The Outcasts (The Spark City Cycle Book 3), page 1
The Outcasts
Book Three of the Spark City Cycle
Robert J Power
THE OUTCASTS
First published in Ireland by De Paor Press in 2021.
ISBN 978-1-8382765-5-3
Copyright © Robert J Power 2021
All characters, names and events in this publication are fictitious and the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events or localities is purely coincidental.
The right of Robert J Power to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.
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.
Available in eBook, Audiobook and Paperback.
www.RobertJPower.com
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Contents
1. The Little Sleeping Cub
2. Legend
3. Recovery
4. Ealis
5. Outrage
6. Awkward Conversations
7. A Lesser Prison
8. Pig in the Hole
9. Bad Feelings
10. Dancing Across the Arth
11. The Legend of Tye
12. Clash of Gods
13. Boredom
14. Prodigal Daughter
15. After the Violence
16. The Tale of the Witch, the Ranger and a Constant Feeling of Pleasure
17. All Bad Things
18. His Will be Done
19. Torch
20. It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Trouble
21. Words Between Killers
22. The Deadliest Girl in the World
23. Master General’s Gambit
24. The Tourist
25. Taking Flight
26. Legends
27. Good Night at the Pig in the Hole
28. The One-Eyed God and the Fyre of Night
29. Hot as Hell
30. Simple Plan
31. The Wretched Redhead
32. Carry Me Well and I Will Shield You Always
33. Leading by Example
34. Doran
35. Tracks in the Wastes
36. Addressing the Beast in the Room
37. Raven Rock
38. Honourable Duties
39. Settling In
40. Night of Hidden Talents
41. Lies in the Dark
42. Dysfunctional Family Life
43. Forcing the Issue
44. Unnecessary Violence
45. After the Storm
46. Beaten
47. Fuken Rain
48. Fine Ways to Ease Tedious Times
49. Carry Us to Safety, Highwind
50. The Long Dark
51. Cloaked Enlistment
52. Hunt’s End
53. Tempest
54. Too Many Names
55. The Girl Left Behind
56. Going to the City to Get a Family
57. Prejudice
58. Desire
59. Unarmed and Overwhelmed
60. Meanwhile, Back at the Wall
61. Lies
62. Fuked
63. First of Many
64. Just the Wind
65. Gods of War
66. Ruined Friendships, Something Strange and a Little Drama Involving Fyre
67. I Saw It Coming
68. Black Parade
69. Cordelia the Fox
70. Siege Engines
71. Tears in the Chaos
72. Just Like Keri
73. Smoke on the Water
74. The End of It All
75. I Will Shield You
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
Exclusive Material From Robert J Power
Also by Robert J Power
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For Jan.
Without you I am nothing.
Everything I write is to make you think I’m cool.
You are my soulmate, my muse.
My one for life.
I’ll see you at the rock.
1
The Little Sleeping Cub
“Come on, Erroh. Wake up already.”
Emir was exhausted. Irritable, too. And drunk. Drunker than usual. It was something to do while missing his friend. Looking at the mangled form of Erroh, he took to watching more appealing things. Like the little glass of clear, burning fluid shimmering tantalisingly in a beam of sunlight breaking through a split in the tent’s doorway. There was little in the world for him, but there would always be glistening sine.
“Everyone is waiting for you,” he added peevishly. His words shattered the quietness, and he raised a silent toast to both his sleeping guests. They’d earned their rest, he supposed. Hush after a tempest. The bitterness of boredom. Time dragged on without the threat of doom hanging over their heads. Only seven days had passed since the dreadful battle, and it felt like months.
Murderer. His hands shook, thinking of his sins. Not with horror, though. He was a murderer and the title pleased him. The glass almost slipped from his hand. Holding too tightly, hating too much. Shame to drop it, he mused. He had few possessions, but that stolen glass was his. It was pretty and cut in archaic, decorative designs. Mostly it delivered the nicer things in his life. He downed the sine, remembering the slaughter, and savoured the memories. A fine day won for the heroes. They’d suffered few losses in their sudden charge. Who knew a foolish rush of blood was more effective than well-thought-out plans conceived by legendary warmongers? Two battles, equally shared between both sides. There would be more, he imagined, but he was a simple healer and no legend of warfare.
Word would likely have filtered back to the city of the battle, no doubt. Word of a near flawless victory. A good thing in reply to the soul-crushing betrayal by the bastard Wolves. What comes next?
