The Song of Stone: Blade and Bone Book 5, page 1
THE SONG OF STONE
Blade and Bone Book 5
D.K. HOLMBERG
Copyright © 2023 by D.K. Holmberg
Cover art by Felix Ortiz
Cover design by Shawn King
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Author’s Note
Series by D.K. Holmberg
Chapter One
HENRY MEYER
The knock at the door came too damn early for Henry Meyer.
He sat up, resting on the edge of his bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He glanced to the window, noting the darkness still outside. A little bit of light from the street managed to stream in through the window, but the darkness looked as if it attempted to swallow even that. His knees ached, though they did most days. There was only so much healing that a man of his age could receive, not that he intended to push it. Some things just came with getting older.
When a knock rang out again, he slipped on his overcoat, grabbed his cane, and headed toward the door. “Just hold on a minute,” he grumbled.
The knocking fell quiet.
He looked toward the kitchen and sniffed. There was still the smell of pastries. Lena had brought them the night before, though she hadn’t really needed to. Always checking in on him, that one was. As if he couldn’t take care of himself. He smiled at the thought of her pastries, though. He wouldn’t turn those down when given the option.
By the time he reached the door, the knocking had started again. He pulled the door open. A tall, lean Archer stood on the other side, helmet in hand and short sword strapped to his waist. He blinked when he saw Meyer.
“I’m sorry to wake you, Master Meyer. I was told to come get you.” The man looked past Meyer, then settled his gaze on him again. “If you’d like me to get your apprentice—”
“I don’t have an apprentice. We both know I’m retired.”
The Archer bobbed his head. Likely he knew all too well that Meyer was filling in for Finn while he was away from Verendal—not that it made it any easier for either of them. Meyer had to look the part of the executioner, even though it had been ten years since it had felt the part for him.
“There’s something you need to see.”
“Which prison?”
Back in the days when he had served the city more directly, calls like this weren’t uncommon. He was accustomed to getting woken up in the middle of the night for a dangerous prisoner—or had been accustomed to it. Usually it was because he needed to do the questioning. As his apprentice had grown in skill, Meyer had simply sent him to do the questioning. Most of the time, he was summoned to Declan Prison, though occasionally he had been brought to the palace for particularly sensitive prisoners.
“No prison. This is outside the city. My captain thought you’d want to take a look yourself.”
Meyer groaned. “How many bells is it?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me. Just tell me how many bells it is right now.”
“Just past three, Master Meyer.”
Three bells. And he had gotten to bed late, the way it was. He’d been outside Verendal for far too long the previous night, dealing with a bit of trouble with the Sanaron refugees. These days, it felt like everything was trouble. But if this had to do with the refugees, he would expect that the Archer would’ve said something. They knew his feelings on that. At least, he was certain that they did.
“If this has to do with something happening in the refugee camp, I’m going to—”
“Not the camp. I’m to escort you there.”
The choice of words caused Meyer to arch a brow. “You’re to escort me? You don’t think I can manage?”
“It’s not that, Master Meyer. I was just asked to—”
Meyer slammed his cane down on the ground, leading to a loud thump against the floorboards. “I know damn well what you were just doing. I imagine your captain told you to guide me, like I’m some sort of horse.”
The Archer paled, and Meyer frowned. He didn’t need to be tormenting this poor man. It wasn’t his fault that Finn had put the fear of the gods into the Archer captain. And he wasn’t the first one who had treated him like this. It was almost as if Finn had done it as a prank. Knowing him, Meyer figured that was exactly what it was.
“Give me a minute to get my boots on, and I’ll be there with you.”
The Archer nodded, and a look of relief actually flashed across his face as Meyer closed the door behind him. He leaned on his cane, taking a few deep breaths. When he had agreed to come out of retirement to help the city while Finn was gone, he hadn’t expected so much activity. If there was one thing that Finn had done well, it was coordinating everything, including sentencing, to such a degree that he had a much easier job than what Meyer once had when he had been serving at Finn’s level. Then again, Meyer had seen just how much work Finn had put into it, and he understood that it had taken countless hours for Finn to arrange things to his liking.
But ever since Finn and the Sanaron woman had left Verendal, it had been one thing after another. For the most part, Meyer had managed to keep the unhappiness with the presence of the Sanaron refugees to little more than a quiet grumbling, though occasionally there were outbursts. Those were dealt with swiftly, and because Finn had left strict instructions with the Archers for his return, Meyer had barely needed to intervene. But other things had become more prevalent.
