Swift the Chase Read online

  Swift the Chase

  Scenes from 9 Fantastic Stories

  Intisar Khanani

  Raf Morgan

  Casey Blair

  Rachel Neumeier

  P. Djèlí Clark

  Sherwood Smith

  Joyce Chng

  Melissa McShane

  Andrea K. Höst

  Edited by

  Raf Morgan

  Contents

  Introduction

  Raf Morgan

  Intisar Khanani

  Sunbolt

  Raf Morgan

  The Desert Wall

  Casey Blair

  Daring to Chase

  Rachel Neumeier

  World of Tiers

  Phenderson Djéli Clark

  The Angel of Khan el-Khalili

  Sherwood Smith

  Lhind the Thief

  Joyce Chng

  Wolf at the Door

  Melissa McShane

  Pretender to the Crown

  Andrea K Höst

  The Pyramids of London

  Introduction: copyright 2019 Raf Morgan

  The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of any other agency, organization, employer or company.

  Cover design by by Jenny Zemanek at Seedlings Design Studio

  Version 4

  The Fourth Gorgon Press

  New York, NY

  Introduction

  Raf Morgan

  I love chase scenes.

  Add in a rich three-dimensional cityscape, where the chase can lead up and over roofs, down underground through tunnels or sewers, through twisty crowded streets, a hapless vendor’s stall or the backyard of befuddled family, and I’m all in. I love imagining the wintry scent of falling snow and the burn of ice on ungloved hands, or the fierce sun hot on the top of the character’s head and the smell of citrus and crushed dates—crushed of course when the smart, crafty, cunning, hopeful, desperate, loyal hero runs over them in her bid to escape. All those elements, and more, are here in the excerpts that follow.

  I have loved the work of some of the writers in this collection for years, and some are new to me, discovered in the course of finding others who have written chase scenes that satisfy that itch.

  The excerpts that follow are just that—sections of larger works, from short stories, to novels, to a web serial, meant to tease your appetite and introduce you to new authors and new adventures. It’s a curated equivalent of the “look inside” feature of online retailers, with two exceptions.

  Two of my favorite authors contributed scenes that aren’t available anywhere else: Casey Blair wrote an exclusive bonus scene to Tea Set and Match, sure to delight fans of that serial (it delighted me!), and Rachel Neumeier has shared a scene from an unpublished novel, The World of Tiers, which made my little fan heart swoop.

  If my copies of Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani, Lhind the Thief by Sherwood Smith, and The Pyramids of London by Andrea K. Höst were paper instead of digital, their pages would be soft with many re-readings. I go back to these authors again and again when I need to be cheered up and rediscover a sense of hope.

  P. Djèlí Clark, author of “The Angel of Khan el-Khalili,” is writing the supernatural alternate history set in Cairo I didn’t know I needed until I read it; and Joyce Chng the female werewolf sibling rivalry I didn’t know I needed in Wolf at the Door. Finally, I was introduced to Melissa McShane’s indomitable female heroes in Pretender to the Crown when I was looking for authors to round out this collection.

  These books and short story are available for sale at most major retailers. I hope you’ll fall in love as hard as I did and want to keep reading.

  * * *

  Raf Morgan

  August 2019

  Intisar Khanani

  Intisar Khanani grew up a nomad and world traveler. She has lived in five different states as well as in Jeddah on the coast of the Red Sea. Until recently, Intisar wrote grants and developed projects to address community health with the Cincinnati Health Department, which was as close as she could get to saving the world. Now she focuses her time on her two passions: raising her family and writing fantasy. Intisar’s debut novel, Thorn, was picked up by HarperTeen and will be re-released in Winter 2020. In the meantime, she’s hard at work on the remaining books of The Sunbolt Chronicles.

  A street thief with a dangerous sense of honor, Hitomi is on her way to a meeting of the Shadow League, the underground resistance working to undermine the corrupt and powerful Arch Mage Blackflame... if she can only get there safely.

