Victim of Fate

  Victim of Fate

  By Jason Halstead

  Copyright 2012

  Published by Novel Concept Publishing LLC at Smashwords

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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

  For additional information contact:

  www.novelconceptpublishing.com

  7974 Brookwood ST NE

  Warren, MI 44484

  Cover art © 2012 Willsin Rowe

  Proofread by Faith Williams

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Jason Halstead’s website: http://www.booksbyjason.com

  Look for these other Blades of Leander books:

  Child of Fate

  Victim of Fate

  Chapter 1

  Alto hammered his fist against the door for the third time. The door opened before his knuckles could knock a fourth.

  "Somebody best be dying!" the man answering the door grumbled. He wore a housecoat over the robes he'd slept in and carried a lantern in his hand.

  Alto tried to look past him into the dark house. "Not yet," he said, "but the night is young. I'm here to fetch my friend."

  "Friend? No friends of yours here," he grumbled. "I'm a merchant, not a soldier!"

  Alto heard something crash nearby, accompanied with a loud grunt. He turned and saw the shape of a man in the darkness scramble awkwardly to his feet. Alto looked up and saw an open window with light streaming out around the silhouette of a young woman.

  "What's this?" the merchant shouted. His eyes narrowed as she waved to the man that had leapt from her window. "Kyla? Back to your room!"

  "My apologies, good merchant," Alto said. "Seems my companion's not visiting you after all."

  The merchant looked from Alto to the man who was backing away. He held up his lantern to shine light on the slender man's disheveled but fine clothes. Buttons were mismatched and laces untied. He looked back up at the window in time to see the shutters close. His eyes narrowed.

  "You!" He leveled a finger at Alto's friend. The red flush on his face proved he was incapable of further speech. He pushed Alto, trying to move the large young man out of his way. Alto stumbled back but the man tripped on the warrior’s foot and fell forward onto the cobblestones. The lantern fell and upended, spilling oil and lighting a rapidly spreading fire.

  The merchant scrambled to regain his feet but slipped on his robes and cracked his chin on the ground. Alto looked to the fire and the merchant. The older man was trying to climb back to his knees again, gesturing at the dark figure on the far side of the river of flames all the while. Alto grabbed him and yanked him back as the flaming oil neared his housecoat.

  "Let me go! I'll have you both imprisoned! You've no right!"

  "You've no right to being burned alive either," Alto reassured him. "Take off your cloak; we must beat these flames out!"

  The merchant turned and saw that the pool of flaming oil had spread up against the wall of his house. Oil that had splattered when the lamp fell welcomed the flames and ignited, spreading the fire up the wall rapidly.

  "My house!" he shrieked.

  "Your coat!" Alto reminded him.

  The merchant flailed about, ripping his cloak off and then flapping it in an attempt to beat out the flames. In seconds, the cloak was soaked in oil and spreading the flames. Alto grimaced and turned to see Namitus staring back at him with his mouth hanging open.

  "Go for help!" Alto told the merchant.

  "My house," he whimpered.

  "By the saints, man, go! We'll see to your family," Alto said.

  The merchant turned to glare at Alto's friend. "Keep him away from my daughter!"

  "Would you prefer her honor sullied or dead?"

  The merchant stared at Alto and then nodded. He turned and ran off, shouting for help. Alto looked at his friend while holding up his hand to shield his face from the heat coming off the wall. "Just the girl and her mother?"

  "She has an older brother, too, Jericho," he said.

  Alto shook his head. "Namitus, if we survive this..."

  Namitus grinned. "We'll have another story to tell?"

  Alto scowled and turned to note the flames had nearly spread to the open door. He plunged through and stared around at the house. Smoke filtered in, creating a haze and burning his nose and throat. Namitus joined him and looked around.

  "Where to?" Alto gasped.

  "I've never been in here," the rogue admitted.

  "You just were!"

  "I mean down here. I used the window."

  Alto glared at him for a moment and then turned and rushed deeper in, checking doors until he found stairs that led up. Together they climbed to the second story of the house. Namitus led the way. He pointed at a door on their left and then moved farther down the hall to a door on the right. Alto threw the door open and saw a girl sit up in bed. In the flickering light that came through the shutters, she looked younger than Alto by a few years.

  Alto opened his mouth but stopped when he overheard Jericho across the hallway. "Namitus? But you left already? Is something wrong?"

  Alto couldn’t hear the rogue's response, and then forgot about it when Kyla asked, "It smells smoky, what's going on? Who are you? This isn't proper; I'm in my bedclothes! Father!"

  "Your house is on fire!" Alto blurted out. "Now get out of bed and come with me."

  She gasped and stared at him. Alto felt sweat running down his face. "Hurry!" he exclaimed. Kyla nodded and threw her sheets back and then leapt out of bed. She went to a trunk and began to open it when Alto growled and grabbed her about the waist. Kyla squealed and beat on his back as he threw her over his shoulder.

  "Where's your mother?" he demanded, ignoring her puny slaps. He moved to the door and looked down the hallway. Namitus and Jericho were moving out of the bedroom ahead of him. They both turned ahead of Alto and the struggling girl and answered his question by heading to the final doorway in the hallway.

