The Lascar's Dagger
Read The Lascar's Dagger Online
Authors: Glenda Larke
S
aker smiled wryly at the thought of keeping himself out of trouble. He seemed to
attract
trouble, swinging towards it like a compass needle pointing north.
A moment later, right on cue, he knew he wasn’t alone in the warehouse.
He wasn’t sure what had alerted him. A faint inhalation of a breath? The almost inaudible scrape of a shoe against the rim of a cask? Something. While counting the cargo, he’d circled the whole warehouse, walked down every narrow alley between the stacks.
And I didn’t see or hear anybody
. The hair on the back of his neck prickled.
He eased himself down into a crouch, holding his breath. No one shouted an alarm. The silence remained as intact as the aromas saturating the air, yet every instinct told him he was being stalked. It wasn’t a mouse or a warehouse cat. It wasn’t the creak of timber warming up as the sun rose. Someone was there, in the building, following him.
Va rot him, he’s good, whoever he is.
Glenda Larke
was born in Australia and trained as a teacher. She has taught English in Australia, Vienna, Tunisia and Malaysia. Glenda has two children and lives in Erskine, Western Australia with her husband.
Find out more about Glenda Larke and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at
www.orbitbooks.net
.
Y
G
LENDA
L
ARKE
The Mirage Makers
Heart of the Mirage
The Shadow of Tyr
Song of the Shiver Barrens
The Stormlord trilogy
The Last Stormlord
Stormlord Rising
Stormlord’s Exile
The Forsaken Lands
The Lascar’s Dagger
COPYRIGHT
Published by Orbit
ISBN: 9781405529198
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Glenda Larke
Maps copyright © 2013 by Perdita Phillips
Excerpt from
Ice Forged
by Gail Z. Martin
Copyright © 2013 by Gail Z. Martin
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Orbit
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
Table of Contents
17. The Fox, the Falcon and the Princess
28. The Anger in the Aftermath
35. The Crime of the Vollendorns
For my agent
Dorothy Lumley
to whom I owe more than I can possibly say
T
he youth ran, running as he’d never run before, racing time itself down the beach. White coral sands scudded under his bare feet, muscled arms pumped, breath laboured. He raced, yet his mind screamed at him all the while,
You’ll be too late … too late …
He sailed over the fallen trunk of a coconut palm, leapt the sun-whitened driftwood of a forest giant, splashed through a stream trickling to the sea.
Too late, too late…
Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed the ship anchored in the lagoon, sails furled, prow swinging to meet the incoming tide. His mind refused to consider it. Refused to absorb the significance of the rowing boat drawn up on the sand of the far curve of the beach.
My fault … all my fault…
At the edge of Batuguli Bay where the coastline was heaped with marbled boulders, he turned away from the sea, his feet flying from sand to forest track as if speed could halt the disaster his foolish words had nudged into motion.
Air rasped into his lungs; pain lanced his side.
Don’t give up
…
There’s always a chance
…
The path curled upwards through the trees. The canopy thickened to dim the light and block the breeze. Roots knobbled the path, but his footing was sure. He laboured on, sweat pouring over his bare torso to soak the waist of his sarong.
The burst of a gunshot. A single explosion splintered into tens of echoes, each reverberation a promise of horror. Startled birds rose around him, bursting from the undergrowth and branches, their calls spreading their panic.
He sped up, not knowing until then that greater speed was possible but taking hope from the lack of any further gunshots. And then, much later, a scream, a human scream of anguish. It crushed him, that anguish, as it disintegrated all hope.
Too late.
Yet still he ran, long past his normal ability to endure. He burst into a clearing ringed with warriors and came to a halt.
Too late.
All my fault.
Raja Wiramulia lay on the ground, blood still seeping from his breast. The regalia proclaiming his ruling rank had been torn from him, part of it scattered on the ground around his body, part of it missing. Plundered. The prize the murderers had sought.
Rani Marsyanda crouched at his side, her forehead bowed to his cheek, her grief a tangible thing spreading around the gathering, scarifying them all. The Raja’s only son, too young to fully understand, stood at her side, his body trembling with shock. The Raja’s warriors, some spattered with blood, stood in a semicircle around them, stunned, disbelieving, leaderless.
Slowly the Rani raised her face, to look not at them, but at
him
. Her glance swept up over his sweaty heaving chest, to linger on his wild look of horror.
Was it you?
she asked.
You who betrayed us?
He knelt, touching his forehead to the ground, acknowledging his guilt, aware that she could order his death, knowing it would be justice rightly dispensed. He heard the rustle of the warriors unsheathing, but when he glanced up, it was to see her stay them with a gesture.
Who better than he to avenge this death? Who better to bring back what was stolen?
The questions were asked, but she expected no answer.
They shuffled and glanced away, not meeting her gaze, as she turned to him once more.
You, Ardhi, with your foolish hubris, you will make this right
,
or die
. She picked up one of the blood-spattered plumes from the regalia now lying on the ground. Glorious in colour and splendour, it had adorned her husband. Now she held it out towards him like an accusation, her gaze implacable.
Helpless, knowing what she was doing, knowing what it meant for him, he took it from her and shuddered at the sticky wetness on the shaft.
You will go to the krismaker and have a blade wrought. This I command. The hilt – the hilt I will make myself.
He bowed his head.
Then you will bring back all that was stolen from us, no matter if the quest takes you to the end of the world. Do not think of returning until you succeed.
A sigh whispered around the circle of warriors like a flutter of leaves on the wind. They knew what she asked of him. Perhaps they even pitied him, a little. Or perhaps they were just glad she had not selected one of them.
You know why this is necessary. You know the horror this theft can bring. You cannot change what happened. This is the closest you can come to atonement.
Her words faltered and faded, showing how tenuous her hold on her grief was. He wanted to weep. “I know,” he whispered. “If I could undo…” Pointless words. He halted and said instead, “I know what must be done and I will do it. How – how many were taken?”
Three. Only when you have all three will you return. Now go.
He turned and stumbled away, his shame and grief driving him forward when his legs would have failed him.
When he reached the beach once more, the ship was already unfurling its sails, the sailors just distant spiders in the rigging. And Lastri was there on the shore, watching. Her long black hair shone in the sun, and the sea wind whipped strands across her face. He stopped, arms hanging like lifeless driftwood, one hand clutching the cascading golden feather. She regarded him in silence, her eyes filled with fear. She’d heard the gunshot, she’d heard the birds. Her gaze dropped to the bloodstained feather. She would know that it meant more than a death.
He said, “You – you tried to tell me, but I was foolish and would not listen.”
The frog under the coconut shell, thinking it knew the whole world.
“The Rani has bade me leave.”
“Then … then go with the spirit of the wind, and pray that the same wind brings you back.” The words were ritual, but her voice shook with anguish and he saw the tears on her cheeks.
“Will you wait?” he asked. But he was the one who waited, in agony, for the answer she did not give.
As she walked away, he knew he’d lost everything. Home, family, love, honour, the life he had led until now. Perhaps even life itself. No way to change anything, only a chance, a sliver of hope, to prevent further wrongs.
