The Chains of Fate – Book Excerpt

Hello friend! Today I am chatting with author, A. A. Night, about their fantasy book, The Chains of Fate. Let’s welcome A. and learn more about the book. You will also find a book excerpt after the interview. 🙂

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Get to know the author: A. A. Night

Welcome to Armed with A Book, A.! Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!

Hello! My name (or pen name, rather) is A.A. Night, and I’m an author of adult fantasy and literary fiction.

What inspired you to write this book?

I’ve been working on this novel in sporadic spurts of creativity for a very long time. Thus, my inspirations have shifted considerably over the years. Initially, I was inspired to write by my childhood passion for fantastic stories and enchanting world building, especially as showcased in Tokien’s Lord of The Rings trilogy. Much later, after having fallen out of the habit of recreational reading for some time, I picked up George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and was enthralled by the gritty realism and relatable themes that Mr. Martin had achieved in a genre defined by surrealism. I was also grappling with a personal crisis of faith and period of inner-seeking at the time, which resulted in a fascination with metaphysics, religion, and the ontological similarities and differences across cultures. With The Chains of Fate, I sought to channel these myriad inspirations into a sort of allegorical grimdark novel that pays homage to both classic and contemporary fantasy tropes while still retaining a unique identity of its own.

How long did it take you to write this book, from the first idea to the last edit?

I came up with the fundamentals of what would eventually grow into this world and these characters somewhere around the year 2000, but I didn’t begin dedicated work on The Chains of Fate’s manuscript until the summer of 2016. So I’d say either six years or twenty, depending on one’s precise definition of the “first” idea.

What makes your story unique?

Spiritual transcendence and the cycles of ecstasy and despair that accompany belief are central themes of The Chains of Fate. While the discussion of spirituality is far from unique in the world of speculative fiction, I’ve found that many fantasists utilize religion primarily as a backdrop for intrigue of a more political nature. I’ve really tried to emphasize the personal experience of divinity over the entanglement of church and state (though there’s plenty of that, as well). One might say I write more of the mysticism of religion than the practice of it. 

I also possess a deep-rooted passion for all things surreal and psychedelic, which informs my writing to a significant extent. As much as I love the snappy wit and gritty realism of today’s grimdark masters, I tend to take a more intentionally dreamlike approach.

Do you have a favourite quote or scene in the book that you find yourself going back to?

If I had to pick a favorite quote from the novel, it would probably be: ”Faith and doubt are but loving dancers on the unlit stage of unknowing; to step into the cold light of certainty is to abandon their comforts forevermore.”

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Book Excerpt from
The Chains of Fate

Chapter III

645 Kingdom Era, Summer

“He don’t look so good, Errol.”

“Aye, looks like a beached whale’s shit on Midsummer morning. If I knew no better, I’d say he’s never been on a ship before.”

“You sure we got the right man? A few days on the big water and he’s sick as a dog. Not to mention he could be my grandfather.”

“Jorgen said ‘ask for the Eastman they call Krevynyn.’ How many Kharar do you know with a name like that?”

“Got a point there. Most all of them have those funny names. ‘Shah’ and ‘Fah’ and all such nonsense.”

Krevynyn scowled at the two Westerners. They spoke in trader’s speak, a bastardized dialect of Westernese that included words from a dozen other tongues, Kharari among them. Their seeming assumption that Krevynyn’s ancestry rendered him incapable of comprehending foreign languages was maddening, but he lacked the resolve to call them out. It took all of his strength just to keep from retching over the  Drunken Maid‘s gunwale.

Krevynyn hated the sea. He hated the smell of it, hated the constant rocking of the tides. He hated the storms, and he hated the scorching heat of cloudless days even more. Most of all, he hated the birds. He could not hear himself think for all the gulls’ squawking, and they were always dropping their excrement precisely where he meant to sit or lean.

