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Overview
In the depths of night, customs officers board a galley in a harbor and overpower its guards. In the hold they find oil and silver, and a naked boy chained to the bulkhead. Stunningly beautiful but half-starved, the boy has no name. The officers break the boy's chains to rescue him, but he escapes.
Venice is at the height of its power. Duke Marco commands the seas, taxes his colonies, and, like every duke before him, fears assassins better than his own. In a side chapel, Marco's thirteen-year old cousin prays for deliverance from her forced marriage. It is her bad fortune to be there when Moorish pirates break in to steal a chalice, but it is the Moors' good fortune - they kidnap her and demand ransom from the Duke.
As day dawns, Atilo, the Duke's chief assassin, prepares to kill the man who let in the pirates. Having cut the traitor's throat, he turns back, having heard a noise, and finds a stranger crouched over the dying man, drinking blood from the wound. The speed with which the boy dodges a dagger and scales a pillar stuns Atilo. And the assassin knows he has to find the boy. Not to kill him though - because he's finally found what he thought he would never find.
Someone fit to be his apprentice.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780316074391 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Orbit |
| Publication date: | 01/27/2011 |
| Series: | The Assassini , #1 |
| Pages: | 450 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.40(d) |
About the Author
JCG's novels Felaheen and End of the World Blues, won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. He has been shortlisted twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award, the August Derleth Award (UK), John W Campbell Memorial Award (US), among other awards.
He is married to the journalist and novelist Sam Baker, currently editor-in-chief of Red. They divide their time between London and Winchester.
Read an Excerpt
The Fallen Blade
Act One of the AssassiniBy Grimwood, Jon Courtenay
Orbit
Copyright © 2011 Grimwood, Jon CourtenayAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780316074391
PART 1
“… what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear…”
A Lover’s Complaint, William Shakespeare
1
Venice, Tuesday 4 January 1407
The boy hung naked from wooden walls, shackles circling one wrist and both ankles. He’d fought for days to release his left hand, burning his skin on red-hot fetters as he worked to drag his fingers free. The struggle had left him exhausted and—if he was honest—no better off than before.
“Help me,” he begged, “I will do whatever you ask.”
His gods stayed silent.
“I swear it. My life is yours.”
But his life was theirs anyway; even here in an enclosed space where his lungs ached at every breath and the air was sour and becoming sourer. The gods had abandoned him to his death.
It would have helped if he could remember their names.
Some days he doubted they existed. If they did, he doubted they cared. The boy’s fury at his fate had become bitterness and despair, and then turned to false hope and fresh fury. Maybe he’d missed an emotion, but he’d worked his way through those he knew.
Yanking at his wrist made flesh sear.
Whatever magic his captors used was stronger than his will to be free. The chains with which they bound him were new, bolted firmly to the wall. Every time he grabbed a chain to yank at it, his fingers sizzled as if a torturer pressed white-hot irons into his skin.
“Sweet gods,” he whispered.
As if flattering the immortals could undo his earlier insults.
He’d shrieked at his gods, cursed them, called for the aid of demons. Begged for help from any human within earshot of his despair. A part of him wanted to return to shrieking. Simply for the release it would bring. Only he’d screamed his throat raw days ago. Besides, who would come to his grotesque little cell with no doors? And if they did, how would they enter?
Murder. Rape. Treason…
What else merited being walled up alive?
His crime was a mystery. What was the point of punishment if the prisoner couldn’t remember what he’d done? The boy had no memory of his name. No memory of why he was locked in a space little bigger than a coffin. Not even a memory of who put him here.
Earth strewed the floor, splattered with his own soiling.
It was days since he’d needed to piss, and his lips were cracked like dry mud and raw from where he tried to lick them. He needed sleep almost as desperately as he wanted to be free, but every time he slumped his shackles burnt and the pain snapped him awake again. He’d done something wrong. Something very wrong. So wrong that even death wouldn’t embrace him.
If only he could remember what.
You have a name. What is it?
Like hope and freedom, this too remained out of reach. In the hours that followed, the boy hovered on the edges of a fever. Sometimes his wits were sharp, but mostly he inhabited a blasted wasteland inside his own skull where his memories should be.
All he saw in there were shadows that turned away from him; and voices he was unable to hear clearly.
Pay attention, he told himself. Listen.
So he did. What he heard were voices beyond the wooden walls. A crowd from the sound of it, arguing. And though what he heard was little louder than a whisper it told him they spoke a language he didn’t recognise. One voice snapped out an order, another protested. Then something slammed into the wall directly in front of him.
It sounded like an axe or a hammer.
The second blow was even harder. Then came a third, his wooden world splintering as sweet air rushed in and fetid air blew out. The light through the narrow gap was blinding. As if the gods had come for him after all.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Fallen Blade by Grimwood, Jon Courtenay Copyright © 2011 by Grimwood, Jon Courtenay. Excerpted by permission.
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