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Synopsis

After he fails to save a stranger from being mauled to death by a bear, a young mercenary is saddled with the baby girl the man died to protect. He leaves her with a kindly shepherd family and goes on with his violent life.

Now, sixteen years later, that young mercenary has grown up to become cynical sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse. When his vacation travels bring him back to that same part of the world, he can’t resist trying to discover what has become of the mysterious infant.

He finds that the child, now a lovely young teenager named Isadora, is at the center of complicated web of intrigue involving two feuding kings, a smitten prince, a powerful sorceress, an inhuman monster, and long-buried secrets too shocking to imagine. And once again she needs his help.

They say a spider in your cup will poison you, but only if you see it. Eddie, helped by his smart, resourceful girlfriend Liz, must look through the dregs of the past to find the truth about the present-and risk what might happen if he, too, sees the spider.

Excerpt

chapter

ONE

The battles had been hard, the gold had been scarce, and the company—other mercenaries like me, most of them older, all of them unsophisticated as bricks—had gotten on my nerves. So I deserted. Or, as we called it in the trade, “chose to pursue other opportunities.” That was the whole point of hiring out your sword arm instead of actually joining an army, wasn’t it?

I was a young man that summer: long-haired, beardless, and still hiding behind a mercenary’s blade from the truth about myself and my past. There wasn’t a tavern wench I hadn’t known, a farm girl I hadn’t tried to know, or a noble lady I hadn’t considered getting to know. I drank often, ate whatever came my way, and took what I needed when no one was looking. I was Eddie LaCrosse, no longer Edward, the heir to the LaCrosse barony in Arentia, and I went where the wars were. Unless, of course, the war turned out to be boring.

And that’s how I ended up in an Alturan forest just below the mountain foothills, minding my own business and pissing on a tree, when a man entered the clearing screaming and running for his life. A moment later he exited, pursued by a bear.

I fastened my pants and took off after him on foot, knowing my horse was useless in the undergrowth. Over the past sixteen years, I’ve often wondered why I did that. I was all business in those days, and business meant gold. I wanted to sign up with the Alturan army, then about to go to war with its neighbor Mahnoma and its paranoid king, Gerald. But instead of sticking to my plan, I ran to help a stranger without even a second thought. I suppose I believed there might be a reward for rescuing him. Yeah, that must’ve been it.

The man’s screams and the bear’s roars made them easy to find, but by the time I reached the top of a ridge and looked down into the little gully, it was too late: the bear had him. He lay beneath the beast, curled into a ball facedown on the ground, screaming as the great claws sliced into his unprotected back. The animal bellowed and snapped, trying to get a clean bite on the man’s head.

No thought went into my next decision, either. I drew my sword, held it like a dagger, and jumped down onto the bear’s back. I put all my weight and momentum behind the weapon, which struck the animal’s shoulder blade, slid off the bone, and buried itself to the hilt in the furry body.

The bear was a monster, easily six hundred pounds and, when it reared up in response to my stab, twice as tall as me. It smelled of musk, mud, and bear shit, and its hair was slick and oily. I clamped my heels against its sides and clung on to the sword hilt with all the strength my terror suddenly gave me. The great claws swiped the air overheard, splattering me with blood and bits of the man’s flesh.

“Run!” I yelled to the man on the ground, but he remained curled up, protecting his belly at the expense of his flayed-open back.

The bear stumbled backwards, still upright, and slammed me into the nearest tree. Six hundred pounds in motion can do some serious slamming, and my lungs emptied under the pressure. Little flashes sparkled at the edge of my vision. My legs slipped free and flailed in the air. I knew if I lost my grip on my sword, I was done for, so I held on despite everything, twisting the hilt and wrenching the blade as much as possible in search of some vital organ.

“Run, will you?” I yelled again.

Finally I hit something essential, because with a combination roar and wheeze the bear fell forward and hit the ground. The impact tossed me over its shoulders into the leaves beside its victim. I lay there and waited for my lungs to refill. The bear did not move, which was good, because I was out of juice.

At last I could breathe, and got to my knees. “Dude, you need to—”

The man I’d failed to save was still alive, his eyes wide and staring, but the bubble of blood between his lips told me he wasn’t good for long. I said, “Don’t move. You’re really hurt.”

He rolled himself over onto his ragged back. I winced at how much of his insides fell out through wide gaps as he did so. I wasn’t squeamish—I’d gutted my share of people—but there was something grotesque about it, and it made my stomach knot.

Faster than I would’ve thought possible in his condition, he grabbed my tunic and slapped the edge of a dagger against my neck. “Take … her…,” he said.