“Hey!” the Westerner named Errol called out in broken Kharari. “Are you feeling alright?” He was shouting slowly, at the top of his lungs, as though his lack of fluency could be rectified by volume.

“Mind your own business,” Krevynyn growled back in proper Westernese. “And speak a language you won’t butcher, or don’t speak at all.”

“Uh, right, sorry,” Errol stammered, blanching at the venom on Krevynyn’s tongue. He nudged his companion and the two scurried off, disappearing beneath the deck. Krevynyn was pleased. He was getting old, having just seen his fifty-fourth winter, but, for now at least, he retained an incredible talent for intimidation.

Krevynyn would never have taken a job like this one twenty winters past. Gold was easy to come by for an able-bodied lad with a quick sword hand and a willingness to use it. Kidnappings, assassinations, even a few pitched battles; Krevynyn’s work record was as varied as it was brutal.

But, violence was a young man’s craft. As his hair turned from black to gray, he found increasing difficulty in tracking down potential employers. So, when he’d been propositioned to act as a load-guard on the  Maid‘s sophomore voyage through the pirate-infested waters of the Shallow Sea, he could hardly afford to say no.

The  Drunken Maid,  a small and undermanned cog, was either very poorly or very ironically named, for its master had banned all manner of alcohol aboard the ship. Had Krevynyn known this beforehand, he would not have taken the job. Unfortunately, the shipmaster had also prohibited his hiring clerk from advising any potential crew members of his policies prior to their departure from the Bog Town docks.

Krevynyn retched violently over the hull, racked by the worst wave of nausea yet. It was not merely sea-sickness that plagued him, though the vessel’s constant rocking and swaying did not help the matter. Rather, his body was utterly unaccustomed to such extensive periods of sobriety.

Approaching footsteps creaked across the decking as he wiped vomit from his chin. He looked up just as the  Maid‘s captain, a tall, lithe Dulguurish man named Coryx, sidled up to the gunwale beside him.

“So it’s true what they say, hey? You Easterners have little tolerance for the tides, it seems.”

“And you Southerners talk over much, with nothing to say.”

Coryx grinned and clapped Krevynyn on the back.

“Not too ill for a sour mouth, are ye?”

“Never.”

Krevynyn returned the officer’s geniality with a smirk. He cared little for most of the crew, but he found Coryx to be decent enough company. The captain had been the only man aboard to treat him as a peer, rather than an exotic rarity. Krevynyn was well aware that his people seldom left their homeland; constant reminders of the fact were as exhausting as they were unnecessary.

“Remind me again how it is that your boss’s people hoodwinked me onto this damned drought of a boat.”

“Ah, so this is the source of your ailment?” Coryx retorted with a laugh. “Worry not, friend Krevynyn, for you are in good company. This abominable heat of late has given me a mighty thirst as well. But alas, our good and benevolent employer does not wish to anger Oceanus, great god of sea and storm, who despises all manner of maritime debauchery.”

“Pah!” Krevynyn spat. “You damned Southerners are as superstitious as my own kin.”

“We Southerners?” Coryx replied with a wounded look. “Not I, Krevynyn, not I. I hold no gods but gold.”

“In this, we are the same.”

“I’ll make you a deal, guard. The moment we unload in Ocean’s Watch, you and I will find the nearest tavern and share a pint.”

“A pint? How about twelve?”

“And they say that no Kharar speak my native tongue!”

Both men laughed. Coryx gazed to the horizon with an easy smile. It fell abruptly to a grimace.

“Damn,” he muttered as he brought forth a spyglass from his belt.

“Pirates?” Krevynyn demanded, alarmed.

“Aye,” Coryx said, peering through the glass. “I count one longship and two runners. Small party, but we’re a damned small ship.” He tossed the spyglass to Krevynyn, and in the same motion brought the ship’s bronze horn of command to his lips. After two long blasts he called out, “Pirates! Strike sail! All men to arms!” The deck fell to utter disarray as men scrambled about, frantically working the rigging and donning arms and mail.

