Stranger of Tempest: Book One of The God Fragments (55 page)

Her letter containing instructions to come dressed as the Knight of Blood had seemed as fitting as it was in poor taste, coming from a woman willing to enrage ancient monsters from the belly of the earth when it suited her. The Princess was the highest card in the suit of Blood, the Knight often called her consort.

He holstered his pistol and took a closer look around. There was a polished dining table between the kitchen and balcony door with half a dozen sturdy chairs around it. Unlit oil lamps hung from every wall and a fainting couch, of all things, stood to one side of the fireplace. Faint embers were all that remained in the grate, just the ghost of warmth lingering as the chill of winter intruded. It was a surprisingly refined room – leaky corpses aside – with a patchwork of thick, patterned rugs covering the floor and pictures on the wall.

The two largest of those were portraits hung together over the fireplace – the first of a middle-aged woman with a glittering smile Lynx recognised all too well. Alongside her was a great slab of a man painted warts and all, not to mention the scars, but wearing a roguish grin and a ruby at his throat.

Lynx breathed in deeply. The faint scent of night jasmine rose from the couch and some sort of sweet pork stew called to his beer-filled stomach from the kitchen, though the dead bodies added a less welcome flavour to the air. Upon inspection those also turned out to be a man and a woman, although probably not related to Toil as he was sure the portrait subjects were.

Curiously, both corpses were also in costume; black and white with thick black capes and hoods swept back. He would have assumed it was just to blend in on festival night, but it was strange for them to then both choose the same look. As for what the costume was, Lynx didn’t recognise it so he crouched to inspect the badges on the chest of the nearest body. Simple diamond shapes; the first a black 2 on a white background, and the other a device he didn’t know. It seemed to be a black moon, the lower half of which was crumbling. Something about that rang a faint bell, but Lynx couldn’t place it.

Both assassins – assuming they were such, but they carried long-knives and pistol-bows, which were more conducive to quiet murder than extremely loud mage-guns – had died of knife wounds. One, the woman, had a hilt protruding from just below her jawline – driven with great force up into her head. The weapon didn’t have a guard and all he could see was a rough, rounded wooden grip that made it probably a kitchen knife. Certainly it hadn’t been worth retrieving by the killer. The other body bore long slash wounds that looked like they had come from a larger weapon, more akin to the short-swords Toil preferred.

Lynx walked around the room, picking his feet over the wreckage of a chair and a shattered porcelain bowl. A wine bottle lay on its side, spilling white wine across the table to drip down one side, the remains of a glass stem near the door.

She’d hurled the first thing she’d had to hand, probably interrupted while fortifying her courage for a night in my company
, Lynx decided in a moment of black humour.

Opposite the front door was the doorway to the kitchen, one window open to admit the cold. A butcher’s block stood in the middle of the kitchen, a fat cleaver resting in the centre. Buried in the door jamb by his head was a short, blackened steel quarrel.

That window’s how one got in then
, he decided, looking down at the bodies. The man was closer, but his money was on the woman.

Hear her coming, stab her in the throat and use her as a shield when you hear the front door give. Man at the door fires, misses. You throw the only thing left in your hand, the wineglass, and shove the dying woman into his way. That buys you time to grab your short-sword and get to work at close range
.

Did Toil run straight out of the door afterwards?
Lynx wondered.
Unlikely, she’s hardly one to panic.

He looked at the unused costume again.
And she had time enough to hammer that into the wall, or did she just miss a throw? Not a blade you’d use by choice and it’s in deep, dead centre. A message for me? I was supposed to meet her here, after all.

‘Hands in the air!’ barked a voice, causing Lynx to jump.

Slowly he did so and edged around until he could see the speaker. He gave a sigh of relief when he saw it was a watchman, a short and round man with a fat moustache and a mage-gun pointing at Lynx’s chest.

His relief was short-lived when he remembered the bodies on the floor and saw the calculating look in the watchman’s eye. Greying and fat he might be, he didn’t look a fool or remotely fazed by the sight.

‘Ah,’ Lynx began, keeping his hands up.

He was suddenly acutely aware his costume included prominently displayed weapons. Being a mercenary, he’d replaced the shiny stage knives and pistols provided by the costumier. In the bright moonlight, the watchman would be able to clearly see the scratched steel blades of the daggers and the all-too-real loaded mage-pistols.

‘Yeah, these. I can explain.’

TOM LLOYD
was born in 1979 in Berkshire. After a degree in International Relations he went straight into publishing where he still works. He never received the memo about suitable jobs for writers and consequently has never been a kitchenhand, hospital porter, pigeon hunter, or secret agent.

•  •  •

He lives in Oxford, isn’t one of those authors who gives a damn about the history of the font used in his books and only believes in forms of exercise that allow him to hit something.

•  •  •

Visit him online at
@tomlloydwriter
or on facebook.

The Stormcaller

The Twilight Herald

The Grave Thief

The Ragged Man

The Dusk Watchman

The God Tattoo

Moon’s Artifice

Old Man’s Ghosts

More from Tom Lloyd …

•  •  •

MOON’S ARTIFICE

BOOK ONE OF EMPIRE OF A HUNDRED HOUSES

Tom Lloyd kicks off a spectacular new fantasy series!

•  •  •

In a quiet corner of the Imperial City, Investigator Narin discovers the result of his first potentially lethal mistake. Minutes later he makes a second.

After an unremarkable career Narin finally has the chance of promotion to the hallowed ranks of the Lawbringers – guardians of the Emperor’s laws and bastions for justice in a world of brutal expediency. Joining that honoured body would be the culmination of a lifelong dream, but it couldn’t possibly have come at a worse time.

On the cusp of an industrial age that threatens the warrior caste’s rule, the Empire of a Hundred Houses awaits civil war between noble factions. Centuries of conquest has made the empire a brittle and bloated monster; constrained by tradition and crying out for change. To save his own life and those of untold thousands Narin must understand the key to it all – Moon’s Artifice, the poison that could destroy an empire.

•  •  •

‘A hugely assured modern fantasy novel’
SFX

THE STORMCALLER

BOOK ONE OF THE TWILIGHT REIGN

In a land ruled by prophecy and the whims of Gods, a young man finds himself at the heart of a war he barely understands, wielding powers he may never be able to control

•  •  •

Isak is a white-eye, feared and despised in equal measure. Trapped in a life of poverty, hated and abused by his father, Isak dreams of escape, but when his chance comes, it isn’t to a place in the army as he’d expected. Instead, the Gods have marked him out as heir-elect to the brooding Lord Bahl, the Lord of the Fahlan.

Lord Bahl is also a white-eye, a genetic rarity that produces men stronger, more savage and more charismatic than their normal counterparts. Their magnetic charm and brute strength both inspires and oppresses others.

Now is the time for revenge, and the forging of empires. With mounting envy and malice, the men who would themselves be kings watch Isak, chosen by Gods as flawed as the humans who serve them, as he is shaped and moulded to fulfil the prophecies that are encircling him like scavenger birds.

•  •  •

‘The world is beautifully realised, the battles suitably grim and the dragon, when it appears, is magnificent’
Guardian

‘Fantasy with a magnificence of conception, a sense of looming presences whose purposes are not ours to apprehend’
Time Out

‘Gallops along with scarcely a dull moment’
The Times

‘Lloyd creates a vivid world … he echoes writers such as Moorcock and Gemmell’
Interzone

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