  The winding streets and narrow alleys of Karolene hide many secrets, and Hitomi is one of them. Orphaned at a young age, Hitomi has learned to hide her magical aptitude and who her parents really were. Most of all, she must conceal her role in the Shadow League, an underground movement working to undermine the powerful and corrupt Archmage Wilhelm Blackflame.

  When the League gets word that Blackflame intends to detain—and execute—a leading political family, Hitomi volunteers to help the family escape. But there are more secrets at play than Hitomi’s, and much worse fates than execution. When Hitomi finds herself captured along with her charges, it will take everything she can summon to escape with her life.

  Sunbolt

  “Mgeni! Stay a moment; I have your future for you.”

  I grin, turning toward Mama Ali. She sits beneath the cloth shade of her market stall, her husband’s catch heaped on the wooden counter before her: mounds of sardines, glinting silver bright in the sun. Today there’s also a single little octopus that must have gotten tangled in his nets, its fleshy body turned over to show the white of its tentacles.

  With her wide smile and heavy girth, Mama Ali is a well-known fixture of the fish market, her laughter booming across the crowded aisles, and her penchant for sharing people’s futures indulged in even by the locals. Her son, ten years old and shrewder than a hundred-year-old owl, perches beside her, watching me.

  “You can keep my future, Mama Ali,” I reply. “It will probably do you more good than me.”

  My words draw laughter from the surrounding fishmongers. The market stalls are packed tightly together, every counter offering up the bounty of the sea, scenting the air with salt and fish. Above the stalls flap brightly colored cloth shades, protecting both the women and their goods from the sun’s heat.

  I hear someone ask what she missed, and a woman replies, calling me mgeni again. My smile slips a notch. I may have adopted the traditional, brightly colored long skirt and tunic of the local women, as well as the tightly wound head wrap, but my sand-gold skin and the shape of my eyes will always mark me as someone else. Mama Ali uses the term as an endearment, but the echoes I hear now brand me as an outsider.

  Mama Ali holds out her hand imperiously, a queen demanding tribute from the riffraff that forms her court. “Come, my friend, keeper of secrets, let us see what we can.”

  “What will you give me?” I ask, hoping “keeper of secrets” is just a phrase she uses on potential customers. Regardless, I don’t have the coin to pay her, so I may as well be clear I won’t be giving anything.

  “Give you? Your future, muddle-brain! And, because you are always admiring my wares, I will give it to you for free.”

  “Oh, very well.” I acquiesce none too gracefully, offering Mama Ali my hand. With her palms clasped around my hand, I wait, trying not to fidget too much. I may be running a little late, but there’s no reason to think the meeting will have started on time. Besides, since I wasn’t invited in the first
place, no one will miss me. “Don’t tell me I’m going to meet someone new, dark of skin and—”

  “Short,” Mama Ali agrees.

  I nearly choke. “Short?”

  She drops her voice. “Well, if I want to be sure it happens, short is so much more likely than tall, isn’t it? At least,” she nods her head to suggest the market, as well as the rest of the island, “here.”

  I laugh. I think this must be why Mama Ali and I get along so well. “Right. Short and dark.”

  “No.” She pulls a frown. “For you, something different.”

  I glance toward the sky, gauging the angle of the late morning sun. Magic is one thing, but divining the future? Not so much. “I really have to—”

  “You are going somewhere,” Mama Ali intones, closing her eyes. I glance at her son in disbelief. Ali grins wide, his teeth showing pearly white against his earth-brown skin.

  “I was before you stopped me,” I agree.

  Mama Ali heaves a theatrical sigh, squeezing my hand rather painfully. “Somewhere important,” she clarifies. She tilts her head as if listening. And Mama Ali hears a lot — she has her pulse on the happenings of Karolene. Maybe there’s something she knows. Has she gotten news about the League? Or the Ghost?

  She drops my hand, sitting back with a gasp. “Run!”

  “What?” I glance over my shoulder, instinctively looking for signs of danger. The market is busy, filled with people laughing and bargaining over the night’s catch. There are dozens of stalls crammed together, aisle upon aisle, but nothing and no one seems out of place. There’s no sign of either the sultan’s guards or hired mercenaries.

  “You are late,” Mama Ali cries.

