Shadowblood (Book Four of the Terrarch Chronicles)

Shadowblood (Book Four of the Terrarch Chronicles)

  • Title Page
  • Chapter One
  • Chapter Two
  • Chapter Three
  • Chapter Four
  • Chapter Five
  • Chapter Eight
  • Chapter Nine
  • Chapter Ten
  • Chapter Eleven
  • Chapter Twelve
  • Chapter Fourteen
  • Chapter Fifteen
  • Chapter Sixteen
  • 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
  • Epilogue
  • About the Author

    •  

     

    Shadowblood

    Copyright © William King 2007

     

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

     

    Website: www.williamking.me

     

    Cover: Jan Patrik Krasny.

    Website: www.krasnyart.eu

     

    Editing: Angela King

    Website: www.freelancecopyeditor.co.uk

     

     

    Chapter One

    "What the hell was that?" asked Lieutenant Sardec, startled by the sound of gunfire. Most of the Foragers dived for cover, muskets held ready to respond to an attack. Rubble from fire-damaged buildings blocked part of the street. Puddles of recent rain filled the holes in the cobbles. It was a good site for an ambush. This once-prosperous district of Halim was even more run down than the rest of the Kharadrean capital.

    "Shots, sir," said Sergeant Hef, standing calmly upright. The monkey-faced little human was always calm, no matter what danger threatened. Sardec would have envied him that steadiness, had it not been ludicrous for a Terrarch to envy a man like Hef anything. Sardec’s tall inhumanly lean form as much as his officer’s red jacket marked him out as a target for any rebels, but he was unwilling to show less courage in front of his men than the Sergeant.

    "I meant who is shooting and what are they shooting at?"

    The staccato sound of musket fire sounded again. Someone screamed.

    “Could be a trap, intended to lure us into an ambush.”

    Sardec shook his head. “That does not seem very likely.”

    “Then I suspect, sir, that the best way to find out would be to investigate.” Sardec returned the Sergeant’s grin. He and Hef had come to understand each other very well over the past year.

    “Weasel! Barbarian! The pair of you scout ahead and see what’s up. The rest of you get up off your arses and get ready to fight. If any rebels are around here, they’re going to make you do it anyway -- so best be ready.”

    The massive human called the Barbarian rose to his feet and drew his long knife. He scratched his bald pate, picked up his fallen tricorne hat and slammed it back on his head. “Right you are, sir.” He moved off with a silence and speed surprising in so bulky a figure.

    Tall, lanky Weasel, as ugly a man as Sardec had ever set eyes on, followed him, long musket at the ready, moving with even more stealth than the huge Northman. Sardec suspected the pair of almost every crime against regulations a man could commit but they were the best men he had when it came to this sort of street fighting.

    The Barbarian stalked into position on the corner then gestured for the others to come forward. Sardec drew his pistol left-handed, cursing the wound that had cost him his right hand and the ability to wield a blade. His metal hook was a poor substitute when it came to close combat.

    The rest of the crew, more than thirty ragged green-tunicked humans, picked themselves up and made ready to move out. There were a lot of new faces. Many of the men who had been with the regiment when Sardec joined were dead, casualties of their struggles with the Elder world demons beneath Achenar and last summer’s march through Kharadrea. Several more had lost their lives putting down riots in the aftermath of Queen Kathea’s assassination. They were sadly missed now.

    Sardec reached the corner and stuck his head around. Less than a hundred yards away a group of elaborately robed Terrarchs fought with a horde of sinister figures. The attackers had been human before they had died, but now they were something else, creatures of the darkest sorcery, re-animated by the foulest of plagues.

    “More bloody walking corpses,” muttered the Barbarian. “You’d think the graveyards would be empty by now.”

    “Always more deaders about,” said Weasel.