About Broken Sword
by Emily Veinglory
161 pages / 63000 words
ISBN: 0-9749923-2-1
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc
Troubled times and troubled love abounds in this sword and sorcery novel. A male witch and a soldier, worlds apart in culture and experience, meet under the most difficult of circumstances. Together, they make their way through a treacherous, magical world, where politics really are cutthroat, and where their new love is threatened from outside and within, where even a single misstep could be deadly.
Broken Sword combines all the fun of a swashbuckling adventure with the darker edge of the supernatural, transporting us to another realm, where high fantasy, romance, and magic all meet.
Sample
Deon answered his ruler's summons with alacrity, although in truth he loved Lord Carn better in his absence than his presence. That Deon was called to meet Carn in the stables suggested an urgency that could not bode well. He took the servants' stair; its narrow coil was as dark and confining as Deon's incipient fears. Yet when he emerged into the great catacomb that had been converted into the keep's stable, he found Carn waiting for him quite casually. There was no tension in Carn's tall frame as he stood waiting in the central hall, eyed by a ring of stoic horses that watched over their half doors.
Carn wore the stiff silk coat of his office, black cloth emblazoned with scarlet embroidery. Formal garb in this setting made little sense and did little to settle Deon's alarm. As leader of the garrison he half-suspected that the Bastion's forces would be called upon. He was satisfied at his men's readiness, but knew of nothing brewing in the land that would call on them so suddenly.
''My watch will pass soon,'' Carn whispered as he gestured for Deon to draw closer. ''So that I can sup, and I must confess that I am tired of the thin blood of peasants and criminals. It is for that purpose that I have been saving you.''
Deon felt the wash of fear pass through his body. A high Lord had the right to treat any of his vassals as he wished. The six high Lords were all vampires, sorcerers who needed blood to sustain their use of the magical Arts, but they rarely put one of his station to such prosaic use. Deon commanded over two hundred soldiers and ruled far more men and women from the civilian classes; he had thought himself immune.
Deon stood, still in a stretched moment as Carn watched him. He seemed calm and supremely confident in his waiting, like a cat with cornered prey. Deon battled with his honor, his fist clenching upon the hilt of his blade. His life belonged to his Lord; it was so sworn for good purpose or ill, and what better purpose than to sustain a high Lord's life and abilities? It was the Lord's ability to wield men that held back the jealousy of other nations at the Sea States ever-increasing was at the Sea States everyborders. The Blest could sway a man's mind, move as swiftly as the wind and shatter iron with a touch. Deon noted that Carn's skin shone pale, though there was little light entering through the small high windows, and the great doors of the stable were completely closed. His fine grey hair writhed and floated even though the air was completely still. Carn was obviously at the height of his powers. He was the one of the Six currently most starved, and thus strongest in the Art. For although blood created the blood power within a Blest lord, the power was like a sleeping dragon: it took starvation to draw it out to act upon the world of men. Carn smiled, satisfied at some hidden signal.
''Ah, Deon,'' he said. ''It is not always a deadly honor to serve me so.'' As he spoke Deon felt the same sense of nagging familiarity he often experienced in his Lord's presence, but it was quickly swamped by absolute fear. Carn sometimes seemed almost a friend, but never at the expense of his office and its power.
Carn stepped forward. His hand rested on Deon's shoulder and then he lifted his finger to delicately fold down the collar of Deon's tunic and pull it away from his neck. Deon barely breathed; parts of his mind beyond rational control demanded that he fight or flee, and only by the strongest will did he suppress them. Carn looked at him contemplatively, taking in Deon's hand which still twitched upon the handle of his sword. Deon carefully unwrapped his fingers and removed them from its hilt. Deon had offered up everything else to his Lord without any regard for his own judgment. To balk now would be to make all he lived and strove for false. He lived as last in a long line of servitors and soldiers, subsuming himself entirely to the will and glory of his Lord. As had his father and his father's father, and back to the first of their line lost in the mists of time. To risk death, or to lose all that defined his life and honor. It was a poor choice either way.
His honor was the honor also of his family and his garrison; his honor was to obey. Deon wanted to close his eyes but could not make himself do so. Carn chuckled, amused by what he saw. He walked around Deon as if judging a prize animal, his hand brushing over the close-cropped beard on Deon's chin and toying with the strands of his sable hair. The Blest Lord taunted his prey, and every moment that he did, Deon came to think that although his Lord was due the obedience of his vassals he scarcely deserved it in acting so. This was not the behavior of one that regretted the cost of his power and paid it only so that his realm would be well defended, but a man who reveled in the taking of blood, as he did with most other carnal luxuries.
Carn stood behind him and Deon took care to stare straight ahead rather than turn to keep Carn in sight. He would give his Lord no extra pleasure by twisting on the hook. A finger traced a line from Deon's nape and along his shoulder, drawing the cloth of Deon's collar gently aside. Deon trembled, envisioning his nephew and his father, and all the long line of his family that had held their land by honor, and would lose it if that honor failed -- if he failed. Through war, famine and all that circumstance can ask of a man the line of DesCarn had served well and prospered. He would not be the generation to lose them their place and patronage. But when he felt that breath on his unguarded neck, hot and wet, he could think of nothing but to defend himself, his disgust was too great. He whirled and drew his hand's-breadth blade, bringing it up to guard him. His body shook with the revulsion of his current peril and all of the past use Carn had made of him. All those secret times he tried hard not to think upon once they were over. Some deep sinew of his soul called, finally, enough.
Carn seemed not distressed but rather pleased, as if he had been baiting for this response. ''I almost thought you would disappoint me,'' he hissed. ''But I knew, in the end, you would not fail me.''
He stalked forward and Deon backed away, praying that all the staff of the stable were well away from the area. His heel hit the far wall and Carn reached for him. Deon brought his sword down overhand and Carn leaned eerily out of reach of the certain blow. He evaded several more strikes with contemptuous ease, before losing patience with his game.
''I thought, given your mother's line, that you might know better banes than a mere sword against one such as I.''
Carn sighed and caught the blade of the sword, barehanded. It bent and sheered off beneath his grasp, releasing a startling spray of glittering shards. Deon dropped his broken weapon and darted under Carn's arm to run, hopelessly and desperately. He wove through the small passages between the musty bails in the hay store, coming finally to the other end where he fumbled for the correct door key with sweat-slicked hands. Carn followed slowly, if at all, giving Deon time to burst out into the fallow pastureland beyond.
It was a cold time of year when the grass grew tall and ragged, bowing down under frosts and passing snows. No one ventured outside in the dark hours, which were just beginning, and the whole landscape seemed hollow and watchful. Deon ran insensibly. The ground was too black to see, bar the small silver puddles that reflected the moon. A great purple sky hung overhead where the last birds flew to roost. Deon ran as if in a nightmare, daring not even the moment it would take to glance behind.
In the valley the deeper grass caught and broke across his shins and he could hear the passage of another not far behind, closer and closer. He fell as his feet betrayed him and, exhausted, he lay pressed to the ground. He gasped for breath but strove no more to flee. Like any prey run to ground, he lay still with exhaustion and frozen by fear. Carn's feet broke the dry stalks of the overgrown pasture with a sound like a crackling fire. He knelt by Deon's side. Carn's strong hand reached out implacably and turned Deon over upon his back.
Deon looked up at Carn's face, pale against the waning day and imprinted with an expression that managed somehow to blend predatory satisfaction with tender concern. He was such a riddle, this Lord of his, such a deadly riddle. Deon closed his eyes and reconciled himself to death.