Damn, they don’t call them runners for nothing,  Krevynyn thought as he gazed through Coryx’s glass. Two small, sleek ships skated across the water’s surface with uncanny speed. Their narrow decks could accommodate no more than two men abreast, and their taut black sails bore the image of a monstrous blue squid. Their mother vessel, the longship, held back, reserving its crew’s strength.

Both of the runners were identically manned, and Krevynyn sensed a disciplined, professional air about their crews. There was a stout man at the prow of each, both garbed in chainmail and half-helm, and both crouching behind circular wooden shields adorned with the same insignia as the sails. One of them bore a long-hafted war axe, and the other a curved shortsword of a design that was unfamiliar to Krevynyn. Behind each were four lithe, unarmored men. Krevynyn judged that they had been selected for swiftness and agility over strength. These men bore a variety of weapons, from axes to daggers. A bare-chested and unarmed sailor operated the rigging at the rear of each runner.

The shipmaster’s clerk had hired only two other load-guards to protect the  Maid. Those men looked capable enough, but if the longship got involved there would be no hope of holding off the attackers. The handful of crewmen aboard the vessel were armed with knives and shortbows, but Krevynyn did not anticipate much help from them. If they were any good in a fight, they would have been sailing with the pirates for better pay.

The two runners broke off their direct advance, aiming to flank the Maid. Krevynyn heard heavy footsteps approaching, and he turned to see one of the other guards beside him. He was a great, hulking brute of a man, with sunburned skin and a northern look to his features.

“To starboard, with the captain and the other guard!” Krevynyn barked. “I’ll take this one myself!” The Northerner gave him a bewildered look, but the Kharar’s tone brooked no argument. Shrugging, the giant plodded off to join the starboard-side defense. As soon as his back was turned, Krevynyn reached for the beaded leather pouch that he kept in his trousers pocket. Within was a thumbnail’s breadth of hausche, the last of his supply. He hoped it would be enough. Holding the pouch to his nose, he inhaled sharply.

His nausea was gone in an instant. The sun’s rays glinting off of the sea’s surface grew brighter, near-blinding, as his pupils swelled. The shouts and cries of the pirates and sailors became a tempest in his ears. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, and he could feel his heart beating ever-faster. Brandishing his shortsword, he leapt up onto the gunwale and howled at the runner and her crew.

When the small craft drew within three yards of the Maid’s hull, Krevynyn leapt. The prow-bound shield-bearer readied his axe for a swing, but drastically misjudged Krevynyn’s trajectory. The Kharar landed with both feet firmly on the pirate’s shield and kicked down, propelling himself to the rear of the runner and propelling the shield’s rim into its bearer’s nose.

The rigger’s eyes grew wide as Krevynyn descended upon him. He took the Kharar’s entire weight in a sword thrust through his heart. Krevynyn yanked the blade free and swung upward, pivoting on the balls of his feet to catch an axe mid-swing in the haft. He tore a dagger from his hip and ripped it across his assailant’s abdomen, spilling bloody entrails across the decking.

He spied a fourth pirate approaching and pivoted once more, deftly positioning the disemboweled man between himself and the newcomer. There was a sickening crunch as the attacker buried his weapon deep in the dead man’s spine. Planting both feet firmly on the runner’s deck, Krevynyn pushed up and out, shoving both pirates over the hull and into the sea.

He fell into a defensive stance as he turned to face the prow, his shortsword in one hand and his dagger in the other, both slick with gore. One of the pirates had boarded the  Maid, he saw, leaving two to face his wrath. One was the shield-bearer. Blood ran from his shattered nose as he weaved from side to side. The blow to his face had plainly left him concussed.

