Amaskan's War Read online

  Introduction

  His feet carried him out of the building and down to the paths. Like a well-trained pup, Bredych fled to the coast where he’d walked with his daughter.

  She had cursed him for sending her away, for sending her into the hands of her birth father. She had thrown questions at him, and he had answered by removing the tattoo that had marked her Amaskan.

  Tears mixed in the dirt below, which he allowed in the moment before rage bubbled up and burst from his mouth with a shriek.

  The blade slid easily from its hiding place at his waist. Practiced hands swept it across his chin before the brain could register the sting. When it arrived, it was both less and worse than the ache in his heart.

  The tattoo he had worn for fifty-four years landed in a bloody heap of skin in the soil below.

  In the morning, he would ride for Alexander.

  He would ride for answers…and for vengeance.

  Praise for Ozma Fantasy Award Winner

  AMASKAN’S BLOOD

  “An exciting epic fantasy filled with intrigue and layers upon layers of well crafted secrets and lies.” -Stephanie Hildreth of 100 Pages a Day

  * * *

  “Holy crap, this is good!” - Seattle Geekly

  * * *

  “If George R. R. Martin wrote Tangled, it might be a bit like this.” -N. Jahangir, author of The Adventures of Some Kid

  * * *

  “[Oak] will surprise you, frighten you, charm you, and, ultimately, move you profoundly.” -Chanticleer Reviews

  Other Titles by Raven Oak

  The Boahim Trilogy

  Amaskan’s Blood (Book I)

  Amaskan’s War (Book II)

  Amaskan’s Honor (Book III)*

  * * *

  The Xersian Struggle

  The Eldest Silence (Book I)*

  * * *

  Class-M Exile

  Joy to the Worlds: Mysterious Speculative Fiction for the Holidays

  Untethered: A Magic iPhone Anthology

  Magic Unveiled: An Anthology

  * * *

  * forthcoming from Grey Sun Press

  Amaskan's War

  The Boahim Trilogy: Book II

  Raven Oak

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part II

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek

  Excerpt from Amaskan’s Honor

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Join the Conspiracy

  Amaskan’s WAR

  The Boahim Trilogy: Book II

  * * *

  Raven Oak

  Grey Sun Press

  PO Box 1635

  Bothell, WA 98041

  Copyright © 2018 by Raven Oak

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Cover art by Jamie Noble

  Maps by Raven Oak

  * * *

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  * * *

  ISBN: 978-0-9908157-1-6 (Print)

  ISBN: 978-0-9908157-3-0 (eBook)

  * * *

  Library of Congress Control Number: PENDING

  The scanning, uploading, copying, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase authorized print or electronic editions. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials hurts everyone. Your support of the arts is appreciated.

  For information, address: [email protected]

  This book is dedicated to Erik as always.

  May you ever be my sounding board, cheerleader, and when plot-tangles drive me mad, my laughter machine.

  Prologue

  257 Delorcin 19th

  The rumors crept their way across Sadai’s border the way a water droplet rolls across a stone—it finds a crevice, a weakness if one will, then trickles inside without warning, forever changing more than the stone’s surface.

  Chatter had reached the Order of Amaska, but Bredych had paid it no mind. What did he care of King Leon’s struggles? But the whispers had created chasms that echoed and bounced inside his mind. He had tried lying to himself, but news traveled fast these days.

  When a trader had mentioned travelers fleeing the Kingdom of Alexander, fear had forced his fingers into fists. The next caravan to pass the Order had painted a grimmer picture—some poor soul had been hanged in the square at high noon for assassinating a prince. The word assassin had leapt from their tongues like cinders, and his fists had turned into knives. When a single Amaskan approached the Alexandrian border on Bredych’s orders, the rumors painted the council room black, and Bredych seethed.

  An Amaskan had seduced the prince. No, she had seduced the King. Never mind that, she had tried to kill her own sister! No matter, the King had strung her up for treason and eaten her entrails in celebration.

  A dozen different tales, each one darker than the one before.

  Yet Bredych had refused to believe. His daughter was stronger than that. She was the best he had ever trained.

  He had sent a dozen Amaskans to the border for answers, and as their horses disappeared from sight, his knees had trembled like a first-year trainee rather than the Amaskan Grand Master.

  Walls painted blue and green left him somber as the sun set on another day his daughter would not see. The powdered gold mixed into the paint glittered, mocking him as the Thirteen stared with knowing looks from their frozen frames.

