The Spider's War

She ended by putting on jewelry. Bracelets and a ribbon choker. Not too much. She wanted elegance. Formality. She wanted to make a mask of herself that would carry her through doing what had to be done. Not for her sake, but for the family’s. For the honor and status that had been restored to them. For fear of being a stupid old woman made foolish by an inappropriate lover. She turned away before tears could ruin the paint.

If it was to be done, better it should be done quickly. No wound was ever made less painful by going slowly.

She met him in the little drawing room, where she sat on the divan while he stood. His hair looked like raw honey in the light. His expression held the mixture of amusement and affection that had come to fill her world like the scent of flowers in springtime. She ached already with what she had to do.

“You called for me, Lady?” he said. Formal where they might be overheard. She felt herself drinking in the syllables. She would not be hearing his voice again after tonight.

“I did,” she said, heavy as lead weights. “Close the door.”

“If you like.”

She rose. She hadn’t meant to. In her mind, she’d conducted the whole bloody affair from her seat with the cold dignity of a queen, but here she was. Up and pacing the back of the room. Worrying her hands until the knuckles ached.

“What’s the matter, love?” he asked softly, and she coughed out something like a laugh. Love was the matter.

“Vincen Coe,” she said. “I have—”

Oh, God damn it. A sob choked her. She swallowed it back.

“I have to release you from service. You can go. Tonight. And if any of the things you’ve ever said to me were true, I will not hear from you again.”

He was silent and still. She chanced a look at him, unsure what to expect. Rage, surprise, heartbreak to echo her own. The smile was gone from the corners of his mouth, but nothing else had changed. She knew better than to go on, but she did it anyway.

“My son is going to be given his father’s title, you see? We’ve… we’ve returned to the good grace of the court, and I can’t… We will be found out, you and I. If we haven’t been already.”

“I see. And would that be so bad?” he said. “You’ve done other scandalous things, if I recall.”

“It’s not about me,” she said. “I have a granddaughter who carries my name. You don’t know how cruel the court can be, especially to a girl. If I’m known for taking a lover—”

“Below your dignity?” The words were spoken gently, and still they cut.

“A lover who is half my age, I’ll look a fool. And no, I don’t care for my own sake. If it was only me, I’d take you and retire to the holding and let them all say whatever they pleased to say, king and court and my sons besides. But it’s not only me. I have Annalise to think of.”

Vincen nodded slowly, a deep furrow marking his brow. “I’ll go if it’s your choice. I’ll make no trouble, but… why do you want your granddaughter to live her life with less courage than yours?”

Clara opened her mouth.

Closed it again.

Something in her heart shifted, slipped away. You’ll become a joke in the court. Well, and she had been. A joke and an embarrassment. A curiosity. A noblewoman who chased after her boy’s army like a nurse chasing a wandering child. She’d been the kind of woman polite society turned away from. And she’d saved her family. Her kingdom. She’d ordered men killed before her eyes and engineered the slaughter of a general. She’d been carried by a dragon. Who she chose to share her bed with was almost literally the least interesting thing about her.

She took one slow, shuddering breath. Then another. Something uncurled in her. They stood in silence for a moment, and then, to her own astonishment, she chuckled. It was a low sound, earthy and rich. Vincen tried a smile, and watching him find it was a pure pleasure.

“Are you dressed for an occasion?” Vincen asked, all trace of her attempt to break off their affair gone from his voice.

“No,” she said.

“So… your evening’s open?”

“Why? Are you looking to take advantage of my fragile emotional state?” she asked, wiping back her tears.

“Only if you will it, my lady,” the huntsman said with a sincerity that asked whether he was welcome.

She was shaking, not a great deal, but noticeably. It was like the feeling of looking over a precipice until the dizziness came, and then—at the last instant—stepping back. After a long moment, she rose, walked to the door, impressing herself with the steadiness of her stride, and called for the house girl.

“Do you need something?” Vincen asked.

“I’m going to start with a glass of wine and a pipe while you tell me of your day,” she said. “We’ll see whether anything comes from that.”

“And if the girl spreads rumors that we’re meeting in private?”

“Well,” Clara said, her head still spinning, but less. Much less. “Then I suppose she does.”

Epilogue

The Last Apostate

In Herez, the summer rose and then broke as it always did. The vineyards in the low, rolling hills of the north gave their season’s crop of thick, black grapes, and the Kurtadam women walked with the fur around their feet stained red for a week. In Daun, seat of the kingdom, ambassadors came and went. Couriers and cunning men and merchant caravans as well. As week by week it became clear that the war which had lit two-thirds of the world on fire had burned itself to ash and embers without coming to Herez, King Cyrian became more expansive. A taproom story made the rounds that he’d had to be talked out of a plan to announce his personal responsibility for keeping Herez above the fray, but that might have only been a story. It was foolish enough that the people who heard it wanted to believe it true. There were other rumors that were more plausible, if less entertaining.

The pirate fleet that Callon Cane had led to occupy the bays and smugglers’ coves of Northcoast had fallen into mutiny when Cane was discovered to be an agent of Antea. Or else it was regrouping now with patronage from Narinisle. Or Cane had been the secret name of a cabal of Tralgu and had been found out. The truth that mattered was only that some of the pirates were coming back to their old waters in Cabral, but not so many as had been there before.

Porte Oliva remained under the yoke of Antea, but the signs were clear. With the fall of the regent, the empire’s focus on conquest had waned. The wisest bettors had it that Birancour would reclaim the port by spring, though whether it would pay Antea a ransom for it or extract payments from the Severed Throne in exchange for peace wasn’t at all clear. The Free Cities, led by Maccia, were threatening to band together against raiders crossing the Inner Sea from Lyoneia’s northern coast.

The high princess of Princip C’Annaldé had taken a Jasuru lover because the chances of an embarrassing pregnancy between the races was so small, but she hadn’t been seen in weeks, so maybe it wasn’t so unlikely as she’d thought. The sailmakers’ guild had come to an agreement with King Sephan of Cabral. In the next year, they would see the blue-water trade to Far Syramys out of the ports west of Daun triple. At least. Maybe more, if the treacherous strategies of Stollbourne could be countered…

Which, so far as Kitap rol Keshmet—once known as Master Kit, but now going by Duvit Koke—was concerned, showed as clear as water that the business of the world was once again flowing between its proper banks. He sat at a little tin mirror, brushing paint into the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes while Sandr and Mikel threw the last stitches on the new costume. It was the first time Kit had played Orcus the Demon King in years. Sandr was already dressed as Allaren Mankiller. The sharp reports of hammers assembling their temporary stage rang in from the yard, but the horses in the stalls ignored the players and the noise magnificently.

“Can’t see why it would cost so much to keep the stage,” Sandr said, not for the first time.

“Far Syramys is a long way,” Cary said from the loft where she was fitting Charlit Soon for her new gown. That Sandr wasn’t craning his neck in hopes of catching a glimpse of the girl’s bare flesh was a good sign. With luck, those two had burned themselves out of each other.

“I know,” Sandr said.

“It’s why they don’t call it Near Syramys,” Mikel said.

“They don’t call it Far Syramys once you get there,” Sandr said. “That would be stupid. Distant shores aren’t still distant when you’re standing on them.”

Mikel put on the empty, wondering smile he used to tease Sandr. “You think they call this Far Herez over there?”

“I don’t know what they call it,” Sandr said. “We can ask once we get there, the same time we try to find a decent stage to replace the perfectly good one Lak’s banging on out there.”

“I have heard many tales of the lands across the ocean sea,” Kit said. “I’ve heard the Raushadam walk on riverbeds, carried down by the stony weight of their skins, and that the Haunadam have wings like bats and butterflies. That the Tralgu who live there have fox ears, and the Southlings speak in languages no one but they can comprehend. There are even tales of a great hive where bees make gold from the flowers instead of honey.”

