Book Release Date!
Coming Friday, May 22, 2015!
Excerpt:
With the cold-stiff fingers of one hand, Ottilde Dominax rubbed the prisoner number tattooed on the side of her neck. Her other hand gripped the heartstone suspended from a leather cord just below her breastbone. Its gentle, steady warmth provided some respite from the frigid air, though not enough to keep her body from giving an occasional shudder. She kept her eyes on the Latote Mountains in the eastern distances as the guard who walked around her block, counted the prisoners while his partner called out identification numbers and waited for the indicated prisoner to respond.
Barely autumn, Kalliroe’s far northeastern corner already had frost on the ground. “Least its smells better ‘round here,” Ottilde heard one of the other inmates grumble. Several muttered assents answered that bit of optimism. As far as Ottilde had observed, the only benefit to the glacial temperature was it tamped down the usual stench of the prison. In high summer, a disgusting mélange of unwashed bodies, piss, food, and animal droppings would drift like a fog over the prison houses and their occupants. It mattered little how often or thoroughly everything was washed.
“296.” The call of Ottilde’s number was met with angry hisses and mutters.
Ottilde shifted observed the guard at the front of their formation. He watched, seemingly bored, as the other inmates spat at her feet. “Kingkiller,” the woman next to her hissed. Ottilde raised one hand into the air. “Here.” The guard checked her name off his printed list and moved on. The commotion died down after he called a few more numbers and Ottilde let out her long-held breath. She made the fingers around her heartstone loosen. They came away aching with the force of her grip. Chroy had not been a king when she threw her knife into his throat, but he would have been.
When all the numbers had been confirmed down the line of blocks, several inmates broke formation to walk to the dining house for breakfast. The guards, however, growled at them to remain in line, shoving some of the slower ones back into place.
Ottilde frowned at the break in routine and peered around. She saw Prison Chief Wilder Coomb stride towards them on the other side of the wire fence that formed the front of the yard, his adjutant close at his side. One of the guards unlocked the yard gate and stood back as the Chief entered.
Wilder Coomb was a formidable man. Ottilde supposed, he might once have been handsome, but life had not been kind to him. His hair had been shaved to reveal a deep, curling scar on one side of his scalp while his face and neck carried similar gruesome marks. One earlobe was missing, which gave his head a cock-eyed appearance when viewed straight on. A jagged horizontal pink line along his neck indicated someone had tried to cut his throat. But the most impressive scar, Ottilde speculated, lay behind the patch over his left eye. She could see the silvery tail of the wound snake down his cheek and neck to disappear in the stiff collar of his forest green officer’s coat.
When he reached the front of the formations, he folded his hands behind his back and swept a contemptuous eye over them. Ottilde wondered what he saw as he stared at them, the ragged, unlucky soldiers taken prisoner during the recent Yemesh War between Dosalyn and Roanaan. For a moment, Chief Coomb’s hard, dark eye settled on her and she lifted her chin, refusing to show him how much he intimidated her. But his gaze moved on and she sensed the subtle shift of discomfort in the prisoners around her when one of them felt the whip of his gaze
He held up a sheaf of folded papers, a letter. “Queen Kamora has fled and Dosalyn has vanquished her armies.”
The prisoners shuffled and muttered. The cold air warmed with the force of their anger and humiliation. Ottilde kept her eyes on Chief Coomb’s face, though she felt a good portion of their collective rage focused on her. She knew she held blame for breaking the back of Roanaan’s fighting spirit.
“Over the last several weeks, those with authority in such matters have considered what to do with you all. I have a list of officers and knights to be traded for Dosalyn soldier now held by the remnant of Roanaan’s military as an act of diplomatic faith. Step forward when I read your number. You will be readied immediately for transport to the rendezvous point.” He snapped his fingers and his adjutant took the letter from his hand, replacing it with a single sheet of dark paper. Coomb scanned it and shouted out prisoner numbers.
Ottilde listened with unsteady breaths as each number was read and a man or woman came forward to answer the prison chief’s call. But he reached the last number on the list without calling hers. Her stomach soured as she watched a contingent of guards escort the fifty or so fortunate prisoners from the yard.