The other man presented the bigger threat. He was armed similarly to Krevynyn, a weapon in each hand. Krevynyn lunged for him. The pirate swung up a defensive blade, but Krevynyn dropped to the deck the moment before their weapons kissed. Sliding between his opponent’s legs, he buried his shortsword to the hilt in the man’s groin, showering himself with blood, urine, and bile. In the same motion, he slashed out with his dagger and sliced through the tendons of the shield-bearer’s ankles. The shield-bearer cried out in agony and collapsed to the deck, pitching his shield and axe overboard as he fell. Krevynyn rose to his knees and drove down his dagger with all of his strength, tearing through mail, leather, and bone to impale the concussed pirate’s heart.

Then, as suddenly as they had come, the hausche’s effects were gone. Krevynyn’s muscles screamed with aches and pains both old and new, and within moments he was dry-heaving over the runner’s hull. Spitting and hacking, he crawled toward the hastily lashed ropes that bound the vessels together. He hauled himself up onto the  Maid‘s deck and collapsed in exhaustion.

The fight was over. Krevynyn counted seven dead pirates and four wounded sailors strewn across the decking. Both of the other guards lie still and bleeding, pierced by arrows and riddled with knife wounds. Coryx shambled up, panting, his cutlass dripping red, and collapsed beside Krevynyn.

“Hells below,” the captain uttered between ragged breaths. “I must say, I am thoroughly impressed. Your reputation is more than warranted. I’d have hated to see you in your prime.”

“Not if I was on your side.”

Coryx made a weary attempt at a grin.

“Indeed. Those were some tough men. The toughest, in fact. That tentacled demon painted on yon sail is the sigil of Kord the Kraken. And here you, a seasick, dry-tongued drunk of fifty-odd winters, took down five of them alone.”

Krevynyn shrugged.

“This Kord supposed to be a name I know?”

“I suppose not, seeing as you’re no sailor. But if you were, you’d be a damned fool not to fear him. He’s the mightiest pirate chief the Shallow Sea has ever seen, and he only recruits those that can best him with a blade. Where’d you learn to fight like that?”

“I’d just seen my thirteenth winter the first time I held a blade. I killed three of the KharDar that day. A fight like that, you either come out learned or you come out dead.”

“This KharDar supposed to be a name I know?”

“I suppose not, seeing as you’re no Kharar. But if you were-”

“I’d be a damned fool not to fear them, aye,” the captain cut him off with a grin. “Come, friend Krevynyn.” He hauled himself up to his feet and extended a hand. “I spied a cask of Reignland-brewed firewater aboard that runner there. To the seven hells with the shipmaster’s restrictions, let us bless our fallen with song and drink.”

* * * * * * *

The  Drunken Maid’s voyage from Bog Town to Ocean’s Watch saw no more violence. Krevynyn had feared that the pirates’ chieftain would send more raiders to seek vengeance for his fallen, but the Kraken’s empire was built on pragmatism, not honor. The small cog was hardly a prize worth risking more personnel.

A fortnight after the skirmish, Krevynyn awoke to the faint smell of refuse and the distant fluttering of banners and sails. Groggy from a night of drinking and gambling with Coryx and the other men, he stumbled out of the crew’s quarters and made his way up to the foredeck. The blindingly white limestone walls of Ocean’s Watch peeked up from the horizon, flanked by rolling hills of olive groves, vineyards, and fig orchards. He spotted the captain loafing about the port-side gunwale and sidled up beside him.

“It’ll be a right mess in the harbor this morning, I’d wager,” he said with a yawn. “What with the Fisher’s Fete not a moon’s turn away.”

The captain chuckled.

“Oh we’re not going to the city’s harbor, my friend. We’ll be docking in Beggarton.”

Krevynyn gaped.

“All that bloodshed for a Beggarton load?”

Coryx shrugged.

“We’ll all be paid the same either way. What’s it matter to you?”

“That explains why they only hired three guards,” Krevynyn muttered sourly. “If Beggarton men can afford whatever’s in the hold, it’s probably not worth the wood it’s sailing in.”

