Roar Read online

  ROAR

  Greg Curtis

  Digital Edition

  October 2018

  Roar

  Greg Curtis

  Acknowledgements

  This book as always could not have been written without the love and support of my family.

  Cover Art:

  The wonderful cover art for this book was created by Cathy Walker. More of her artwork can be found on www.cathyscovers.wix.com/books

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Part Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Part One

  Chapter One

  It was a boring day. Nothing much was happening in the world. Not in the Volden Plains. Not in the Eternal City. And especially not in Thorm's store.

  The streets were quiet and Thorm was sitting at his counter, polishing his latest duelling pistol and staring out at the lack of people passing by, wishing he could do something more. He had little business on and little coming up. Unfortunately that wasn't unusual. His guns always sold, but slowly. Still that was enough. They were expensive pieces, especially the duelling pistols. If he sold a pair a week he made quite a few silver pieces – more than enough to cover his needs. Much more. And a hunting rifle would earn him a gold bit. But some weeks he sold none at all, and saw very few potential customers. Because of the price he simply didn't have people simply wandering in off the street inspecting his merchandise.

  So the guns hung in their brackets along the walls, the accessories like balls and powder were stacked on the shelves below them and the middle of the store's main room stood empty of customers while he sat there. No one was coming in the store. They weren't even looking in the windows.

  To add to his woes his new tunic was itchy. In fact he was sure it was causing a rash. He suspected it was something to do with the fabric. Normally he wore a neat and tidy brown linen tunic. The sort of thing traders wore. But Mara had insisted that he look more well to do. She claimed it would impress his customers. So the linen had been replaced with a twill weave that had been dyed blue – the same shade as the Eternal King's colours. She said it made him look loyal. He didn’t care what it made him look like. He just knew it itched.

  Even the weather was boring Thorm thought as he stared moodily out the window. The sky was grey, the sun wasn't shining nor was the rain coming down. There wasn't any wind and it was neither hot nor cold. It was just dull. As interesting as a sleeping earthworm.

  Had it been a mistake setting up shop in the Eternal City? He wondered about that as he worked on the pistol. He’d wondered about it a lot. When he'd first arrived he'd dreamed of having customers queuing out of the door to buy his wares. Of being so rich he couldn't even fit all his gold bits and pieces in his coin purse. That clearly hadn't happened. Even though he was building his reputation and making more than enough coin to live on, he wasn't going to get rich any time soon. He still lived in the small chambers above his store, cooked and cleaned for himself, and seldom wasted his coin on nights out at the alehouses.

  And for the privilege of living in the Eternal King's city he had to pay twice as much tax! All so the King could live in his Palace of the Sun and do whatever he liked. No doubt torturing and killing unfortunates

  But maybe what was most annoying about the day wasn't the quietness of his business. It was what he wasn't doing. He had a brand new collection of musket parts sitting on their stand in the workshop behind the store front, waiting for the new barrel to be properly rolled. All the nails had been welded together into six flat sections. All he had to do was heat and then roll them over the mandrel and then weld them together. It would be a beautiful piece when it was done, perfect for hunting. And it would easily earn him a gold bit – maybe two. But it was business hours, and he couldn't leave the store unattended. So it sat there and waited until he closed up shop to be worked on.

  And then of course there was what he really couldn't do but ached to. He couldn't practice his magic. It was forbidden.

  Despite that, Thorm did practise his magic in secret. Once the sun had set for the evening Thorm would often times sneak down to his basement where he could practice his spells without being seen.

  He was fortunate that save for the previous owners who had left the city after selling him the building, no one knew that his store had a basement. It wasn't on any plans and the entrance leading down to it was well concealed behind some cleverly hinged shelves. Pull the hidden lever and they swung silently open. They didn't even disturb the dust on the floor. Whoever had built them hadn't wanted the entrance to be found.

  The previous owners had sold the store to him in somewhat of a hurry as he recalled. He suspected they had had some illicit trading activities of their own to hide given their hurried departure from the city, and the city guards who had turned up looking for them a few days later.

  But that was their problem. He was just grateful for the hidden basement. He made good use of it. Even his family didn't know that he had a basement. But then they didn't know that he had magic either. He had never told them. And he would never tell them since that would make them complicit in his crime.

  Having magic of course, was always a crime.

  All magic belonged to the Eternal King. That was the law. It had been for a thousand years – ever since he had created the Volden Plains and established his Eternal City. Anyone who had magic and was not in direct service to the King was a criminal.