“Cary!” Sandr called. “He’s monologuing again!”

“It’s your fault,” she shouted back. “You started him on it.”

“But among all the wonders,” Kit said, ignoring them, “spread through even the most exotic and dream-soaked of lands, I’m fairly certain they’ll have trees.”

“I’m not saying they don’t,” Sandr said. “I just…”

“I believe the cost of putting it in the hold for the journey would be four times what it will cost to build a new one when we’re there.”

The hammering stopped, and Kit heard Hornet’s voice, speaking to someone.

“It floats, you know,” Sandr said. “All we’d need to do is tie a rope to it and drag it along behind. We wouldn’t need space in the hold.”

“Fair certain it doesn’t work that way,” Mikel said as a Tralgu man stepped out of the yard and into the stables. Kit turned, looked up into the wide, deceptively gentle eyes looking back at him. Kit’s gut went tight. Sandr and Mikel were silent. Even the horses seemed to sense that something ominous had happened.

“Kit,” Yardem Hane said as Marcus Wester came in at his side. The sickly green hilt rose over the captain’s shoulder, ready to be drawn. Kit heard Cary’s alarmed yelp and the clatter as she and Charlit Soon clambered down the ladder.

“Yardem. Marcus,” he said. “I hadn’t expected to see either of you again.”

“Picked up on that,” Marcus said.

Kit put down his brush with a click. “I think it might be best if the company gave us a moment in private.”

“Not going to happen,” Cary said, stepping between Kit and the two swordsmen. The others moved forward too, slow as the Drowned. Yardem flicked a jingling ear.

Kit put a hand on Cary’s shoulder. “Please,” he said.

The moment balanced on the edge of a blade. He felt Cary deflate under his palm. She walked forward, making her way between Marcus and Yardem without looking back. Charlit Soon followed her, and then the others together. When they were alone with only the horses, Yardem leaned against the wall. Marcus sat on Sandr’s abandoned stool.

“Are you still working for the bank?” Kit asked with a casualness he didn’t feel.

“Hard to say, exactly,” Marcus said. “Now that we’ve hunted you down, I think the next thing’s Inys. There’s been talk coming up from Lyoneia of him. Sightings. Something about a tower rising up out of the sea. But it’s going to mean going south until it starts getting cold again, and by the time we get there…”

“Dragon hunting. What a romantic and adventurous life you lead, Captain.”

Marcus chuckled, recognizing the humor. He leaned back on the stool. “I don’t do any of this because I want to, Kit. I do it because it needs to get done.”

It didn’t sound like a threat, though Kit knew it could be interpreted that way. Whatever meaning the captain intended, Kit knew he believed it to be true. Whatever happened between them now, it would only be from necessity. There was some comfort in that.

“May I ask how you knew I was alive? What did I do wrong?”

“Hm? Oh, that. You made it a theater piece. A grand sacrifice with everyone looking on, right to the moment that Cary pulled their eyes off you. You talked about doing more or less the same thing in the transformation scene in… ah damn it.”

“The Tragedy of Crellia and Somon,” Yardem said.

“Yeah, that one,” Marcus agreed. “Shifting attention to the far side of the stage while you switch out the actor for the puppet? Only this time, I figure it was more hiding behind a rock or some such.”

“I had a servant’s robe too, under my own,” Kit said. “The tower’s collapse complicated things. In the first version, I was going to cast myself into the Division.”

“That would have been good too,” Marcus said.

They were silent. There was no more hammering from the yard. Kit imagined the troupe standing together, waiting to see how this ended. Whether they would need to cast a new Orcus. As long as I am in the world, the danger is as well. He’d written the line for its single performance, and he’d believed it then as well. Only there had seemed a way out. A chance to see a bit more of the humanity. Taste a few new dishes, hear a few more songs, perform on stages he had not yet tried. Kit didn’t think it had been cowardice on his part, though perhaps the fear of death had been part of it.

At least, he thought, I can have a bit of dignity now.

“Did you tell Cithrin?” he asked.

“That you’d fooled her? No. Wasn’t sure it was truth until we tracked you all down, after all. And now that we’ve found you…” Marcus shrugged. “I don’t know. What would the advantage be for anyone? Girl’s got enough on her plate as it stands, trying to remake all of civilization or whatever it is she does.”

“Thank you,” Kit said. “I would rather she remember me as I appeared, rather than as I was.”

“That’s not just you,” Marcus said. He rose, taking the poisoned sword off his shoulder. The scabbard shone green as a beetle’s shell even in the dim light. The nearest of the horses blew out her breath as if she sensed something malign without knowing quite what it was. Marcus held it out. “If you want my advice, keep this under the beds when you aren’t sleeping. Turns out the other thing it’s useful for is keeping the lice down. All the time I carried it, never had so much as a nit. That’s the only thing I’m going to miss about the damned thing.”

Kit reached out, confused but understanding in a general sense what seemed expected of him. Then he took the sword, and Marcus nodded.

“I don’t believe I understand,” Kit said, holding the blade. “I thought you’d come to finish me.”

“Can’t see it’s come to that, yet.” Marcus said. “Understand the confusion, though. I did offer to kill you once, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Kit said. “And I appreciated it at the time.”

“Offer still stands,” Marcus said. “If once this Inys thing’s done, I start hearing about some actor who’s turned Far Syramys into his own massive stage for the honor of the god of taproom dramas or some such, I can still track you down. Only you did save the world and everyone in it. Seems rude to kill you for the effort.”

“I’m surprised you feel I saved the world,” Kit said, hanging the scabbard from a nail beside his little tin mirror. The two aspects of his life on a single splintered pole. “I’d have called that more a group effort.”

“Can’t put on the play unless you’ve got the players,” Marcus agreed. “But you’ve lived a lot of years in the world without letting those eight-legged bastards spread. There’s still the risk, though, so you should have the blade with you. I won’t need it anymore.”

Kit swallowed down the lump in his throat. “Thank you, my friend. I don’t know how to tell you how grateful I am for this. For all of this.”

“No need. Look, I know you and this one”—Marcus nodded at Yardem—“think the world means something. I don’t. As far as I can tell, life’s just one flaming piece of shit after another, except when it’s a bunch of them all at once. But I do believe in justice. Not the world’s, but the one we make—”

“Technically, you are a part of the world, sir,” Yardem said.

Confusion crossed through Wester’s expression. “Your point?”

“Your justice is the world’s. You were its path of justice unfolding itself.”

“I’m the justice of the world?”

“Well,” Yardem said. “Say you’re a justice of the world.”

“You’re going to hold by that hairwash?”

“Just pointing it out, sir.”

“Now I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. No, wait. I have it. I did what I did because I think it’s the right thing. There’s risk in it, but there’s risk in everything. Keeping you in the world seems worth the chance.”

The things in Kit’s blood told him that it was true, and that if anything made it deeper. “I want you to know that traveling in your company, even during the worst of this, has been an honor.”

“Yes, well,” Marcus said. “Let’s not get sentimental about it. We aren’t twelve.”

“Of course,” Kit said, bowing.

“Until next time, then,” Marcus said, turning. Once he’d left, Yardem returned the bow.

“You’ll take care of him?” Kit asked.

“As much as he allows.”

“I can still hear you,” Marcus called from the yard. Yardem’s wide, canine smile warmed Kit’s heart. For the last time, the Tralgu man clasped his hand, and then he was gone as well. The players came back in, Cary first and then the others. The relief on their faces echoed his own.

“We’re all right?” Mikel asked.

“I think we’re fine,” Kit said. “Except possibly that we have a performance and the stage half-together.”

“Costume’s not finished either,” Sandr said.