  Alone in the council room, Bredych traced the carved figures of the Thirteen with his fingers before depressing the eye of Anur, God of Justice. At first, the wall merely trembled in response. After three breaths, a click sounded in the wall to his right.

  He pushed against the wall, and it slid open to expose a room covered in several lifetimes of dust. At its center, a single orb glowed. Bredych pulled his hood closer about his face. Could the Boahim Senate see him through the sleeping orb?

  No other Amaskans knew of the room’s existence. The orb was an artifact surviving from a different time—something his dear sister had discovered shortly after he’d been named Grand Master. But the words needed to bring it to life had been his discovery.

  “Ta’asor Ley,” he whispered, and the orb’s glow dimmed.

  While many seasons had played across his body, the woman in the orb appeared unchanged from the last time he’d seen her. “You dare call upon us! I should curse you where you stand!” she said as she glared.

  “You could, but then we would be forced to build boats to reach you.”

  “What do you want, assassin?”

  “Knowledge.”

  “Ab
out?”

  He paused for a moment, then answered. “The Kingdom of Alexander.”

  The sudden paleness of her face washed out any beauty she’d held. “War trembles at their border. Beyond that, I won’t disclose.”

  “War with whom?”

  “An old enemy with poison in its veins.”

  She spoke in nothingness as well as Bredych, but the twitch of her eye muscles gave her away. “There’s more to this warning of war, Senator. We’ve heard rumors of death—”

  The woman in the orb nodded. “Indeed. But then, you already knew this.” The foggy shroud cleared as she leaned forward and whispered, “Itovestah.” The crystalline pendant around her neck twinkled once, then the image faded until only darkness remained.

  Bredych touched the orb, but it was as cold as her stare had been. He repeated, “Ta’asor Ley.”

  Nothing. The orb was dead.

  Loud footfalls warned of someone’s quick approach. He left the orb room and rolled the wall back into place. Someone knocked upon the council room door, and when he opened it, a trainee stood outside, face down and waiting.

  Like his daughter once had been.

  Bredych blinked back the moisture that threatened to ruin his composure. “You have a message for me?”

  The blond haired boy nodded. “Delmon’s returned—with news—should I summon the council?” The words tumbled out of his mouth, and at Bredych’s nod he was off down the corridor again.

  Instead of the bed his exhausted body craved, Bredych remained in the room and claimed a seat at the long table’s end. Fifteen minutes of silence until the Amaskan council members shuffled into the room, followed by Delmon himself.

  Dark circles made a raccoon of Delmon, and a jagged wound stretched across his forehead—a twin to match the one across his left cheek. The Amaskan fell into the offered chair, and after a moment’s rest, he bowed his head before the thirteen council members. One poured a glass of water, which Delmon accepted with a grateful nod. When offered a glass, Bredych shook his head. His stomach churned enough on its own.

  “Master Bredych—” Delmon swallowed a large gulp of water before continuing. “There are troops moving within Alexander, and word has it that to the south, the Shadian army approaches.”

  “War between Shad and Alexander? Would they dare with the Senate watching?” Bredych asked, but Delmon ignored the question.

  “I wish that was the worst of the news, Grand Master. No matter where I traveled, people spoke of Amaskans. None of it was new information. That is, until I gained passage into Alexander.”

  No wonder he bore a scar. He had been lucky that was the worst of it. Bredych said, “You were ordered not to cross the border.”

  “I—I had no choice, Grand-Master.”

  “Explain.”

  The man ran a trembling hand across his bald head. “When I reached the border, word came that…that one of our own had been killed. I sent messages to the others, and we met in a barn. It was a trap, Grand Master. The man who’d given me this information reported us to the border guards. We were hooded, tied up, and tossed into the back of a wagon. We crossed the border unwillingly, where a man interrogated us. He thought we came to kill Queen Margaret.”

  One council member asked, “Queen? So the rumors of Leon’s death are true?”

  Bredych dismissed her question with a hand wave. “How did you escape?” Like water over stone, the cold wrapped itself around his shoulders as Delmon spoke.

  “I didn’t escape. They released me, Grand-Master, so that I could pass along a message from the Queen herself.” Delmon took another sip of his water. “Any Amaskan caught inside their borders will be killed without question.”

  “And my daughter?”

