Black Guild Read online

  Black Guild

  Second book from the tales of the

  Black Powder Wars

  J P Ashman

  Black Guild

  Second book from the tales of the

  Black Powder Wars

  J P Ashman

  copyright © 2017 J P Ashman

  This Digital Edition

  1

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The selections in this book are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead; events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Pen Astridge

  Series map by J P Ashman – illustrated by Charles Richardson

  Edited by Jeff Gardiner

  Dedications

  I want to dedicate Black Guild to the memory of my father, Phil, but also to Taya, Pen, Mihir and all those amazing fantasy fans and friends that stayed with me, supported me and helped me get through the shittiest of times; The Fantasy Five, The Fantasy Hive and The Terrible Ten are all a huge part of this. I cannot rave about the online fantasy community enough. From bestselling authors to readers, bloggers to editors, the community I am a part of is the most welcoming I have ever known. Truly. This is for all of you, because you have been with me throughout.

  Thank you, my friends. Thank you!

  Author’s Note

  I want to give my readers the heads-up on Black Guild, because it’s not your usual sequel.

  Black Guild and Black Arrow (due for release in summer 2018) were originally one book. One. Big. Book. If you’ll believe it, Black Guild was bigger than Black Cross, which proved only just viable to print without pricing it out of the market. Second to that, the original Black Guild had so many twisting and turning and crossing storylines, my editor and beta readers suggested I split it in two. So I did!

  Unlike the usual ‘Part One’ and ‘Part Two’ halves of such a tome (GRRM springs to mind), Black Guild and Black Arrow actually run side by side. I know, it’s unusual, but it’s how I felt the split worked best. In fact, the splitting of storylines worked so well, there was little for me to do afterwards. It’s almost as if I had purposely written two books set at the same time, but from different points of view and geological areas.

  Of course, this means there are many characters from Black Cross who will not make an appearance in Black Guild. There’ll also be new characters appearing in both. Hell, some Black Cross characters won’t reappear until Black Prince, the fourth book in the Black Powder Wars series. But please be patient. This is a building war that encompasses several kingdoms, after all, and early reviews and beta reads have reassured me that there is plenty here to sate your Black Powder Wars thirst.

  I’ll keep you no longer, folks. Now you know what to expect, I hope you enjoy new characters and old, and many new places throughout Brisance in this, the second instalment of the Black Powder Wars. I hope you enjoy Black Guild. I certainly enjoyed writing it.

  J P Ashman

  Contents

  Map of Brisance

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 – Pride and prejudice

  Chapter 2 – A deadly race

  Chapter 3 – Resonate

  Chapter 4 – Another scar

  Chapter 5 - Grounding

  Chapter 6 – Silence broken

  Chapter 7 – A painful belch

  Chapter 8 - Accusations

  Chapter 9 - Pounder

  Chapter 10 – Stonebridge

  Chapter 11 – Silent flight

  Chapter 12 – Impossible escapism

  Chapter 13 – Warning

  Chapter 14 – Road to Rowberry

  Chapter 15 - Overcooked

  Chapter 16 – An unlikely duo

  Chapter 17 - Palomino

  Chapter 18 – Look out below

  Chapter 19 – Nose of a dog

  Chapter 20 – There’s gold in that

  Chapter 21 – The Tri Isles

  Chapter 22 – The bells, the bells

  Chapter 23 – Compact fists

  Chapter 24 – Special Delivery

  Chapter 25 – Crude compliment

  Chapter 26 – Stab and stab and stab

  Chapter 27 – A decorative Prow

  Chapter 28 – Never trust a goblin

  Chapter 29 – Black Guild, black ship

  Chapter 30 – A new debt

  Chapter 31 – Fight or flight

  Chapter 32 – Freeze!