When he had served in the past, there had been the ongoing threat of witchcraft. If he was honest—and if there was one thing that Henry Meyer was, it was honest with himself—he couldn’t help but feel relieved that he hadn’t needed to deal with such things. It didn’t suit him. His was a more practical mind, and what he had seen, regardless of how little he had directly experienced it, was not the kind of thing he ever wanted to deal with directly. That was something for someone like Finn.
After getting his boots on, he made sure to straighten his coat, buttoning it fully, and even strapped on a long-bladed knife. If he was leaving the city, Meyer didn’t want to go without any sort of protection. He held on to his cane, though when he was in front of others, he made a point of trying not to use it. It took considerable effort, and it tired him out, but he didn’t want to look weak. That was especially important in the prisons, though Meyer didn’t know if he was heading someplace where appearances would even matter.
When he finally pulled the door open again, the Archer looked up quickly, then frowned at him. “If you need longer…”
“Why would I need any longer?” Meyer snapped.
“I wasn’t trying to imply anything. I just—”
“Just take me where we need to go.”
The man nodded, and he glanced around him for a moment, before motioning for Meyer to follow him through the small garden surrounding his home. Meyer made sure to secure the front door, and then the gate. Once out on the street, he was not at all surprised to find that they were the only ones around.
“What’s your name, Archer?”
“Devin Rangel, Master Executioner.”
“How long have you been an Archer?”
Devin glanced over to him, and Meyer couldn’t tell if it was worry in his eyes, or maybe it was irritation that he was being questioned by the master executioner—the retired master executioner, he corrected himself.
“Three years, Master Meyer.”
“Three years, and still on the night watch?”
“These days…” Devin cut off and looked over to Meyer again, as if trying to decide how much to share. When Meyer didn’t react, Devin shrugged, seemingly to himself, before pressing onward. “Well, you know with refugees, we’ve had a harder time keeping order. The Hunter expects a certain decorum.”
Meyer arched a brow at the way he said it. “You almost sound as if you’re upset by that.”
“Of course not,” he said too quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply that I disagree with what the Hunter has asked of us. But we also recogniz
e that we need to patrol more carefully with them outside the city.”
“They needed a place that’s safe.”
“Oh, I know that’s what they tell us, but quite a few people think they’ll just end up taking our jobs and our women and…” He stiffened, as if realizing who he was talking to, and what he was going to say.
“Go on,” Meyer said. “Tell me what they think.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Master Meyer.”
“I should hope not. Those people fled an assault on their homeland. From what I understand, it was a dangerous magical attack, much like we have seen throughout Reyand. Unless you’ve forgotten.” He let the words linger, though it didn’t matter. Everybody in Verendal had experience with witchcraft. Even if they had not seen it up close, they had certainly heard the stories.
That was a challenge of being isolated the way they were on the edge of the kingdom. Verendal had encountered witchcraft early in the witchcraft war, but given what Finn had done, they hadn’t seen it again for a long time. Stories reached Verendal, but it was difficult for people to know the truth of those stories. Many thought they were simply meant to scare, which they did—and worse, they put more pressure on the hegen who lived on the edge of the city.
“Of course,” Devin said as they reached the Teller Gate. It was open, as it often was, though during the witchcraft war, the gate had been closed for a period of time. That had been unusual. More than that, it had been somewhat unsettling to see the gate closed. “Again, my apologies.”
Meyer decided not to press. Instead, he kept the cane hooked over his arm as he followed Devin. He made a point of keeping pace with him, but the pain in his knees made it difficult. The air was still as he guided him through the Teller Gate, though there was a hint of foulness to it. That happened from time to time. Certain stenches drifted out of the forest, along the river, especially when they had drier seasons. But this was not that smell.
This was the stench of rot. Of decay.
It immediately set him on edge. He didn’t know with any certainty, but he started to suspect that this was some sort of witchcraft.
Damn you, Finn. Not only are you gone, but so is Esmerelda.
