My new high fantasy novel, Queen of Kats, released today. This is the complete saga that I began as a serial a couple of years ago and let fall by the wayside, but now it’s complete, and available in print and digital formats on Amazon and wherever print books are sold. Here’s the first chapter, so you can see what you’re getting into…
Chapter 1
Remarin’s feet slid on the slick cobblestones as he rounded the corner, threatening to send him sprawling into the street and under the wheels of a cartload of whiskey barrels. Scrambling madly and bowling over a rotund matron loaded down with laundry, the slight thief regained his footing and dashed off down an unlit alley. He ducked into a darkened doorway as four mailed, spear-toting guards barreled down the street. Remarin sagged with relief but kept to the shadows as he crept slowly to the mouth of the alley.
Remarin peered back the way he’d run, ducking back into the shadows as two more heavyset guards came into view at more a trot than a sprint. They clattered past, chainmail and breastplates shattering the stillness of the night with their cacophonous rattle. Remarin stayed frozen until they were long past, then exited the alley and walked back the way he’d come, affecting a casual swagger to hide the adrenaline-fueled trembling in his legs.
That was close, Remoron. The voice in his head was dry as burnt toast, and Remarin glanced down at his belt. The black hilt of a dagger hung there, a ruby set into the pommel. In the heart of the ruby, a small light flickered as if there were a flame dancing within the gem.
“Trand, you’re back. I thought I left you in the belly of the first guard,” Remarin whispered, long practice allowing him to converse with the dagger with the barest hint of lips moving.
I’m not that easy to get rid of. We’re stuck with each other until you’re dead or I’m released from this stupid curse.
“Or I smelt you down into earrings for that good-looking tavern wench I met last week. What was her name again?” The dagger didn’t answer. Grateful for the rare silence, Remarin turned a corner off the main merchant’s thoroughfare and headed toward the poorer section of Bravis, capital city and principal port of the kingdom of Veosia.
Here on the cheap streets one could find a pub with a room to let, a man in an alley with goods of undisclosed provenance, or a good street brawl if that’s what one was looking for. Tonight Remarin was in search of none of that. He found what he was looking for just a few short blocks from the merchant’s district in a nondescript building nestled between a bustling pub and a shuttered laundry. He knocked twice on the door, waited for three breaths, then knocked twice more.
The door opened and a wizened man of maybe five feet in height stepped back to allow the thief entrance. “Welcome back, Remarin. I trust you have my goods?”
“I have the jewel, Salvar. I assume you have my money?”
“I have everything you’re entitled to, thief. Hand over my gem, and I’ll fetch your payment.” Something in the little man’s tone rung false with Remarin and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the gem flash brighter than normal in the dagger’s hilt.
“Not to be suspicious, Salvar, but let’s see the payment first.” Remarin stepped slowly back until he could feel the door against his back heel. He couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, and that alarmed him even further. At this time of night, the tavern next door should be raucous, full of the sounds of drunken fighting and off-key warbling from the horrible bard they kept chained up by the fireplace. But tonight, nothing. Not a scrape of a chair, not a single slurred bellow for more ale, not even the twang of an out of tune lute.
Something’s amiss here. The voice in his head now sounded worried, as though the dagger actually cared what happened to Remarin.
“Really? And here I thought the tingling along my spine just a draft,” Remarin whispered.
Salvar, for his part, was playing the role of affronted partner to the hilt. “Why, Remarin, I’m amazed at your lack of trust! How many times have we done business? How many times have I moved merchandise of questionable ownership for you? And how many times have I given you fair market value for goods that I couldn’t move for weeks, even months? And now you choose to mistrust me? I may as well turn my back on you so you can pull the dagger out and stab me through the heart again!”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Salvar. It’s that I don’t trust anyone. A trusting thief very quickly ends up as a dead thief, and I have no interest in becoming a dead thief. Now where’s the money?”
The corrupt little pawnbroker fidgeted for a long moment before reaching behind the counter. His hand came up with a dagger and Salvar let out a yell. “Help!”
Remarin whirled around and shot the bolt on the door. He grabbed the heavy wooden plank that leaned against it and set it into the two iron holders, securing the front entrance for a few moments at least. He turned back to Salvar and drew his own dagger. “You know you can’t best me in a knife fight, Salvar. Why even try?”
“Because I’m being paid very handsomely to deliver your dead body, and if I don’t kill you, I don’t get paid,” Salvar said, waving his dagger around in an almost-convincing display of knife work.
“I admire a man who sticks to his principles, Salvar. Even if those principles are killing me. For that, I’ll let you die quickly.” Remarin changed his grip and flicked the dagger across the room. The ruby-hilted blade tumbled end over end to bury itself in the hollow of Salvar’s throat. “Sometimes it’s very useful having an enchanted weapon around.”
Are you claiming that there are times that it is not useful to have me around? Trand’s voice echoed in Remarin’s mind as he crossed the room to pull the dagger out of Salvar and wipe it on the dying man’s tunic.
“Yeah, Trand. Like when you’re talking. I could definitely live without talking to my weapons.”
You’re just mad that I’ve got a bigger vocabulary than you do. And there are two of them behind the door.
“I knew that,” Remarin grumbled, pulling open the door that led to Salvar’s storeroom. A pair of surprised mercenaries stood there, hands on sword hilts and shields at their sides. Remarin drew his rapier and ran the first one through the throat in one fluid motion. The second charged the slight thief, knocking him over and adding to his growing collection of bruises. Remarin grabbed the man’s ankle and dragged him to the floor before he could reach the front door and open it for his reinforcements, then clambered up the man’s back and slit his throat with a spare dagger he drew from his boot.
“Is that all of them?” Remarin gasped. Trand remained silent. “Trand, are there any more of them?” Nothing. Remarin sighed. “Fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t know there were two of them in the storeroom; I could only hear one. You saved my ass. Again. Are you happy now?”
No, but if you let me stab something else, I might be able to recover from your appalling lack of faith in me. There are four outside but no more in the building.
“Then I’ve got enough time to loot the place and sneak out the back way,” Remarin replied. He wiped his dagger down, slid it home in his boot, sheathed his rapier, and commenced to pilfering any valuables the mercenaries might have had on their persons. He gathered up a couple of necklaces, three good rings, and one jeweled earring, understanding that most mercenaries kept their savings in jewelry since it was easily portable.
Salvar’s body proved as worthless as the man’s loyalty, yielding nothing worth stealing, but Remarin knew where the pawnbroker stored his gems and gold. The thief moved soundlessly up the stairs to Salvar’s bedroom and flung open the door. He stepped quickly to the center of the room, flipped back the corner of the rug, and pried up the false floor at the edge of the bed. He’d cased Salvar’s home and shop many years ago when they first began to do business, just in case something like this ever happened. “Better safe than sorry, I always say.”
No, you don’t. You always say something remarkably stupid like, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Well, you could end up dead or trapped inside a magical dagger for a thousand years, that’s what could happen!
“Shut up, Trand,” Remarin said, filling his purse with jewels and what coins he had room for. He barely felt the air shift above him but dove for the floor in time to avoid the brass candlestick swinging at his head. The startled burglar flipped onto his back and got his arms up in time to block the return strike before his brains got smeared all over the floor. The blow had little force behind it, and Remarin easily disarmed his attacker and sprang to his feet. He drew back a fist to continue the fight but froze when he saw the dirty face of a young boy staring up at him.
If you’d like to read more, you can get the ebook on Amazon, or order a print copy from your local independent bookstore, like Park Road Books, right here in Charlotte.
