Gearspire: Advent Read online

  GEARSPIRE: ADVENT

  by Jeremiah Reinmiller

  Gearspire is copyright © 2016 Jeremiah Reinmiller

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication, or any portion thereof, may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews and certain noncommercial uses as permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. All events and characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, are purely coincidental.

  Editor: Anastasia Poirier (www.anastasiapoirier.com)

  Cover Artist: Matt Davis (antigrey.tumblr.com)

  Cover and Interior Print Design: Shawn King (stkkreations.weebly.com)

  GEARSPIRE: ADVENT / Jeremiah Reinmiller – 1st edition.

  You can learn more about the author at jqpdx.com.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Map of Del'atre

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  Want More?

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For Glendyne

  CHAPTER 1

  Lastrahn was alive.

  He sat alone at a table in the back corner of the ill-lit, flyspeck tavern. A Champion of the House of Reckoning, as huge and menacing as his reputation.

  Ryle stood in the doorway, gripping his sword belt so hard his knuckles cracked. Behind him, the deserted street lay silent as midnight approached.

  It all felt impossible and stupid. Ryle had been taught to loathe and avoid Lastrahn’s band, and yet he’d spent seven days in the saddle tracking the champion down. His neck and back ached. Dust and road grit coated his boots, his pants, and his leather-reinforced wool jacket. All in all, he was in a sad state to meet a champion, but it didn’t matter. He’d missed Lastrahn in Pyhrec by thin hours; the legendary warrior wouldn’t slip through his fingers again.

  Lastrahn’s presence drew Ryle forward, but there on the brink, he took a breath and paused.

  Why here of all places? Shelling, a scrappers’ paradise smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Lastrahn had no reason to be here, to visit this sort of “establishment.” Ryle’s boots clung to the sticky floor as he shifted his weight. The sour stench of old drink filled his nose. It didn’t help his churning guts.

  The place looked like your typical run-down dump, but he’d been trained better than that. Typical often meant dangerous, and after such a hard pursuit, finding him here was all too easy.

  Had Lastrahn noticed him following and waited here to draw him in?

  Ryle swept his eyes around the room.

  The only other exit was a door at the back, probably to a kitchen or pantry. Beside it sat a battered and silent player piano. An equally battered bar occupied the left wall.

  Lastrahn aside, he marked three groups. A grizzled but harmless looking bartender and a few waitresses served drinks. The candlelit silhouettes of laborers wearing canvas coveralls and heavy boots hunched around a dozen tables. And then, huddled near the door, were a couple tables of men and women in patched and ragged clothes. Settlers sent west by the Directorate, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Sheep for the fleecing if ever that term applied.

  Ryle shook his head. Poor bastards.

  If anything, for the late hour on the eve of festival week, a heavy, unnatural silence filled the tavern. Perhaps the first anniversary of Helador occupied everyone’s thoughts. Perhaps they worried over the impending fall equinox and the trouble it might bring. Or perhaps the denizens of this place knew something Ryle didn’t.

  Whatever the reason, nothing screamed ambush. No one looked like they’d stick a knife in his back, so Ryle pushed it all away. He’d gone through five years of brutality for this moment. He wasn’t waiting any longer.

  The enemy of your enemy is . . . your savior? He badly needed that to be true. He’d bet everything on it. He crossed the floor, eyes alert, shoulders tense, and came to an uneasy stop at the champion’s table.

  Lastrahn sat silently in a heavy black coat. Shadows and his loose blonde hair obscured his features, providing Ryle no hint as to his mood and offering no clues as to where he’d been for the last year. The champion had vanished after the tragedy at Helador, but now he was here, alone. The Professor’s rumor might yet prove true.

  Lastrahn’s hand rested on the table holding a small glass of dark liquid. A pair of empty glasses sat beside it. Lastrahn took a sip, and Ryle glimpsed the bars tattooed across the back of his right hand. The still unfamiliar sensation of the bar across his own knuckles itched in response. He counted four bars before Lastrahn set his drink back down. Three black ones lined-up from knuckles to wrist and a white one bisecting them.

  Swordsman. Swordmaster. Champion.

  Why a fourth bar? He’d never seen more than three and they were always black.

  He shook free of the curious thought. He had to focus. As if Lastrahn’s presence wasn’t enough to rattle him, a huge shape gleamed beside Lastrahn in the dark. His sword—the sword—leaned against the wall. Exequor, one of the seven named blades. An artifact, a weapon from before.

  Ryle couldn’t guess at its value. Trophies from a hundred battles hung from its sheath and belt. Each sewn down to not rattle. And there among them, branded into the leather, a sword with scales hanging from its cross bar. Scales ever in judgement. The sigil of the House of Reckoning.

  His father had often spoken of the weapon in black curses. He’d taken more than one wound from it in his many conflicts with the House of Reckoning. In the presence of such a blade, Ryle’s left hip, where his sword would hang if he had one, felt empty.

