumbfounded expression sketched across his youthful face. With his soft complexion and oaken mane he hadn’t the face one would expect a grifter to possess. He was wide-eyed, slow to trust and quick to learn, but those lessons would rarely prove to see him a better, more respectable man.
The room took a different tone once the light seeped into the corners. No more was it the ominous tower that
stands alone on a barren landscape. It could have been anywhere, anytime, at each and every one of his many heists. Towers such as this called to him and his compatriots, though rarely did they prove as fruitful as they desired. What made this tower any different? In truth, it held no difference at all to the young, inexperienced rogue; but when one’s desperate enough, and hungry enough, one will go to just about any length to make a better life for oneself.
He didn’t even know the proper name of this tower, nor the last he’d seen to plunder; but this particular tower was said to have been constructed by the dwarves of Highgard and that still meant something in these lands.
Those once proud and masterful dwarves are long gone from the world, their descendents a subjugated people, the bulk of the empire’s slave workforce. Yet, despite the kingdoms of man and their best efforts, their artisan legacy lives on and threatens to outlast their oppressors. Now this tower was known simply as the Watchtower to bards and bandits alike. It was a tower not claimed by knightly forces and said to be haunted grounds they would leave another to hold. That made it the ideal home for cutthroats, robber barons, and necromancers in its many cycles watching over Amoria Major. None of whom held the Watchtower for long. The haunted spirits inside would see to that one way or another. Another army with another warlord would seek out this tower and all the plunder that awaited them and, just like that, it would have a new landlord, a new name, and a new deadline soon to expire.
This time it was different, swore the drunken sellsword until he was blue in the face. Worked there over two cycles, he bragged as if it was some great honor, saw all too many mischievous spirits inside, but not once did he see anyone enter or leave the tower.
All those grand tales but Dashe could’ve sworn he had been here before, in some other grand apartment. Maybe he would find a few coppers, a royal silver if he was lucky, but no treasure was likely to be found easily. He brought the torch over to the bookcase and tugged on each book in the hope that one would lead to some secret passageway and make this lifestyle worthwhile, but there wasn’t one to be uncovered and he turned in disappointment.
Across from the wayward adventurer stood a hand carved, mahogany desk with the stubby legs fit for a dwarf. The table wasn’t a thing placed upon it, but as the torch came closer, Dashe realized that wasn’t quite true. There, a small, black stone lay in the center of the table, no different than one of the many pebbles that lined the stony shores of the magi lakes near his hometown of Haven.
This stone wasn’t the heist he imagined, but they rarely were in his line of work, and he was moved to snatch up the onyx rock that lay there for just anyone to take. That decision proved to be a hasty one and Dashe recoiled in agony, his finger bleeding profusely over an ebony gem and with a flash of light the blood drained into it and was fire bright, but short lived as the jewel quickly settled a deep crimson.
A rustle in the background and Dashe dropped the blood red diamond into his pocket ending the pain it wrought. Just then, a brush on his shoulder put Dashe on his heels and he spun are with his hands to waist in search of a blade. None was found in time but he wasn’t in need of being saved, for his assailant was his trusted friend and leader, Korine Dorset.
It might not have been an ironclad guard who greeted Dashe in the middle of the night, but she packed every bit the punch of the one and clubbed Dashe over the head before she took his torch. Then, as if nothing happened, Korine Dorset turned from her companion and waved the flame from side to side in attempt to survey the darkened room.
“There’s a whole lot of nothing here,” she said. “Luckily that can’t be said of the downstairs room the rest of us entered.”
“Really?” an elated Dashe asked.
“Well,” she said, turning back to face her childhood friend, “it’s shiny and it’s the color of gold. That means it’ll sell for top dollar anywhere outside the empire’s reach.”
She could be a handful most times, a downright brat the others, but she was their leader through the good cycles and the bad as well. Korine’s smile was tender, her green eyes deep enough to pierce one’s soul, and when she pressed upon a man for answers he would inevitably melt. Her black hair was cut shorter, shoulder length, so that she might pass as a man when it proved necessary; and in the male centric lands of Amoria Major it often proved necessary.
Korine and Dashe were soon joined by the stout silhouettes of their two missing companions who approached as fast as their little legs to carry them.
“We’ve got company,” a hurried Axel said with a pull on his wiry brown beard.
“Are you certain?” Korine asked.