In the event, Lak, Hornet, and Cary finished putting together the boards well before sundown. Charlit Soon’s costume, while not of the most flattering cut, was done. And the Orcus costume was decent as well. In the last hour, the stable became a well-practiced chaos as each of them went through their lines again another time, Sandr and Hornet walked through the staging of the battle scene, and Cary and Lak marked out their places among the crowd to lead the reactions.

“You’re ready?” Cary asked. Kit took a deep breath and let it out slowly. However many times he did this, there was always the little thrill of fear that came from stepping on the stage again.

“I believe that I am.”

“That’s as good as being true, then,” she said.

The stage stood at the raised end of a little plaza, near a fountain, but not so close that they’d have to compete with the noise of the water. The men and women walking past were Kurtadam for the most part, but Firstblood and Cinnae as well. Yardem and Marcus stood across the way, eating meat and barley from rented cups. Kit found his place, raised his arms. A Kurtadam girl not more than eight years old with a pelt the color of wheat paused in her path to gawk at him. He nodded to her gravely.

“Stop!”

His voice went through the crowd like a ripple in a pool. The man selling wine by the fountain hesitated. The woman striding away toward the docks paused, looked back. Yardem lifted his ears.

“Stop now, and come near! Hear the tale of Allaren Mankiller and the Sword of Dragons! Or if you are faint of heart, move on. For our tale is one of grand adventure.”

Marcus caught his gaze, nodded to him, and tapped Yardem on the shoulder. Together they turned away into the streets under a wide and darkening sky.

“Love, war, betrayal, and vengeance shall spill out now upon these poor boards, and I warn you, not all that are good end well. Not all that are evil are punished. Come close, my friends, and know that in our tale as in the world, anything may happen…”

Dramatis Personae

Persons of interest and import in The Dagger and the Coin

IN THE GREATER WORLD

Inys, the last dragon

Marcus Wester, mercenary captain

Kitap rol Keshmat, former actor and apostate of the spider goddess

The Players

Cary

Hornet

Lak

Charlit Soon

Mikel

Sandr

Callon Cane, a convenient fiction

IN BIRANCOUR

The Medean bank in Porte Oliva

Cithrin bel Sarcour, voice of the Medean bank in Porte Oliva

Magistra Isadau, formerly voice of the Medean bank in Suddapal

Pyk Usterhall, notary to the bank

Yardem Hane, personal guard to Cithrin, also

Enen

Roach (Halvill)

Corisen Mout

Maestro Asanpur, a café owner

Mastién Juoli, master of coin

IN IMPERIAL ANTEA

The Royal Family

Aster, prince and heir to the empire

House Palliako

Geder Palliako, Regent of Antea and Baron of Ebbingbaugh

Lehrer Palliako, Viscount of Rivenhalm and his father

House Kalliam

Clara Kalliam, formerly Baroness of Osterling Fells

Barriath

Vicarian, and

Jorey; her sons

also Sabiha, wife to Jorey, and

Pindan, her illegitimate son

Annalise, her daughter

Vincen Coe, huntsman formerly in the service of House Kalliam

Abatha Coe, his cousin

House Skestinin

Lord Skestinin, master of the Imperial Navy

Lady Skestinin, his wife

House Annerin

Elisia Annerin (formerly Kalliam), daughter of Clara and Dawson

Gorman Annerin, son and heir of Lord Annerin and husband of Elisia

Corl, their son

House Daskellin

Canl Daskellin, Baron of Watermarch and Ambassador to Northcoast

Sanna, his eldest daughter

Also, various lords and members of the court, including

Sir Namen Flor

Sir Noyel Flor

Cyr Emming, Baron of Suderland Fells

Sir Ernst Mecelli

Sodai Carvenallin, his secretary

Sir Curtin Issandrian

Sir Gospey Allintot

Fallon Broot, Baron of Suderling Heights

and also Houses Veren, Essian, Ischian, Bannien, Estinford, Faskellan, Emming, Tilliakin, Mastellin, Caot, and Pyrellin among others

Basrahip, minister of the spider goddess and counselor to Geder Palliako

also some dozen priests

IN ELASSAE

Fallon Broot, protector of the fivefold city

Carol Dannien, a mercenary captain

Cep Bailan, his officer

Salan, soldier and cousin of Isadau

IN NORTHCOAST

The Medean bank in Carse

Komme Medean, head of the Medean bank

Lauro, his son

Chana, his daughter

Paerin Clark, bank auditor and son-in-law of Komme

Magister Nison, voice of the Medean bank in Carse

King Tracian

IN HALLSKAR

Magra of Order Murro and several of his compatriots

THE DEAD

King Simeon, Emperor of Antea, dead from a defect of the flesh

King Lechan of Asterilhold, executed in war

Feldin Maas, formerly Baron of Ebbingbaugh killed for treason

Phelia Maas, his wife dead at her husband’s hand

Dawson Kalliam, formerly Baron of Osterling Fells, executed for treason

Alan Klin, executed for treason

Mirkus Shoat, executed for treason

Estin Cersillian, Earl of Masonhalm, killed in an insurrection

Lord Ternigan, Lord Marshal to Regent Palliako, killed for disloyalty

Magister Imaniel, voice of the Medean bank in Vanai and protector of Cithrin

also Cam, a housekeeper, and

Besel, a man of convenience, burned in the razing of Vanai

Alys, wife of Marcus Wester

also Merian, their daughter, burned to death as a tactic of intrigue

Lord Springmere, the Mayfly King, killed in vengeance

Akad Silas, adventurer, lost with his expedition

Assian Bey, collector of secrets and builder of traps, whose death is not recorded

Morade, the last Dragon Emperor, said to have died from wounds

Asteril, clutch-mate of Morade, maker of the Timzinae, dead of poison

Erex, lover of Inys whose manner of death is not recorded

Drakkis Stormcrow, great human general of the last war of the dragons, dead of age

Smit, a player lost in war

An Introduction to the Taxonomy of Races

(From a manuscript attributed to Malasin Calvah, Taxonomist to Kleron Nuasti Cau, fifth of his name)

The ordering and arrangements of the thirteen races of humanity by blood, order of precedence, mating combination, or purpose is, by necessity, the study of a lifetime. It should occasion no concern that the finer points of the great and complex creation should seem sometimes confused and obscure. It is the intent of this essay to introduce the layman to the beautiful and fulfilling path which is taxonomy.

I shall begin with a brief guide to which the reader may refer.

Firstblood

The Firstblood are the feral, near-bestial form from which all humanity arose. Had there been no dragons to form the twelve crafted races from this base clay, humanity would have been exclusively of the Firstblood. Even now, they are the most populous of the races, showing the least difficulty in procreation, and spreading throughout the known world as a weed might spread through a rose garden. I intend no offense by the comparison, but truth knows no etiquette.

The Eastern Triad

The oldest of the crafted races form the Eastern Triad: Jasuru, Yemmu, and Tralgu.

The Jasuru are often assumed to be the first of the higher races. They share the rough size and shape of the Firstblood, but with the metallic scales of lesser dragons. Most likely, they were created as a rough warrior caste, overseers to control the Firstblood slaves.

The Yemmu are clearly a later improvement. Their great size and massive tusks could only have been designed to intimidate the lesser races, but as with other examples of crafted races, the increase in size and strength has come at a cost. Of all the races, the Yemmu have the shortest natural lifespan.

The Tralgu are almost certainly the most recent of the Eastern Triad. They are taller than the Firstblood and with the fierce teeth and keen hearing of a natural carnivore, and common wisdom holds that they were bred for hunting more than formal battle. In the ages since the fall of dragons, it is likely only their difficulty in whelping that has kept them from forcible racial conquest.

