The Gallows Black Read online

  The Gallows Black

  A Grave of Empires Novella

  Sam Sykes

  www.orbitbooks.net

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Sam Sykes

  Excerpt from Seven Blades in Black copyright © 2019 by Sam Sykes

  Excerpt from The Gutter Prayer copyright © 2019 by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan

  Author photograph by Libbi Rich

  Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

  Cover art by Jeremy Wilson

  Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First ebook edition: May 2019

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  ISBN: 978-0-316-36359-4

  E3-20190423-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Discover More

  Extras

  Meet the Author

  A Preview of Seven Blades in Black

  A Preview of The Gutter Prayer

  By Sam Sykes

  Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.

  Tap here to learn more.

  ONE

  It looked like a good axe for killing.

  At least from where I was standing—big enough to loom over an already impressively tall headsman, with a jagged head whose edge was sharpened to a murderous glint. It was a blade designed to make enough of a bloody mess to satisfy the crowd, yet to kill quickly, so that the poor bastard on the other end wouldn’t be crying and begging for death and giving people the opportunity to reflect on why they had turned out in such enthusiastic numbers to see a man die.

  Contrarily, the unfortunate soul didn’t look like much of a killer.

  At least from where I was standing—I could barely see him over the heads of the chattering crowd ahead of me who had all turned out to see him and his friends die. He stood third in line, a meek and sober creature who looked like he hadn’t even noticed the manacles on his wrists, let alone tried escaping them. He didn’t have the killer’s remorseless stare, the outlaw’s boastful grin. Rather, he wore the weary eyes and long, somber frown of a poor dope with poor taste in friends and a poorer sense of timing.

  It seemed a shame to waste such an axe on such a man.

  Especially since I was going to kill him.

  “Bring up the first criminal.”

  A booming voice came from the gallows, loud enough to cut through the excited murmur of the crowd. Tall and gray and weary, Councilman Linnish—by all accounts a decent and reasonable man with a strong sense of family values and a deep love of his citizens—set about the work of sentencing three of them to death.

  “Keevis Rathanin. You stand accused of crimes endangering the people and property of the freehold of Last Word.” The sweaty, terrified man dragged up by a pair of guards onto the gallows seemed a twitching counterpoint to Linnish’s tired monotone. “Chief among these charges: abduction, theft, murder, looting, smuggling of magical wares, practice of profane arts, disregard for laws local, Imperial, and Revolutionary, and engaging in unlawful, profane, and grotesque manufacture.”

  Linnish’s face twitched, like he wanted to look away. But he forced himself to stare into the eyes of the man whose head he was about to see roll across the gallows.

  “And the participation in the cruel and heinous murder of the Imperial officer Gallicus ki Ontoran.” He closed his eyes. “For these crimes, your head is to be separated from your body and…” Linnish paused, catching himself with a breath. “And displayed. As a warning to those who do not consider the consequences of their actions. Have you any last words?”

  “Linnish, please, you know me,” the man whimpered. “I didn’t even know this Gallicus guy. I didn’t—”

  Linnish sighed, shook his head. If left to him, it wouldn’t have been this. If left to him, it would have been done with a short rope and a quick kick of a stool, far away from prying eyes.

  But this execution was not for his benefit.

  “Are the aggrieved parties satisfied with the summary and sentencing? Judge Olithria?”

  He looked over the square, to a balcony extending from a nearby building. Violet banners displaying a four-winged bird in flight fluttered without a breeze, kept suitably majestic by the enchantments woven into them. The Imperium did so love little spectacles like that.

  Three faces, expressionless and empty and cast in bronze, stepped to the balcony—two men and one woman looming over both. Their violet uniforms clung tight, making no effort to hide the cut of their physiques, even as swords dangled off their hips as simple afterthoughts. Mages, like most people who could make a man explode into tiny chunks with a thought, had little use for things like armor or weapons.

  Imperial Judges, radiating with energy as they did, even less.

  “In the name of Her Imperial Majesty,” the woman, Olithria, said, her voice rendered a tinny echo by her mask, “as punishment for this heinous crime, the Imperium is satisfied.”

  Linnish nodded, glanced to the other side of the square. “And you, Colonel Tatha?”

  By contrast to the Judges’ subtle displays of power, the Revolution announced their presence in a loud bellow as they snapped to attention. A dozen men and women in blue coats stood tall, their gunpikes towering high, iron heads a match for their iron stares.

  A middle-aged, severe-looking man, who looked to be comprised of more harsh angles than the blade at his hip, stepped forward. He fired off a stiff salute to no one in particular and cast a glower up toward the balcony.

