Hopebreaker, page 1
Contents
1 – THE HOLD
2 – THE BREAKOUT
3 – THE PLOT
4 – CONFIDANTE
5 – SCOUTING PARTY
6 – THE RESISTANCE
7 – THE GENERAL
8 – PATRONAGE
9 – THE SMUGGLER'S ART
10 – THE DEVIL'S MARCH
11 – TREASURE
12 – PAYMENT
13 – LIGHTS OUT
14 – FORTRESS HOPE
15 – FORTRESS DESPAIR
16 – THE IRON CAVALRY
17 – MISSION: ALONE
18 – WRECKAGE
19 – FORTUNE-TELLER
20 – DELVING FOR DUST
21 – RUIN
22 – ANOTHER KIND OF HOPE
HOPEBREAKER
The Great Iron War – Book One
Dean F. Wilson
Copyright © 2014 Dean F. Wilson
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, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Any person who makes any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable for criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The Moral Rights of the Author have been asserted.
Cover illustration by Duy Phan
First Edition 2014
ISBN 978-1-909356-09-2
Published by Dioscuri Press
Dublin, Ireland
www.dioscuripress.com
1 – THE HOLD
The walls crashed down and the soldiers stormed in, replacing bricks with leather boots and stones with clenched fists. The dissonance died down, but the dust hung for endless moments, dimming the light and stinging the eyes. Yet Jacob did not need to see; he knew why they were here, what they had come for.
A figure, tall and broad, stepped into view, his hair and uniform as black as the long shadow he cast across the room. His fists were not clasped, but the anger was still there, pouring out of the cracks and crevices of his crooked face. Everyone could recognise him, even in darkness—especially in darkness. Everyone knew his name. Domas. Yet not everyone knew what he was.
“You are accused of smuggling amulets,” Domas said. He paced to and fro restlessly, until the very floor began to recognise him. The light from the oil lamp flickered on his face, creating and killing lots of little shadows. Those shadows made him look inhuman, but under any other light he looked like everybody else. Jacob remembered when he was first told about them by his father. They are like you and I. They walk among us.
“What evidence do you have?” Jacob asked, hoping they would not search the bookcase, hoping they would not scour his soul.
Domas drew close, seizing Jacob by the collar. “I don’t need evidence.”
Jacob parried Domas’ glower with his own. He felt like responding, like snapping or biting, even though he knew it would not help. It would make him feel better for the briefest of moments, and then, as the soldiers responded with their fists, it would make him feel much worse. The words of his father haunted him like a demon. In time they will replace us.
“Take him to the Hold,” Domas barked to one of his commanders. He turned to leave, but halted as something caught his eye. “Open your hand,” he ordered.
“It’s a bit late to shake it.”
“Open your hand,” Domas repeated. He did not need to give a warning. His tone gave enough.
Jacob offered his left hand, which was empty.
“A clown as well as a smuggler,” Domas said. “Your other hand.”
Jacob reluctantly loosened his grip on the tiny bag of coils he was holding, his all too meagre payment for smuggling an amulet into the city. Domas snatched it from his grasp.
“You won’t be needing this,” he said. “In the Hold, the rent is free.”
The soldiers seized Jacob and pulled him outside, where a mechanised wagon waited, one of the many vehicles the Regime used to transport its forces—and its prisoners.
In moments Jacob was hauled up and hurled into the back of the warwagon, where he banged his head against the iron walls. He heard the cogs and pistons start up, and he heard the roar of the furnace and the rhythm of the wheels.
The smell of coal and smoke filled his nostrils and seeped into his lungs, until finally he faded off into a halfway place between the waking world and dreams, where he imagined what things might have been like if the demons had not come here, if the Regime had not gained power.
* * *
Steel screeched and iron clanged, but the noise was deafened by a louder clunk as Jacob’s body hit the cold, stone ground. It hurt almost as much as being slammed into the wagon by the Regime’s guards. The footsteps faded and the clangs grew distant, leaving him alone in his cell.
But he was not alone. Jacob barely had time to nurse his wounds before he heard a voice from the shadows in the corner.
“It’s about time,” it said. The voice was weak and broken. If it belonged to a body, that body must have been weak and broken too.
“Who’s there?” Jacob asked as he sat up. He peered into the darkness, where he saw a frail figure, so thin it barely cast a shadow of its own.
“My name’s Whistler,” the voice said, and the figure leaned forward into the light cast from the oil lamp in the hallway. He looked very young, and very fragile. He collapsed back into the shadow with a sigh.
“How long have you been in here?” Jacob asked. He thought he could make out markings on the wall.
“A month, maybe two,” Whistler said. “I stopped keeping count.”
“Why haven’t they killed you yet?”
“Maybe they can’t see me here in the corner,” Whistler said with a laugh interrupted by a chesty cough. “I guess they … I guess they prefer torture.”
