Queen's Sacrifice Read online

  Books by Colin Lindsay

  The Goddess’s Scythe Series

  Raven’s Wings

  Death’s Angel

  Queen’s Sacrifice

  for Katherine

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

  Text and cover art copyright © 2020 by Colin Lindsay

  Cover art by Andra Moisescu

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-1-7772989-2-0

  Preface

  The gnome-like man closed his eyes and dropped the torch onto the powder. A trail of flame sped down the corridor behind him.

  “Run!” Kala yelled and raced to the heavy door, wrenching it open and darting through. She slowed to let Grey and Seline catch her, and together they hurried down the ramp, every step an eternity.

  They had barely made it to the bottom when the building erupted in a massive fireball. Kala shoved her companions out of the way as the blast funneled down the ramp and lifted her off her feet, depositing her in a broken heap.

  She lay on her back, contemplating the starry sky. She couldn’t feel any part of her body, but at least she didn’t feel cold when the life left her.

  Table of Contents

  1 Kala

  2 Soren

  3 Forest

  4 Kala

  5 Soren

  6 Forest

  7 Cera

  8 Kala

  9 Forest

  10 Priestess

  11 Kala

  12 Eden

  13 Kala

  14 Soren

  15 Kala

  16 Priestess

  17 Dhara

  18 Kala

  19 Dhara

  20 Hawke

  21 Kala

  22 Skye

  23 Kala

  24 Priestess

  25 Forest

  26 Kala

  27 Kala

  28 Forest

  29 Priestess

  30 Forest

  31 Amara

  32 Kala

  33 Dhara

  34 Kala

  35 Kala

  36 Skye

  37 Kala

  38 Kala

  39 Seline

  40 Celeste

  41 Forest

  42 Lily

  43 Dhara

  44 Kala

  Kala

  Kala stood atop the ramparts of the formidable wall that surrounded Bayre. She hopped up on the parapet, earning her disapproving looks from the nearby guards, which she ignored. She sat down, dangling her legs over the wall, and gazed out at Soren’s army. He was down there somewhere, and of the ten thousand sets of eyes that might glance up and see her contemplating them, his might be one.

  It had been a long siege, and the soldiers sat around fires talking, or they moved about the camp on errands intended primarily to stave off boredom. While the army as a whole was enormous and threatening, Kala couldn’t help but think of it as a collection of individuals, each with families, hopes, and dreams. Somehow, these people had decided that Bayre was its enemy, which made her friends their enemy, despite their having done nothing more to them than live their lives. That made those soldiers her enemy, and it would be her duty to cut them down, snuff out their hopes and dreams, and deprive their families of loved ones. It made her angry – she didn’t ask for this – the mantle of ‘Angel of Death’ had been laid on her by persons and prophecy, and she had been given no choice but to wear it.

  Kala drummed her fingers on the stone. An arrow sailed up at her that she batted away absentmindedly. The guards around her drew their bows to return fire, but she waved them to stand down – she was in no danger, and they certainly weren’t under attack. They reluctantly returned to their posts. Kala gave the army a last look and swung her legs back over the wall and walked across the rampart to take in the view of the city inside. It was quiet and motionless, its citizens hunkered down in their homes. Resignation had eclipsed fear. Their immediate concern was now simply surviving another day. Food was scarce, and people were hungry. As always, the vulnerable suffered most. The young, the old, the weak, and the alone – their stomachs were empty as they huddled in the cold and dark. Kala clenched her fists. For them, she would fight until there was no fight left in her. Someone had to be their champion, and if it had to be the Angel of Death, so be it.

  Her world felt desolate with her friends scattered in search of allies. She felt Skye’s absence most profoundly. He was the rock that she clung to when she felt like the storm might sweep her away. He and Hawke were somewhere along the coast when she desperately needed him at her side to give her the strength to get through this. She craved the feeling of him holding her and making her feel like the person she felt slip away more and more every day – a girl with her own hopes and dreams. When he looked at her, he didn’t see a monster or a savior, he only saw her.

  Amber and Eden also made her feel human, but they were so far away. Amber was clear across the continent, safe in the tiny village where Edith had nursed Kala and Skye back to health. Eden was closer but in mortal danger, thanks to Kala’s dragging her into a scheme to copy a forbidden book, right under the nose of the Priestess. Kala was awash with feelings of guilt.

  She missed Forest too, who had become like a little sister to her. She was somewhere to the northwest, with Jarom, Nara, and the rest of her adopted family, and Kala was happy for her to have found them. Forest’s sister, Lily, was here in Bayre, but now that she had been reunited with Cera, her world resumed revolving around her. While it warmed Kala’s heart, it also reminded her just how alone she felt.

  Her only family was her grandfather, and she didn’t know if he was alive or dead, having fled Soren’s army into the wild with a party lead by Emrys and Fayre. Worse, she couldn’t even go search for him, as she yearned to do, so long as the responsibility for opposing Soren remained thrust on her.