“It’s not, and they can’t. It’s all radishes and beets, and poor ones at that. But they’re not for sale; good Legate Carllhide offers a leniency on tariff collection to merchants who’ll feed the poor souls for free.”

“I don’t deal in charity,” Krevynyn growled.

“Ah, but you are as we speak. Smile! What’s wrong with a bit of goodwill? More of it and the world would be a happier place.”

Krevynyn considered this for a moment. It was a foreign concept to him, but he supposed it was a sound one. He could not imagine possessing such wealth that one could afford to pass it around freely. But then, considering the tariff leniency, he supposed his wages weren’t so costly for the shipmaster in the end.

The  Maid arrived at Beggarton’s ramshackle pier several hours later. The village was the slum of all slums, a de-facto gaol wherein the royal legate of Ocean’s Watch stowed the most undesirable of his city’s denizens. It sat two miles away from the city’s walls on the eastern flank of the bay, and it was home to all of the lepers, lunatics, and lurkers that the Ocean’s Watch City Guard deemed too ill or ill-mannered for decent company. It comprised a hodgepodge of driftwood shanties connected via a ragged web of narrow, muddy alleyways awash with refuse and human waste.

Despite the sickening odors and heightened risk of contracting leprosy or plague, Krevynyn preferred Beggarton to the city proper. He had lived his life on the fringes of society, an exile from his homeland and an outsider in all of the foreign places that his wanderings had taken him. In Beggarton, he found company with the other unloved and unwanted of the world.

“We’re making for the city after we unload here,” Coryx said as the sailors lowered the gangplank. “We’ll dock for a few days, load up on proper goods, and ride the coastline back to Drag’s Quay. Same wage for a safer journey. What do you say, friend?”

“I say nay,” Krevynyn spat. “I’ve had enough of that damned saltwater to last a lifetime. I figure I’ll shack up here in Beggarton a few days, buy a horse, then head back north. Grellan’s Ford, mayhap. Get out of this damned heat for a spell. But I’ll tell you something you can do for me. Remember the work I did to those pirates, and keep my name alive. I’ll head back to Bog Town someday, and I’ll need work when I do.”

“Keep it alive, I will,” Coryx said with a smile. “What is a sea captain if he has no tales to tell? And the tale of your sword hand will swell with the telling, I’d wager. When next we meet, we’ll share those pints I promised, I swear it. If that thrice-damned firewater hadn’t soured my gut as it did, we’d share them now. But, alas, I fear I was made for ale and mead and nothing stronger.”

“Ah, perhaps we should have paid more heed to young Benj’s warnings, eh?” Krevynyn said with a mischievous smirk.

“Pah, I’ll take no advice from late-night sea-swimmers,” Coryx retorted with a wide grin. Benjin Geck, Coryx’s ambitious first mate, had threatened to expose the crew’s post-battle celebrations to the shipmaster upon their return to Ocean’s Watch. He’d disappeared the following night.

“Until we meet again, friend. Take care.”

Krevynyn nodded and stalked off to collect his wages from the ship’s quartermaster. With a fresh weight of gold at his hip, he made his way to the Sea Dog. Three-walled and no bigger than some nobles’ pantries, the tumbledown tavern held only two tables and a bar. The Dog’s watered ale generally fell somewhere between tasteless and undrinkable, but by Beggarton standards it was finely crafted fare.

“Why, there’s a face I’ve not seen in many a moon’s turn,” said the man behind the bar as Krevynyn approached. He was wiry-thin, heavily scarred, and covered from head to toe in some kind of weeping pox. In short, he was a typical Beggarton native.

“Aye, many a turn and more Jucka. Give me the usual.”

“Do we serve anything else?”

“You tell me.”

Jucka grinned as he drew forth a rusty stein and pulled a draught from the single keg that fit behind the bar.

“Well damn me to the deepest hell,” a voice said from the back of the tavern. “If it ain’t old Krev the Crow. Thought I’d seen ye coming off yonder docks.”