  Alto waited outside while Jericho roused his mother and calmed her, and then urged her to follow them out. By the time she emerged, they were all coughing and squinting. Light flooded in from Kyla's room as the shutters burned and fell away.

  "Downstairs! Now!" Alto bellowed with what air he had left. He led the charge, thundering down the stairs as fast as he dared while he carried Kyla. She'd long stopped fighting him and now clung to his back as best she could.

  "Wait, Father's books!" Jericho said.

  "Don't be a fool," Namitus snapped.

  "Without his ledgers, he'll be lost," the young man said.

  Alto made his way to the entrance and stopped as he stood in the archway to the entryway. Flames danced and leapt up the wall and around the open doorway that led outside. Heat blasted him and sucked the air from his lungs. He looked up and saw the sinuous fire flowing along the ceiling like a living beast.

  "Blankets!" Alto said. "Cloaks, robes, anything?"

  "That chest," Kyla cried out behind him. Alto turned, earning a slap on his hip. "The other way!"

  He set her down and opened the chest to see several
folded cloaks in it. "Water? Is there any water?"

  "In the kitchen we've a cask, but it's near full!" Kyla and Jericho's mother said. She coughed and stared through her fingers at the fire that was devouring her home.

  "Stay here!" Alto said. He turned and rushed back into the kitchen. A larder off the kitchen had the barrel of water in it. He rocked it in the rest it was in to judge its weight. It was more than half full and no small task to move.

  Alto yanked on it and rolled it out of the rest, and then crouched low while balancing it on the edge of the rests it sat in. He backed up and rested it against his shoulders and neck, and then pulled it tight to his back and straightened from the squatting position. He leaned forward to balance the weight and staggered back through the house.

  By the time Alto returned to the entrance, he was gasping and lights were dancing in his eyes. "Help me. Set. Down," he wheezed out. The flames had spread farther in and were threatening to overtake the house completely.

  Namitus and Jericho rushed to his side and put their hands on it. Alto squatted down and let them pull the barrel to the floor. Alto fell forward and gasped, noting how the air seemed cleaner and cooler near the floor. Of course, he'd forgotten that heat and smoke rises. "Water," he wheezed. "Soak the cloaks!"

  He rose up after a few more desperate gasps and turned to see the stop had been yanked out of the barrel. Water poured onto the fabric piled in front of it, soaking it and spreading it along the floor. Alto looked up, amazed at how he could scarcely see ten feet. He saw Kyla swoon and collapse.

  "Kyla!" her mother gasped. She rushed over and fell next to her, covering her and pulling her up.

  "No more time," Alto mused aloud. He stared at the water on the floor and looked up at the flaming entryway. "Wrap everyone in the wet clothes!" he told them. He took a deep breath of the less dangerous air and rose fully to stand next to the water barrel.

  He saw everyone grabbing the fabrics and doing as he'd bade them. Satisfied, Alto grabbed the barrel at both ends and picked it up, testing it. The water that had poured out had lightened it enough. He hoped. "Get ready! I'll take the girl."

  Alto heaved it up, using his arms and back to hoist the quarter-full barrel and then propel it towards the entryway. It sailed through the air several feet before crashing to the ground and bursting open, spraying water across the floor and clearing a path. "Go!"

  Jericho rushed out, several books clutched against his body that he'd snatched up when Alto had been in the kitchen. Namitus followed on his heels. Alto grabbed up Kyla. Her mother finished wrapping her and nodded to him. "Go," she coughed. "I'm coming!"

  Alto charged through the superheated room. If he'd thought it was hot before, he was sorely mistaken. The flames sucked the air and moisture from him, boiling the sweat off his face as soon as it appeared. The wet cloak was steaming when he burst into the cooler night air outside the building. The cloak, still damp on the inside, had warmed to the temperature of bathwater.

  A crowd had gathered, including a line of men running to the nearest well with buckets. They'd given up hope of saving the merchant's house; instead, the water was being tossed on the nearby houses to keep sparks that landed from catching. Alto handed Kyla to a woman he didn’t know and turned back to stare at the house. He coughed absent-mindedly, trying to clear the smoke from his lungs. Kyla's mother did not emerge.

  Alto hacked and growled, and then took as deep a breath as his tortured lungs could manage. The sound of wood snapping and breaking stopped him. He looked up and saw the wall that had been the side of Kyla's bedroom buckled and start to lean outwards, no longer supported by the weakened structure that had been the first to catch flame. Alto jumped forward and ran back into the inferno. He could smell his hair burning as the flames tried to reclaim the ground that had been covered in water only moments ago.

  Kyla's mother was lying where he'd left her. He picked the older woman up and cradled her in his arms as best he could. Pulling on reserves of strength he didn't know he had, he turned and ran back out the entrance. He had to leap away from the falling timbers once he'd cleared the doorway.

  Alto laid the fallen woman down once he'd cleared the immediate threat and then turned, gasping for breath and feeling as though he was in a dream. Somebody was tugging and pulling at him, staggering him and threatening his weakened balance.

