Sleepless (Curse of the Blood Fox Trilogy, Book #1)
Read Sleepless (Curse of the Blood Fox Trilogy, Book #1) Online
Authors: Sera Ashling
Curse of the Blood Fox
Sleepless
by
Sera
Ashling
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Copyright
© 2013 Sera Ashling
All
rights reserved
Kindle
Edition
Cover
design and illustrations by Sera Ashling
Stock
art owned and provided by:
RaeyenIrael-Stock
This is a work
of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination, and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events
and people, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
No part of this
book may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including but not limited to digital copying, file sharing, audio
recording, email and printing without permission in writing by the author.
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To Jon and Jetty, the two reasons this
book is done at all.
Country of Kurdak – The Trade Road
Country of
Kurdak – The Enchanted Forest
Country of
Kurdak – The Final Choice
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
- Robert Frost
It was coming.
I was stumbling down the dusty road
like a drunk, the blue haze of early morning tickling my nose. The new day
smelled like spring and freshly-cleaned sheets, though the latter was probably
just my imagination. Hardly anything could be trusted now, not with the Dream
trying to take over. After three straight days of endless travel, not even Meditation
would help.
It was coming, and I should have been
somewhere safe and isolated.
Instead, I was on Kurdak’s busy trade road,
a long path which cut north and south through the entire country. What’s more,
I was blearily staring up the nostrils of a donkey whose wagon driver had
decided to read rather than steer. The beast had stopped a mere inch from the
edge of my wide-brimmed cone hat, and now glared at me with blood-shot eyes as
if I were the cause of its problems. For a moment the haze around my mind lessened
as it snapped its large teeth in my face.
“Excuse me,” I said amicably, and
tried to edge around. The creature jerked and shied away, large ears flat
against its head, and the distracted driver was finally forced to look down from
his wrinkled letter-sized paper as he almost toppled out of the cart.
“You there,” he bellowed, and suddenly
I was staring up his nostrils instead. He was middle-aged and short-limbed, and
all alone. “What are you doing to my horse?”
“Horse?” I looked back at the jumpy
donkey.
“The very nerve,” the man continued.
He had long sideburns that bristled when he spoke. “Isn’t it bad enough you
brutes walk around wearing weapons openly? What right do you have to harass a
helpless man on his way home? I'll have you know this road is protected by the
Emperor of Kurdak himself. Even mercenaries have to follow
his
laws.”
I supposed he was referring to my
clothes, the stylized black and maroon fighting robe that pegged me as a
freelance mercenary, a collector of bounties and requests that usually involved
metal over mind. I was smaller than mercenaries usually came, though, and thinner,
and very used to hearing from the helpless citizens who felt harassed by my
presence. I bowed my head, and the world seemed to sway.
“I'll be on my way then, sir,” I said.
“Outrageous,” he spat, possibly
interpreting my response as a conversation starter. “I don't know why you
people are allowed in these civilized parts.”
“I suppose we must be profitable to
have around somehow,” I offered. He scoffed, sideburns trembling again.
“Profitable? Only for the worst types.”
His eyes narrowed drastically. “You sound like a young girl. This disgraceful
work is not a proper business, leastwise for a scrawny pup like you. What would
your parents think?”
“I've wondered that many times
myself.”
The man peered down at me, one thick
eyebrow propped up. He must have decided I was being facetious, because his
lips formed a snarl.
“You’re all the same, young or old.
Manners lost on the lot of you. You should at least have the decency to show
your face when you talk instead of hiding under that ridiculous hat.”
“I apologize,” I said, because it was
polite. Wasn’t agreeing with him supposed to ensure camaraderie? Perhaps my
impending problem was causing me to remember my studies wrong. Nonetheless, I
was compelled to tug the brim of my hat lower instead of higher, and watched forlornly
through the cross-hatched straw as the man’s face contorted. He sputtered,
mouth opening, but a sudden jerk from his donkey sent the paper he was
clutching flying into the air.