Shit, Krevynyn thought as he turned slowly around to see two familiar faces and one strange one.

“Ivar,” he said. “Been a long time.”

“Aye,” the man who’d spoken said. A Northerner by blood, he bore the trappings of a proud son of the Lockewood: long, matted hair, bare arms covered in an intricate web of black and blue tattoos, and heavy black paint about his eyes. As a personal touch, a chain of severed ears hung about his neck. “A long time indeed. Surely you ain’t forgot your friend Ivar o’ the Lockes, have ye? Nor the coin you stole from me?”

“What you call him the Crow for?” the man with whom Krevynyn was unfamiliar said.

“Because that’s what he’s named for in his mother tongue, a pretty little blackbird. Why don’t you flutter those wings on over here and sit for a spell, Krev? I think we’ve some business to discuss.”

“Don’t see how we do. I owe you nothing, Ivar. I did a job for you and got myself paid. Far as I see it, our business is through.”

“A job I wasn’t yet paid for myself,” Ivar growled.

Krevynyn shrugged.

“That’s between you and your employer.”

Ivar scowled as his hand dropped to the short-hafted war axe that hung from his hip.

“Wait,” a voice said from beside him. It was Fah’Urr, a fellow Kharari exile. Krevynyn had met few other Easterners during his wanderings, and had worked with even fewer. Of them all, Fah’Urr was the only one that hadn’t yet ended up at the wrong end of Krevynyn’s blade. Urr was a decent enough man by most accounts; Krevynyn hoped he wouldn’t have to kill him.

“He may be able to help us. We’ve got a job tonight, could get bloody. We could use you, Krev. What do you say, Ivar? He helps us out, free of charge, you drop the debt?”

Ivar considered for a moment, then lifted his hand from his weapon and crossed his arms in front of him.

“Perhaps. What do you say, blackbird? Do a job for free, or add your ears to my chain. Your choice.”

Krevynyn considered for a moment. He didn’t know what job they had planned or what it might entail, but he  did know that Ivar o’ the Lockes was the fiercest bastard he’d ever seen in a fight. There were few men in all Avonia that Krevynyn feared, and Ivar was one of them.

“Jucka,” he said. “Another.”

He downed the rest of his ale in a single draught, took a second mug from the barkeep, and strode over to Ivar’s table.

“So,” he said as he sat. “What’s this job?”

“Why don’t you tell him, Urr,” Ivar said. “Seems to me you two have got the most stake in it.”

Krevynyn gave him a questioning look.

“Us two? What in the seven hells is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s about the Hills, Krevynyn,” Fah’Urr said, his voice heavy. “What do you know about the goings on there these past few winters?”

“Nothing.”

It was the truth. Krevynyn avoided news from his homeland at every opportunity. It always enflamed within him a painful nostalgia, a hopeless yearning to change events set in motion long ago.

“Well first off, there’s a war on. Rather, there was.”

“What?”Krevynyn demanded. It had been centuries since the Kharar had engaged in any type of formal warfare. It was the role of the KharDar to covertly resolve any peace-threatening disputes, be they foreign or domestic, before the conditions for open conflict could arise. For all of their many sins, the caste of killers excelled at this task.

“Aye,” Fah’Urr said with a sorrowful nod. “And worse, it’s a war between Kharar. Hollowtree and Beasthaven namely, but every other town’s taken a side.”

Hollowtree, Krevynyn mouthed silently to himself. It was his home village.  War?  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Schism amongst the KharLar was inconceivable, especially one so deep that it led to open war. What Krevynyn considered the fundamental flaw of the Kharari Way was at the same time its greatest strength: it was built upon a foundation of the few’s ultimate power over the many. As long as that foundation remained whole, the Way was impregnable. But it would seem a crack had appeared in that foundation, and with that one crack the entire monolith had crumbled.

“How?” he managed, the word heavy on his tongue. “What happened?”

“Well, first there was a famine. Then there was a plague. Then a child was born to Beasthaven.”