The Western Triad

As the Eastern Triad marks an age of war in which races were created as weapons of war, the western races delineate an age in which the dragons began to create more subtle tools. Cinnae, Dartinae, and Timzinae each show the marks of creation for specific uses.

The Cinnae, when compared to all other races, are thin and pale as sprouts growing under a bucket. However, they have a marked talent in the mental arts, though the truly deep insights have tended to escape them. As the Jasuru are a first attempt at a warrior caste, so the Cinnae may be considered as a rough outline of the races that follow them.

The Dartinae, while dating their creation from the same time, do not share in the Cinnae’s slightly better than rudimentary intelligence. Rather, their race was clearly built as a labor force for mining efforts. Their luminescent eyes show a structure unlike any other race, or indeed any known beast of nature. Their ability to navigate in utterly lightless caves is unique, and they tend to have the lithe frames one can imagine squeezing through cramped caves deep underground. Persistent rumors of a hidden Dartinae fortress deep below the earth no doubt spring from this, as no such structure has ever been found, nor would it be likely to survive in the absence of sustainable farming.

The Timzinae are, in fact, the only race whose place in the order of creation is unequivocally known. The youngest of the races, they date from the final war of the dragons. Their dark, insectile scales provide little of the protection that the Jasuru enjoy, but they are capable of utterly encasing the living flesh, even to the point of sealing all bodily orifices including ears and eyes. Their precise function as a tool remains obscure, though some suggest it might have been beekeeping.

The Master Races

The master races, or High Triad, represent the finest work of the dragons before their inevitable fall into decadence. These are the Kurtadam, Raushadam, and Haunadam.

The Kurtadam, like myself, show the fusion of all the best ideas that came before. The cleverness first hinted at in the Cinnae and the warrior’s instinct limned by the Eastern Triad came together in the Kurtadam. Also, alone among the races, the Kurtadam were given the gift of a full pelt of warming hair, and the arts of beading and adornments that clearly represent the highest in etiquette and personal beauty.

The Haunadam exist to the greatest extent in Far Syramys and its territories, and represent the refinement of the warrior impulse that created the Yemmu. While slightly smaller, the tireless Haunadam have a thick mineral layer in their skins which repels violence and a clear and brilliant intellect that has given them utter dominion over the western continent. Their aversion to travel by water restricts their role in the blue-water trade, and has likely prevented military conquest of other nations bounded by the seas.

The Raushadam, like the Haunadam, are primarily to be found in Far Syramys, and function almost as if the two races were designed to act as one with the other. The slightest of frame, Raushadam are the only race gifted by the dragons with flight.

The Decadent Races

After the arts of the dragons reached their height, there was a necessary and inevitable descent into the oversophisticated. The latter efforts of the dragons brought out the florid and bizarre races: Haaverkin, Southling, and Drowned.

The Haaverkin have spent the centuries since the fall of dragons clinging to the frozen ports of the north. Their foul and aggressive temper is not a sign that they were bred for war, but that an animal let loose without its master will revert to its bestial nature. While they are large as the Yemmu, this is due to the rolls of insulating fat that protect them from the cold north. The facial tattooing has been compared to the Kurtadam ritual beads by those who clearly understand neither.

The Southlings, known for their great black night-adapted eyes, are a study in perversion. Littering the reaches south of Lyoneia, they have built up a culture equal parts termite hill and nomadic tribe worship. While capable of sexual reproduction, these wide-eyed half-humans prefer to delegate such activity to a central queen figure, with her subjects acting as drones. Whether they were bred to people the living deserts of the south or migrated there after the fall of dragons because they were unable to compete with the greater races is a fit subject of debate.

The Drowned are the final evidence of the decadence of the dragons. While much like the Firstblood in size and shape, the Drowned live exclusively underwater in all human climes. Interaction with them is slow when it is possible, and their tendency to gather in shallow tidepools marks them as little better than human seaweed. Suggestions that they are tools created toward some great draconic project still in play under the waves is purest romance.

With this as a grounding, we can address the five philosophical practices that determine how an educated mind orders, ranks, and ultimately judges the races…

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Danny Baror and Shawna McCarthy for hooking me up with the amazing team at Orbit. The book would not exist in its present form without the good work of Will Hinton, Ellen Wright, Alex Lencicki, Anne Clarke, and Tim Holman.

Here, at the end of the project, I’d also like to acknowledge the people who helped me to launch it: George R. R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, S. M. Stirling, Ty Franck, Ian Tregillis, Carrie Vaughn, Emily Mah, Melinda Snodgrass, Terry England, and all of the Critical Mass group. I’m glad none of you died when the lightning struck.

And, as always, my thanks to my family for their support during the hard parts.

The failures and infelicities are my own.

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meet the author

Photo Credit: Kyle Zimmerman

DANIEL ABRAHAM is the author of the critically acclaimed Long Price Quartet. He has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards, and has won the International Horror Guild Award. He also writes as MLN Hanover and (with Ty Franck) James S. A. Corey. He lives in New Mexico.

introducing

If you enjoyed

THE SPIDER’S WAR,

look out for

SNAKEWOOD

by Adrian Selby

Once they were a band of mercenaries who shook the pillars of the world through cunning, alchemical brews, and cold steel. Whoever met their price won.

Now, their glory days behind them, scattered to the wind, and their genius leader in hiding, they are being hunted down and eliminated one by one.

A lifetime of enemies has its own price.

Chapter 1

Gant

My name’s Gant and I’m sorry for my poor writing. I was a mercenary soldier who never took to it till Kailen taught us. It’s for him and all the boys that I wanted to put this down, a telling of what become of Kailen’s Twenty.

Seems right to begin it the day me and Shale got sold out, at the heart of the summer just gone, down in the Red Hills Confederacy.

It was the day I began dying.

It was a job with a crew to ambush a supply caravan. It went badly for us and I took an arrow, the poison from which will shortly kill me.

I woke up sodden with dew and rain like the boys, soaked all over from the trees above us, but my mouth was dusty like sand. Rivers couldn’t wet it. The compound I use to ease my bones leaches my spit. I speak soft.

I could hardly crack a whistle at the boys wrapped like a nest of slugs in their oilskins against the winds of the plains these woods were edged against. I’m old. I just kicked them up before getting my bow out of the sack I put it in to keep rain off the string. It was a beauty what I called Juletta and I had her for most of my life.

The boys were slow to get going, blowing and fussing as the freezing air got to work in that bit of dawn. They were quiet, and grim like ghosts in this light, pairing up to strap their leathers and get the swords pasted with poison.

I patted heads and squeezed shoulders and gave words as I moved through the crew so they knew I was about and watching.

“Paste it thick,” I said as they put on the mittens and rubbed their blades with the soaked rags from the pot Remy had opened.

I looked around the boys I shared skins and pipes with under the moon those last few weeks. Good crew.

There was Remy, looking up at me from his mixing, face all scarred like a milky walnut and speaking lispy from razor fights and rackets he ran with before joining up for a pardon. He had a poison of his own he made, less refined than my own mix, less quick, more agony.

Yasthin was crouched next to him. He was still having to shake the cramp off his leg that took a mace a month before. Saved his money for his brother, told me he was investing it. The boys said his brother gambled it and laughed him up.

Dolly was next to Yasthin, chewing some bacon rinds. Told me how her da chased her soak of a mother through the streets, had done since she was young. Kids followed her da too, singing with him but staying clear of his knives. She joined so’s she could help her da keep her younger brother.

All of them got sorrows that led them to the likes of me and a fat purse for a crossroads job, which I mean to say is a do-or-die.

Soon enough they’re lined up and waiting for the Honour, Kailen’s Honour, the best fightbrew Kigan ever mixed, so the best fightbrew ever mixed, even all these years later. The boys had been talking up this brew since I took command, makes you feel like you could punch holes in mountains when you’ve risen on it.