The dwarf and his similarly sized partner in crime looked back to each other before they seemed confident enough to respond.
“We’re pretty sure,” Finley said with a twirl of his quarterstaff.
A deep, resentful growl erupted from Korine and she brought a hand up to rub her furled brow. She pointed back to the door they had entered, and said, “Get back down there, and don’t come back unless guards are at the door!”
Axel snorted once in disapproval, balled up his fists in anger, and stormed back from the shadowy stairs from where he emerged. His furred companion, Finley Mudbottom, was quick to join his side, with the clank of their many stolen goods to carry them out of the room.
They descended into the lower floor where they had heard a rustling, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a common rat. That didn’t sit well with the tightly wrapped Axel Thorogard, wet, hungry, and ready to get as far away from here as possible.
“Miserable harpy,” Axel grumbled into his collar, “always bossing us around.”
Finley, forever the mediator among the group, was quick to remind that, “She knows best. She kept us alive all these cycles, too. You, out of some labor camp, and me, out of some royal’s private collection.”
“Her best be damned,” griped Axel with a subtle bite of his lip in recognition of the little companion’s words. “She keeps waiting for that oaf to make his move. Holdr, bless me, that libido of hers is gonna get us all killed!”
The sound of footsteps from the floor below put an end to their argument. Axel took off for the nearest door with Finley hot on his trail. There were only a few rooms to separate one stairwell from the other, but they hadn’t the manpower to hold them. Not if the sellsword’s tale ring true.
“Bar the door!” the dwarf shouted.
Finley looked at him with confusion, unsure how to see the task to completion. “How do you suppose I do that?”
“Oh, for Highgard’s sake,” Axel said as he grabbed at Finley’s quarterstaff. “I’ll take care of this mess you’ve gotten us into.”
“Me?” asked Finley, his hands still extended as though his staff was still with him. “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything. Hey! I’m talking to you!”
Axel thrust the quarterstaff through the iron handles until he could no longer shimmy the warped staff in. It wasn’t much, but it would buy them enough time to get back to the balcony and be gone from this foul place. When the dwarf turned back to his companion, he found a fouler mood to greet him, sour at the loss of a prized possession.
“You owe me a shiny,” Finley demanded.
“You can take it from my cut if we make it out of here alive,” Axel growled as he forced his friend up the stairwell. “But I get to determine the amount, you greedy, little beastkind.”
The two of them burst into the dimly lit study where they found an angry Korine Dorset and a confused Dashe Kol. Their haughty leader was about to scold them for their intrusion, but the look of terror stricken upon the face of smallest of her companions told her all she needed to know.
There weren’t many sights that could shake Finley Mudbottom’s inquisitive spirit, but unfortunately for the group of four, armed men was among those sights. Unlike his stalwart dwarven ally, Finley wasn’t born into slavery. He was born into the wild. It was a cruel, animalist lifestyle that would’ve broken a lesser
man, but Finley wasn’t a man.
“It’s time, lass,” said the dwarf, flatly.
“You think?” Korine asked. She grabbed at his knapsack and stuffed a few of his valuables into her pockets to level out the load. “Since the two of you botched the job, we can’t exactly return to the balcony. Get your weight down a little more and we’ll use this window and climb down to Dashe’s rope.”
Axel cursed at the request, but got to the task and emptied himself of all but the most precious of metals. It was his furred companion that had the real difficulty with the orders and stared back at his leader, flabbergasted and without words to describe such a demand.
“Now,” Korine repeated.
Finley reluctantly agreed to her terms and dumped most of his belongings onto the floor. With the last of his trinkets in hand, he looked to Korine with soft eyes and slight whimper in his belly, but still she wouldn’t budge.
“You owe me a shiny,” Finley demanded.
Axel took note of the remark and cut in with a, “Greedy, little beastkind,” and, “I’ll give you something shiny to wear.”
“Fine,” Korine seceded to keep their withdrawal at a steady pace. “I’ll buy you whatever you want when we get to Slaven.”
“Wait,” said Dashe, stumbling nonchalantly into the conversation. “Does anyone else hear that?”
The group looked uneasily at one another while the torch in Korine’s hand flickered in and out of existence. That’s when, one by one, each of them heard what Dashe wanted them to hear, and they didn’t care for the sound one bit. It didn’t take long for the guards to break Axel’s offering and soon the group found themselves in a fleeted escape from the tower they so carelessly scaled.
The Unseen Page 1