Krevynyn nodded slowly.  

“The Mark of the Dar.”

“Aye.”

“What?” said the only man at the table whom Krevynyn had never met. He was of mixed ancestry, though there was a Southern air about him that signaled an upbringing in the Reaches.

“An albino,” Ivar said. “Kharari superstition. They think them cursed. But then, who am I to talk?” He shrugged. “We used to eat them in the Lockewood.”

Krevynyn and Fah’Urr both flashed Ivar a disgusted grimace, but neither were shocked by the unsavory morsel of history from the man’s youth; cannibalism was a known practice among the Lockes. The descendants of the fabled tenth tribe of the Anderians strove to maintain the infamies of their ancient forebretheren in all of their vile grandeur.

“So the KharDar slew the babe, yes?” Krevynyn said, turning his attention back to Fah’Urr.

“Nay, and therein lies the conflict. The mother invoked the rite of Var’Hai upon the child’s birth. According to Beasthaven, that means the boy must live long enough to meet the Pale Folk. According to Hollowtree, if they let the babe live then everyone dies from this curse, so to the hells with Beasthaven.”

“And Beasthaven is so stubborn that they’d bring the entire Kharas to war over one child’s life? A child they think cursed, no less?”

Fah’Urr shook his head.

“Ain’t about that anymore, Krev. It’s about principle. It’s about when one KharLar’I gets to tell another how to run his village. Plus, what happens when they kill the babe and the plague doesn’t go away? How do you think that’ll make the KharLar look? What’ll that do to the Way?”

“You’re trying to tell me that none of the KharLar believe their own teachings? That this is all politics?”

“Not at all; I don’t think there’s an unbeliever among them. But I do think that every man’s got his doubts from time to time, and that even the most faithful feel that some stones are better left unturned.”

Krevynyn sat back and nursed his ale as he tried to absorb the news. Woe for his people, rage at the KharLar, and a shred of vindication for the sins that had led to his exile scrabbled for purchase over his heart. An apathetic numbness won out.

“So, what’s this got to do with the job you want me in on?” he said after a long moment. “If Hollowtree is looking for mercenaries I can’t imagine I’d be welcome among them.”

Fah’Urr chortled.

“Nor would I be welcome to fight for Beasthaven, trust me. Nay, it’s these Beggarton folks here that have hired us. See, you’ve only heard half the story. A few months back, right near the springtime’s first seeding, Fah’Rohlroh, Hollowtree’s KharLar’I, finally accepted that he was losing. Badly. So, he wants to pull Hollowtree out of the war, let Beasthaven keep their Dar Child. But he’s a prideful man, that one, and-”

“And if he backs down,” Krevynyn interjected with a knowing tone, “his people will know he subjected them to this war on his own whims, not divine instruction.”

“Exactly,” Fah’Urr acknowledged with a nod. “And he knows as well as you and I how that would go over. So he comes up with what he says is a compromise. A ‘great Reap of iniquity,’ he calls it. By his logic, the Dar Child must die because he was born cleaved from the Way…but so is everybody that ain’t Kharar to begin with. The foreigners live in squalor and wickedness one and all, he says. So why should the Kharar have to spill their own blood when the West bears Dar Children in their thousands?

“So he says to his KharAist: go collect a thousand foreign children, all of an age with Beasthaven’s Dar Child, to be sacrificed to the Pale. Their blood will take the place of the albino boy’s, and the land will be cleansed.”

Krevynyn’s jaw fell slack.

“That’s insane!”

“Aye, ’tis. But his men are too deep in it now to turn back. Just like Fah’Rohlroh himself, they can’t accept that maybe they were wrong. That maybe this was all for nothing. So they keep listening to him, keep following his orders.”

“What does Beasthaven say about it?”

“They say he’s a fucking madman, but they’re not in much of a position to do anything about it, what with half their men dead from the war and the other half dying of the plague. And besides, think if it was you. After enough of your own children died, might be you think it’s somebody else’s turn to bear the brunt of Hollowtree’s wrath.”