He thought he could handle some of this on his own, but he worried that if there was too much witchcraft involved, he wasn’t going to be able to handle it. You couldn’t question witchcraft. Meyer still didn’t know how Finn had managed to come up with some of the answers about witchcraft that he, the Hunter, had. Finn’s nickname still made Meyer laugh. It was one that had been given to Finn while he’d been serving as Meyer’s apprentice, but it was also one that had stuck in a way that so few nicknames ever did.
Most executioners ended up with a nickname. People liked to refer to executioners as something other than hangmen, and the nicknames added an element of fear to the position. For the most part, Meyer didn’t have a problem with that. Then again, he was one of the few who had never earned a nickname. Not like the two apprentices that had served him.
Though the Lion hadn’t been in the city all that long, it was long enough to earn him a reputation of being fierce, violent. That was entirely deserved, regardless of how much Meyer had attempted to quell those tendencies in him. Then there had been the Hunter. That was better than the nickname Finn had been given when he was on the streets stealing, but Meyer often wondered how much of his nickname had been encouraged by others beyond Meyer’s control. Including the king.
In the distance, the pale light of several campfires in the ever-changing Sanaron section still burned. The refugees kept them lit out of fear of what might come in the darkness, he knew. It bothered him that the people within this section of the city—and it had become its own formalized section, much like the hegen section not far from it—had to keep campfires burning for their safety, but that was the unfortunate reality of it. He could smell the smoke, but there was nothing off-putting about it. Certainly nothing to suggest that the foulness he detected was coming from the refugees.
He glanced off toward the hegen section, where there was music and brightly burning lights all throughout, regardless of time of day. Unlike the sense of anxiety radiating from the Sanaron area, the hegen section was always filled with happiness—even throughout the witchcraft war, when the hegen should have been targeted. In other parts of the country, they had been under attack, but having somebody like Finn as master executioner had positioned the hegen far better in Verendal than they had been elsewhere.
Meyer looked at Devin. “What can you tell me about why I’ve been called out here?”
“It’s better to see it, Master Executioner. Figured you’d want to know. Something like this…” He shook his head. “It’s not for a person like me to deal with.”
He guided Meyer onward. When they passed the Sanaron section, Meyer started to wonder if it might’ve been better for them to have simply ridden horses to wherever they needed to go, but they didn’t have to go much farther.
Lantern light glowed against the backdrop of night. It was situated off the king’s road, near a small valley that sloped downward. Below was a meadow, and in the springtime, the flowers and shrubs that bloomed provided many of the medicines and oils Meyer collected for his healing. There had been a time when he paid somebody to gather them for him, but Meyer had nothing but time since his retirement. That was, until he was called back into service. And the number of people coming to him for healing had dwindled, but he didn’t mind. Lena kept him busy by sending people his way, though he suspected there was an element of pity in it. In return, he kept her supplied with some of the flowers, leaves, grasses, and oils that he gathered.
When he approached the meadow, he realized why the Archers had called him.
“A berahn,” he muttered.
Devin looked over to him. “You know what this is? We thought it was just some sort of big wolf. Or a dog. Never seen anything like it before.”
Meyer made his way forward. The creature was dead. That much was obvious even as he neared, though there would be no way any of them would’ve been able to approach a berahn were it not dead. Three men surrounded the creature, including the Archer captain, who looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.
When Meyer reached him, relief swept across the captain’s face. “Figured we better call the hangman—excuse me, Master Meyer.”
Meyer ignored the comment. “When did you find it?”
“One of the refugees did.”
Meyer didn’t know the captain all that well, though he did know him to be a fairly honest man. He’d been serving for the better part of five years, and had been handpicked by Finn himself. That alone told Meyer all he needed to know about the man’s character.
“Came and fetched one of my men.” The captain shot a hard look at Devin, which suggested that the refugee hadn’t been treated as well as they should have been. Given the conversation Meyer had with Devin on the walk here, he wasn’t terribly surprised to learn of that. “Figured I’d come and take a look myself, especially when they claimed it was some magical creature.” His mouth soured as he said it.
“The Alainsith think it is,” Meyer said.
“So you know of it?” the captain asked, doing a reasonable job of hiding his surprise.
“Only by reputation.” He nodded toward the city. From out here, the lights glowed softly against the darkness of night, making it look almost comforting and lovely. “If you look close enough in Verendal, you will see sculptures that look like this. Not quite the size, but some are there.”
“Never seen anything like it before. Never smelled anything like it, either.”
“Has anyone touched it?”