The second guest stirred. She hadn’t left Erroh’s side. She was just like him. A better patient. A better chest, too. Grinning at the memories of the dark with his brothers, Emir wiped the sleep from his eyes and placed the glass down beside his tools, then picked it up again.
“Fuk it.” He poured another from the steel tankard and enjoyed its watery clink as he hid it back among his healing remedies. As if anybody would really care.
Wretched healer, the absent gods whispered in his mind, and he shrugged. He thought it an appropriate term. He was wretched and broken, but he would heal whom he could. Nobody could take that from him. Apart from Magnus.
He felt the exhaustion from the last week. A busy period, without doubt, despite the glory. Only a handful of Wolves had been lost in the battle, but Emir suspected it might have been even less. He felt the stir of guilt and shrugged it away. How many had died because he had sacrificed everything pulling Erroh from the brink? How many hours lost to the cutting and cursing? While the injured bled out. It should have bothered him, but his mind was shrewd and he knew he had earned his credit. He opened a little jar of vile-smelling ointment and rubbed the gelatinous, grey contents along Erroh’s scorched hands. The Hero of Keri slept through the more painful days, but his body would remember the pain. Would leave the scars to remind him, too. Not too deep, though, if Emir was as skilled as he believed himself to be.
The wind caught the tent’s flap, and the murky morning light suddenly stung his eyes. How many days had he remained awake, sitting over a scorched and bloody mess? One might say enough. He drained the second glass of sine and reached for the tankard outright. Everything was easier through a blurry daze. Less tedious. He desired inaction and was granted it. The cots around the sleeping god of Spark City were empty. That could change in fleeting moments were the Hunt to come looking, he imagined.
Save the drink for the thoroughly darker days to come.
“Good idea.” He drank from the tankard and, swallowing the bitter ambrosia, poured yet another measure. A healthy one.
Aye, the southerners were still, but he could feel the death in the air. He sensed it like a hound sensed a threat in a brute. It might not be tomorrow, nor even a month from this day, but it was coming, and when it did, it wouldn’t stop until the end of times. The absent gods agreed.
Leaning over Erroh’s chest, he inhaled deeply. The infections had cleared swiftly. All he could smell was the sharp bite of disinfectant. He listened to Erroh’s heart. Strong and constant. Every day filling with fresh blood. Thanking the gods of healing, he hadn’t needed to resort to refilling him using careless, ancient practices. Erroh would happily have gambled that both their bloodlines were strong and harmonious, but Emir would not.
“Stitches still clean… and strong.” He tested his handiwork on the wounds. Providing Erroh didn’t move for a few more weeks, he’d recover. Mostly. Thinking of his brother of the dark, remaining still, brought a grim smile to Emir’s bristled face. As if the Alpha male would not attempt to leap onto the nearest mount to go chase and “kill Oren” the moment he woke. Oh, the words he’d cried out while under the influence of dream syrup. The other words were mutterings from the southern tongue. He could have had a savage prisoner translate. There were certainly enough of those who’d surrendered
Would I really have them killed?
Lea stirred again. Perhaps she had heard the raging thoughts thundering around his mind. Was this trauma? he wondered, and a fierce anger took hold.
Kill every last one of the fukers!
With a hand controlled by the darker recesses of his mind, he slammed a fist down upon his desk, knocking a clear vial of fluid from its place and shattering it upon the floor. A bitter, sterile aroma filled the room. Wonderful.
Instead of pulling himself from his mood, he thought on darker things. And why not? He hated his life and he wanted to die. And he would die. When it was time. Through the sword, through foolishness, or through that bastard age itself. Nothing could sway his thoughts from this eventual path. Being surrounded by comrades wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. For a time, he’d forgotten this darkness, but it had returned tenfold, like a nasty infection ill-treated. He missed his home and he missed those he’d loved. Quig was still dead and would always be dead, and so was his beautiful Aireys.
“Better than Roja. To the fires with the bitch,” he slurred, and caught himself. A bad sign to find a healer muttering profanities to themselves, even if they have good reason.
Have another drink.
“How is he?” asked Lea, stretching in her bedding and immediately feeling the bite in the morning air.
“Same as before… Better colour… Perhaps today he’ll come back to us.” His voice was slurred. She could see the glazed look in his eyes, and the stench of fresh sine was pungent. She suspected he was drunk again. When he bowed and slipped from his seat to the ground, she was convinced. She heard him mutter Roja’s name as he sat in the dirt, picking up little shards of glass carelessly, and she thought him a perfect friend. A better healer, too. Though he was inebriated, his hands remained steady and miraculous. Let him drink all he wanted, she mused, stretching a second time. The aches from the healer’s cots were the worst thing about waking up in this horror of a tent. Remembering the world a few moments later was a close second.