  “Ignoring the stain of corruption the decadent Imperial swine bring to this display of justice…” He looked back toward Linnish. “By the authority of the Glorious Revolution of the Fist and Flame, I declare that we are satisfied.”

  Under normal circumstances, this sort of accord would be historical.

  Not since they’d broken free of the Emperor’s rule had the Revolution been able to tolerate Imperial presence. In pursuit of control of its resources and its people, their armies raged across the land we called the Scar.

  Armies like the ones parked outside the city walls.

  Revolutionary cannons on one side, Imperial mages on the other, Last Word, a lovely little city with industrious people, had become the flash point for the Scar’s latest conflict.

  Not t
hat the people here hadn’t expected the war between them to reach their doorstep eventually. Freeholds were bastions for those who were willing to trade the safety of Imperial or Revolutionary rule for the freedom to govern themselves. But while the people of Last Word might have braved the feral beasts, outlaws, and warlords of the Scar to make their own lives, there wasn’t a freehold around that could contest the power of both the Imperium and the Revolution.

  The people had already begun to flee the city, fearing more violence. To see the Revolution and Imperium abstaining from that violence, even if it was just for an execution, was nothing short of historical.

  I wasn’t here for history, though. I was here for revenge.

  Linnish nodded and, without looking, gestured to the headsman.

  “No! NO!” The victim screamed as he was forced to kneel upon the block. He turned his head out toward the crowd, which was now roaring with cheers. “Please, you all know me! I’m not profane! I didn’t even touch the magical shit! I was just trying to earn some—”

  A bloody cloud of gore sprayed from the stump of his neck. The crowd boomed. No matter who he had been, he had brought the Imperium and the Revolution to their doorstep, and they were more than happy to see one of their own die to spare their freehold the fate that would come from a war between them.

  A decent trade. A reasonable trade.

  At least from where I was standing.

  The thunder of the crowd grew louder as the carcass was hauled away and the head was readied on a pike. The Imperial Judges, high above, applauded lightly. The Revolutionary soldiers bellowed chants and banged their gunpikes on the stands.

  I tugged my hood a little lower to hide the fact that I was the only one not cheering or cursing or whatever the man in front of me thought he was accomplishing by gesturing furiously at his crotch.

  Not that I begrudged the locals their sport, mind you. When you live in a place like the Scar, you take what entertainment you can. But I had seen a lot of executions before and this one wasn’t even one of the nicest.

  Really, I was just here for what was to follow.

  I glanced back up at the gallows as the other two victims were brought forward, my eyes drifting back to the poor bastard at the end of the line. He was flanked by guards at the moment, along with the person in front of him—too soon to kill him, had to wait until he got onto the gallows. I’d have a clean shot.

  And then… I’d take what I was owed.

  As if in answer to my thoughts, I felt something burning at my hip. My hand drifted unconsciously to the weapon strapped to my belt, fingers caressing his black hilt and fumbling briefly over the metal of his trigger. He begged to be drawn.

  And who was I to turn down such a gentleman?

  Beneath my cloak, I unsheathed him. I glanced down, studied him in the darkness. A gun of black and brass, a polished black hilt and a glistening brass chamber that seemed to glow as my eyes lingered on it. And, carved around the hole of his barrel, the visage of a grinning dragon leered back at me through metal eyes.

  He did so love being admired.

  Almost as much as he loved what I was about to do.

  I looked back up at the man about to be killed. He was gaunter and weaker than I remembered. And if I didn’t recognize that poor, hapless why-me stare, I wouldn’t have recognized him at all.

  But I still knew his name. As surely as I had when I’d written it on my list.

  “Zanze,” I whispered.

  I held it on my tongue, whispered it again as I reached into my pouch and felt the cold metal of the shells, fingers tracing over the spells scrawled upon their metal.

  “Zanze.”

  I plucked three of them out, flipped the gun’s chamber open and was greeted with three black holes. One by one, I loaded them. They each clicked home: Discordance, Hellfire, Hoarfrost. One by one, I imagined them tearing him apart, freezing the chunks of his corpse, melting them to greasy puddles.

  “Zanze.”

  “Fine day to see justice done, isn’t it?”

  I glanced up as I pulled my cloak over the gun, sending him seething at the indignity of being hidden. But what else was I supposed to do? I hadn’t been around Last Word for very long, but I imagined that loading a magic gun while muttering the name of a man you intended to kill over and over would make you look weird to most people.

  Let alone an Imperial mage.

  He stood tall and proud—or rather, attempted to stand taller and prouder than me—as he loomed close enough for me to make out the crystalline medal of the four-winged bird affixed to his chest. I offered him a cordial smile, hoping he would leave.

  “I see you’ve noticed my honors.”

  But they never do, do they?