  Chapter 33 - Cruel to be kind

  Chapter 34 - Rowberry

  Chapter 35 – Renewed resolve

  Chapter 36 - Fun and revelations

  Chapter 37 – Back to the rooftops

  Chapter 38 - Besieging your own

  Chapter 39 - Bangs in the night

  Chapter 40 – Betrayal

  Chapter 41 – Effrin and Ear-less

  Chapter 42 – And that is that

  Chapter 43 – Bolts, blades and strings

  Chapter 44 – Ride for the hills

  Chapter 45 – Scars before the mark

  Chapter 46 – Sergeant Grannit

  Chapter 47 – It all led to this

  Chapter 48 - Tumultuous and bleak

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  Thank you for reading:

  Biography

  Map of Brisance

  Dramatis Personae

  Caravaneers

  Couig, Master of the Caravaneers

  Collett, Mistress of the Caravaneers

  Belcher & Legg, caravan guards

  Jevratt, lead caravan guard

  Sir Xand, hedge knight

  Souch Sader, sorcerer

  Cheung, assassin

  ***

  Altolnan Nobility & Households

  Will Morton

  Duke of Yewdale, Lord High Constable of Alton;

  brother-in-law to King Barrison

  Sir Merrel & Sir Fell, Captains to the Duke of Yewdale

  Severun, Morton’s agent,

  former Master of the Wizards & Sorcery Guild

  Egan Dundaven, Morton’s agent,

  former Samorlian Witchunter

  Sean, Ten, Graehm & Rough Paul,

  men-at-arms to the Duke of Yewdale

  Ward Strickland

  Master of the Wizards & Sorcery Guild,

  Lord High Chancellor of Altoln

  Morri, infirmary cleric

  Orix, former Master Cleric

  Effrin, City Guard cleric

  ***

  Goblin War Galley

  Charlzberg, Admiral of the goblin fleet

  Bosun, bosun

  Spyde, navigator

  Cooker, cook

  Tull, stern dangler

  Ptarmigan Twins, tiller-crew

  ***

  Sessio

  Captain Mannino

  Hitchmogh, first mate

  Parry, blade master

  ***

  Black Guild & Dockside

  Master Poi Son

  Mistress Bronwen

  Master Alden-Fenn

  Pangan, lead assassin for Master Poi Son

  Blanck, former assassin

  Terrina, assassin

  Rapeel, street-assassin

  Longoss, former assassin

  Coppin, former whore of Mother’s brothel

  Keep, former assassin turned inn-keeper

  ***

  Others about Brisance

  Crackador, the legendary great-dragon

  Dignaaln, emissary

  Pr
ologue

  Brisance

  Summer - 492nd year of the Alliance

  The Caravaneers’ camp stretched out to the east of the road like a town of wheeled hovels. On the western side of the road stretched Lake Beddoe, its green shores and shallows swarming with splashing children, adults and animals alike. Birds circled the smoke-blackened sky. Corvids mainly, but vultures were always present around the edges of the permanent camp. Taking in the scene from beneath his hood, Cheung silently recited his guild’s assassination orders before plunging into the mass of merchants, tradesmen and drovers. He passed unseen in his disguise; the stall holders didn’t call to him and the caravan guards he passed didn’t eye him once. He, to their eyes, was a priest of the Temple of Tears, and no one from that temple was worth talking to, for talk they did not.

  All manner of people from various kingdoms called out in the trader tongue, hawking their wares of spices and cloths, foodstuffs and tools, martial services and slaves. Cheung glanced over the chain-folk: humans, goblins and adlets of all ages. He eyed some of the adlets, knowing the dog-legged clansmen made good scouts and soldiers once broken and trained.

  Leaving the chain-folk behind and working his way through the passageways created by the colourful vardos, carts and traps, Cheung headed towards an area of the camp he knew caravans leaving for Altoln gathered. Sailing Lake Beddoe was an option he’d considered. Alas, Cheung could not swim and the thought of bobbing along on the depthless lake was too much even for him.