  Unfortunately any wizard who was in service to the King was a slave by another name. Locked away in a special compound somewhere in the Palace of the Sun – a prison as far as anyone knew. There he would be forced to provide magical services for the King. There could be no thought of refusal. The King’s men ensured compliance by force feeding the wizards various potions and philtres that robbed them of their will. If there was the slightest possibility that their magic could be considered a threat to the King or his rule, they were chained and imprisoned. Any direct disobedience resulted in their immediate execution.

  Every now and then he saw one of the wizards on the streets. They were always accompanied by guards or inquisitors in their royal blue and led around like dogs on a leash. Literally chained and collared. Their magic contained by the various potions and philtres that also robbed them of their thoughts. Stripped of all free will and any dignity they could only act on their masters' command.

  Seeing the wretches always evoked feelings of pity in Thorm. Shame and horror too, but also fear. Because above all else he feared becoming one of them. Especially when so many of them were obviously crazed.

  It was said to be the result of having taken the various herbs and philtres for so long that were used to control them. Thorm however, suspected it was more than that. Something terrible. He wondered if it was a result of the torturer's art. Or worse that there was there some link to the underworlds? They seemed to be living in a hell. But he didn’t know. And as long as all the wizards were locked away and under the strict control of the Eternal King, no one would ever find out. After all, the King wasn't going to tell anyone what he did. And no one could enter the Palace of the Sun. That entire half of the city was walled off and guarded by a small army.

  It was probably done to hide the dark truth about the King and what he was. Because everyone knew that the King was no normal man. Not when he was over a thousand years old. Not when he could build a portal to the underworld like the Tri-consular Orb. Besides, how normal could he be when he wouldn't even show himself? When he always wore full armour that hid his face and never spoke? But even if he had no magic of his own, the King had almost everyone in the realm with magic working for him. He even seemed to have connections to the Night Maiden. Speak out against him and sooner or later Nyx's shades would visit you in your sleep. Your dreams would become night terrors.

  As to the other gods however, the King eschewed distaste. The temples and shrines of the Seven Sisters were permitted in the cities. Perhaps tolerated was a better term. Their priests could wander the towns and cities freely. But only their priests. No high priests or leaders of the faiths. The very first act that the King had done when he had claimed the throne was to destroy the seven High Temples. The main offices of the faiths where those who led the
m resided. And after that he had removed all the priesthood from positions in the Court. They did not advise him and they were not permitted to run anything beyond their most basic temples. It was as if he considered them a challenge to his rule.

  Thorm sometimes suspected that the King had some sort of link to the underworld. Perhaps he had even come from there? It made sense. After all, he certainly had dealings with the denizens of the underworld – the lamaia. He even fed those soul eating demons his enemies through his portal. The fact that he was also more than a thousand years old also supported the theory. He knew many others held the same view. But none spoke it out loud. Or at least, not in public. The King's spies were everywhere. On those rare occasions when he spent an evening in an alehouse, Thorm like everyone else, spoke about irrelevancies. You never knew who might be listening.

  Thorm had realised early in life that he never wanted to become one of the King's slaves. Or end up in a dungeon somewhere. And he certainly didn't fancy being killed. But he'd also known that the magic was in him. It was a part of him. And every now and then it had to be released. Thorm hungered to explore it, to practice it, to set it free. Safely.

  That was why he had become what he was; a man who ran a respectable business by day and kept his magical abilities from the world, practising in secret and only at night. Which was why as he sat at the counter, staring out through the window at the almost empty street, he wouldn't go downstairs and do what he really wanted to. He would just sit there and watch the very few pedestrians there were, walk past his front window, maybe gawk a little, but not come in.

  So he sat at his counter, polishing up the brass and steel of his latest weapon, and making sure it was in perfect order, before assembling it. Gun smithing was a complicated business. It required absolute dedication to the craft and a lot of training. He would never let a single one of his weapons leave the store before it was absolutely perfect. Master Halcott had instilled that ethic in him for every day that he had been his master, and Thorm still thanked him for it. What made a gunsmith a master wasn't simply that his weapons worked. It was that they fired straight and true. That they had the range they needed and the ability to penetrate flesh as they should. And above all else, they must never fail. Thorn had become such a Master. His guns always shot straight and true; they never failed. Ever! He wasn't a damned trader as some claimed! He was an artisan! With no customers!

