The Lord Collector by Anthony Ryan

Author:Anthony Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: heroic fantasy, fantasy novella, blood song, ravens shadow, queen of fire, tower lord
Publisher: Anthony Ryan

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The docks once again, his only reliable dream. It was always the same. The same pier, the same hour just before nightfall, every detail perfect and vivid even though the memory was over twenty years old.

He crouched behind a wall of stacked barrels in a quiet corner of the South Tower docks, peeking out at the end of the pier. There were people there, dim shadows glimpsed through twilight mist, four standing and one kneeling. The kneeling figure was bound, face concealed with a sack tied at the neck. Even so Jehrid knew whose face lay beneath the sack, knew without any shred of doubt the face of the woman who knelt with head bowed in numb expectation of her fate. Just as he knew the name of the man who drew a knife and stepped to her side.

He turned away then, knowing what was coming, reeling through the streets as his gorge rose to spill his guts on the cobbles. His treacherous ears caught the sound of a body tumbling into harbour waters, the splash carrying well in the clammy air. He ran, through the streets and the city gate and out into the fields beyond, blinded by tears, running until his lungs turned to fire and his legs gave way. He lay out in the fields until morning, and when the sun rose to wake him with its warmth, he got to his feet and started north. The road was long, and he grew to know hunger and danger as close friends for the wild country was ever rich in threats, but eventually, a thin, ragged boy staggered into Varinshold and sought entry to the Realm Guard.

“Has to be your real name, boy,” the sergeant told him, quill poised over parchment, a somewhat wicked glint in his eye as he added, “King Janus wants only honest Guardsmen…”

He awoke to the taste of blood, iron, and salt stinging his tongue and provoking a convulsive retch as his senses returned. His dulled vision, hampered by eyelids that now seemed to be fashioned from lead, could see almost nothing save a faint impression of tumbled rock, though the sound invading his ears prevented any return to slumber; a muted but continuous, echoing torrent of rushing water.

“Not alone after all,” a voice muttered nearby, a female voice, speaking in Alpiran.

It took a moment before he made her out, crouching in the gloom, on her knees, arms still bound and eyes pinpoints of light behind hair hanging in damp tendrils over her face.

Jehrid paused to spit the blood from his mouth, tongue exploring where his teeth had left a ragged impression on the inside of his cheek. “Nor, it seems, are you, honoured lady,” he replied in his coarse but functional Alpiran.

She straightened a little in surprise, then spoke in accentless Realm Tongue that put his Alpiran to shame, “Would you mind?” She turned, crouching to proffer her bound wrists.

Jehrid realised realized his hands were empty, his sword no doubt lost somewhere in the fall.

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