  Passing a pungent spice stall, vivid colours arrayed in enticing circles of shifting shades, Cheung neared his destination: a six-wheeled armoured vardo with a rampart-like roof.

  ‘Ah, a priest of tears, if I’m not mistaken?’ A bare-chested man emerged from the back of the vardo, tattooed arms folded.

  Cheung nodded before stretching out his foot and roughly writing the word ‘Altoln’ in the dirt.

  Biting his bottom lip, the guard answered the written request. ‘Aye, priest, we’re off there. Ye have coinage for the passing?’

  Cheung nodded once more and held out both gloved hands, weighing them like scales.

  ‘For dat, ye’ll have to speak to me ma. Pay her yer dues and ye’ll be all set.’

  Cheung bowed low in demonstrated appreciation.

  ‘Me name’s Jevratt. Do ye have one yerself, priest?’

  Cheung purposely scrawled a line of illegible nonsense in the dirt.

  Jevratt screwed his face up, then grinned. ‘Right ye are, Priest it is.’ Jevratt pointed to a gaudy vardo further down the column. ‘Me ma’s in dat one. Go pay her yer dues, Priest, and we’ll find yer own vardo and settle ye in, nice and sweet like dat.’

  Cheung bowed and shuffled across the rubbish-strewn camp to the vardo in question. Weighing the money pouches beneath his robes, he chose one of the larger ones and pulled it free; he needed to make them believe it was all he had.

  Muffled, hacking coughs came from inside the vardo as Cheung climbed the steps to knock on the yellow door.

  ‘What?’

  Cheung nearly answered, before biting his tongue and knocking once more.

  More coughing. ‘Bollocks to ye for makin’ me get up, but I’m on me way so have yer bloody coins ready, ye bleeding welt of a cock…’ The haggard woman’s curses stopped as she opened the door and stared at the hooded priest.

  ‘My apologies, Priest.’ She offered a nervous smile and fingered a net of red petals around her neck. ‘Travel, is it?’

  Cheung nodded once.

  ‘We end in Altoln,’ she said. ‘Rowberry to be precise. Nod once for there, twice for somewhere along the way.’

  A single nod was followed by a bag of coins.

  Jevratt’s mother snatched the coins and weighed them, eyes closed.

  ‘Aye, that’ll do.’

  Cheung shuffled, as if agitated.

  ‘All ye have, Priest?’

  Another nod.

  The woman sighed, emptied the majority of the coins into a bag about her waist before returning the rest to Cheung. Without another word, she turned back and slammed the door on him.

  Amused by the exchange, Cheung couldn’t help but smile, before returning to Jevratt, who’d been watching. The tattooed man had three lads of similar build stood around him, although none of them wore rat tails – genuine rats’ tails – woven into their otherwise cropped hair as he did.

  Cheung approached the grinning trio and was pulled along to the nearest campfire, a stream of seemingly nonsensical chatter marking the way. It was all the assassin could do not to shrug off the confident hands on his arms and back.

  Chapter 1 – Pride and prejudice

  Cheung rocked gently in the shade of the cab as it rumbled along the road. The caravan was heading more east than north, and far more east than west.

  There was trouble in Sirreta according to Master Couig, who led the caravan. Troops were moving and armies were massing. People were being attacked on good roads by brigands and goblins, and caravans were being attacked by Sirretan troops of all things. Cheung had thought hard on the news for the past couple of days. It wasn’t unusual for Marcher Lords to skirmish along their borders, but word was the whole kingdom of Sirreta was up in arms.

  Unsure what to make of it, Cheung moved it from his mind as much as possible and cleaned his bone-handled kamas again and again in an attempt to calm himself about the deviation. He was glad to have a vardo largely to himself, at least.

  Chickens can’t talk, he’d mused, when revealing his black-bladed weapons opposite the caged poultry. He’d also thought he was losing his mind, thinking such things. Cheung was used to a solitary life, but the buzz of the Caravaneers all around him made his silence and quiet nature feel unfamiliar.