“But…” Krevynyn was utterly lost for words. He’d witnessed many atrocities in his life, committed many himself, but the slaughter of a thousand children for the mere crime of being born in the wrong place and time dwarfed any wicked act he could conjure.

“But why a thousand?” he finally managed. “Why not just one?”

Fah’Urr shrugged.

“You ask Fah’Rohlroh or his followers they’ll tell you it’s because the blood of the Kharar is pure and potent. It would take scores of foreign lives to be worth one of our own. You ask me, I think he’s stalling. Hoping all his men will go out and get themselves killed trying to follow his mad orders. Then he can round up what’s left of Hollowtree’s women and start over someplace else.”

“Hells below,” Ivar butted in impatiently, “I’ll get to the damned point if you won’t. Women and children have been going missing from around Beggarton, not to mention houses been broken into and rooted around in. We were coming through to grab a drink on our way to the city and an old acquaintance recognized me, asked us to look into it.

“Turns out there’d been a couple KharAist strutting around the shanties, looking suspicious and speaking to no one. So Urr here reached out, bought them a few pints, and had a nice long talk about this so-called Reap. They ended up inviting him along to round up children. He obliged. He’s supposed to meet up with them in their camp to get started tonight.”

“And we have no idea what to expect,” Fah’Urr said. “They didn’t say how many were with them, but I know they’ve got friends. Plan right now is I meet up with them, do a little reconnaissance around their camp, give the boys here the signal, and storm the place. Bring the babbies back to Beggarton, get paid.”

“You know Beggarton folk won’t have much to pay you with.”

“That’s why you’re working for free.”

“He’s working for free because he owes me,” Ivar growled. Fah’Urr ignored him.

“Look, Krevynyn, we don’t know what we could be getting into. But these Beggarton folk sure could use your help. You’ve the best sword hand I’ve ever worked with. What do you say?”

Krevynyn considered for a moment, then upended his stein.

“I say let’s kill some child-thieves.”

* * * * * * *

“Hard night’s work,” Ivar said.

“Aye,” Fah’Urr echoed.

Krevynyn said nothing, merely pulled a draft from a flask of Reignland firewater that he’d looted off of a dead KharAist warrior. The liquor’s burn couldn’t wash the taste of blood-spray from his mouth.

They gazed down from a high ridge overlooking the harbor, each astride one of the three finest mounts in Beggarton; the horses were the only payment the grateful villagers had to offer. The fourth man, the Southerner whom Krevynyn had met only the day before, had fallen during the raid. His body still lay with those of his enemies, slowly rotting in a carnage-soaked encampment three leagues into the wilds northeast of Ocean’s Watch.

Five children of Beggarton had been returned safely to their homes, another six brought back as starved, lifeless husks. Thirty emaciated, naked orphans from all corners of the lowlands wandered the village’s avenues, weeping. Many would find refuge in the orphanages of Ocean’s Watch. Some might find passage back to wherever they had once called home, thankful for the generosity of strangers who were sympathetic to their plight. But Krevynyn was sure that at least a handful would die from sickness and starvation before anyone claimed them.

Krevynyn shivered despite the morning’s warmth. He had experienced something in the reeking, feces-ridden cages where the KharAist had kept their captives that had shaken him to his very bones. It was neither the sight nor the smell, nor even the wailing and weeping of the children within. It was something deeper, something far more insidious: a whisper of kinship with the men that he’d slain.

Had Krevynyn himself not made a life of killing and thieving to live? Was he so different from these murderous zealots? He often dreamed of redemption, of somehow cleansing himself of the sins of his past. But as he looked out over the distant waves, the corpses and cages and carnage of the night before hovering just behind his eyes, he knew that there were men whose evil was beyond absolution. He wondered if he was among their number.

Without a word, he turned his mount north and took off at a gallop.

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