The Manse of Mirrors by Nick Horth

Author:Nick Horth
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2020-06-22T06:40:39+00:00

About the Author

Nick Horth is the author of the novels City of Secrets and Callis and Toll: The Silver Shard, the novellas Heart of Winter and Thieves’ Paradise, and several short stories for Age of Sigmar. Nick works as a background writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

An extract from Callis and Toll: The Silver Shard.

Sunlight trickled down through the canopy of violet leaves and crystalline tree trunks to cast a shimmering amethyst glow across the jungle floor. Shev Arclis knelt, stretched out a hand and let the light play across her fingers. Around her, a cacophony of life screeched, clicked and howled. Disc-shaped beetles buzzed by, mandibles twitching. She waved a hand to shoo them away, and their iridescent bodies flashed from blue to a bright red as they zoomed off into the treeline.

Truly, the jungles of the Taloncoast would be a beautiful place, if they weren’t quite so intent on killing her. She reached back and unclipped a flask from her belt. It was worryingly light in her hands. The journey had taken far longer than she had hoped, and the sweltering heat had hardly helped. She let several drops of precious water drip onto her tongue.

Scuffed footsteps sounded behind her, and a familiar stench of stale sweat and gunji-smoke wafted through the trees. She sighed, and turned. There he was, of course. Her shadow. His beady, rheumy eyes narrowed in a suspicious frown, while he panted like a hound worn out from the heat, exposing a row of blackened teeth.

‘What’re you sneakin’ off for, aelf?’ he hissed. ‘Tryin’ to leave us behind, I reckon.’

‘Where exactly would I run off to, cretin?’ she snarled back. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Howle, there’s several hundred leagues of lethal wilderness between us and any scrap of civilisation.’

Howle’s eyes narrowed even further and, as if by magic, a crude, saw-bladed dagger appeared in one hand and a barbed hook in the other. He trembled with barely contained rage.

‘You speak to me like that again, I’ll carve up the other side of your face,’ he said. ‘You won’t be even half pretty by the time I’m done with you.’

Shev rose slowly, moving one hand to her belt and the dagger stowed there. She smiled through the cold rage that filled her, and felt the familiar tautness on the left side of her jaw, where a web of scarred flesh met her upper lip. She’d had just about enough of Howle’s taunts, muttered threats and stares. Shev didn’t know quite why the old brute had it in for her so badly, but her patience was at an end.

‘You don’t frighten me, Howle,’ she said. ‘So why don’t you–’

‘Enough,’ interrupted a voice, soft and measured. Not a threatening sound, but both she and Howle took a step back nonetheless.

The Golden Lord stepped into the clearing. Despite the stifling heat, he still wore thick black robes and an undercoat of leather, revealing not a hint of bare skin.

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