  The last of her friends, Calix, was somewhere to the south with Dhara and her sister Kaia. Dhara was courage personified, and at the moment, she was everything that Kala wished she could be, rather than being consumed by worry and self-doubt.

  Kala closed her eyes and leaned over the city. The flags atop the walls flapped in the wind, sounding like beating wings. Kala imagined herself flying away on the wind, sailing high above lands that were not embroiled in conflict. The dream faded, and she opened her eyes to the cold reality of a city under siege.

  She turned from the wall and walked toward the stairwell that wound down to the city streets. It deposited her into an empty laneway, and she started off toward the temple, where Celeste had relocated the orphanage. Roaming the city alone wasn’t safe for most people, given the desperation of its residents, but Kala welcomed the thought of being beset by thugs – so much anger was pent up inside her that begged for release. Whether it was the invitation for trouble that she radiated or the weaponry she carried, no one dared bother her.

  The streets were deserted, except for patrols of guards and the occasional furtive movement of someone avoiding them. Windows were boarded up, as though that provided any protection from the coming storm. Signs were plastered at regular intervals informing the public that the city’s store of food had been closed to the public. What meager supplies remained were reserved for the city’s defenders – by order of a Council that struggled to maintain control over a city in which order was increasingly breaking down.

&nbs
p; A handwritten sign caught her eye. It read, ‘Take my children, please – just feed them.’ Kala hadn’t thought her heart could break further, but she was wrong. She knew that Celeste did her best to help the city’s poor and downtrodden, but there were too many, and Celeste had run out of help to give. They could not survive the siege much longer.

  Kala walked past the tavern that Celeste used to sing at. It had long since closed its doors, having run out of food to serve, then alcohol, then finally cheer. It had been taken over as a place of worship to the God of Chance, one of many shrines to Him that had sprung up around the city. The God of Chance was a trickster, they said, and if they prayed to Him fervently enough, perhaps he would trick the God of War and get them out of the predicament they were in. Kala placed little stock in Gods and Goddess’s interfering in the lives of people, at least to their benefit.

  She mused as she walked back to the temple that she and her friends had taken over when the Church had vacated the city that the God of Chance from her village was more like a God of Luck. In the north, He was more of a capricious god. Other places, he was a God of Bounty. It made her wonder if gods shaped people, or if people shaped their gods.

  Kala walked up to the temple gates and knocked the coded knock that Celeste had devised and regularly changed. A moment later, the massive gates creaked open just wide enough for a person to shimmy through. A girl’s head poked out, one of Celeste’s charges, and Kala smiled at her as she squeezed through the gate.

  “Good to see you back,” Twill called out as he rolled forward and gestured to a pair of children to pull the gate closed and re-secure it. They struggled to slide into place the heavy wooden beam that braced the gates, so Kala gave them a hand.

  “Your security is top-notch,” she congratulated the children, but it was more of a compliment to Twill, who smiled at her words of encouragement.

  He looked around mournfully at the dusty courtyard. “It’s a far cry from my studio,” he lamented.

  “You should bring an easel out here,” Kala suggested.

  “I would, but the surroundings don’t exactly inspire me. My paintings would be pretty dark, and there’s enough darkness in the world already.”

  “Good point,” Kala agreed and placed a hand warmly on his shoulder. “Is Celeste inside?”

  “No. She’s around back with Lily, tearing up the remains of the gardens.”

  “Thanks. Keep up the good work defending us from invaders,” Kala said, with a wink.

  Twill grinned and called the children back over to him. They sat around him as he resumed telling them stories.

  Thank the gods for Twill and what few other lights still shine in the darkness, she thought and headed toward the gardens. She arrived to find Celeste and Lily on their knees in the dirt. They had started at one end of the former garden and were meticulously digging up the roots of whatever had been planted there before.

  “Waste not, want not,” Celeste explained, spying Kala’s approach.

  “It’s a damn shame,” Lily added. “Nothing is going to grow back after we’re done.”

  Kala smiled that after everything they’d been through, Lily reserved her strongest condemnation for the murder of plants.

  “Come sit with me,” Cera called over, patting the seat of the chair beside her.

  Kala hadn’t noticed her sitting in the shade, a basin in front of her. She was washing the dirt off whatever Lily and Celeste pulled out of the ground, and laying it to dry on an adjacent table.

  “I should help Lily and Celeste,” Kala replied.

  “Sit,” Celeste authorized her, wiping sweat and dirt from her forehead. “Regale us with stories from the wall.”

  Kala sat down and pulled her chair closer to Cera. “Not much to tell. It is still sad as hell in the city, and scary as hell outside.”

  “I miss the view from the wall,” Lily sighed.

  “It would be prettier without an army at our doorstep,” Kala suggested.

  “I, for one, am happy that you got yourself banned from the wall,” Cera told Lily. “I’ll never forget the look of you waving from the battlements like a crazy person. You were the talk of the camp. I think a thousand soldiers wanted to date you,” Cera teased.