Yasthin was first in line for a measure. I had to stand on my toes to pour it in, lots of the boys taller than me. Then a kiss. The lips are the raw end of your terror and love. No steel can toughen lips, they betray more than the eyes when you’re looking for intent and the kiss is for telling them there’s always some way to die.

Little Booey was the tenth and last of the crew to get the measure. I took a slug myself and Rirgwil fixed my leathers. I waited for our teeth to chatter like aristos, then went over the plan again.

“In the trees north, beyond those fields, is Trukhar’s supply caravan,” I said. “Find it, kill who you can, but burn the wagons, supplies, and then go for the craftsmen. Shale’s leadin’ his crew in from east an’ we got them pincered when we meet, red bands left arm so as you know. It’s a do-or-die purse, you’re there ’til the job is done or you’re dead anyway.”

It was getting real for them now I could see, a couple were starting shakes with their first full measure of the brew, despite all the prep the previous few days.

“I taught you how to focus what’s happening to you boys. This brew can win wars and it’ll deliver this purse if you can keep tight. Now move out.”

No more words, it was hand signs now to the forest.

Jonah front, Yasthin, Booey and Henny with me. Remy group northeast at tree line.

We ran through the silver grass, chests shuddering with the crackle of our blood as the brew stretched our veins and filled our bones with iron and fire. The song of the earth was filling my ears.

Ahead of us was the wall of trees and within, the camp of the Blackhands. Remy’s boys split from us and moved away.

Slow, I signed.

Juletta was warm in my hands, the arrow in my fingers humming to fly. Then, the brew fierce in my eyes, I saw it, the red glow of a pipe some seventy yards ahead at the tree line.

Two men. On mark.

I moved forward to take the shot and stepped into a nest of eggs. The bird, a big grey Weger, screeched at me and flapped madly into the air inches from my face, its cry filling the sky. One of the boys shouted out, in his prime on the brew, and the two men saw us. We were dead. My boys’ arrows followed mine, the two men were hit, only half a pip of a horn escaping for warning, but it was surely enough.

Run.

I had killed us all. We went in anyway, that was the purse, and these boys primed like this weren’t leaving without bloodshed.

As we hit the trees we spread out.

Enemy left, signed Jonah.

Three were nearing through the trunks, draining their own brew as they came to from some half-eyed slumber. They were a clear shot so I led again, arrows hitting and a muffled crack of bones. All down.

In my brewed-up ears I could hear then the crack of bowstrings pulling at some way off, but it was all around us. The whistle of arrows proved us flanked as we dropped to the ground.

The boys opened up, moving as we practiced, aiming to surprise any flanks and split them off so a group of us could move in directly to the caravan. It was shooting practice for Trukhar’s soldiers.

I never saw Henny or Jonah again, just heard some laughing and screaming and the sound of blades at work before it died off.

I stayed put, watching for the enemy’s movements. I was in the outroots of a tree, unspotted. You feel eyes on you with this brew. Then I saw two scouts moving right, following Booey and Datschke’s run.

I took a sporebag and popped it on the end of an arrow. I stood up and sent it at the ground ahead of them.

From my belt I got me some white oak sap which I took for my eyes to see safe in the spore cloud. I put on a mask covered with the same stuff for breathing.

The spores were quick to get in them and they wheezed and clutched their throats as I finished them off.

I was hoping I could have saved my boys but I needed to be in some guts and get the job done with Shale’s crew.

Horns were going up now, so the fighting was on. I saw a few coming at me from the trees ahead. I got behind a trunk but I knew I was spotted. They slowed up and the hemp creaked as they drew for shots. There were four of them, from their breathing, and I could hear their commander whispering for a flanking.

I opened up a satchel of rice paper bags, each with quicklime and oiled feathers. I needed smoke. I doused a few bags with my flask and threw them out.

“Masks!” came the shout. As the paper soaked, the lime caught and the feathers put out a fierce smoke.

My eyes were still smeared good. I took a couple more arrowbags out, but these were agave powders for blistering the eyes and skin.

Two shots to tree trunks spread the powders in the air around their position and I moved out from the tree to them as they screeched and staggered about blind. The Honour give me the senses enough to read where they were without my eyes, better to shut them with smoke and powders in the air, and their brews weren’t the Honour’s equal. They moved like they were running through honey and were easy to pick off.

It was then I took the arrow that’ll do for me. I’d got maybe fifty yards further on when I heard the bow draw, but with the noise ahead I couldn’t place it that fraction quicker to save myself. The arrow went in at my hip, into my guts. Some things give in there, and the poison’s gone right in, black mustard oil for sure from the vapors burning in my nose, probably some of their venom too.

I was on my knees trying to grab the arrow when I saw them approach, two of them. The one who killed me was dropping his bow and they both closed with the hate of their own fightbrew, their eyes crimson, skin an angry red and all the noisies.

They think I’m done. They’re fucking right, to a point. In my belt was the treated guaia bark for the mix they were known to use. No time to rip out the arrow and push the bark in.

They moved in together, one in front, the other flanking. One’s a heavy in his mail coat and broadsword, a boy’s weapon in a forest, too big. Older one had leathers and a long knife. Him first. My sight was going, the world going flat like a drawing, so I had to get rid of the wiser one while I could still see him, while I still had the Honour’s edge.

Knife in hand I lunged sudden, the leap bigger than they reckoned. The older one reacted, a sidestep. The slash I made wasn’t for hitting him, though. It flicked out a spray of paste from the blade and sure enough some bit of it caught him in the face. I spun about, brought my blade up and parried the boy’s desperate swing as he closed behind me, the blow forcing me down again as it hit my knife, sending a smack through my guts as the arrow broke in me. He took sight of his mate holding his smoking face, scratching at his cheeks and bleeding. He glanced at the brown treacle running over my blade and legged it. He had the spunk to know he was beaten. I put the knife in the old man’s throat to quiet my noisies, the blood’s smell as sweet as fresh bread to me.

I picked up my Juletta and moved on. The trees were filling with Blackhands now. I didn’t have the time to be taking off my wamba and sorting myself out a cure for the arrow, much less tugging at it now it was into me. I cussed at myself, for this was likely where I was going to die if I didn’t get something to fix me. I was slowing up. I took a hit of the Honour to keep me fresh. It was going to make a fierce claim on the other side, but I would gladly take that if I could get some treatment.

Finally I reached the caravan: smoke from the blazing wagons and stores filled the trees ahead. The grain carts were burning, so Shale, again, delivered the purse.

Then I come across Dolly, slumped against the roots of a tree. Two arrows were thrusting proud from her belly. She saw me and her eyes widened and she smiled.

“Gant, you’re not done… oh,” she said, seeing the arrow in me. I might have been swaying, she certainly didn’t look right, faded somewhat, like she was becoming a ghost before me.

“Have you a flask, Gant, some more of the Honour?”

Her hands were full of earth, grabbing at it, having their final fling.

“I’m out, Dolly,” I said, “I’m done too. I’m sorry for how it all ended.”

She blinked, grief pinching her up.

“It can’t be over already. I’m twenty summers, Gant. This was goin’ to be the big purse.”

A moment then I couldn’t fill with any words.

“Tell my father, Gant, say…”

I was raising my bow. I did my best to clean an arrow on my leggings. She was watching me as I did it, knowing.

“Tell him I love him, Gant, tell him I got the Honour, and give him my purse and my brother a kiss.”

“I will.”

As I drew it she looked above me, seeing something I knew I wouldn’t see, leagues away, some answers to her questions in her eyes thrilling her. I let fly, fell to my knees and sicked up.

Where was Shale?