The word brought back memory to Jacob’s muscles, which began to throb and sting and ache, little tortures of their own. A shiver slithered up his spine at the grim realisation that he too might face the Iron Chambers.
“You look too young to be a smuggler,” Jacob said. “How old are you?”
“Fourteen,” Whistler said. “Old enough to die.”
“You haven’t died yet.”
Jacob imagined Whistler was smiling in the darkness. “Give it another year then.”
“So what are you then if you’re not a smuggler?”
“Have you heard of the Order?”
The mention of the Order brought a flicker of anger into Jacob’s soul. They were the reason he was here. They made the amulets. They hired him to get them out to the public. He was just the messenger, soon to be shot.
“So you’re one of them,” Jacob said at last, attempting to conceal his scorn.
“You say that like I’m a demon,” Whistler responded. “Can’t blame you though. I know how the Order sees you guys. You’re just hired to deliver our work. The Order doesn’t care if you live or die, and no one will come to rescue you if you get caught.”
“And what about you?” Jacob quizzed. “Is someone going to rescue you?”
There was a sharp silence, as if the question struck too deep. Eventually Whistler responded, his voice even weaker than before. “They’re coming. They’re supposed to come. They’ll be here.”
You don’t sound too sure of that, Jacob thought. I wouldn’t be either.
They simmered in the silence for a while, until Whistler broke it with his hoarse voice. “How did you get caught?”
Jacob sighed. “A deal gone sour. I asked too much for an amulet, so the woman just turned me in, ratted me out. She claims she was an informer all along, but I don’t buy it. I think she just wasn’t willing to pay the market price for proper protection.”
The thought of it still angered Jacob. He was risking his life so that women could avoid giving birth to demon spawn. He should have been seen as a hero, and paid like a hero. Instead he would rot away in the Hold, and soon be forgotten—as if he had never been born.
“What were you charging?” Whistler asked.
“A hundred coils.”
“Hell,” Whistler said.
Jacob smirked. “Just where I’ve been condemned to.”
“And you thought she’d really pay that much?”
“I thought I had the bargaining power,” Jacob replied. “She wanted an amulet. I wanted more coils. She’ll probably spend more trying to find another smuggler anyway.”
“Finding a real one, yeah. The Regime has infiltrators everywhere.”
“Yes, she’ll probably regret not paying,” Jacob said mournfully, knowing that he regretted it much more than she ever would. “The Regime will probably track her down one day.”
“Let’s hope not. We’re already losing too many people. Real people,” Whistler said, running his bony fingers through his bedraggled hair. “Where’s the Pure when you need them, eh?”
“Still in the mythology books, kid, still being read as children’s bedtime stories.”
“If there were any real children,” Whistler said. He clawed at the back of his neck and looked back and forth around the room, as if there might be someone watching them. Then he leaned closer to Jacob and whispered, “You know, I’m one of the Last.”
Jacob was not surprised. Even if Whistler had not revealed his age, he looked and sounded far too young to have been born before the Harvest, the time when the Regime came into power and began to control all births. That was fifteen years ago
Jacob did not know how to respond to Whistler’s revelation. “You get the last turn then,” he said. “How did you get caught?”
“I was a bit loose-lipped,” Whistler said at last, but the words did not come easy. He gulped harshly and continued, “I thought I had made a friend. Daniel, someone in the Order. I was supposed to report infiltrators like him, but I wanted a friend so badly I got careless. I blabbed to him about all kinds of things, probably put the Order in big danger. Guess I deserve to be here.”
“No one deserves to be here, Whistler,” Jacob said, though he might have made an exception for the Iron Emperor. “No one deserves to be tortured or killed by a corrupt government that clings to power by exerting it constantly on its people.”
“You sound like Taberah,” Whistler said wistfully.
“Who’s that?”
“The head of the Order.” Whistler paused and slapped his head. “See, I’m doing it again. They don’t need to torture me for information. They just need to sit me down and get me yapping.”
“I won’t tell them any of this,” Jacob said. “And I probably won’t see the outside world again, so I guess I won’t be telling anyone else either.”
“Somehow I trust you,” Whistler said. “I don’t know why, but I do. Then again, I thought I trusted Daniel too.”
“He’ll pay for his betrayal, I’m sure,” Jacob said, confident that he would. The Order was often as merciless as the Regime itself. It had to be. It was the only way to live in this world.
Whistler bowed his head and sighed gravely. “Part of me doesn’t want him to. I don’t hate them. The Regime, I mean. I know why others do, but I don’t want to hate. I think it turns us all into demons. You know?”
“I get you,” Jacob said, but he thought it was kind of hard not to hate his captors. “So, why do they call you Whistler?”
“Because I whistle a lot. Well, I used to. Kind of lost my voice a bit in here.”
“That’s not the real reason for the name, is it?”