  Delmon stared at his glass. “When the wagon reached the capital city, the others were killed. Queen Margaret herself witnessed it from her balcony. They took me to where they would dispose of the bodies, and…and that’s when I saw her.”

  The man’s hands trembled, and water sloshed over the side of his glass. Bredych’s muscles quivered with inaction.

  “Master Bredych, I’m sorry. Her—her body still hung for all to see. Queen Margaret said nothing of it, but the rumors are that your daughter was hanged for treason. The Prince of Shad is dead—”

  Ah. So that was why Shad’s troops moved to the Alexander border.

  “—The Senate encased her body with some spell or another. They meant to use her as an example, Grand Master.”

  The old woman in the orb had known all along. She had frozen his daughter in place. What magics did one require to stop time?

  Bredych’s jaw ached from clenching his teeth too long, and he stood. “Thank you, Delmon. You may leave.” To the others, he said, “Arrange a memorial for our missing brothers and sisters. And someone fetch a physician to treat Delmon’s wounds.”

  His feet carried him out of the building and down to the paths. Like a well-trained pup, Bredych fled to the coast where he’d walked with his daughter.

  She had cursed him for sending her away, for sending her into the hands of her birth father. She had thrown questions at him, and he had answered by removing the tattoo that had marked her Amaskan.

  Bredych’s fingers buried themselves in the rocky soil as the waves crashed in the distance like footfalls too loud in his ears. Something about the scenario didn’t make sense. If Leon loved her even half as much as I do, Leon wouldn’t…he couldn’t have allowed this to happen. He couldn’t put his own daughter to death.

  But then, Margaret stood as queen. Perhaps Leon had nothing to do with his daughter’s death at all.

  Tears mixed in the dirt below, which he allowed in the moment before rage bubbled up and burst from his mouth with a shriek.

  Whether it was Leon, Margaret, or the Senate that had hung the noose around his daughter’s neck mattered little. Bredych wiped the remnants of tears on his sleeve and straightened his shoulders.

  The blade slid easily from its hiding place at his waist. Practiced hands swept it across his chin before the brain could register the sting. When it arrived, it was both less and worse than the ache in his heart.

  The tattoo he had worn for fifty-four years landed in a bloody heap of skin in the soil below.

  In the morning, he would ride for Alexander.

  He would ride for answers…and for vengeance.

  1

  257 Cercian 10th

  Gone was the twinkle and warmth in his brown eyes. The mass of bed sheets dwarfed his once tall frame as he curled in on himself, more remnant of a toddler than king. In what the physicians warned would be his final days, Margaret’s father begged for death as he fought the poison in his veins.

  He cried like a child. He shouted and writhed. And when he was done with that, he wet himself.

  In a rare moment of clarity, he whispered to his daughter, “Call the Senate.”

  After a sip of some smelly concoction the physicians had whipped up, he spoke of a hidden room with an orb and the words needed to call upon the Boahim Senate.

  There was no time to question his words as King Leon slipped into a drug-induced sleep. Under her hand, the veins of his neck pulsed with a weak current.

  “Is there anything you need, Your Highness?”

  Margaret buried her slim hands in the ruffles of her dress lest she forget herself and wring them. She shook her head rather than lash out at the physician. It was not his fault King Leon lay dying any more than it was the physician's fault Adelei’s corpse still hung from a magical noose outside the city walls.

  She half expected the guards to escort her from her father’s chambers, but they maintained their downcast glances. Her orders not to be disturbed held meaning—maybe even…authority? Margaret stifled a laugh as she closed the door behind her.

  The hallways were empty as Margaret sought her father’s council room. Any visitors to the castle had long since been sent away. Between the threat of war and her father’s failing health, it served no pu
rpose to hold court. Inside the council room, a thin layer of dust coated the table and chairs, and the bookcase along the rear wall. “The Histories of Thirteen Kings,” she mumbled as she trailed her fingers along the book’s spines. It took the better part of thirty minutes to track down all thirteen books, which she then pulled out of place.

  When she stepped back, no decipherable pattern appeared and she sighed. If there had been one, it would have made future ventures easier and less time consuming. Margaret pushed the books forward until an audible click sounded. She tugged on the bookcase, but it didn’t budge. With a grunt, Margaret leaned her hip against the wood and shoved, only to tumble backwards into a chair when the bookcase slid sideways to expose a small chamber. Self-defense practice left bigger bruises than the tumble would, though she still winced when she stood.