Shadow Hand Read online

  © 2014 by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-6357-5

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Book design by Paul Higdon

  Cover illustration by William Graf

  Author is represented by Books & Such Literary Agency

  This one is for Tom, Jimmy, and Peter.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part 1: Here and There

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  Part 2: There and Here

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Tales of Goldstone Wood

  Coming Soon

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  Prologue

  THEY SAY ALL THE OLD STORIES—all the true stories—are about blood. This simply is not so.

  All the true stories are about love. And blood. The two so often go hand in hand, they’re difficult to separate, but it is important not to divide the one from the other, or the story becomes unbalanced and is no longer true. That is why this is a story about blood and love, and the many things that lie between.

  For Foxbrush, this story began on the worst day of his life to date.

  Foxbrush’s father had insisted that his mother allow their son to travel with him to the court of Foxbrush’s uncle, the king, to be properly presented. Foxbrush, a shy, unprepossessing child, considered this visit (and the coinciding obligation to Talk to People) a terror of nightmarish proportions and trembled in the seat of his father’s carriage all the way to the Eldest’s House.

  Upon arrival, he was separated from his father and shuffled into step behind an elegant footman, who led him down strange halls and passages. His young mind, bewildered by the grandeur around him that far outmatched anything he’d known in his mother’s remote mountain home, retreated further into itself. Many of the halls they passed through were not closed in by walls but open to the elements, tall pillars supporting the roof overhead after the fashion of Southlander architecture. The sounds and smells of the Eldest’s House assailed Foxbrush from every side. Rather than see too much, he watched the footman’s feet treading across the white marble floor.

  Those feet stopped. Foxbrush stopped.

  “Here you are, young sir,” said the footman, opening a door.

  A blast of children’s laughter assaulted Foxbrush’s ears. His eyes grew owlishly large. “Please,” he said, “I’d rather not.”

  But the footman placed a hand on Foxbrush’s shoulder and pushed him inside. The door shut. Foxbrush was trapped.

  The room was spacious, with a great many tall, open windows all around through which breezes blew, wafting colorful curtains like circus flags. And wafting more colorfully still was an army of children, all in gorgeous clothes, laughing so that their teeth flashed.

  Foxbrush, who had little experience with anyone his own age, backed up against the door and held on to his hat as a final defense against the oncoming hordes.

  No one paid him any heed; they were busy about their games. After several minutes of terrified observation, Foxbrush thought he began to discern some sort of pattern in the antics before him. One boy stood in the center of the room with, of all things, a curtain pulled down from one of the windows wrapped around his shoulders. Through his terror, Foxbrush recognized his cousin Leo, whom he had known since infancy. Leo held the fallen curtain rod in both hands and shouted:

  “Warriors, to me! To me! Twelve warriors!”

  Four children, boys and girls, separated from the group and flocked around him, a number that seemed to satisfy the curtain wearer. They were all younger than Leo. Little ones, Foxbrush thought from the superior vantage of eight years. They looked up to their leader with awe-filled eyes, ready to do his bidding.

  “Shadow Hand!” Leo called across the room. “Are you ready to fight?”

  On the other side of the room, another cluster of children crouched in noisy council. One of them stood, and she was the most unusual person Foxbrush could ever remember seeing. Her hair was bright red. And curly! She might as well have been some otherworldly being here among the dark-skinned Southlanders.

  She was armed with an unclothed rag doll, which she brandished menacingly. “I am King Shadow Hand of Here and There! And I will slay you, fiend of darkness! Slay you and save my fickle fleeting Fair from your evil mound!”

  The curtain-clad Leo frowned. “Hold on,” he said, and all his miniature warriors caught their breath. “What’s a fickle fleeting Fair?”

  “You know,” said the red-haired girl. “The maiden King Shadow Hand saves. The one he holds on to.”

  “I don’t remember that,” said her foe.

  “It’s true,” the girl-king replied.

  “I remember him losing his hands. I remember him bargaining with the Faerie queen. I remember him fighting the twelve warriors. I don’t remember a maiden.”

  The red-haired girl dropped her rag doll weapon and crossed the room to a pile of books left strewn and open upon the ground. It was enough to make Foxbrush recoil in horror: The spines would be all bent and broken, the pages torn by these uncivilized ruffians! But the girl shoved several aside with her foot until she pulled from the wreckage a once fine illustrated copy of Eanrin’s Rhymes for Children and opened it to a dog-eared page.

  “See?” she said, turning to Leo and pointing to a certain woodcut, which may or may not have been intended for young eyes. It depicted a king with a fierce black beard and a noble face clinging to a rather buxom young woman who was—as far as Foxbrush could discern—melting.

  Foxbrush shuddered, but the girl strode across the room to her opponent.

  “See? There’s the fickle fleeting Fiery Fair that Shadow Hand is trying to rescue.”