My mouth was too dry to speak or shout for him, but I needed him. My eyes, the lids of them, were peeling back so’s they would burn in the sun. I put my hands to my face. It was only visions, but my chest was heavy, like somebody sat on it and others were piling on. Looking through my hands as I held them up, it was like there were just bones there, flesh thin like the fins of a fish. My breathing rattled and I reached to my throat to try to open it up more.

“Gant!”

So much blood on him. He knelt next to me. He’s got gray eyes, no color. Enemy to him is just so much warm meat to be put still. He don’t much smile unless he’s drunk. He mostly never drinks. He sniffed about me and at my wound, to get a reading of what was in it, then forced the arrow out with a knife and filled the hole with guaia bark while kneeling on my shoulder to keep me still. He was barking at some boys as he stuffed some rugara leaves, sap and all, into my mouth, holding my nose shut, drowning me. Fuck! My brains were buzzing sore like a hive was in them. Some frothing liquid filled up my chest and I was bucking about for breath. He poured from a flask over my hip and the skin frosted over with an agony of burning. Then he took out some jumpcrick’s legbones and held them against the hole, snap snap, a flash of blue flame and everything fell away high.

There was a choking, but it didn’t feel like me no longer. It felt like the man I was before I died.

introducing

If you enjoyed

THE SPIDER’S WAR,

look out for

HOPE & RED

The Empire of Storms: Book One

by Jon Skovron

In a fracturing empire spread across savage seas, two young people from different cultures find common purpose.

A nameless girl is the lone survivor when her village is massacred by biomancers, mystical servants of the emperor. Named after her lost village, Bleak Hope is secretly trained by a master Vinchen warrior as an instrument of vengeance.

A boy becomes an orphan on the squalid streets of New Laven and is adopted by one of the most notorious women of the criminal underworld, given the name Red, and trained as a thief and con artist.

When a ganglord named Deadface Drem strikes a bargain with the biomancers to consolidate and rule all the slums of New Laven, the worlds of Hope and Red come crashing together, and their unlikely alliance takes them further than either could have dreamed possible.

1

Captain Sin Toa had been a trader on these seas for many years, and he’d seen something like this before. But that didn’t make it any easier.

The village of Bleak Hope was a small community in the cold southern islands at the edge of the empire. Captain Toa was one of the few traders who came this far south, and even then, only once a year. The ice that formed on the water made it nearly impossible to reach during the winter months.

Still, the dried fish, whalebone, and the crude lamp oil they pressed from whale blubber were all good cargo that fetched a nice price in Stonepeak or New Laven. The villagers had always been polite and accommodating, in their taciturn Southern way. And it was a community that had survived in these harsh conditions for centuries, a quality that Toa respected a great deal.

So it was with a pang of sadness that he gazed out at what remained of the village. As his ship glided into the narrow harbor, he scanned the dirt paths and stone huts, and saw no sign of life.

“What’s the matter, sir?” asked Crayton, his first mate. Good fellow. Loyal in his own way, if a bit dishonest about doing his fair share of work.

“This place is dead,” said Toa quietly. “We’ll not land here.”

“Dead, sir?”

“Not a soul in the place.”

“Maybe they’re at some sort of local religious gathering,” said Crayton. “Folks this far south have their own ways and customs.”

“’Fraid that’s not it.”

Toa pointed one thick, scarred finger toward the dock. A tall sign had been driven into the wood. On the sign was painted a black oval with eight black lines trailing down from it.

“God save them,” whispered Crayton, taking off his wool knit cap.

“That’s the trouble,” said Toa. “He didn’t.”

The two men stood there staring at the sign. There was no sound except the cold wind that pulled at Toa’s long wool coat and beard.

“What do we do, sir?” asked Crayton.

“Not come ashore, that’s for certain. Tell the wags to lay anchor. It’s getting late. I don’t want to navigate these shallow waters in the dark, so we’ll stay the night. But make no mistake, we’re heading back to sea at first light and never coming near Bleak Hope again.”

They set sail the next morning. Toa hoped they’d reach the island of Galemoor in three days and that the monks there would have enough good ale to sell that it would cover his losses.

It was on the second night that they found the stowaway.

Toa was woken in his bunk by a fist pounding on his cabin door.

“Captain!” called Crayton. “The night watch. They found… a little girl.”

Toa groaned. He’d had a bit too much grog before he went to sleep, and the spike of pain had already set in behind his eyes.

“A girl?” he asked after a moment.

“Y-y-yes, sir.”

“Hells’ waters,” he muttered, climbing out of his hammock. He pulled on cold, damp trousers, a coat, and boots. A girl on board, even a little one, was bad luck in these southern seas. Everybody knew that. As he pondered how he was going to get rid of this stowaway, he opened the door and was surprised to find Crayton alone, turning his wool cap over and over again in his hands.

“Well? Where’s the girl?”

“She’s aft, sir,” said Crayton.

“Why didn’t you bring her to me?”

“We, uh… that is, the men can’t get her out from behind the stowed rigging.”

“Can’t get her…” Toa heaved a sigh, wondering why no one had just reached in and clubbed her unconscious, then dragged her out. It wasn’t like his men to get soft because of a little girl. Maybe it was on account of Bleak Hope. Maybe the terrible fate of that village had made them a bit more conscious than usual of their own prospects for Heaven.

“Fine,” he said. “Lead me to her.”

“Aye, sir,” said Crayton, clearly relieved that he wasn’t going to bear the brunt of the captain’s frustration.

Toa found his men gathered around the cargo hold where the spare rigging was stored. The hatch was open and they stared down into the darkness, muttering to each other and making signs to ward off curses. Toa took a lantern from one of them and shone the light down into the hole, wondering why a little girl had his men so spooked.

“Look, girlie. You better…”

She was wedged in tight behind the piles of heavy line. She looked filthy and starved, but otherwise a normal enough girl of about eight years. Pretty, even, in the Southern way, with pale skin, freckles, and hair so blond it looked almost white. But there was something about her eyes when she looked at you. They felt empty, or worse than empty. They were pools of ice that crushed any warmth you had in you. They were ancient eyes. Broken eyes. Eyes that had seen too much.

“We tried to pull her out, Captain,” said one of the men. “But she’s packed in there tight. And well… she’s…”

“Aye,” said Toa.

He knelt down next to the opening and forced himself to keep looking at her, even though he wanted to turn away.

“What’s your name, girl?” he asked, much quieter now.

She stared at him.

“I’m the captain of this ship, girl,” he said. “Do you know what that means?”

Slowly, she nodded once.

“It means everyone on this ship has to do what I say. That includes you. Understand?”

Again, she nodded once.

He reached one brown, hairy hand down into the hold.

“Now, girl. I want you to come out from behind there and take my hand. I swear no harm will come to you on this ship.”

For a long moment, no one moved. Then, tentatively, the girl reached out her bone-thin hand and let it be engulfed in Toa’s.

Toa and the girl were back in his quarters. He suspected the girl might start talking if there weren’t a dozen hard-bitten sailors staring at her. He gave her a blanket and a cup of hot grog. He knew grog wasn’t the sort of thing you gave to little girls, but it was the only thing he had on board except fresh water, and that was far too precious to waste.

Now he sat at his desk and she sat on his bunk, the blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders, the steaming cup of grog in her tiny hands. She took a sip, and Toa expected her to flinch at the pungent flavor, but she only swallowed and continued to stare at him with those empty, broken eyes of hers. They were the coldest blue he had ever seen, deeper than the sea itself.

“I’ll ask you again, girl,” he said, although his tone was still gentle. “What’s yer name?”

She only stared at him.

“Where’d you come from?”

Still she stared.

“Are you…” He couldn’t believe he was even thinking it, much less asking it. “Are you from Bleak Hope?”

She blinked then, as if coming out of a trance. “Bleak Hope.” Her voice was hoarse from lack of use. “Yes. That’s me.” There was something about the way she spoke that made Toa suppress a shudder. Her voice was as empty as her eyes.

