Dream of the Falling Axe

Book 0: The Grave of Empires

by Sam Sykes

Genres: Epic Fantasy; Humorous Fantasy; Action & Adventure

Synopsis

​A standalone epic fantasy novella starring Sal the Cacophony, who Pierce Brown called a "protagonist for the ages," from Sam Sykes' widely acclaimed The Grave of Empires trilogy.

Sal the Cacophony solves problems no one else can. Because she's caused more than a few herself. And the pursuit of such a problem from her past has brought her to a frontier town held together in the face of disaster through strength alone. But both the town and Sal will learn that strength alone can't save everyone.
 
They called her for help. Unfortunately for them, she answered.

For more from Sam Sykes, check out:

The Grave of Empires:
Seven Blades in Black
Ten Arrows of Iron
Three Axes to Fall

The Gallows Black
The Iron Dirge
Dream of the Falling Axe

Bring Down Heaven:
The City Stained Red
The Mortal Tally
God's Last Breath

The Affinity for Steel Trilogy:
Tome of the Undergates
Black Halo
The Skybound Sea
 

Release date: June 20, 2023

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 211

Sample

You know the problem with stories where people do the right thing?

They set expectations too damn high.

I know, I know—you know a thousand stories you think refute that. Stories full of heroes that ride on white birds and have perfect teeth and always say exactly the right thing to make the armies roar and leave the prince and the princess soaking.

And you probably just love them, you smug little prick.

Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I only mean I see why you like them.

This is the Scar, after all—a dark land under a dark sky. Not much to do but try to get by amid the weather, outlaws, and monsters. Not much to look forward to but a demise that doesn’t feature digestion.

It’s a hard place. I understand why people want to hear about those who get through it effortlessly, who go into a shitstorm and coming out smelling of roses on the other side. It’s not a bad fantasy.

But I didn’t say they were bad, did I?

I said they set expectations too high. Unrealistically so. And I’m right to say it.

They show you a world that isn’t this one, filled with people who don’t hate you for breathing and conflicts that make sense and can be resolved with a lot of words and a few swords. And then they spit you back out into reality.

Back into the Scar. Back onto its hard earth, among its weary people, and into all their problems that are better solved with more swords and fewer words.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not bitter enough to insist that it’s stupid to hope for better. And I’d need at least three more drinks before I was honest enough to admit that all the love and hope in the world can’t solve shit.

I’m simply saying that, for all their joyous message and sugary, sticky feelings, there’s one glaring detail those stories omit.

People only do good in good times.

When money and time are plentiful, they’re happy to spend either. When food tastes good and drink is heady, they’re happy to share both with anyone hungry. And when people are rich and full and not looking over their shoulders, they tend to be a lot more pleasant to be around.

But good times are rare anywhere in the world.

In the Scar, they’re damn near extinct.

When you don’t have good times, you have get-by times. And when you have get-by times, you have get-by people. And get-by people are complicated.

Get-by people aren’t selfish, but they feel keenly the empty space where money and food and comfort used to be. Get-by people aren’t cruel, but they’ll save their hides before they save yours. Get-by people don’t want to pull their swords first, but they know they’re dead if they pull their swords last.

Good people are good.

Get-by people are complicated. So are their stories.

And they don’t get much more complicated than this one.

I see you scoffing. That’s fine. I scoffed, too, at first.

I chuckled when I heard rumors of bad dreams plaguing towns out in the far end of the Scar. I rolled my eyes at tales of people stricken by self-injurious madness—hurling themselves off rooftops, clawing their own faces clean. And when, amid all this tragedy, they spoke of a horrifying beast that stalked the forests and snatched people in the night, I sighed.

Stories, beasts, and tragedies are three things the Scar has in abundance. It takes a lot to get me to notice any of them.

But when I heard one particular story, whispered in a dark corner, of flowers that blossomed at the sites of tragedy—where bodies fell from roofs, where monsters left red stains on the grass—blooming and wilting in the span of seconds…

Well. I still had my doubts. Even as I saddled my bird and followed the stories. Even as I rode to a land where humans were crushed between forest and sky. Even as I made it all the way to a city called Birdtalk, one of the last crumbs the Scar had yet to pick from its teeth. I had my doubts about all of it.

Right up until I saw the body.

Rotting on a table before me.

His face sliced clean off and leaving a mess of dried sinew beneath.

Yeah.

Not scoffing now, asshole, are you?

I’d been staring at the man’s corpse for about half an hour before I finally got a clear picture. The home he’d been found in wasn’t the sort of place where you expected to find a carcass—mutilated or otherwise. It was a roomy, warm home with a kitchen made for cooking big meals and a table made for big families.

Or one man with no face, at any rate. And his knife. The red-crusted blade—big and thick enough to be used for skinning, fighting, or both—was laid atop his belly, his hands neatly folded over it. If he’d had eyelids, he might have looked at peace.