Once the yard gate had shut again. Chief Coomb’s adjutant handed him another paper. “Now, King Talin of Dosalyn has decided to offer those of you with reports of good conduct and no criminal past the opportunity to swear fealty to the Dosalyn crown. You will be released and transported back to either Roanaan or Dosalyn – you may choose either – and be given a small subsidy to start your new life. If you wish to accept this offer, step forward when I read your number.” He sounded off another list of prisoners. Again, Ottilde listened tensely for her number, though she knew how unlikely it was she would hear it.
Coomb must have called a hundred numbers or more, but Ottilde estimated only forty prisoners stepped forward. They averted their eyes from those who remained in the formations. Another handful of guards led this group from the yard.
“As for the rest of you,” Coomb said, “you are to be moved to a civilian prison facility where you will no longer be my concern.” He folded his arms behind his back. “Remember, as long as you remain in this camp, or in the custody of my staff, you will obey Laklas regulations. Everyone will appear for morning roll every day. You all know what will happen should even one of your numbers go missing.”
Ottilde did not watch as he departed. She no longer felt the cold autumn wind or the bump of her fellow inmates pushing past on their way to breakfast. She did not know how long she stood in the yard, clutching her heartstone and trying to breathe over the painful lump in her throat. But at last she wended her way into the moist reek of the dining house where she took a wooden tray and allowed the cooks to slop food onto it. Still in a slight daze, she claimed a seat in the back corner, well away from the other prisoners, though she felt their eyes on her face and back. Their stares pricked her, chafing her already raw nerves.
Ottilde caught the shadow of movement to either side of her. She sighed as her short-lived solitude came to end and glanced up. Hetch Bilo, her former cavalry squad’s lieutenant, and his two companions, Tanna and Hyrman lurked over her. She watched them sit; Bilo opposite, the other two flanking her.
The lieutenant reached across the table and stabbed a thick finger into her soupy porridge before bringing it to his mouth. “Looks like your high-born family wants nothing to do with you either, eh King Killer? Otherwise, they would’ve put in some pull with our military.” Ottilde schooled her face into a blank mask, refusing to react to the epithet.
Tanna leaned close and touched the prisoner number running down Ottilde’s neck. Ottilde resisted the urge to jerk back. “And as long as yer body shows up at roll call, I don’t think anyone’ll mind if ya ain’t movin’ or breathin’. What do ya think?”
Ottilde examined the disgusting food on her tray. She curled her hands into tight fists on the table’s planked top. Her eyes fixed on the ugly crosshatch of scars decorating her arms, angry reminders of the suffering she had endured since coming to Laklas. They throbbed with memories of the searing pain from the hot stove. Her lungs burned recalling the many times another prisoner held her head under water in the bathhouse. The smack of wooden boards from prisoner’s bunks against her back and head rang in her ears. She had kept still and taken their vicious punishments to stay inconspicuous and secure her release. Coomb had killed that prospect this morning. Snatched away the solace of home and her sister. The time for silent acceptance was at an end. Her heart picked up its pace. Ottilde met Tanna’s sneering stare. “I think you need to keep your filthy hands to yourself.”
Tanna’s sneer twisted into a snarl and she raised her fist to attack, but Ottilde struck first. She rammed her elbow into the other woman’s face, smiling at the satisfying crunch of bone followed by a spray of blood. On her other side, Hyrman let out a shout of surprise but Ottilde had already risen and swung a leg over the bench to steady her body before delivering a sharp punch to his jaw. He flailed back and tumbled from the bench. The next instant Bilo leapt over the table, sending her tray, with its messy contents, smashing to the ground. He clipped her on the cheek with his meaty fist. She spun and slammed into the wall but recovered enough to swipe her spoon from the ground and ram it with neat precision into Bilo’s eye socket as he came at her again.
Her opponent let out a blood-chilling scream and fell back against the bench clutching the gory spoon. Tanna and Hyrman had recovered enough to make another try for her, but by then the guards, alerted to the uproar, had rushed into the fray with batons swinging. Ottilde ducked one swipe but caught another in the ribs. She sucked in an agonized breath and crouched against the wall. Tanna and Hyrman tried to lunge at her, which earned them each several knocks about the head. When they were subdued enough, the guards dragged them from the dining house along with their still wailing comrade. The three remaining guards eyed her uneasily. Beyond them, the rest of the prisoners watched her too. This time, it was not hatred that radiated from their wide eyes, but fear.
One of the guards cleared his throat and reached forward to grab her arm in tight fingers. “Seems you want another trip to the black house, 296.”