  A moment passed, the champion didn’t acknowledge him. Sweat beaded along his hairline. His hands shook. Lastrahn’s posture said go away in no uncertain terms. Ryle wanted to center himself to still them, the cool calm of the kenten beckoned, but a man like Lastrahn would notice and react poorly. He’d have to ride this one out.

  Ryle took a breath and spoke. “Sir Lastrahn?” He was happy his voice remained steady.

  The champion’s head came up, and his cold, unreadable eyes, gleaming like chips of ice in the candlelight, passed over Ryle from head to toe and back.

  “Sir, my name is Ryle. I want—”

  “Tell me who sent you.” Lastrahn’s voice was low, rough.

  That the warrior hadn’t immediately leapt from his chair and seized Ryle might be a good sign, but he had to keep talking, had to snag the man’s attention. “No one, Sir. I want—”

  “In that case, you should’ve brought a sword.” He flicked his fingers towards the dagg
er on Ryle’s right hip. The one Ryle tried to ignore whenever possible.

  Ryle steeled himself and forged on. He wasn’t here to make a friend. “Sir, I need—”

  “That tattoo’s so pink it looks like a girl who’s just got her cherry popped,” Lastrahn said, stabbing a finger toward Ryle’s right hand. “You’re not ready, kid. Go fight a couple wars. Put some blood on your sword, dagger, whatever. You still want a shot at me, come back and I’ll shove that knife up your ass.”

  Ryle’s skin went cold. He kept his hands well away from his sides and spoke with greater care. “I do not want to fight you, Sir.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be interrupting my drink.” The champion’s eyes said the conversation was bleeding out.

  Ryle’s jaw tightened. All those years of pain weren’t going to end like this. He had to stay respectful, to keep talking. He had no leverage or pressure here. “Sir, I need just a minute of your time,” the words tumbled out in a rush. He cursed to himself and tried to keep a calm mask in place.

  Lastrahn’s stare grew heavier. He rolled his glass between his fingers. “Buy another round and you get sixty seconds.”

  Ryle would’ve given an arm without complaint. He turned and the grizzled bartender’s bloodshot eyes met his. In fact, more than a few customers watched him over shoulders and the rims of glasses. Most looked away as they saw him notice them.

  Discomfort rode his neck, but he didn’t let it show. He’d been trained better than that. He signaled for another round.

  Candlelight gleamed along the bartender’s wooden fingers as his arm ratcheted out to close around the neck of the bottle on a high shelf. The sight of the oldcraft caught Ryle off guard. He shouldn’t have missed such a detail, but this was Shelling. Maybe the man had pulled it from one of the ruined towers outside.

  The bartender poured and Ryle became aware of the age of the bottle and the lightness of his purse.

  He reached for the chair opposite Lastrahn.

  “You won’t be staying that long,” the champion said as he tossed back the last of his drink.

  Ryle pulled his hand back, uncertain.

  “Time’s wasting.”

  Ryle took a deep breath and prepared the words he’d rehearsed over his long ride.

  “Sir, my name’s Ryle. I’ve studied your travels, your battles, your victories. For many years, I’ve trained hard in hope of—”

  Lastrahn sighed. “A speech. I thought you might be different, but I should’ve expected it. You all have one.” He shook his head. “I’m not interested in whatever candy-coated bullshit you’ve made up to sound good. Let’s skip that part. Just tell me. What. You. Want.”

  Ryle’s words scattered like startled pigeons. He tried to catch them, but all those long days in the saddle dragged his thoughts down to a slow grind.

  He opened his mouth to try again when a young, curvy brunette sauntered up carrying Lastrahn’s drink. More than her curly locks were bouncing. She set the glass before the big man, leaning over a bit farther than necessary to collect his empty glasses.

  Lastrahn’s eyes didn’t change, but he didn’t look away from her either. Ryle used the interruption to compose himself. Focus, blast it. Don’t screw this up too.

  As she straightened, her hip brushed Lastrahn’s arm and she shot him a grin. His face remained impassive, and she turned from him with a playful pout.

  With her back to Lastrahn the smile vanished. She was younger than Ryle had first thought. Much younger. At least a couple years younger than himself. If she was more than a year past eighteen he’d be surprised. The makeup and bad lighting masked her youth, but couldn’t hide the tension pinched the corners of her eyes.

  He was still puzzling this out when she requested payment in a flat tone, and any thoughts about her fled. He could’ve bought half a bottle for that price, but he had no time to argue, Lastrahn was waiting.

  Ryle dropped a sickening number of coins into her palm and her fingers snapped shut around them. Tight as a bear trap. With a wink for Lastrahn, she swayed away. The happy mask was back in place, but Ryle thought her eyes still gave her away.

  Lastrahn’s expressionless eyes followed her departing figure as she picked up a broom and began sweeping the floor. “Tick tock.”

  So much for his plan. Well then, screw it. “I want to join The House of Reckoning.”

  Lastrahn snorted. “They don’t take volunteers.”

  Ryle knew the champion was a hard case, but his intentional stonewalling was starting to grate. He kept his face calm. “But you do take on squires.”

  “I might already have one,” he said, lifting the new glass.

  “I heard you’re between help.”