His eyes were frozen open. His teeth were set in a rictus snarl. Even the flies seemed to be steering clear, he looked so horrifying. Had I been in a less exciting line of work, I’d have also left.

But the life of a Vagrant is nothing if not governed by money and violence.

And not to be too coarse, but I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies.

It’s hard not to when you live in the Scar. And for a Vagrant, it’s a professional impossibility.

You get used to it. You lose your sensitivity, then your gag reflex, and after that it’s pretty easy to hang around a corpse or two. Yet I still found myself looking away—you get used to dead bodies, you don’t always get used to death.

I searched the room. No broken windows. No busted doors. Not even a mess on the floor. The only thing out of place was the flower.

There, poking out between the floorboards—a daffodil, I think? Its petals blossomed out from beneath the floor, leaves curling in spiraling patterns. Strange thing to see anywhere, let alone the site of a mutilation.

I should have realized that. I should have known. And maybe I would have, but—“Well?”

As it turns out, when someone dies, their loved ones have all kinds of questions.

I blinked, turned.

A man—sort of—stood behind me, hands placed on hips in that way assholes used to getting what they want do. I don’t mean he was an asshole, I just mean he looked like one.

His lean shape told me he could hold his own in a fight, his clean hair and leathers told me he’d never had to. His face was too soft for his scowl, and his hands were too small to be trembling in rage at his sides like they were. And his facial hair… well, it tried its hardest, poor thing.

His name was Flunchett Nalfahar. People who liked him called him by his name. People who didn’t called him Flinch. And that’s what he called himself.

“Well…” I let out a sigh, looked back over the body on the table. “He’s dead.”

The man twisted up in anger. And if that spear on his back had been his, he might have done something more.

“I know he’s fucking dead, he’s my brother,” he spat. “We didn’t hire you to tell us that.”

“No? Too bad. I’m quite good at it.”

I pushed back the folds of my red scarf hanging from my neck, let my hand drift to my waist and let his eyes follow. My hand found the leather sheath at my belt, my fingers rested upon a black wooden hilt. They drummed upon the weapon, brass notes ringing out dully as they did.

The man’s eyes refused to blink, to tear themselves away from that weapon. He knew the stories of us—me and this gun. They set expectations of their own. None of them good.

Within the sheath, I could feel the gun smiling.

My partner hadn’t wanted to come. We had more pressing business, he and I. But I’d managed to persuade him. And our employer’s reaction was soothing to him, I knew. He did so enjoy when people noticed him. The only thing he loved more was being seen outside his sheath.

“I agree,” the man said in the deliberate, slow, calm tone with which one speaks to a beast, eyes never leaving the gun’s black hilt. “You are very good at what you do.”

I did hate to disappoint my partner. But I hated more proving a point that shouldn’t have to be made. I slid my hand away.

“I admit, though,” I said slowly, “I’m much better at the part that typically comes after finding the body.” I let my other hand sit on the pommel of my sword on my other hip—not as impressive as the gun, but still. “The part with the finding who did it and shooting them in the face and such.”

“See, yes, that.” His enthusiasm was inappropriate, considering the corpse. “That is what I sought you out for. You’re the Vagrant who hunts Vagrants.”

“I was around. You didn’t seek shit.” My grin dropped a little. “If you had, you’d know I’m a lot of things.”

“I’ve heard the stories,” he said. His breath caught. “Mom loved them. All stories, but especially ones about Vagrants. And before she left, she loved yours the most.” He licked his lips. “You’re the Vagrant that breaks down gates just by knocking. You’re the name that makes warlords stay indoors and raiders leave their loot behind. People hear your name and swear it burns them like a fever.”

All right, I had to admit that was just a little flattering.

“You’re a lot of things, indeed, Sal the Cacophony.”

And I suppose I should have introduced myself earlier.

But honestly, he was way better at it.

“But what I need”—he caught himself—“what the people of Birdtalk need is just one of those things. You’re the only thing in the Scar that Vagrants fear.” He gestured to the corpse of his brother. “And we’ve got a Vagrant problem.”

I looked back at the corpse, walked around it, squinted.

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him. I’m sure he absolutely did believe a Vagrant could have broken in without noise or mess and cut his brother’s face off. Hell, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard a few stories about some mage or other doing that—we’re an eccentric bunch.

But you remember what I said about the Scar, don’t you? It’s a tough place full of tough people. And none of them got tougher than they did in this corner of it.

There’s no such thing as a safe place to live in the Scar, but there are certainly less dangerous places than the Carnaecra. An aggressive blemish of wild overgrowth clashing with choking grasslands beneath near-perpetual stormy skies, it had been home only to monsters and bandits before the Imperium arrived.

Tempted by dreams of a lucrative lumber trade, they founded the Garrisons—a series of small city-fortresses along the edge of the forest, of which Birdtalk was the largest.