  “I don’t remember that bit,” Leo said, frowning with the determination of one who never could remember anything he did not wish to.

  The girl, undaunted, read for all the listeners in the room.

&nb
sp; “Oh, Shadow Hand of Here and There

  The stone of ancients kills

  To free his fiery, fickle Fair

  From death beneath the hills!”

  She finished and shut the book with a bang that made Foxbrush startle. “We need a fickle Fair for me to rescue from you.”

  Leo rolled his eyes, then turned to those gathered round. “So who wants to be the damsel in distress?” he asked.

  The children exchanged glances. A demotion from warrior to damsel was none too keenly desired. Even the little girls, their braided hair coming all undone, shook their heads.

  “There you have it,” said Leo, smugly lifting his curtain rod. “No one wants to be her, so we’ll play without her.”

  “No we won’t,” said the girl-king, her voice so final that even the intrepid Leo blinked and lost some of his smug. She turned and surveyed the room like a hawk selecting which hopping young rabbit she might wish to snatch. Her gaze fell at last upon Foxbrush by the door.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  “Um,” said Foxbrush. That strange stare of hers pinned him to the wall. He’d never seen blue eyes before. He was not naturally a superstitious child. Nevertheless, as the girl-king descended upon him, her eyes full of ruling intensity . . . well, even Foxbrush wondered if, in that moment, he had fallen under a bewitchment.

  “Do you want to be the fickle Fair?” she said, drawing near to him.

  Foxbrush shook his head. “I . . . I’d rather not,” he said.

  She looked him up and down, appraising his worth. “Why not?” she demanded. “You’d be good at it.”

  Foxbrush couldn’t break her fearful gaze. Shrinking into himself, he said, “I might tear my shirt.”

  The flame-headed girl narrowed her eyes. Then she reached out, grabbed hold of the button at his collar, and yanked. It took a couple of hard pulls, but it came away in her hand at last with a satisfying rip.

  Foxbrush gasped.

  “There,” said the girl-king. “It’s torn already. Come play with us.”

  In that moment, realization washed over young Foxbrush; realization that this girl could make him do whatever she wanted him to. And, more horribly still, he wouldn’t entirely mind doing it.

  He loved her at once for reasons he could not then understand.

  So you see? Blood and love—the ingredients of every true story.

  “All right,” you say, “I see the love. But where’s the blood? Give us blood!”

  Don’t worry, dear reader. We’ll come to the blood soon enough.

  1

  ONCE MORE, FAILURE.

  Once more, new life did not spring from blood, no matter how much blood flowed. New growth did not flourish from desolation, new breath did not stir the still air. When the dying stopped dying, there was an end of it. No more dying. No new living.

  Once more, rootless, drifting, searching.

  But it could not make mistakes. How could it? It did not think; it merely acted, instinct driving every deed. Therefore, it could not learn. Therefore, it would try again. And again. And again.

  Once more, searching, searching, searching . . .

  . . . for one as lost as itself.

  The Eldest’s groundskeepers were not folks to judge. The rest of the kingdom could turn up its collective nose or raise condemnatory eyebrows as it willed. As far as the groundskeepers were concerned, a week of relaxed duties and a full day off with free cake and mango cider sent from the Big House itself was reason to celebrate.

  Let princes marry whom they will. Let councils depose whom they will. Let the worlds gossip and the courtiers go about their intrigues; only let there be cider, and the sun may still shine!

  So the groundskeepers gathered, on the day of the crown prince’s wedding, beneath the shade of a mango grove. It wasn’t much shade, for these were young mangoes, newly planted the year before. The old, stately grove that had once stood on this site had been destroyed during the Occupation. . . .

  But there. They would not think of that. Not on such a fine, lazy morning. The new trees cast shade enough, the cider slid nice and cool down the throat, and the crown prince would wed his lady in the Great Hall of the Eldest.

  “Lord Lumé, I hope he’ll pull it off this year!” said Graybeak, Stoneblossom’s husband, around a mouthful of crumb cake.

  “Pull what off?” asked Tippertail, who was Graybeak’s best mate in the fields.

  “This marriage, of course,” Graybeak replied. “I hope the crown prince manages to get it done. The last one didn’t, did he, now? And they made as much fuss or more over his wedding week.”

  “Only we didn’t get crumb cake,” said Flitmouse solemnly. And this was acknowledged with grave nods. No crumb cake; how could that marriage possibly have gone over well?

  “Good thing, if you ask me,” said Stoneblossom, who never needed to be asked before stating an opinion, “that they went and got rid o’ that one, that Prince Lionheart. And lucky for Lady Daylily that she didn’t marry him first!”

  “Hear, hear!” the groundskeepers agreed, clunking their mugs together as a toast.

  “But surely Prince Lionheart couldn’t have been all bad.”