I looked down at the bundle now resting on his chest: the bundle that he’d given his liver and big loops of his intestines to protect. A bundle that was moving.

A tiny pink fist emerged.

A baby.

From inside the bundle came an annoyed, wailing cry.

The man’s eyes met mine as he finished. “… somewhere safe!”

I knew I should at least pick up the child from his bloody chest, but I hesitated. Man-killing bears were one thing, but a baby was something far outside my experience. I had no brothers or sisters, and my friends back in Arentia were all about my own age. If they had infant siblings, we never had to deal with them. “Uhm, look, pal—,” I started.

“Take her,” he said, half-spoken and half-gurgled. He dropped the knife and tried to hand her to me, but he lacked the strength.

“Let’s just get you patched up, okay?” I said quickly, knowing it was futile.

He shook his head. Now he was bleeding from his nostrils. Overhead, an opportunistic crow announced the man’s imminent death to its murder-mates. “Please, save her, she’s—” He sucked in a deep breath and his whole body went rigid from the waves of pain hitting all at once.

There was no escaping it, so I took the bundle with all the grace of a man fondling his worst enemy’s testicles. I pulled back one corner of the blood-spattered blanket, revealing tiny pink feet. Then I reversed the bundle, opened that end, and saw the baby’s small, rubbery features.

The man slapped another bundle into my hand. This one was smaller, with the distinctive metallic sound of coins. Then he gestured me close.

“Her name … is Isidore. Please save her.”

“I will,” I said; what else could I say?

“Take this,” he said, and fumbled in the bloody folds of his clothes. “It proves … who she…”

He produced a small glass ball that glowed icy blue from inside. I’d never seen anything like it or, at that point in my life, anything I would accept as real, genuine magic. Because I was so startled, I didn’t reach for it, and then the man’s whole body spasmed with pain. The ball fell from his hand to the forest floor, where it burst like a soap bubble and turned into a fine, grayish powder that disappeared into the ground.

“Shit!” the man hissed between his teeth, blood spraying forth.

“Don’t worry,” I said quickly. “Your daughter will be safe.”

“Not my … not mine … she belongs to…” Then he died.

I sat there beside him for a long time holding the tiny girl, who seemed quite content for the moment. She had wispy blond hair, big blue eyes, and fat cheeks. When I tickled her under her chin, she laughed, but I knew she’d need something to eat soon, and I was no wet nurse. How had her guardian managed? I checked and found a small ale-skin bag on his belt, and when I sniffed it had the distinctive odor of milk.

I hated to leave him to the mercy of the forest scavengers, but I was sure he’d understand. The living took precedence over the dead, and the flies were already thick in the air. “There’s a good girl, Isidore. Let’s go get my horse, and then find you a home.”

She cooed. And damn it, I fell in love a little.

* * *

SHE suckled eagerly at the ale-skin, which had a makeshift nipple affixed to the cap. Her little hands pushed on the sides, which told me she was used to being fed this way. There wasn’t much left, though, and I didn’t know how long I had before it went sour. I climbed onto my horse—not easy to do holding a baby—and headed for the road I’d crossed earlier. A road, after all, must lead to a town, and there I could dispose of my unwanted bundle of joy, even if I just left her on the doorstep of a moon priestess chapter house.

Her little face scrunched up in annoyance at the uneven ride, and my horse tossed his head angrily when I kept him from going very fast. “So, Isidore,” I said to her as we moved along, “I take it you’re from this area. What does a young lady do for fun around here?”

She looked at me seriously and farted.

I laughed. “Sometimes I do that, too, just to see what will happen.”

She giggled and kicked her feet as if she understood.

The road was narrow, with barely room for a wagon to pass without scraping the tree trunks on either side. It told me there wasn’t much regular traffic, probably only one-way travelers going and coming based on the farming cycles.

Finally we emerged into the clear area of the mountain foothills, and the road began a meandering climb. Here we were out in the open, and the fighter in me cringed at the vulnerability. Ahead I saw a small village nestled between two hills, and on the slopes shepherds drove herds toward the town. Like most people who spent time around horses, I had an instinctive aversion to mutton on the hoof. But since I had an absolute hatred for horses, I actually ended up not minding the sheep. So to speak.

“You belong to any of these people?” I asked Isidore. She refused to reply, being far more interested in chewing one blood-free corner of her blanket.

I heard music as I got closer to the village. Multiple pipers trilled in a cacophony ...

Copyright © 2014 by Alex Bledsoe

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