They found the timber. And it turned out the timber was just as hungry for them. As the work grew more dangerous, prisoners of war and convicts were hauled in to build in the middle of monster-infested wilds. It worked for a bit. Then one thing led to another—name-calling, throat-slitting, that sort of thing—eventually the Imperials were gone, the criminals were in charge, and the Carnaecra was home to a few more people, in addition to teeming monstrosities.

A Vagrant could have done this—this region had a few, just as it had plenty of other monsters. But so could a bandit or a beast or… some kind of… fucked-up plant? I don’t know.

It could very well be a Vagrant my newfound employer was looking for.

I just wasn’t sure it was the Vagrant I was looking for.

Don’t give me that look. Yes, I was looking for a specific Vagrant, but I wasn’t being dishonest by not telling him that.

He had called me here to hunt a Vagrant—that was true. I was someone who could do that—that was also true. Anything else, he didn’t need to know, and I sure as shit didn’t want to share right then.

See? Complicated.

“Possibly,” I muttered, eyeing the cut where the man’s face had been carved—not precise work, but then, cutting faces wasn’t a precise art. “The cuts are awkward, it had to be messy. But the house is clean. No sign of a break-in.”

“Magic,” the man said, breathlessly. “Like I said.”

“Could be. But if you’re killed in your home, chances are good your enemies are closer than you think. Your brother have any?”

“Many.” The man puffed up a little. “Garo was a Rawback. Second-in-command only to Chief Garono himself. Every lawbreaker and beast in the Carnaecra feared the thunder of their birds and the tips of their lances.”

Nice speech. But it didn’t tell me much.

“I meant enemies in the city.”

“No.”

That reaction told me plenty.

“I know what they say about the Garrisons,” he said, wincing. “We’re all criminals, right? Children of thieves and murderers? There are a few people like that out here. A few that even would want to hurt Garo.”

“But?”

He shook his head. “You don’t fuck with Garo. Everyone knows that.”

“He was a dick, then.”

“I didn’t say that!”

“No, but I’ve never known someone to want to cut the face off someone who wasn’t.” I glanced at him. “I’m guessing you haven’t, either, and that’s why you suspect someone of cutting him up.”

He frowned. “Yours is not the only name that comes with stories attached, madam.”

The Garrisons had had no true law since the Imperium abandoned it. But people needed law like they needed fences—without it, the beasts outside had a much better chance of eating. There was a special kind of legality here: plenty of judges, few juries, and no court that didn’t begin and end with spears like the one Flinch carried.

There are two qualities a man who hopes to call himself a leader needs to have: a big fucking weapon and the confidence to think he can grow a mustache. Flinch wore all poorly.

A big pole of polished black wood ending in a cruelly serrated head was strapped to his back. A truly impressive number of human scalps—flayed and dried—had been bound to the spear’s wooden throat. It was a big fucking weapon. An in-charge weapon.

I wondered what he was doing with it.

“Yeah, I heard some of them on the road here,” I replied. “Is it true you fly flags made out of Vagrant skin?”

“Father… Chief Garono had them made,” he replied. “He cuts their tattoos off their backs, cures the skin, and hangs them high as a warning to other Vagrants.” He tried to grin, failed. “It’s… it helps keep order.”

I glanced to my own, to the twisting tattoos of cloudscapes and wings and lightning snaking up over my arms. I could see the logic there—a Vagrant’s ink was as important as a Vagrant’s name, and a Vagrant’s name was everything. There were worse things to make examples of.

“If it helped keep order, you wouldn’t be asking me to help you,” I replied.

“It does keep order,” he insisted, more to himself than to me. “It was the Rawbacks that kept the Garrisons standing after Misery’s Three rolled through.”

He had me there.

Vagrants didn’t often work together, but when they did, the results didn’t get much worse than Misery’s Three. Among the people they terrorized—the merchants they plundered, the villages they burned, the peacekeepers who got fucked up trying to stop them—they were spoken of in terrified whispers.

Among Vagrants, though? They are—or were—adored.

The Creature, the Baleful Howl, the Reed—Vagrants knew the names of Misery’s Three like they knew the names of their favorite opera stars. It didn’t hurt that they had begun as an opera trio in the army, according to rumors—which, in all fairness, might have been started by themselves.

We followed stories of Misery’s Three as Imperials and Revolutionaries chased them all the way to the Carnaecra, far from the Scar proper. I knew a lot of people who’d be heartbroken to hear how their story ended.

“I don’t know many Vagrants that would be keen to tangle with the people who brought down Misery’s Three,” I muttered. “Why would one attack after that?”

“I don’t know. Revenge? Money?” His face fell. “People are seeing things, clawing their own faces off. A beast is leaping over our walls every night. You tell me one thing on this dark earth with the means and motive to do that other than a Vagrant.”

That was rude. But also correct.

Vagrants were many things, but almost to a one we were killers. Worse than killers. A bandit kills you, a monster eats you—that’s an honest death. A Vagrant severs your arm with magic, uses it to strangle your husband in front of you—well, you live or you die, that’s not a good end.

“So how’d it happen?” I muttered.

He sighe. . .