“How did you come to be on my ship?”

“That happened after,” she said.

“After what?” he asked.

She looked at him then, and her eyes were no longer empty. They were full. So full that Toa’s salty old heart felt like it might twist up like a rag in his chest.

“I will tell you,” she said, her voice as wet and full as her eyes. “I will tell only you. Then I won’t ever say it aloud ever again.”

She had been off at the rocks. That was how they’d missed her.

She loved the rocks. Great big jagged black boulders she could climb above the crashing waves. It terrified her mother the way she jumped from one to the next. “You’ll hurt yourself!” her mother would say. And she did hurt herself. Often. Her shins and knees were peppered with scabs and scars from the rough-edged rock. But she didn’t care. She loved them anyway. And when the tide went out, they always had treasures at their base, half-buried in the gray sand. Crab shells, fish bones, seashells, and sometimes, if she was very lucky, a bit of sea glass. Those she prized above all else.

“What is it?” she’d asked her mother one night as they sat by the fire after dinner, her belly warm and full of fish stew. She held up a piece of red sea glass to the light so that the color shone on the stone wall of their hut.

“It’s glass, my little gull,” said her mother, fingers working quickly as she mended a fishing net for Father. “Broken bits of glass polished by the sea.”

“But why’s it colored?”

“To make it prettier, I suppose.”

“Why don’t we have any glass that’s colored?”

“Oh, it’s just fancy Northland frippery,” said her mother. “We’ve no use for it down here.”

That made her love the sea glass all the more. She collected them until she had enough to string together with a bit of hemp rope to make a necklace. She presented it to her father, a gruff fisherman who rarely spoke, on his birthday. He held the necklace in his leathery hand, eyeing the bright red, blue, and green chunks of sea glass warily. But then he looked into her eyes and saw how proud she was, how much she loved this thing. His weather-lined face folded up into a smile as he carefully tied it around his neck. The other fishermen teased him for weeks about it, but he would only touch his calloused fingertips to the sea glass and smile again.

When they came on that day, the tide had just gone out, and she was searching the base of her rocks for new treasures. She’d seen the top of their ship masts off in the distance, but she was far too focused on her hunt for sea glass to investigate. It wasn’t until she finally clambered back on top of one of the rocks to sift through her collection of shells and bones that she noticed how strange the ship was. A big boxy thing with a full three sails and cannon ports all along the sides. Very different from the trade ships. She didn’t like the look of it at all. And that was before she noticed the thick cloud of smoke rising from her village.

She ran, her skinny little legs churning in the sand and tall grass as she made her way through the scraggly trees toward her village. If there was a fire, her mother wouldn’t bother to save the treasures stowed away in the wooden chest under her bed. That was all she could think about. She’d spent too much time and effort collecting her treasures to lose them. They were the most precious thing to her. Or so she thought.

As she neared the village, she saw that the fire had spread across the whole village. There were men she didn’t recognize dressed in white-and-gold uniforms with helmets and armored chest plates. She wondered if they were soldiers. But soldiers were supposed to protect the people. These men herded everyone into a big clump in the center of the village, waving swords and guns at them.

She jerked to a stop when she saw the guns. She’d only seen one other gun. It was owned by Shamka, the village elder. Every winter on the eve of the New Year, he fired it up at the moon to wake it from its slumber and bring back the sun. The guns these soldiers had looked different. In addition to the wooden handle, iron tube, and hammer, they had a round cylinder.

She was trying to decide whether to get closer or run and hide, when Shamka emerged from his hut, gave an angry bellow, and fired his gun at the nearest soldier. The soldier’s face caved in as the shot struck him, and he fell back into the mud. One of the other soldiers raised his pistol and fired at Shamka, but missed. Shamka laughed triumphantly. But then the intruder fired a second time without reloading. Shamka’s face was wide with surprise as he clutched at his chest and toppled over.

The girl nearly cried out then. But she bit her lip as hard as she could to stop herself, and dropped into the tall grass.

She lay hidden there in the cold, muddy field for hours. She had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. She heard the soldiers shouting to each other, and there were strange hammering and flapping sounds. Occasionally, she would hear one of the villagers beg to know what they had done to displease the emperor. The only reply was a loud smack.

It was dark, and the fires had all flickered out, before she moved her numb limbs up into a crouch and took another look.

In the center of the town, a huge brown canvas tent had been erected, easily five times larger than any hut in the village. The soldiers stood in a circle around it, holding torches. She couldn’t see her fellow villagers anywhere. Cautiously, she crept a little closer.

A tall man who wore a long, hooded white cloak instead of a uniform stood at the entrance to the tent. In his hands, he held a large wooden box. One of the soldiers opened the flap of the tent entrance. The cloaked man went into the tent, accompanied by a soldier. Some moments later, they both emerged, but the man no longer had the box. The soldier tied the flap so that the entrance remained open, then covered the opening with a net so fine not even the smallest bird could have slipped through.

The cloaked man took a notebook from his pocket as soldiers brought out a small table and chair and placed them before him. He sat at the table and a soldier handed him a quill and ink. The man immediately began to write, pausing frequently to peer through the netting into the tent.

Screams began to come from inside the tent. She realized then that all the villagers were inside. She didn’t know why they screamed, but it terrified her so much that she dropped back into the mud and held her hands over her ears to block out the sound. The screams only lasted a few minutes, but it was a long time before she could bring herself to look again.

It was completely dark now except for one lantern at the tent entrance. The soldiers had gone and only the cloaked man remained, still scribbling away in his notebook. Occasionally, he would glance into the tent, look at his pocket watch, and frown. She wondered where the soldiers were, but then noticed that the strange boxy ship tied at the dock was lit up, and when she strained her hearing, she could make out the sound of rowdy male voices.

The girl snuck through the tall grass toward the side of the tent that was the farthest from the man. Not that he would have seen her. He seemed so intent on his writing that she probably could have walked right past him, and he wouldn’t have noticed. Even so, her heart raced as she crept across the small stretch of open ground between the tall grass and the tent wall. When she finally reached the tent, she found that the bottom had been staked down so tightly that she had to pull out several of them before she could slip under.

It was even darker inside, the air thick and hot. The villagers all lay on the ground, eyes closed, chained to each other and to the thick tent poles. In the center sat the wooden box, the lid off. Scattered on the ground were dead wasps as big as birds.

Far over in the corner, she saw her mother and father, motionless like all the rest. She moved quickly to them, a sick fear shooting through her stomach.

But then her father moved weakly, and relief flooded through her. Maybe she could still rescue them. She gently shook her mother, but she didn’t respond. She shook her father, but he only groaned, his eyes fluttering a moment but not opening.

She searched around, looking to see if she could unfasten their chains. There was a loud buzzing close to her ear. She turned and saw a giant wasp hovering over her shoulder. Before it could sting her, a hand shot past her face and slapped it aside. The wasp spun wildly around, one wing broken, then dropped to the ground. She turned and saw her father, his face screwed up in pain.

He grabbed her wrist. “Go!” he grunted. “Away.” Then he shoved her so hard, she fell backward onto her rear.

She stared at him, terrified, but wanting to do something that would take the awful look of pain away from his face. Around her, others were stirring, their own faces etched in the same agony as her father.

Then she saw her father’s sea glass necklace give an odd little jump. She looked closer. It happened again. Her father arched his back. His eyes and mouth opened wide, as if screaming, but only a wet gurgle came out. A white worm as thick as a finger burst from his neck. Blood streamed from him as other worms burrowed out of his chest and gut.

Her mother woke with a gasp, her eyes staring around wildly. Her skin was already shifting. She reached out and called her daughter’s name.