“Zira! Oh, my dear Zira,” he cried,
almost tumbling out of the wagon seat after it. The paper fluttered past my
shoulder and I snatched it mid-flight, handing it back to him. The man tore it
from me with an expression like I had peeked at his private parts. He held the
letter close to his chest as he snapped the reins, forcing the donkey to lurch
forward and away. He didn’t look back down at me as he left, or try for more
conversation. I wondered what the marker of the end of the exchange had been,
and if I had missed it.
Yes, keep thinking. Stay awake. Don’t
let it take you yet.
Some young people, balancing lumber on
their shoulders, had stopped to watch. As I looked over, they immediately
became interested in some birds in the treetops instead. That wasn’t
surprising—the robe had that effect.
I wished they would talk. I wished
there was another talkative man with a cart to distract me. Anything to stop it
from taking hold now.
Suddenly there was a distraction—a
soft tug on the long hem of my sleeve. I looked back sharply, troubled by the
possibility of having let a common thief sneak up on me. Lethargic but
practiced, my hand was already on the hilt of a dagger hidden in my robe.
The culprit was a black dog, which
stared up at me with playful brown eyes. I blew air out between my teeth and
let go of the dagger. Common enough this one was… but not a thief. I tried to
look disinterested beneath the shadow of my large hat, but the dog was no fool.
“Is this a bad time for a visit?” he
asked, tail wagging. That magic-induced voice, a hollow echo of his real one,
tickled at my ears. His four-footed stride fell into pattern with mine.
“Now Traken, when have you ever cared
about that?” I asked, the corners of my eyes prickling. This was not the sort
of distraction I wanted. He chuckled, ears perking as he waited for some
travelers to pass before speaking again.
“Come now, I am much more pleasant
company than that donkey, am I not?”
“Spying shows an ugly personality.”
“Is that what you read in that book of
yours?”
He was referring to the only piece of
literature I owned, a small book on proper etiquette that was weighing down the
bottom of my traveling pack. The red cover had been worn and faded when I found
it a year back, and now the pages barely stayed in. Traken had caught me
studying it once, and now he teased me every chance he got.
“There is nothing wrong with learning
to interact with others properly,” I said.
“Has it helped?”
I shrugged. “It seems to end
conversations faster.”
“Well done.” The cheerfulness in his
voice was persistent, and the sigh that escaped me sounded like the echo of a
thousand sighs before it.
“Is that it then? Simply stalking me for
your lord’s sake again?”
“That is such a strong word,
stalking
,
especially as I’ve been less than secretive about it. How’s your health been?”
“The same as always,” I said wearily,
and then balked at how easily I had responded. “Tell your lord I am not
interested in being hounded any longer.”
“You’ve used that one before,” the
black dog said with a toothy grin. It was probably more than once, but my mind
would not clear. “I just happened to be passing by and caught your scent,
that’s all. You looked a little ill, and it piqued my curiosity.”
He was baiting. He was always baiting,
and he was always curious. I couldn’t understand the man in the cart, his
donkey, or the three travelers now passing by on horse and wearing mute
expressions, but even in my current state I could always understand creatures
like Traken. It was best to know your prey, just as it was to know your enemy…
and even better to make them one and the same.
“Your lord must be quite powerful to
employ a sorcerer that can always find me, no matter where I am. Why does he
send you, instead of meeting in person? It has been a long time. You’ve told me
he’s interested, but not in what. You’ve told me he rules many, but I’ve never found
his domain. He must be getting on in years now. Is he truly satisfied whiling
his resources and time away like this?”
“I don't have those kinds of answers
for you,” Traken said with a comic bow. Such grace in a man-turned-beast.
“Well. For the record, I don’t like it.”
“So you often say,” Traken said with
another toothy grin. “I enjoy our little moments together, Santo, short as they
are. You never know, maybe the answers to your questions will find their way to
you sooner than you think.”
“Is that a tip-off, or just a vague
insinuation to taunt me? I had hope the first ten years that I would figure out
what you are up to, but it can’t possibly be an extra blade your master is
looking for at this point. Besides, I do not fight for lords or any others.”
He let out an amused huff, beady eyes
sparkling. “Says the infamous Blood Fox.”