  “I’m spoken for,” Lily responded, smiling. “By the way,” she began, turning back to Kala, “we’re having a concert tonight. Celeste is going to put on a show for the children.”

  “It’ll get their minds off how hungry they are,” Celeste explained.

  “Sounds like great fun,” Kala responded.

  A shrill whistle sounded from the temple gates.

  “Twill!” Kala exclaimed, burst from her chair, and broke into a run.

  ________________________

  Kala had just left the courtyard, when there was a second knock at the gate, identical to the one that she’d just used. Curious, thought Twill, Who else is out there? He motioned for the children to unbar the gate, which they did with great effort. The two boys pushed it open a crack, while a little girl readied herself to peek out and see who had come calling. She’d no more than poked her head through the opening when it was shoved roughly back inside, and two sets of gloved hands reached in to grab the gate and open it wider.

  “Close it!” Twill called urgently to the boys, but he knew with a sinking feeling that there was precious little they could do against determined adults.

  Five rough-looking characters pushed their way through the gate and into the courtyard. They surveyed the place hungrily.

  Twill rolled toward them. “I’m sorry, but we’re not taking visitors,” he told them, trying to sound firm, but not flip or rude.

  “Shut up, boy,” the group’s leader responded and walked past him. “What do you have to eat in here?” he asked, looking around.

  “Nothing – same as out there,” Twill replied, gesturing to the gate.

  “Weren’t you told to shut up?” A second man said, advancing toward Twill menacingly, and using his foot to upend his wheelchair, sending him sprawling to the ground. The rest of the party laughed and fanned out to look around. Two of them advanced toward the frightened children.

  “You kids will show us to the food, won’t you?” one of them asked the cowering children.

  “Leave them alone,” Twill demanded from the ground.

  The man who had upended his wheelchair pulled out a club. “Looks like I’m going to have to make you shut up,” he said, tapping the club against his hand.

  Twill scrambled to pull out the whistle that Celeste had insisted he keep tied around his neck. He brought it to his lips and blew a shrill note.

  “For the gods’ sake,” the leader declared, covering his ears. “Shut him up for good, will you?”

  The man with the club advanced, placed a foot on Twill to hold him steady, and raised his club.

  Twill closed his eyes and readied himself for the impact. When it didn’t come, he opened an eye hesitantly to see the man clasping his hand, his club dropped and lying nearby, his eyes spitting fire. Twill followed his gaze to where Kala stood, gravel still spraying from where she’d screeched to a halt. A moment later, she was joined by Cera, then Lily and Celeste, brandishing trowels, but only looking feebler for it. Kala motioned for them to stay back, and advanced a step toward the men.

  “We have no quarrel with you,” she told them. “You’re welcome to leave the way you came,” she added, gesturing toward the open gate, “and we won’t hold it against you.”

  The men stood belligerently, but uncertainly. They looked to each other and came to the collective decision to stand their ground.

  Kala sighed. “Children, help Twill up, then go inside, please.” She unsheathed her swords and stuck them in the ground. She pulled the daggers from the sheaths at her thighs and another pair from her belt. She handed them to Cera, who was standing closest and unencumbered by a trowel. Kala rolled her shoulders, and seeing that the children had run inside, she turned her attention back to the five men.

&nbs
p; “I can’t promise I’m not going to hurt you badly, but be thankful I’m not in the mood to kill you. Last chance, if you have any brains between you.” She stared from man to man, giving each the chance to reconsider. None of them did. Damn masculine pride, she thought.

  The men pulled out whatever weapons they had, ranging from clubs to knives – nothing that marked them as particularly threatening, just desperate men.

  Kala breathed in to center herself and opened her inner eye to the path of combat. Even as the first man swung at her, she raced into it. Her fist broke his nose. Her elbow caught the next man in the temple. A leg sweep took out the third man of his feet, a kick the fourth, and her forehead shattered the nose of the fifth man. They lay about her or stood hunched over, cradling their wounds. Kala held out her hand to the man lying on the ground in front of her.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him, “but I did warn you.”

  The man looked up at her angrily, but deflated his puffed-up chest, and accepted her hand up.

  “We’re not your enemy, and I’m sorry we have nothing to help you,” she told him as she shepherded his group to the gate, escorted them through it, pulled it closed, and hefted the brace to secure it. She turned to see Celeste, Lily, and Cera staring at her, and Twill too, off to the side. “What?” she asked.

  Lily shook her head. “I can’t reconcile what I just witnessed with the Kala I grew up with,” she said.

  Kala looked down, embarrassed.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Lily corrected herself. “You’re a force of nature, that’s all.”

  “Kala’s always been a force of nature,” Cera added.

  “I for one,” Celeste interjected, “love having an assassin under our roof.” She strode over and put her arm around Kala. Cera walked over and handed her back her daggers.

  Twill dusted himself off, prompting Celeste to rush over and help him back into his chair.

  “I’m sorry there are so many assholes in the world,” she apologized.