The springs creaked loudly as she rolled gracelessly from her bedding. Stretching a third and final time, she checked on her mate asleep in the bed alongside. Looking stronger. He had a strong heart—Emir had reassured her as much—and Lea’s stomach turned a little. A strong heart, and a little large for her liking. Wake up, my beo, and meet your whore. She leaned across and kissed his forehead. He was cooler than the evening before. No deathly cough stealing his breath, no freezing land tearing at his will and no quarter of the world searching for his head.
Most of that is true.
The delicate patter of a light drizzle stirred her from her memories and worries. She kissed him once more and tied her boots. The rain would force her from her vigil. She reached for her cloak and tied it around her neck. Emir craved sine; she craved something else entirely. At least first thing in the morning.
“Do you want one?” she asked, reaching for her own particular tools of healing. Slowly grinding the beans until the aroma countered other stenches was a fine way to prepare herself. He shook his head in distaste at the notion and continued to scramble in the dirt with his shards of glass. Swiftly, Lea brought the water to a satisfying boil and, as the ground beans percolated deliciously, she tied her long black hair into a ponytail and steeled herself for the morning. She buttoned up her coat and applied a quick coat of paint to her lips.
I am most beautiful. Pouring two fresh mugs of the steaming brew before offering a glass of sine for the healer, Lea, the outcast of Samara, walked out into the rain to face her captive.
Most of the Wolves still slept off the previous night’s hangover. With alcohol had come welcome cheer and celebration. Was there anything Wrek couldn’t do? Even out here, in the middle of nowhere, he served the masses. Did his part keeping morale heightened. Sometimes that was all a pathetic gathering of soldiers could ask for.
The camp was as desolate as before. Now, though, the simple act of stepping through rows of erected tents seemed to bring life to the dismal place. A fine place to wait until we figure out what the fuk to do. As she did every morning, she followed her path down towards the solitary wooden post on the other side of the healer’s tent.
She heard the jeering before she saw the brutes standing around the chained beast, and, sighing in frustration, Lea quickened her pace. As boredom and restlessness stirred among the men, protecting the waif was now becoming part of Lea’s routine. They could not leave Nomi with her people at the far end of the camp, but Magnus forbade the girl the right to freedom. After months of supposed torture, she was spending her days as though she was a rabid hound.
Is this wrong?
“Leave her be.”
Lea’s tone was genial, but they would be wise to recognise the threat beneath her words. She never broke stride, either. She locked away her anguish; her rage; her jealousy. Her face was calm, like a frozen lake of the south. The four Wolves watched her approach, and their grinning, threatening glares fell away to disappointment. All four were taller than she, yet they would not argue. They’d seen her capabilities. Her mate’s, too. She was a general in a fractured battalion. And Erroh, well, he might just become the new Master General.
“We were just—”
“What did I say?” she said, and they stepped away from the chained girl, allowing Lea to attend to the captive.
“You said—”
“Leave.”
“It’s just that we—” The Wolf fell silent under her gaze. “Aye Mydame. As you wish.”
Lea offered a bow as they left before setting the cofe into Nomi’s shivering hands. “This will keep you warm.” Bitch. The girl said nothing as she tugged the solitary blanket around her and winced as the chains dug into her neck. Like a fuken hound.
“Now you know how he felt,” Lea said evenly. The girl wouldn’t understand her words, but no matter the language, people instinctively spoke the language of tone, so Lea was always careful not to give anything away.
Blinking through heavily bruised eyelids, Nomi mumbled a thank-you in brutish southern tones before wiping the smear of saliva from her cheek. Her hands shook from cold or pain, and Lea approved of this and thought her thoroughly unimpressive. Emir had done enough to keep her alive, but Magnus allowed him to do little else. She was still the enemy.
Is she a spy? Or a broken waif?
The drizzle had taken what comfort the blanket offered. “Can’t have you catching your death out here,” Lea muttered, undoing the clasp on her cloak and tossing it carelessly to the bitch. She despised the smile offered in reply. “No, don’t wrap it around the blanket. That will just get it soaked through. Just hang the blanket… Oh, never mind.”
Nomi hugged herself at the reprieve of rain upon her, and Lea resisted the urge to smash her fuken head in. Calm yourself.
