The Sword Unbroken - SAMPLE CHAPTERS

Chapter One: Gamble

Rerdas darted along a narrow alleyway, his shoulders almost brushing the rocky walls on either side. His boots slapped through foul, oily water as his pace quickened. If he was late getting home for the third night in a row, his cousin Etiana would murder him. Two right turns, and a left that seemed to take him back the way he'd traveled. This part of Kirinoll was a mapmaker's nightmare, its ancient pathways laid out like discarded snakeskin.

The downpour began; a cold, wet, endless exhale. He was glad of the excuse to tug the hood of his old cloak lower across his forehead. Nothing remarkable at all about a bedraggled stranger ducking through the rain with his face masked by shadow. Nothing to see or remember.

Even in this weather, it was impossible to miss the door he sought. It was red as an open wound, and Rerdas thought he caught a whiff of the pungent tallow candles Morami favored. As he faced the door, his hand dropped to brush against his hunting knife, secure at his hip. It wouldn't do him any good against Morami if she intended to poison him, but the blade might be some use against her other patrons.

Not for the first time, he considered just ratting off down the alley. If he had any idea where else he could go, he would have. But Aunt Uralta was one of the only remaining shards left of his shattered family. She'd rescued him once, and he could not surrender her yet. He squared his shoulders and pushed through the door.

The smell of the tavern washed over him, an acrid perfume that swamped his nose and mouth and curdled in the back of his throat. Rerdas kept his lips sealed tight and scanned the rest of the space. Same streams of smoke pouring from the candles and painting the ceiling black, same empty shelves behind the slab of wood Morami liked to call a bar, same sloping floor streaked with rot. He'd been here far too often.

Two men hunched over a crate in the far corner. Rerdas waited until he saw the light flicker against the film of their glassy eyes. Those two were going nowhere soon.

The only other patron was a yellow-haired woman, propped against the bartop. She had the curved spine and trembling legs of a weasel hound. Her fingers plucked at the splintered edge of the wood ceaselessly. In front of her sat an empty glass, only as tall as Rerdas' forefinger.

A faint clinking sound announced Morami's entrance, and she shuffled out from behind the curtain that veiled her storeroom. She was spotlessly neat, her hair slicked against her skull and sliced by a ruthless part across the top. A frilled apron protected her trousers and tunic. She looked as though she'd just stepped from fluffing the pillows in some noblewoman's bedroom rather than milking the veins of Jarl lizards for their venom and pickling beggars' fingers, or whatever else Rerdas imagined she got up to. He caught the golden wink of the vial Morami placed on the bartop right before the yellow-haired woman snatched it up and stumbled backward.

"Pleasure meeting you, Mistress Orange," Morami called, watching the yellow-haired woman flee with her illicit purchase.

Rerdas swallowed when her dark eyes turned to him. Step one, opening the door. Now, the drink. The first time he'd managed to creep in here, he'd refused Morami's offer of a drink. She'd quickly corrected his mistake. Her so-called tavern followed a strict and unspoken protocol, and the rituals were followed unerringly by her clientele. There was no refusal, unless he wanted to get pitched from the tavern immediately. His only hope was that if she did suspect him of something and slipped poison into one of her concoctions, she'd be willing to sell him the antidote.

"Evening, Madame Morami," he said.

Morami's smile looked like it concealed daggers. She lifted a glass and a foggy bottle from behind the bar, filled the glass to the brim and nodded.