Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5 - Four years earlier
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9 - Four years earlier
Chapter 10
Chapter 11 - Four years earlier
Chapter 12 - Four years earlier
Chapter 13 - Four years earlier
Chapter 14
Chapter 15 - Four years earlier
Chapter 16 - Four years earlier
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 - Four years earlier
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
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Copyright © 2011 by Bobalinga, Ltd.
Map by Andre Ashton.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lawrence, Mark, 1966–
p. cm.—(The broken empire; bk. 1)
ISBN : 978-1-101-54329-0
1. Princes—Fiction. 2. Revenge—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.A9484P75 2011
813’.6—dc22
2010053561
http://us.penguingroup.com
To Celyn, the best parts were never broken
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Helen Mazarakis and Sharon Mack for their help and support.
1
Ravens! Always the ravens. They settled on the gables of the church even before the injured became the dead. Even before Rike had finished taking fingers from hands, and rings from fingers. I leaned back against the gallowspost and nodded to the birds, a dozen of them in a black line, wise-eyed and watching.
The town-square ran red. Blood in the gutters, blood on the flagstones, blood in the fountain. The corpses posed as corpses do. Some comical, reaching for the sky with missing fingers, some peaceful, coiled about their wounds. Flies rose above the wounded as they struggled. This way and that, some blind, some sly, all betrayed by their buzzing entourage.
“Water! Water!” It’s always water with the dying. Strange, it’s killing that gives me a thirst.
And that was Mabberton. Two hundred dead farmers lying with their scythes and axes. You know, I warned them that we do this for a living. I said it to their leader, Bovid Tor. I gave them that chance, I always do. But no. They wanted blood and slaughter. And they got it.
War, my friends, is a thing of beauty. Those as says otherwise are losing. If I’d bothered to go over to old Bovid, propped up against the fountain with his guts in his lap, he’d probably take a contrary view. But look where disagreeing got him.
“Shit-poor farm maggots.” Rike discarded a handful of fingers over Bovid’s open belly. He came to me, holding out his takings, as if it was my fault. “Look! One gold ring. One! A whole village and one fecking gold ring. I’d like to set the bastards up and knock ’em down again. Fecking bog-farmers.”
He would too: he was an evil bastard, and greedy with it. I held his eye. “Settle down, Brother Rike. There’s more than one kind of gold in Mabberton.”
I gave him my warning look. His cursing stole the magic from the scene; besides, I had to be stern with him. Rike was always on the edge after a battle, wanting more. I gave him a look that told him I had more. More than he could handle. He grumbled, stowed his bloody ring, and thrust his knife back in his belt.
Makin came up then and flung an arm about each of us, clapping gauntlet to shoulder-plate. If Makin had a skill, then smoothing things over was it.
“Brother Jorg is right, Little Rikey. There’s treasure aplenty to be found.” He was wont to call Rike “Little Rikey,” on account of him being a head taller than any of us and twice as wide. Makin always told jokes. He’d tell them to those as he killed, if they gave him time. Liked to see them go out with a smile.
“What treasure?” Rike wanted to know, still surly.
“When you get farmers, what else do you always get, Little Rikey?” Makin raised his eyebrows all suggestive.
Rike lifted his visor, treating us to his ugly face. Well, brutal more than ugly. I think the scars improved him. “Cows?”
Makin pursed his lips. I never liked his lips, too thick and fleshy, but I forgave him that, for his joking and his deathly work with that flail of his. “Well, you can have the cows, Little Rikey. Me, I’m going to find a farmer’s daughter or three, before the others use them all up.”
They went off then, Rike doing that laugh of his, “hur, hur, hur,” as if he was trying to cough a fishbone out.
I watched them force the door to Bovid’s place opposite the church, a fine house, high roofed with wooden slates and a little flower garden in
