Bonus Chapter One | On the Run (Patreon)

Hi Patrons,

Here is a chapter that unfortunately didn't make it into the final version of the book, but I love the introduction of Gerrard Price from his own point of view.

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Gerrard Price regained the safety of the farmhouse, and gingerly pulled at the burned gash on his flank. That fat fool Riley had nearly killed him, but the fact that he had been out-manoeuvred by Ritta Kerne hurt more than the wound, or the deaths of the others. The frumpy wikkan had just been standing there with that knowing smile on her face.

But he had escaped, and he was sure they hadn’t been followed. Not even the wikkan could follow them this close to the faelen lines. The long ears might capture an arcanist and ransom him, but they tortured and burned the witches as a matter of principle.

Price slowed at the open doorway, gagging on the acrid eldritch stench. Rhodes lay where he had been dragged and left, his lips dark blue in the moonlight and the black veins of eldritch poison stark on his paper-white skin. A horrible way to die.

“I will kill the wikkan, Ritta Kerne.” The death oath felt good, a heavy weight in his gut that gave him a renewed sense of purpose. Deep down in a dark place, another oath lurked, nameless and faceless for now, but he was a patient man, born of the high places where the ages were measured in the years of stone.

Voices murmured in the basement of the ruined building, and a gently flickering fire light beckoned him. The basement walls were damp but it was a fair exchange to get out of the biting cold wind. His two remaining co-conspirators sat staring sullenly at the flames. Neither greeted him and their silence whispered a warning to his senses, ever alert for signs of betrayal. They had clearly come to some agreement.

“There’s no sign that we’ve been followed,” Price said, keeping his voice even and holding his cold hands to the flames.

Who would speak first? He wondered. If it was Jenkins, then he might have a problem. He was several inches taller, and carried half his weight again in bulk. He must have been leybound almost as long as Price, though he likely couldn’t hit the side of the ruined farmhouse they were sitting in with such crude spell craft. The runes on his hands were ugly, lumpen scars that looked like they had been carved in by a blind sculptor.

“We've been talking,” Abbot said, scratching in the dirt with a stick.

Price smiled inwardly. Abbot, the pickpocket who had never served in the ranks, had only been leybound a month, barely over the shivering, wracking pain that burned in his veins. His common, nasal accent had been grating on Price's senses all day and the journey west would be more pleasant without it.

With his wound, he would never beat them both without the ley power. Price twisted his hand slowly, letting the firelight catch the delicate silvery scars of the hundreds of runes on the back of his hand and up his wrist. In the flickering firelight they seemed to be in constant motion, like a flock of starlings wheeling in the sky. How long had it been, a year? The hunger had never left, but where it once roared, it was now a defeated whisper.

The whisper told him to reach out to the ley line, but was that his will, or the whisper of the ley line itself? They were one and the same perhaps. The whisper told him to reach for the barrier, but he would tell himself the same thing. It was disgusting how badly he wanted it.

Abbot scratched out a pattern in the dirt, as he spoke, like he was some great general forming a battle plan. “The faelen are north of here.”

“So?” Price replied.

“So, we’re fucked, we ain’t got no food, no money and Rhodes is dying.”

“He’s dead,” Price said, the steel in his voice making the other two shift uncomfortably.

“We’ve got the hedron, that’s worth something to the long ears. We can turn it over to them, like the price of admission or something.”

“You want to go fight for the enemy?” Price said, looking down at the skinny boy.

“Why not? You’re the one who’s always talking about what they done to us, how they treat us. We can join the Covenant, and fight back.”

“You’re with him, Jenkins?” Price asked.

Jenkins took a moment for the thoughts to line themselves up in his massive head, then nodded slowly. “Hard winter, long and hard road to the west.”

Price nodded. Jenkins was a dale man born and bred and likely knew a killing winter in these lands when he saw one.

“So we go to the faelen, right?” Abbot asked, a hopeful note to his voice.

“No, we go west.” The silence took on a sharp edge and Price fed off of the tension, savouring it.

Gods! A whole year since he had sealed away the ley line. Long enough for the channels in his body to wither and crack with the dry craving. Would it burn him away perhaps? That might be best, it would be quick at least.

Price lowered his defences and arcane power flooded into his body, surging into the withered channels like flood waters into a dry river bed. He couldn’t suppress the shudder because he was weak, a slave to the burning ley power that strained against its chain like a feral animal snapping to be free.

The world was picked out in grey light. Abbot stood, his body throwing a scrawny shadow on the damp wall. Jenkins stayed seated. He should have stood up.

“It’s two against one, if you want to die in the cold, then give us the hedron and go. You can take half the stuff we have,” Abbot said.

“Bargaining now?” Price asked.

Gods the boy was weak. Slattery and Richards should be here, hard men who had served in the ranks and been made leybound when only one in twenty were survived and they made you bury the burned corpses of the other nineteen to hide the crime.

But Slattery and Richards were dead, killed by that frumpy wikkan. How had she moved so fast?

“Why didn’t you bury Rhodes?” Price asked, in a calm voice.

“He’s dead, who cares? Just give us the hedron and we can go our separate ways,” Abbot said.

“I told you to bury the boy if he died. I gave you an order,” Price said.

“We don’t take orders from you, or Riley, or Loic. We’re free men and we’re taking that hedron to the long ears, so hand it over.”

The small hairs on the back of Prices neck prickled and dirty-grey leypower leaked from the deep scars in his forearms and seeped into the runes on the back of his hands. The sickness and the sweet, burning as it soothed. He held his cupped hands before him and the grey light, like liquid smoke filled them, the filthy black streaks coating his hands.

Abbot scrambled up and his hands also began to fill with the grey light that illuminated his scared pimply boys face. But he was slow, woefully slow.

Jenkins stirred, like some long slumbering troll and Price almost couldn’t let it go now that he had started. But he was the master of the snapping beast and he hauled on its chain and the grey light fell dripping to the floor like liquid smoke. He struck true and buried his blade in Jenkins neck at an angle that cracked through his collarbone and cut his heart in half.

“You bastard,” Abbot gibbered, taking a half a shaking step backwards.

The blade needed a tug before it came free of Jenkins body and the big man toppled over like a felled tree.

The boys eyes were bulging, he was locked into the casting now, a true slave to the ley power. Price watched, five seconds, ten, fifteen and he hadn’t even filled his hands.

“I don’t have all night.” Price took two neat steps forward, and ran him through.