  He struggled with the lack of training, the lack of motion. Sitting in meditation was one thing, surrounded by the rooftop gardens of his home, but the constant rocking and boredom was something else. Whenever the caravan stopped and made camp, the caravan guards would take part in hunts, wrestling matches and bare knuckle fighting. Cheung felt ashamed at his lack of control, but he’d wanted to throw off his robes and step into the dirt-drawn rings they used, to stretch his muscles, if nothing else.

  Cheung thought about the fights he’d already witnessed. They’re good, the guards, but I believe them to be better than they let on. The children are the same. They strut around as if guards themselves, a look of pure contempt on their grubby faces whenever they pass anyone who isn’t bare-chested. The masters would do well to recruit from those little bastards.

  Sudden singing from the roof above, as seemed to be the norm.

  Masters release me. Cheung threw his hood over his scarred head and attempted to meditate.

  The singing was taken up by every one of the dozens of vardos and carts and traps along the road, followed by the bass groans of camels and oxen.

  Cheung’s exasperated growl was the first noise he’d made since leaving his rooftop home.

  After several days stretched along the road, the caravan made camp outside a walled town on the edge of the Toye Hills. The following morning, as the sun crested the peaks of a small mountain range known as The Sprigg, the gates opened and the townspeople of Nameless came forth. Carts of their own, some empty, some laden with produce, descended on the Caravaneers. Men and women bartered for this and that, whilst some Caravaneers entered the town to seek wares not sold from the back of a cart.

  Cheung heard a boastful crowing as he rounded an armoured vardo, and wasn’t surprised to see Jevratt as its source. Cheung stopped, leaned against the vardo and enjoyed the entertainment.

  ‘I’ll fight any man!’ The half-dressed caravan guard slapped his right hand on his left forearm and mirrored the action with the other as he spoke. ‘For we can all do dis, can’t we, eh?’ he went on, slapping his forearms in repetition. ‘We can all do dis.’ He flung his tattooed arms about his bare chest and rolled his head as he danced around in front of a poorly armoured, but armoured nonetheles
s, knight.

  ‘Yes,’ the knight said, unamused. ‘I’m sure you would, and yes we can, but I’m not here to fight. I’m here to pay passage back to Altoln.’

  ‘Ah come on. Take yer metal off yer back and we’ll have a bout. I bet ye’ll like it. Hey, hear dis, I’ll even wager ye five silver coins. Silver! How about dat, me man?’

  The knight shook his head and made to move past.

  ‘Ah-ah,’ Jevratt said, holding up his scarred hands. ‘Not before ye pay yer dues to me ma.’ He pointed to Mistress Collett’s vardo. ‘If ye want to travel, ye need see her.’

  ‘I thought it was Master Couig that ran this caravan?’

  Jevratt filled his cheeks and put his arm around the knight’s maille-clad shoulder, before releasing the breath and replying. ‘Aye, me man, ye’re right there…’

  ‘But?’

  Jevratt smiled. ‘Ye know the right of it, don’t ye? Ye see, Collett, me ma that is, well she’d be the one to handle the comings and the goings. Whether dat be people or money—’

  ‘And the Master Caravaneer? Master Couig?’

  ‘Well, he be the one who guides us. He be the one who rules us. He be the one…’ Jevratt pulled the frustrated knight in closer, ‘who decides what’s to be done when someone breaks the rules of the caravan. But me ma—’

  ‘Handles payment.’

  Jevratt moved backed to arms-length, grinning. ‘Ye know ye bloody stuff, don’t ye? Eh? Ye know ye bloody stuff.’ Jevratt let go of the knight, but not before taking the man’s iron-encased hand and shaking it vigorously. ‘Ye’re a fighter and a scholar, of that I’m sure. Now, off ye pop to me ma. She’ll love to be meeting such a noble as yerself.’