“No, just thought you’d appreciate the humour. I got the name because I blow the whistle on the demons. I can see them, see who they really are. I alert the Order when we’ve got an infiltration. Well, Daniel excluded.”
“So what’s your real name then?”
“Brogan,” Whistler said. “I never asked you yours.”
“Jacob.”
“Cool. Sounds better than mine. Do you have a smuggler name?”
“No. People just call me Jacob.”
“That’s a little boring, don’t you think?”
Jacob laughed. “I suppose it is.”
“See, I knew you’d like the humour.” He paused and scratched his head, leaving his long, curled hair sticking up. “How about Spider?”
“What, because I crawl around?”
“No, because you’ve got lanky legs,” Whistler said with a grin.
“Yes, but only two of them.”
“True,” Whistler said. “But your name’s Jacob. Cob, an old word for spider. You know?”
“Yes, I guess I do,” Jacob said, nodding.
* * *
A guard passed by, silencing them with his presence. Jacob almost wanted to hurl insults at the man. In prison, words could still fit through the bars. Though it was a great effort, the thought of Whistler sharing his beating stopped his usually rampant tongue.
“They come by every hour,” Whistler whispered.
“Say what you want about the Regime,” Jacob said. “They’re diligent.”
The words of his father returned like a phantom. They are like you and I. Jacob wondered if that was what made them dangerous.
“Some of them throw in bread and water,” Whistler said. “I wouldn’t eat it though.”
Jacob did not think the youth ever had. Whistler had wasted away while the demon soldiers grew fat. It brought back that unnerving thought: In time they will replace us.
He could never quite get his father’s words out of his head. They lingered there like a lodger. Perhaps it was because his father drilled them in daily. It was his own regime.
Jacob adjusted his position to squint at the guard as he faded into the distance, and then Jacob felt something in his back pocket. He held it up to the paltry light, which showed the iron currency, a flattened coil stamped with the image of the Iron Emperor. Jacob flicked it into the air, and caught it in his hand. There was something reassuring about it, even though there was something very unsettling about the visage upon it.
“I don’t think they do room service,” Whistler said.
Jacob reached for the mouldy bread. “Sure they do.”
* * *
For hours they talked, Jacob telling Whistler about his adventures smuggling amulets into the city of Blackout, and how even the mayor’s daughter wanted one, but cancelled the deal at the last minute out of fear of being caught by her father.
Whistler told Jacob about the Order, how it was struggling to keep up production of the amulets and was running out of Magi to enchant them. He hinted that the Order was planning something big, that it had a hidden weapon against the Regime.
The hours passed, or perhaps it was days, but the two kept chatting until they no longer had the energy to speak. The stale bread grew staler, and Jacob often looked to it when his stomach had a voice of its own. His sleep was restless, broken by the clutching cold, disrupted by the screams and wails of other prisoners for whom the Hold was home.
As the days passed, Jacob thought long about the name of his prison. He began to wonder if now that it had its grip, it would ever let go.
* * *
A clang of metal seized Jacob from his sleep. He could hear footsteps approaching, could see a lantern coming closer through his grit-covered eyes.
A panic took hold of him, clenching his lungs and tightening his throat. They were here for Whistler or for him, but either way it was not good. Someone was getting tortured this night, or maybe the guards would have mercy and send them straight to the headman’s axe.
As the fear gnawed at his thoughts, he found himself praying to everyone else’s god, half-heartedly apologising for his sins and half-earnestly begging for mercy. Yet when the devils came, he knew that he would ask for none.
The thumping boots sounded louder, each thud like a hammer against his pounding heart. The light of the lantern made the shadows of the figures dance across the walls, like taunting phantoms, like mocking demons.
Then a hand reached out for the lock on the final gate. A flash of light illuminated the room for a second, where he could see Whistler curled up once again in the corner, no longer hidden from sight.
The gate swung open, and the sound was like Death speaking. Three figures stood there, hooded and cloaked, perhaps the emissaries of Death himself.
The tallest figure stepped forward and pulled down its hood. It was a woman with fiery long hair, locks that seemed to flicker just like the candle flames. Her eyes were stern, boring through the shadow like little lanterns of their own.
“Taberah!” Whistler cried.
“It’s time to get you out of here, Brogan,” the woman said.
Jacob no longer held his breath. They were not here for him. They were not his captors—but they were not his saviours either.
2 – THE BREAKOUT
“Who is this?” Taberah asked. She looked at Jacob as if he were Whistler’s new-found pet, some scruffy dog he had picked up from the streets. It was not a completely unwarranted description.
“Jacob,” Whistler said. “He’s a smuggler.” Can we keep him? Jacob almost heard him say.
Taberah turned to the cowled man to her left. “Kill him. We don’t need any witnesses.”
The man took out a pistol, which glinted in the candlelight, stinging Jacob’s eyes before the bullets would sting his body. So I guess I’m to be put down. Compared to what the Regime would do, Jacob almost did not mind.