  Eventually he did have a visitor though. Mara. His betrothed. As always when he saw her push the door open and trip the bell, he found himself smiling. She was just so beautiful! His family didn't approve of her, he knew. They said she was calculating and only out for what she could get. But he consoled himself with the fact that they didn't truly know her. They had hardly spent any time in her company – far too little to form such an opinion. Even now they were off in their wagon, making another trade run to the southern cities. Thorn took one look at her big, bright smile and innocent, blue eyes and knew once again that they were wrong. She was a creature of love. Pure love. A true follower of Sister Galena if not the Goddess herself.

  “Love!” Thorm greeted her with a stupid smile on his face – the same one he always wore when he saw her – and then stood up and went to her. A second later they were greeting one another as they always did. He was kissing her and holding her tight; enjoying the feeling of her warm flesh pressed against him. The smell of her hair. She was everything any man could ever want in a woman. And she was his! “It's been so long.”

  It hadn't actually been that long at all. He'd said goodbye to her only that morning as she'd set off to see her family. They didn't like him either unfortunately, and were mortified by the idea that their daughter was spending time with a “trader” as the Dunmore's called him. He was beneath her. Which was why she often had to go and see them and do some repairs to his reputation with them while he seldom saw them. She needed to transform him in their eyes from a mere trader into a businessman. Truthfully, he wasn't completely sure what the difference was. But as long as he got to spend his days with Mara he didn't really care. He could wear a starched tunic and mutter a few meaningless noises now and then for that. Even if it did itch.

  “Too long.” She kissed him back, just as pleased to see him as he was her. “And I've got good news.” She started nibbling on his ear. “It wasn't easy but I've managed to secure a deal for your weapons.”

  “A deal?” He didn't understand. But he also really didn't care just then. All he wanted to do was enjoy his time with her.

  “A Royal deal. For the royal armies to buy your weapons.”

  A Royal deal? Instantly he heard it Thorm was horrified. The King didn't pay a fair price for his weapons. Thorm could get three silver pieces for a single duelling pistol, but the king would pay less than half that.

  Besides, Thorm didn’t design weapons for soldiers. They were meant for gentlemen. Nobles. People who appreciated quality and would pay for it. Thorm tried to explain that to her. He was sure he'd explained it before. But she didn't seem to understand. She also didn't seem too pleased by his response.

  “But the honour! A royal patronage!” She pulled away a little from his embrace to stare straight at him. Her big blue eyes wide and looked about to fill with tears. “I had to work hard for this. I had to meet with the right people, smile like a fool and say the right things. I had to use my family's name with the Court on your behalf! And this is the gratitude I get?!”

  “But –!” Thorm tried hard to think of something to say, but he couldn't find the words. He understood that she had tried her best to help him, but it was a terrible deal. Any deal with the Eternal King was terrible. He was an eternally bad payer. Everyone knew that.

  “No! I will not have it!” She stamped her foot in anger. “I had to sacrifice so much. And I did it all for you. For us. Don't you understand? Don't you even care?”

  “Of course I care!” Thorm struggled desperately to explain. “But a royal patronage would leave me destitute! I'm the finest gunsmith in the land. An artisan! Not some two copper gunsmith grinding out shoddy weapons for dirt poor conscripts!” He couldn't keep a hint of outrage from finding his words even though he never wanted to say something hurtful to Mara. And then something else hit him.

  “And what do you mean by sacrifice?” He didn't understand it but instantly chills went through him as the possibilities ran through his mind.

  Suddenly the bell rang and the door opened. A hooded figure walked in. He was tall and wearing royal blue robes embossed with the gold eye. And he was adorned with chains.

  “Oh shite! The gods bless me!” Thorm's blood chilled at the very sight of him, even before he made out his face. Many of the Court might wear the blue, but only the King's servants would wear the golden eye or a set of chains. And only the most important would have the eye emblazoned right across their chest. Then he saw the man's face and the blood drained from his body.

  It was the Royal Enforcer, Lord Aston. A man who wore evil the same way others wore clothes. What was worse, he fancied himself in those clothes.

  This was the fiend who saw to the execution of the Eternal King's commands. Saw to it and revelled in it! The fouler the command the better. He had under his command a small army of inquisitors. If a man did not pay his taxes on time it would be the Enforcer's inquisitors on his door to demand payment together with a penalty that they would immediately administer. If a man was heard to speak out too loudly against the King, it would be the Enforcer or one of his inquisitors who visited him to rip out his tongue and throw him in the dungeons. He was also the man who threw the King's enemies into the Tri-consular Orb and sent them to the underworld to be consumed body and soul. And supposedly he laughed while he did it.