“I dislike that name.”
“I like it. It has an erotic ring.”
“It doesn’t, and I don't want to hear
that from you,” I said, eyes slitted. “Your tastes run strange.”
“You don't even know my tastes,” the
dog said, licking his muzzle. I huffed out a laugh, at the very least a small
one, my swords clacking between my shoulder blades.
“Anything that has to do with pain or
death gets your tail wagging. Whatever your tastes, they aren't benign.”
I kicked up dust on the road, and the
dog sneezed as it hit him in the face. An older woman passing by, bent under a
heavy load of cabbage in a large basket on her back, looked at us with
sunken-in eyes as we passed.
“Next time you visit on an open road,
Traken, come as your human-self. People might start to think I’m crazy
otherwise.”
“They already think that, kitten.”
Traken’s laughter echoed through the
air as he ended the conversation by darting off the side of the road, dark fur
melding into shadows of the nearby wilderness. I ignored the looks I was
getting from a cluster of young men driving a cart nearby and hurried on.
Traken had bought me some time, but it would not be held back much longer.
Luckily, I was almost there.
Early morning had developed into a
buttery golden glow as I finally dragged my heavy feet into the town of Rusuro,
a bustling city that sat at the center of Kurdak’s trade road. It had only been
a month since I had been back in this southern peninsula. I had traveled through
many locations during my long absence, some safer and nicer, but I was always
drawn back.
The familiarity of the town built up a
delightful warmth in my chest, as if I had finally come home. The spring air,
crisp and fresh, carried the smells of baking bread from the large marketplace.
The roads of Rusuro were hard-packed dirt, and the buildings were made of stone
in the good parts and wood in the bad, but the marketplace was what contained
all the diversity and wealth of the brimming township. Residents and travelers
alike flocked in large numbers around the many colorful stands.
I could remember a different Rusuro. I
could still see it in its infancy, a tiny village of only a few small families,
bent on making use of the large trade road that an ambitious new emperor had
undertaken. In those days, Rusuro had been called Bartlet. The reason for the
name change had always been lost on me… I had been gone for fourteen years on
the islands of Bardo at the time, and when I returned, Bartlet was no more. It was
good to see it glowing, though.
I didn’t have time to enjoy myself,
not now. I cut a path through the heavy midday crowd towards the smallest,
homeliest inn that Rusuro had to offer, a building dubbed “The Little Flower”.
I kept my gaze low and face shielded under the wide brim of my hat. From below
the cross-hatched straw, the bottom-halves of many people went by; hairy legs,
cotton dresses, and dirty bare feet.
Passing a water fountain where some
street kids were playing kick-the-straw-sack, a chill suddenly took hold of my
back. It snapped me to my senses, this instinct, and I whirled, slashing out
with a dagger from my sleeve in one fluid sweep. I expected another sword, an
arrow, a wild mutt… anything but the “thunk” noise as something solid sank onto
my blade. It took me an embarrassingly long measure to realize that there was
now an apple on the end of my dagger. Bright, shiny and red, dripping juices
into the dirt.
I looked up to where it had come from.
There was a young boy, maybe ten or
eleven years of age, with dark hair and clothes that had been sewn from a
potato sack. His cheeks were red, and his bared teeth bestowed a grudge. Since
he was unarmed, I pulled the apple off and stashed the weapon.
“We don't need mercs in this town,”
the boy called, his fists balled and his bottom lip trembling. His voice rose
to a near shriek. “Get out, get out now!”
People slowed, balancing shopping baskets
and loads of laundry. Hushed murmurs traveled over our heads, and the space
around us became more confined and intimidating. Stagnant sweat wafted to me as
the bodies pushed in.
“S-say something,” the boy shouted. I
was staring at the apple still, frankly tickled that it had landed on my dagger
like that. I was also thanking the gods for wonderful distractions, and yet
another chance to practice the lessons from my book.
“I was hungry. Thank you for the apple,”
I told him politely, and wondered in my addled state if I had started the
conversation off at the right point. I was pretty sure gratitude was supposed to
come first.