  “In that case tell me who’s been talking.” An edge to Lastrahn’s voice lit warning fires in Ryle’s brain.

  He ignored them and played his strongest card to revive the dying conversation. “Professor Mero.”

  The drink paused halfway to Lastrahn’s lips. “That’s doubtful.”

  “He taught me,” Ryle said.

  Lastrahn’s cold eyes shifted to the tattoo on Ryle’s hand. The drink returned to the table. “Show me.”

  Ryle stilled the shaking in his right hand, brought it up, palm inward, and moved his fingers through the quick pattern the Professor had taught. The back of his hand itched in response, as if something with a lot of legs crawled beneath his skin. As weird as it felt, a thrill ran through him. He still couldn’t believe he had earned the Professor’s mark.

  Let this do it.

  Lastrahn watched Ryle’s hand as the Professor’s sigil took shape upon his skin. The space of a long breath passed. A table creaked. A bottle tinked against another. The brunette sweeping the floor sneezed.

  Lastrahn shoved the empty chair across from him away from the table with one foot.

  CHAPTER 2

  Ryle grabbed the back of the chair. The wood clung sticky against his skin, rubbed against the scar on his left palm.

  He’d bought time with the Professor’s mark, but a gulf remained between them. He was everything Lastrahn was not: average height, brown skinned, and he kept his black hair shaved close. He didn’t dare consider the ocean of experience he lacked. By the time Lastrahn was his age he’d already gained his second mark.

  Only their hands looked similar. They both carried scars and tattoos, marks of survival and accomplishment. It was a place to start.

  Before Ryle could speak, Lastrahn’s eyes shifted over his shoulder.

  Ryle heard a soft gasp behind him, and a low curse from the bartender, “Ah, hell.”

  A wooden bang rang through the room. Ryle spun, hand dropping to his empty hip.

  A group of rowdy men poured through the front door. Their coats were worn and stained, their faces bearded or stubbled. He would’ve guessed more laborers, they were all big enough, and heavily muscled. Then he saw the cudgels hanging from their belts. That made them guards, or worse.

  The balding man in the lead, a fellow with small dark eyes under heavy brows, called for drinks and grabbed for the brunette sweeping the floor.

  She swatted him away. “It’s a holiday, Noffa!”

  “That’s why we’re here, Mel. To collect the Advent donations, and get the week started right. You can go first.” His lips twisted in a leer as he reached for her again.

  Mel’s broom clattered to the floor as she pulled away and retreated to the back of the room with the other waitresses. Noffa laughed but didn’t pursue.

  The bartender said nothing and quietly set out mugs on the bar top, along with a small sack, which one of Noffa’s men immediately collected. Everyone else turned back to their drinks.

  The scene was all too familiar. He’d seen a hundred versions of it in a hundred dive bars. In most of them he’d scooped up the coins himself. The smells of beer and sweat were suddenly overwhelming. Stifling. For a moment he heard his father’s laugh in the room.

  “So, Mero did send you to find me.”

  Ryle
tore his gaze back to Lastrahn, and he got his first good look at the champion.

  The stories described him as brutal but dashing. A man who felled opponents with his sword and women with his smile. But those stories were years old. Candlelight rode the hard planes of his worn face, his wrinkled brow, his scarred cheek. Gray streaked his hair, and peppered the stubble on his jaw. Not even Lastrahn had survived the years unscathed.

  It was hard to focus on the champion or his words. In the back of his mind Ryle was counting down, waiting for—

  “Well, who do we have here?” Noffa asked. Chuckles from his men followed.

  Ryle didn’t have to look to know the guards had seen the settlers. Sheep, meet wolves.

  “Welcome to Shelling,” Noffa said. “Now let’s see those donations.”

  Shuffling feet and chairs followed.

  “Get your hands off my wife!” a man’s voice said.

  A glass broke. A dull smack followed and the same woman gasped.

  Ryle’s fists clenched. He hoped Lastrahn would make his presence known and put an end to the shakedown. Instead, the champion waited for Ryle to respond to his question.

  The woman screamed, “Stop! We don’t have anything.” And that cry tore through the moment he’d long planned. A jagged rent that demanded attention.

  Plowing muck.

  “Excuse me, Sir,” Ryle said and turned without waiting for Lastrahn’s reaction. He’d probably screwed himself into the ground, but he couldn’t ignore the situation any longer.

  The settlers were on their feet now and had been herded into the corner. Noffa’s men were rifling through their pockets while Noffa pressed one of the women against the wall while he stepped on a struggling man’s throat on the floor.

  Heat surged up the back of Ryle’s neck.

  The bartender made a point of ignoring the whole thing while he filled mugs. Mel glared across the room but remained well back from the commotion with the other waitresses. Everyone else kept their heads down. Ryle wanted to spit. They outnumbered these bastards if they cared enough to do anything about it.

  But when did that ever matter?

  He crossed the floor, counting opponents, already picking out threats. Ten men with their backs to him. They looked like brawlers to a man; the sort who used strength over technique. Small comfort, they had no shortage of muscle.