  "Alto! You're on fire! Let it go!"

  The words finally registered. Alto relaxed and helped Namitus pull the cloak he wore aside. He heard ripping before he finally felt the weight lift off his shoulders. He felt cooler almost immediately. Alto turned and saw Namitus stomping the cloak out where it lay on the ground.

  He nodded and took a step towards it, thinking he should help. His knees buckled and the ground rushed up to meet him.

  Chapter 2

  Patrina hacked her sword at her opponent, driving his heavier blade back. He let her vent her anger on him, deflecting strike after strike. Patrina's arm slowed with fatigue, giving the large man the chance to catch her blade near the hilt at the beginning of her next strike. The early parry knocked the blade free.

  Patrina grunted and stumbled back. She reached for the knife at her side but the point of her father's broadsword pressed against her mail-covered chest. "You've lost," he told her.

  Patrina scowled at him. She cast about, wondering what she could do to change the outcome of the battle. Finally she nodded, accepting defeat.

  "You're fighting like a brute," Teorfyr said. "Not the skilled lass I raised."

  "You fight like a brute!" she accused.

  "I am a brute!" Teorfyr laughed. "But a warrior knows when to use strength and when to use skill. You've got more skill than strength but you're still stronger than nearly any of the fools wearing Kingdom tabards!"

  Patrina frowned. She'd agree on principle if it weren't for a small group of Kingdom men she knew well. One, in particular.

  Teorfyr caught her expression and he chuckled. "The boy, Alto—it's been a season and still you pine for him?"

  Patrina's back stiffened at his accusation. She shook her head, her blond braids flying, and opened her mouth to retort.

  Teorfyr beat her to it. "I took the lad aside when I met him," he told her. "Told him that he'd impressed me with word and deed. By the saints, 'Trina, he wields Kevard's Sword and, from what was told of the retaking of Highpeak, he invoked its powers."

  "Anyone can do that," Trina refuted.

  "Not anyone, only one who wields it in defense of the Kelgryn," Teorfyr said with more than a hint of iron in his tone.

  Patrina shrugged. Against her better judgment, she asked, "What else did you say to him?"

  Teorfyr grinned. "I gave him permission to call upon you."

  Patrina gasped. "You didn't!"

  His grin widened.

  "He's not Kelgryn! He's not even royalty!"

  "The most noble people are seldom from royal bloodlines," he offered. "Kevard himself was just a man until he brought the people together to become the first king of the Kelgryn."

  "But he's not—"

  "Be silent, daughter," Teorfyr interrupted her. "You're fighting this too much, that speaks as much as anything. You've too much of my stubborn fire in you, I think, and not enough of your mother's gift for wisdom."

  Patrina clamped her mouth shut and breathed through her nose. Hard. She counted silently, a lesson taught to her by her mother when she was a child with a penchant for throwing tantrums. Why did thoughts of Alto calling on her upset her so much? It was a good question. She liked him; she'd told him as much. She'd given him her first, and only, kiss. He was handsome, strong, and caring to be sure, but there was more to life than that. The man was dumb as an ox at simple things, yet he could reason out problems that left her struggling.

  "It's been eight months and not a word from him!" she admitted.

  Teorfyr smiled. "Ah ha, so you admit to liking him!"

  She nodded. There was more to it than just liking him. Not a day passed she
didn't think of Alto. She'd never share that with anyone, but admitting it to herself felt like she'd thrown open a window to feel the wind and sun on her face.

  "He'll come back, you can be sure of it," Teorfyr said.

  "Why?"

  "He wields Kevard's Sword; it won't let him stay away should trouble come to us."

  "You think trouble's coming for our people?"

  Teorfyr nodded. "You can be sure of it. The wise woman tells of dark times and hints of seeing a figure shrouded in darkness and flames. Your young friend will play a role, have no doubt."

  "What of me? Am I to be hidden away in a tower again?"

  Teorfyr scowled. "You've never set foot in a tower!"

  Patrina waved it away. "You know what I mean!"

  Teorfyr scratched his long beard and stared at her. He nodded. "Might do you good to get some more dirt and blood under your fingernails. When the time comes, that is. Don't you go looking for trouble or you'll find it comes to you at high tide!"

  Patrina nodded. It was a common enough saying amongst the Kelgryn. High tide could wash away virtually anything; what worse time to have troubles than when the unstoppable seas were against you? "I'll be ready, Father."

  "I know you will, lass. Now let's see about reminding you how to fight!" He raised his broadsword in a salute and pointed with his other hand at her longer but thinner sword that had fallen to the side.

  * * * *

  "I have the final mechanisms set in place to create the elemental forges," the wizard announced to the mighty being that towered over him. He stared up at the dragon in fear. The only thing that scared him more was what would happen to him if he looked away.

  "What of my armies? Do they swell as you promised, wizard?"

  Fizzulthorp nodded. "Yes, great Sarya. The creatures from the mountains hasten to your call; already we've replaced all that were lost earlier this year. We've reached agreements with the snow people to the north; they are guiding the mercenaries that arrive to us, but with winter on us, the northern seas are soon to freeze."