Glenda Larke - The Last Stormlord

He dropped the bundle of dirty tablecloths he had been carrying and ran towards Donnick. Close the gate! Close the blasted gate!

But Donnick stood rooted, his mouth gaping foolishly at Garri, as if the danger was coming from his direction.

And the zigger flew into his mouth.

Terelle glimpsed it as a black blur the size of a mans thumb. The keening stopped abruptly, replaced by the shriek of Donnicks agony. He clutched at his throat and a gush of blood spewed from his mouth like water from an opened spigot. His screams faded into a choking gurgle. He fell to his knees, staring at Terelle, begging her for help she could not render. He clawed at his face, jammed his hand into his mouth, clutching for something he could not reach. She stared, appalled. His blood was splattered over her feet but she couldnt move.

A magnificent gift for world-building one of the best imaginations in the business.

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By Glenda Larke

ISLES OF GLORY

The Aware

Gilfeather

The Tainted

THE MIRAGE MAKERS

Heart of the Mirage

The Shadow of Tyr

Song of the Shiver Barrens

STORMLORD

The Last Stormlord

Stormlord Rising

WRITING AS GLENDA NORAMLY

Havenstar

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2009 by Glenda Larke

Excerpt from Stormlord Rising copyright 2009 by Glenda Larke All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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First published in Australia in 2009 by HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited.

Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group USA. The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

First eBook Edition: March 2010

ISBN: 978-0-316-07590-9

Contents

for

Sam Griffiths

May you always know the joy of reading

The Quartern

P RISONS

WITHOUT

W ALLS

Scarpen Quarter

Scarcleft City

Opals Snuggery, Level 32

It was the last night of her childhood.

Terelle, unknowing, thought it just another busy evening in Opals Snuggery, crowded and noisy and hot. Rooms were hazed with the fumes from the keproot pipes of the addicted and fuggy with the smell of the resins smouldering in the censers. Smoky blue tendrils curled through the archways, encouraging a lively lack of restraint as they drifted through the air.

Everything as usual.

Terelles job was to collect the dirty plates and mugs and return them to the kitchen, in an endless round from sunset until the dark dissolved under the first cold fingering of a desert dawn.

Her desire was to be unnoticed at the task.

Her dream was to escape her future as one of Madam Opals girls.

Once shed thought the snuggery a happy place, the outer courtyard always alive with boisterous chatter and laughter as friends met on entry, the reception rooms bustling with servants fetching food from the kitchens or amber from the barrels in the cellar, the stairs cluttered with handmaidens as they giggled and flirted and smiled, arm in arm with their clients. Shed thought the snuggerys inhabitants lived each night adrift on laughter and joy and friendship. But she had only been seven then, and newly purchased. She was twelve now, old enough to realise the laughter and the smiles and the banter were part of a larger game, and what underlay it was much sadder. She still didnt understand everything, not really, even though she knew now what went on between the customers and women like her half-sister, Vivie, in the upstairs rooms.

She knew enough to see the joy was a sham.

She knew enough to know she didnt want any part of it.

And so she scurried through the reception rooms with her laden tray, hugging the walls on her way to the kitchen. A drab girl with brown tunic, brown skin, brown hair so dark it had the rich depth of rubies, a timid pebblemouse on its way back to its lair with a pouch-load of detritus to pile around its burrow entrance, hoping to keep a hostile world at bay. She kept her gaze downcast, instinctively aware that her eyes, green and intelligent, told another story.

The hours blurred into one another. Laughter devoid of subtlety drowned out the lute players strumming; vulgar banter suffocated the soft-sung words of love. As the night wore on, Scarcleft society lost its refinement just as surely as the desert night lost its chill in the packed reception rooms.

Out of the corner of her eye, Terelle noted Vivie flirting with one of the younger customers. The man had a sweet smile, but he was no more than an itinerant seller of scent, a street peddler. Madam Opal wanted Vivie to pay attention to Kade the waterlender instead, Kade who was fat and had hair growing out of his nose. Hed come all the way downhill from the twentieth level of the city because he fancied the Gibber woman he knew as Viviandra.

Behind the peddlers slender back, Terelle made a face at Vivie to convey her opinion of her sisters folly with the peddler, then scurried on.

Back in the main reception room a few moments later, she heard nervous laughter at one of the tables. A man was drunk and hed lost some sort of wager. He wasnt happy and his raised voice had a mean edge to it.

Trouble, she thought. Rosscar, the oil merchants son. His temper was well known in the snuggery. He was jabbing stiffened fingertips at the shoulder of one of his companions. As she gathered mugs onto her tray, Terelle overheard his angry accusation: You squeezed the beetle too hard! He waved his mug under the winners nose and slopped amber everywhere. Cheat, you are, Merch Putter

Hurriedly one of the handmaidens stepped in and led him away, giggling and stroking his arm.

Poor Diomie, Terelle thought as she wiped the stickiness of the alcohol from the agate inlay of the stone floor. Hell take it out on her. And all over a silly wager on how high a click beetle can jump. As she rose wearily to her feet, her gaze met the intense stare of a Scarperman. He sat alone, a hungry-eyed, hawk-nosed man dressed in a blue tunic embroidered with the badge of the pedemens guild.

This is empty, he growled at her, indicating the brass censer in the corner of the room. Get some more resin for it, girl, and sharp about it. You shouldnt need to be told.

She ducked her head so that her hair fell across her face and mumbled an apology. Using her laden tray as a buffer, she headed once more for the safety of the kitchens, thinking she could feel those predatory eyes sliding across her back as she went. She didnt return to replenish the censer; she sent one of the kitchen boys instead.

Half the run of a sandglass later, she saw Vivie and Kade the fat waterlender heading upstairs, Madam Opal nodding her approval as she watched. The sweet-smiling, sweet-smelling peddler was nowhere in evidence. Terelle snorted. Vivie had sand for brains if shed thought Opal would allow her to dally with a scent seller when there was a waterlending upleveller around. A waterlender, any waterlender, was richer than Terelle could even begin to imagine, and there was nothing Opal liked better than a rich customer.