He grabbed her wrist. “Go!” he grunted. “Away.” Then he shoved her so hard, she fell backward onto her rear.
She stared at him, terrified, but wanting to do something that would take the awful look of pain away from his face. Around her, others were stirring, their own faces etched in the same agony as her father.
Then she saw her father’s sea glass necklace give an odd little jump. She looked closer. It happened again. Her father arched his back. His eyes and mouth opened wide, as if screaming, but only a wet gurgle came out. A white worm as thick as a finger burst from his neck. Blood streamed from him as other worms burrowed out of his chest and gut.
Her mother woke with a gasp, her eyes staring around wildly. Her skin was already shifting. She reached out and called her daughter’s name.
All around her, the other villagers thrashed against their chains as the worms ripped free. Before long, the ground was covered in a writhing mass of white.
She wanted to run. Instead, she held her mother’s hand and watched her writhe and jerk as the worms ate her from the inside. She did not move, did not look away until her mother grew still. Only then did she stumble to her feet, slip under the tent wall, and run back into the tall grass.
She watched from afar as the soldiers returned at dawn with large burlap sacks. The cloaked man went inside the tent for a while, then came back out and wrote more in his notebook. He did this two more times, then said something to one of the soldiers. The soldier nodded, gave a signal, and the group with sacks filed into the tent. When they came back out, their sacks were filled with writhing bulges that she guessed were the worms. They carried them to the ship while the remaining soldiers struck the tent, exposing the bodies that had been inside.
The cloaked man watched as the soldiers unfastened the chains from the pile of corpses. As he stood there, the little girl fixed his face in her memory. Brown hair, weak chin, pointed ratlike face marked with a burn scar on his left cheek.
At last they sailed off in their big boxy ship, leaving a strange sign driven into the dock. When they were no longer in sight, she crept back down into the village. It took her many days. Perhaps weeks. But she buried them all.
Captain Sin Toa stared down at the girl. During her tale, her expression had remained fixed in a look of wide-eyed horror. But now it settled back into the cold emptiness he’d seen when he first coaxed her out of the hold.
“How long ago was that?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” she said.
“How did you get aboard?” he asked. “We never docked.”
“I swam.”
“Quite a distance.”
“Yes.”
“And what should I do with you now?”
She shrugged.
“A ship is no place for a little girl.”
“I have to stay alive,” she said. “So I can find that man.”
“Do you know who that was? What that sign meant?”
She shook her head.
“That was the crest of the emperor’s biomancers. You haven’t got a prayer of ever getting close to that man.”
“I will,” she said quietly. “Someday. If it takes my whole life. I’ll find him. And kill him.”
Captain Sin Toa knew he couldn’t keep her aboard. It was said maidens, even eight-year-old ones, could draw the attention of the sea serpents in these waters as sure as a bucketful of blood. The crew might very well mutiny at the idea of keeping a girl on board. But he wasn’t about to throw her overboard or dump her on some empty piece of rock either. When they landed the next day at Galemoor, he approached the head of the Vinchen order, a wizened old monk named Hurlo.
“Girl’s seen things nobody should have to see,” he said. The two of them stood in the stone courtyard of the monastery, the tall, black stone temple looming over them. “She’s a broken thing. Could be a monastic life is the only option left to her.”
Hurlo slipped his hands into the sleeves of his black robe. “I sympathize, Captain. Truly, I do. But the Vinchen order is for men only.”
“But surely you could use a servant around,” said Toa. “She’s a peasant, accustomed to hard work.”
Hurlo nodded. “We could. But what happens when she comes of age and begins to blossom? She will become too great a distraction for my brothers, particularly the younger ones.”
“So keep her till then. At least you’ll have sheltered her a few years. Kept her alive long enough for her to make her own way.”
Hurlo closed his eyes. “It will not be an easy life for her here.”
“Don’t think she’d know what to do with an easy life if you gave her one anyway.”
Hurlo looked at Toa. And to Toa’s surprise, he suddenly smiled, his old eyes sparkling. “We will take in this broken child you have found. A bit of chaos in the order brings change. Perhaps for the better.”
Toa shrugged. He’d never fully understood Hurlo or the Vinchen order. “If you say so, Grandteacher.”
“What is the child’s name?” asked Hurlo.
“She won’t say for some reason. I half think she doesn’t remember.”
“What shall we call her then, this child born of nightmare? As her unlikely guardians, I suppose it is now up to us to name her.”
Captain Sin Toa thought about it a moment, tugging at his beard. “Maybe after the village she survived. Keep something of it in memory, at least. Call her Bleak Hope.”
Publications by Daniel Abraham
THE LONG PRICE QUARTET
A Shadow in Summer
A Betrayal in Winter
An Autumn War
The Price of Spring
THE DAGGER AND THE COIN
The Dragon’s Path
The King’s Blood
The Tyrant’s Law
The Widow’s House
The Spider’s War
THE EXPANSE
Leviathan Wakes (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)
Caliban’s War (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)
Abaddon’s Gate (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)
Cibola Burn (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)
Nemesis Games (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)
Babylon’s Ashes (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)
THE BLACK SUN’S DAUGHTER
Unclean Spirits (as MLN Hanover)
Darker Angels (as MLN Hanover)
Vicious Grace (as MLN Hanover)
Killing Rites (as MLN Hanover)
Graveyard Child (as MLN Hanover)
Leviathan Wept and Other Stories
Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs
Hunter’s Run (with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois)
Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves (with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)
Praise for
The Tyrant’s Law
“This smart, absorbing, fascinating military fantasy, exciting and genuinely suspenseful, will keep readers on their toes.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“Abraham is a graceful writer, treating his male and female characters with respect and exploring both their strengths and weaknesses.”