  “They don’t give this honor to just anyone.” He tapped the medal I had been inspecting and smirked. “Only those who proudly serve the cause of the Imperium by bringing order to the savages of this wasteland receive such gratitude from the Empress Herself.”

  Punch him in the face and see if he goes away.

  I bit back that instinct, along with the other three that followed, and drew in a breath.

  That would draw attention. Then they’ll take Zanze away and you’ll have to wait to kill him. Just be nice.

  “I don’t want to say I’m a hero, but…”

  Okay, just try to be nice.

  “Is that so, sir?” I tried to sound pleasant—or at least not bored—and struggled with both. “Surely, you do me too much honor by gracing me with your presence. If you have other things to do—”

  “Take this malcontent.” He, predictably not appearing to have heard me, gestured to the carcass being tossed off the gallows. “He was working for one of the insidious Freemakers. He eluded the rampaging fist of justice for months, pilfering magical weaponry and smuggling the profane goods, introducing the taint of magic into the city. Took us weeks to track him down, but mercifully, I was able to find him here in Last Word.”

  “You must be very skilled, sir.”

  I attempted to offer him a saccharine smile, hoping he, like a puppy, would take a treat and go find another place to lick himself in. Two problems with that, though: puppies are cute and I wasn’t particularly good at smiling.

  “Well, I don’t wish to brag,” he said, smirking. “But even the backwaters of the Scar have heard the name of Athropos yun Deramonte.”

  I hadn’t, but then again, I didn’t think most people bothered to name assholes.

  “And may I have your name, madam?”

  I glanced at him, just enough to let him see the barest glimpse beneath my hood. Just enough to let him see the scars twisting down over my eye, clawing away at my cheek, and offered him the same grin I offered the last guy I punched.

  “Sal,” I said.

  He cringed; good.

  But he didn’t leave; bad.

  “Unfortunately, I would have had another medal to show if I had beat those lunatic Revolutionaries here.” He glanced to the nearby soldiers in blue and sneered. “Alas, we must settle for this farce of an execution instead of true Imperial justice. Olithria, after all, wishes to be diplomatic.”

  “Uh-huh.” My patience, along with my sweetness, was running out. My eyes were on the gallows as the next prisoner was hauled up. “Real kick in the balls, that.”

  “Oh, I can’t complain,” he said, pointedly not listening anymore. A morbid smile creased his face as he looked toward the gallows. “We are avenging the loss of our officer Gallicus. These swine had a hand in his death, it’s been deemed. To see Imperial justice done is an honor.” He smirked. “And, at the very least, another Freemaker will be dead because of our actions.”

  I blinked. “A Freemaker?”

  He gestured to the gallows. I blinked again. He must have been mistaken. Freemakers were ancient, decrepit old men who hid in dank holes, tinkering over long-dead machines with withered hands and breathing in the scents of acrid chemicals through lungs long atrophied.

  Or at least the
one I knew was.

  The woman walking to her own death looked positively serene.

  Short, slim, and wrapped in a simple black dress, she ascended the gallows without fuss. Her face was calm, her eyes betraying no fear of the fate she had just witnessed nor that which awaited her, not a strand of her black hair out of place. She didn’t even seem to notice the manacles around her wrists, as though they were mere inconveniences.

  And the crowd, for all its jeers and curses, wasn’t even worth her attention.

  Linnish raised a hand for silence before continuing. “You stand accused of the crime of Freemaking,” he said. “For the black-tongued oaths you have sworn, for the vile poisons you have brewed, for the profane machines you have constructed, for the lives you have claimed and would have claimed had your renegade ways not been halted.” He closed his eyes, let out a sigh. “Young lady, I—”

  “That’s not my name.”

  She barely raised her voice. Yet Linnish recoiled, as though struck. He stared at her, mouth open. And she simply spoke again.

  “Say my name.”

  His lips quivered, as though he were hesitant, before he finally whispered it.

  “Twenty-Two Dead Roses in a Chipped Porcelain Vase.”

  An excited murmur went through the crowd. Even I let out a curse at the name.

  No one in the Scar ever saw a black, smoking crater and wondered if it wasn’t the work of Twenty-Two Dead Roses in a Chipped Porcelain Vase. The Freemaker whose acids could eat through armor, whose explosives had torn freeholds and townships apart, whose poisons had sent more people to the black table than I’d had hot meals?

  This was her?

  I’d thought she’d be taller.

  “Have you any last words?” Linnish asked.

  She stared at him thoughtfully. She looked out over the crowd, glanced from them to the Revolutionary soldiers to the Imperial Judges. She sighed softly. A whisper of a smile creased her face, the last words a mother breathes to a child too young to know what she’s saying.

  “Would you even understand?”