All around her, the other villagers thrashed against their chains as the worms ripped free. Before long, the ground was covered in a writhing mass of white.

She wanted to run. Instead, she held her mother’s hand and watched her writhe and jerk as the worms ate her from the inside. She did not move, did not look away until her mother grew still. Only then did she stumble to her feet, slip under the tent wall, and run back into the tall grass.

She watched from afar as the soldiers returned at dawn with large burlap sacks. The cloaked man went inside the tent for a while, then came back out and wrote more in his notebook. He did this two more times, then said something to one of the soldiers. The soldier nodded, gave a signal, and the group with sacks filed into the tent. When they came back out, their sacks were filled with writhing bulges that she guessed were the worms. They carried them to the ship while the remaining soldiers struck the tent, exposing the bodies that had been inside.

The cloaked man watched as the soldiers unfastened the chains from the pile of corpses. As he stood there, the little girl fixed his face in her memory. Brown hair, weak chin, pointed ratlike face marked with a burn scar on his left cheek.

At last they sailed off in their big boxy ship, leaving a strange sign driven into the dock. When they were no longer in sight, she crept back down into the village. It took her many days. Perhaps weeks. But she buried them all.

Captain Sin Toa stared down at the girl. During her tale, her expression had remained fixed in a look of wide-eyed horror. But now it settled back into the cold emptiness he’d seen when he first coaxed her out of the hold.

“How long ago was that?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” she said.

“How did you get aboard?” he asked. “We never docked.”

“I swam.”

“Quite a distance.”

“Yes.”

“And what should I do with you now?”

She shrugged.

“A ship is no place for a little girl.”

“I have to stay alive,” she said. “So I can find that man.”

“Do you know who that was? What that sign meant?”

She shook her head.

“That was the crest of the emperor’s biomancers. You haven’t got a prayer of ever getting close to that man.”

“I will,” she said quietly. “Someday. If it takes my whole life. I’ll find him. And kill him.”

Captain Sin Toa knew he couldn’t keep her aboard. It was said maidens, even eight-year-old ones, could draw the attention of the sea serpents in these waters as sure as a bucketful of blood. The crew might very well mutiny at the idea of keeping a girl on board. But he wasn’t about to throw her overboard or dump her on some empty piece of rock either. When they landed the next day at Galemoor, he approached the head of the Vinchen order, a wizened old monk named Hurlo.

“Girl’s seen things nobody should have to see,” he said. The two of them stood in the stone courtyard of the monastery, the tall, black stone temple looming over them. “She’s a broken thing. Could be a monastic life is the only option left to her.”

Hurlo slipped his hands into the sleeves of his black robe. “I sympathize, Captain. Truly, I do. But the Vinchen order is for men only.”

“But surely you could use a servant around,” said Toa. “She’s a peasant, accustomed to hard work.”

Hurlo nodded. “We could. But what happens when she comes of age and begins to blossom? She will become too great a distraction for my brothers, particularly the younger ones.”

“So keep her till then. At least you’ll have sheltered her a few years. Kept her alive long enough for her to make her own way.”

Hurlo closed his eyes. “It will not be an easy life for her here.”

“Don’t think she’d know what to do with an easy life if you gave her one anyway.”

Hurlo looked at Toa. And to Toa’s surprise, he suddenly smiled, his old eyes sparkling. “We will take in this broken child you have found. A bit of chaos in the order brings change. Perhaps for the better.”

Toa shrugged. He’d never fully understood Hurlo or the Vinchen order. “If you say so, Grandteacher.”

“What is the child’s name?” asked Hurlo.

“She won’t say for some reason. I half think she doesn’t remember.”

“What shall we call her then, this child born of nightmare? As her unlikely guardians, I suppose it is now up to us to name her.”

Captain Sin Toa thought about it a moment, tugging at his beard. “Maybe after the village she survived. Keep something of it in memory, at least. Call her Bleak Hope.”

Publications by Daniel Abraham

THE LONG PRICE QUARTET

A Shadow in Summer

A Betrayal in Winter

An Autumn War

The Price of Spring

THE DAGGER AND THE COIN

The Dragon’s Path

The King’s Blood

The Tyrant’s Law

The Widow’s House

The Spider’s War

THE EXPANSE

Leviathan Wakes (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)

Caliban’s War (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)

Abaddon’s Gate (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)

Cibola Burn (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)

Nemesis Games (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)

Babylon’s Ashes (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)

THE BLACK SUN’S DAUGHTER

Unclean Spirits (as MLN Hanover)

Darker Angels (as MLN Hanover)

Vicious Grace (as MLN Hanover)

Killing Rites (as MLN Hanover)

Graveyard Child (as MLN Hanover)

Leviathan Wept and Other Stories

Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs

Hunter’s Run (with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois)

Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)

Praise for

The Tyrant’s Law

“This smart, absorbing, fascinating military fantasy, exciting and genuinely suspenseful, will keep readers on their toes.”

—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“Abraham is a graceful writer, treating his male and female characters with respect and exploring both their strengths and weaknesses.”

—Library Journal

Praise for

The King’s Blood

“Abraham builds on The Dragon’s Path to create and sustain a rich, satisfyingly complex epic fantasy.”

—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“You have to admire ace storyteller Abraham’s skill at building plausible alternate worlds, a trade much practiced, but not often so well, ever since the days of Tolkien and the Shire… Another trademark romp in the otherworld, and a lot of fun.”

—Kirkus

Praise for

The Dragon’s Path

“Daniel Abraham’s new novel cements his status as the literary successor to George R. R. Martin.”

—Grasping for the Wind

“Abraham questions and explores the fantasy-world assumptions that most authors take for granted, telling an enjoyable and genuinely innovative adventure story along the way.”

—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“A pleasure for Abraham’s legion of fans.”

—Kirkus

“Prepare to be startled, shocked, and entertained.”

—Locus

“The Dragon’s Path is an enjoyable read that holds great expectations for the series.”

—SF Signal

Praise for

Daniel Abraham

“Abraham is fiercely talented, disturbingly human, breathtakingly original and even on his bad days kicks all sorts of literary ass.”

—Junot Díaz

“Daniel Abraham gets better with every book.”

—George R. R. Martin

“The storytelling is smooth, careful and—best of all—unpredictable.”

—Patrick Rothfuss

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Welcome

Dedication

Map

Prologue: The Second Apostate

Captain Marcus Wester

Cithrin Bel Sarcour of the Medean Bank

Clara Annalise Kalliam, Formerly Baroness of Osterling Fells

Geder Palliako, Lord Regent of Antea

Clara

Cithrin

Geder

Entr’acte: Borja

Marcus

Clara

Geder

Cithrin

Marcus

Clara

Cithrin

Entr’acte: Porte Oliva

Geder

Cithrin

Clara

Marcus

Geder

Marcus

Cithrin

Entr’acte: Nus

Clara

Marcus

Geder

Cithrin

Clara

Geder

Marcus

Entr’acte: The World

Marcus

Geder

Cithrin

Clara

Marcus

Geder

Cithrin

Entr’acte: The Dragon

Marcus

Cithrin

Clara

Epilogue: The Last Apostate

Dramatis Personae: Persons of interest and import in The Dagger and the Coin

An Introduction to the Taxonomy of Races

Acknowledgments

Extras

Meet the Author

A Preview of SNAKEWOOD

A Preview of HOPE & RED

Publications by Daniel Abraham

Praise

Orbit Newsletter

Copyright

Copyright

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2016 by Daniel Abraham

Excerpt from Snakewood copyright © 2016 by Adrian Selby

Excerpt from Hope & Red copyright © 2016 by Jon Skovron

Map by Chad Roberts

Cover design by Kirk Benshoff

Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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First ebook edition: March 2016

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ISBN 978-0-316-20404-0

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