  This was spoken by a newcomer, another groundskeeper from a different quarter of the Eldest’s estate, judging by the color of his hood. What he was doing here in South Stretch was something of a conundrum to the gathered crew, and they glanced at him sideways, not exactly unfriendly, nor exactly welcoming. Stoneblossom had given him a smaller slice of crumb cake than the rest.

  When he spoke up now—fulfilling the role of uninitiated newcomers everywhere by putting his foot in his mouth—the others fixed him with stares of contempt.

  “Not all bad?” said Graybeak. “Where were you those five years when he left us, run away to safety while we remained imprisoned? And where were you when, on the very week of his nuptials, he brought a dragon into the Eldest’s City—”

  “Don’t be speaking of that!” said Stoneblossom with sudden severity. For when Graybeak spoke, all eyes had filled with haunted memories: memories of a cold winter’s day. Of smoke. And fire.

  “Don’t be speaking of that,” Stoneblossom repeated. “Don’t go calling bad luck down upon this day by mentioning such things. The devil-girl was banished, the prince sent packing without his crown. It’s a new day for Southlands.”

  “Aye,” said her husband, taking a deep draught of his cider. “Aye, a new day, a new crown prince, and very soon a new princess.”

  “Here’s to the princess!” cried Tippertail with determined jollity, and the others took up his cry and clashed their mugs with such enthusiasm that hands and faces were soon sticky with cider. “Here’s to the princess!”

  They raised their mugs again. But one little boy, a second cousin of Stoneblossom’s recently come to South Stretch, missed connecting his mug to Tippertail’s when something else attracted his eye, nearly causing Tippertail to lose the whole foamy contents of his mug down the front of the boy’s shirt. But the boy scarcely noticed, for he was busy pointing and saying, “Ain’t that the princess?”

  Stoneblossom turned a stern eye upon the lad, prepared to scold him for a fool. But she took a moment to glance the way he pointed. “Iubdan’s beard!” she gasped and nearly dropped the plate of crumb cake she’d been passing round. “Look you over there!”

  The groundskeepers turned to look beyond their little world of celebration out to the broader grounds in which they earned their bread each day. The Eldest’s parklands were not what they’d been before the Occupation. Elegant hedgerows and shaded avenues, long rolling swards of green—all now had given way to scorched craters and ruin. Trees stood like great, burnt matches, and the ground reeked of poison.

  Dragon poison.

  Once a dragon set upon a kingdom, its poisons remained in the soil for generations to come. It mattered not if the dragon flew away again, never more to be seen.

  There was only so much the groundskeepers could do to restore o
rder, much less splendor. But they were true if unsung heroes, doing battle every day to reclaim their king’s domain, far out of sight of the lords and ladies they served, lords and ladies they never saw.

  So it was that, one by one, the groundskeepers muttered and swore as they watched none other than the prince’s bride, running alone down a broken path not far from their grove.

  “It cain’t be her,” said Graybeak with dubious authority. “She’s gettin’ married.”

  “Who else is it, then?” his wife demanded, and he had no answer. For who else could it be? Who else in the Eldest’s court boasted such a crown of curly ginger hair piled and pinned with fantastic elegance atop her head? Who else could wear a silken gown of silver and white, with billowing skirts and billowing sleeves; indeed, with so much billowing one half expected her to take flight? Who else could wear a coronet set with pearls and opals, a coronet that she even now—as the groundskeepers watched aghast—tore from her head and cast aside?

  It was she, the prince’s bride-to-be. It was the Lady Daylily.

  And she was running, skirts gathered, as though for her life.

  “Should we go after her?” whispered Tippertail.

  “And what?” Stoneblossom replied. “Drag her back, kicking and screaming? She’s a lady, she is, far beyond the likes of us. Let her run where she wills.”

  No one spoke the thought that nevertheless flitted within their staring eyes: There would be no wedding today.

  “More crumb cake?” Stoneblossom suggested.

  There are few things more useless than a bridegroom on his wedding day. He goes where he is told, wears what he is told, sits where he is told, stands where he is told; and between these events he waits in stasis, praying to anyone who might be listening that he won’t faint or stutter or otherwise make a clown of himself on this Day of Days. However necessary he is to the due process of things, at least temporarily, he is otherwise merely another warm body to be hustled around.

  But he might at least look smashing while he is about it.

  Prince Foxbrush, his mouth compressed into a tight knot, straightened the already straight fibula on his shoulder and admired himself. He was not a man to make the ladies sigh, certainly not by classical princely standards, being of rather narrow frame with a tendency both to squint and to stoop. He flattered himself, however, on having a decent turnout in red velvet and blue silk, the official colors of the crown prince, everything cut to the latest trends in Continental fashion, complete with a bejeweled collar and a crisp white cravat.