Pride kept her quiet as the guard hauled her through the dining house and across the yard. But when she saw the four foot tall, two foot wide wooden stall standing at the center of the camp she snapped out of her mental paralysis enough to pull against the guard’s grip. “Please,” she whispered. But the guard shoved her inside and slammed the door shut.
As she listened to the guards depart, Ottilde braced her forehead against the wall coated in ash and pitch, fighting the angry, frightened sobs rising in her throat. Crying would only worsen the fire in her ribs and increase the sensation of suffocation the black house elicited. But the fear of enclosed places she had developed since coming to Laklas held sway. She panted and pounded her hands against the walls, trying to hold them back in their imagined march towards her. There was no telling how long they would leave her in the box and the absence of windows made it impossible to tell the time of day. “Please, let me out!” she cried, all pride and bravado replaced by desperation. She screamed and begged until she ran out of breath and voice. Her hands stung, now slicked with both sweat and blood.
One of her shaking hands swept through the heavy air and brushed the heartstone. She grabbed at it and squeezed. Oriabel. The warmth and sense of company in the darkness calmed her breathing and helped drain away the fear drained. Exhausted, she leaned against one wall. The confined space forced her to stand hunch-backed with her head brushing against the ceiling.
As the hours wore on, she dozed in and out of a fatigued sleep. Occasionally, she heard the ping of stones against the outside of the black house. Another petty revenge from her fellow prisoners.
At last, the door was pulled open and Ottilde stumbled into icy early morning darkness. Her cramped legs gave out and she fell to the ground, clutching her side and trembling. One of the guards standing above her said, “Get her to the infirmary. Looks like she sustained some damage in the fight yesterday.”
“Not as much as she handed out.” The other guard helped her stand and then supported her to the camp’s infirmary. Inside, oil lamps bathed the wood-paneled walls in a warm glow. Two rows of beds formed the general infirmary ward while private rooms for more serious injuries stood behind closed doors at the back. Through the slits of her eyes, Ottilde saw Doctor Hazelspur, Laklas’ chief medical officer, bustle towards them, bushy white eyebrows raised.
He inspected her grimly as he helped the guard ease her onto a bed. “She might have hypothermia, you realize.”
The guard shrugged. “Wasn’t my idea to put her in there this long.”
Ottilde listened to footsteps coming and going, felt blankets pile on top of her. The doctor urged her to swallow a mouthful of wine, warming her from the inside out. After a while the shaking lessened, and feeling flooded into her limbs. The doctor returned and ran impersonal hands over her swollen face then down her arms and sides. She hissed when he reached her ribs and tried to pull away.
“There, there. Be calm.” He pushed the blankets part way off her body and ran gentler hands under her shirt and coat. “Bruised rib,” he muttered to the orderly standing behind him. “Wrap her up and dose her with some poppy tea. Not too much, though. She has formation in a few hours.” The orderly nodded and went off for supplies. Doctor Hazelspur leaned over the bed and smiled. The overpowering sweet smell of his shaving lotion made her nose sting. “We haven’t had the pleasure of your company for at least two weeks, Ottilde.”
She watched him through bleary eyes. He was the only person in the camp who used her first name. Not Dominax or 296, but Ottilde. “I didn’t want to wear out my welcome, Dr. Hazelspur,” she croaked.
He chuckled and patted her shoulder, his kindly hazel eyes dancing. “Your cheek is a lovely blackish-purple but nothing permanently damaged. I can’t say the same for the man you sent here yesterday. He lost his left eye and almost died.”
Ottilde closed her eyes, longing for sleep now she was calm and warm. “He stuck his finger in my porridge. What would you have done?”
“Well, if I had learned my imprisonment was extended for an indefinite period of time, I think I would have tried to see the long range effects of my actions.”
She did not open her eyes. “But there is no ‘long range’ anymore. Not for me.”
Ottilde felt the tickle of the doctor’s whiskers as he leaned closer to her ear. “An interesting fact about wars, Ottilde: their aftermaths are full of cracks through which people can… slip.”
Now she did open her eyes, blinking them to focus on the doctor’s face. His white whiskers trembled above his lips. She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but the doctor stepped away as the orderly rejoined them. “Stay until the wake up bell and rest. As long as you avoid any more tussles, you should heal fine.” He left, Ottilde staring after him, her brows creased with tired puzzlement.