  “Of course I am; isn’t everyone on the island always late? That’s the way time works here.”

  She catches my arm, and I can’t tell if she’s acting or serious. “No, listen to me, Hitomi. You must run now, and—” she hesitates.

  “And?”

  “Keep running,” she says. She points down the aisle. “Run.”

  “Run, mgeni!” a woman from two stalls down calls, her voice bright with laughter, and then everyone starts shouting encouragement.

  Laughing, I duck away from the market stall, zigzagging through the market. I keep up a steady jog. A sprint will attract too much attention and, without a clear enemy to escape, expend too much energy. And anyway, I can still faintly hear the laughter from the corner of the market I’ve left behind. Mama Ali must be enjoying her joke.

  I hop over the tail of a tiger shark lying half-butchered in the aisle, eliciting a sharp word from the seller, and round the corner. The sounds of the market drop to a bare whisper. Not because I’ve left the market, but because walking straight toward me are a half dozen mercenaries, all with the feared black bands wrapped around their right forearms. They’re not just any mercenaries, but part of Arch Mage Blackflame’s guard. The sellers on both sides of the aisle are meticulously checking their wares, looking everywhere but at the armed men in their midst. Most of the buyers have already discreetly slipped away.

  I stumble slightly, trying to drop into a casual walk. The leader of the guards looks me straight in the eye. His face is long and sharp, his eyes a little too small, too deeply set. His gaze skims my body before returning to my face. A mean, tight smile stretches his lips.

  Damn. Damn damn damn. I drop my chin, glancing quickly around to get my bearings. There’s no escape down a side aisle here, the stalls packed tightly together. I’ve come too far to chance turning and running — because turning tail is an admission of guilt. They would be after me with their daggers drawn before I reached the corner. I’m not about to chance my speed against theirs unless I must. So I keep walking, keeping my gaze down, staying so close to the stalls on my left that I graze my hip against the chipped wood of the counters.

  “Look what’s here,” the leader says, calling the other soldiers’ attention to me. My steps falter as they veer toward me, quickly closing the distance between us. “What do you think she is? A mutt or a half-breed?”

  A half-breed they might not bother because those who are half-human and half-something-else often have a strength or ability that could cause more trouble than these men are looking for. Unfortunately for me, the secret I guard is fully human. I glance sideways at the fish seller in the stall beside me, wondering if I can count on her. She is young, no more than a handful of years past my own fifteen, her eyes wide with panic. No help there. I swallow hard, trying to ease the fear thrumming through my veins.

  I begin to back away, offering a hesitant smile to the soldiers. A smile? What am I doing? I should run—

  But it’s already too late. Two of the soldiers have moved ahead of the others, circling past me. I’m surrounded.

  “Mutt,” says one of the soldiers, taking in my features. I feel myself flush slightly. My parents may have been from different lands, but a good number of islanders have other blood in them, even if it dates back a few generations. How else did the noble women come by their sleek hair? Their problem isn’t with my bloodline. It’s with the fact that I’m a misfit — a foreigner in local dress — and I make an easy target.

  “Half-breed,” two others posit, their boots sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet. No one wears boots in Karolene, not unless they’re soldiers.

  “Definitely a mutt,” a soldier behind me says. He’s come to a stop a couple paces away, no doubt waiting for his leader to make the first move.

  “Well, girl, what are you?” the leader asks.

  I refuse to answer in the words they’ve afforded me. “Human,” I say. “Sir.”

  He laughs, sauntering up to me. “Human! Imagine that. What a mess of features you are.” If the market aisle was quiet before, now it has gone silent.

  I need to find a way out. My eyes flick first one way then another, tracking the guards, looking for an escape route — and fasten on a middle-aged woman across the aisle. She holds something up — a charm? — then points to the next stall down from the one beside me. How I’ll get to it, I have no idea, but I suspect I just need to follow her lead.

  The soldier reaches forward and grabs my headwrap, yanking it off. I stumble, banging my hip against the stall, and the girl in the stall yelps with shock. The other guards laugh. I grip the counter tightly with one hand, looking him straight in the eye. I have to lift my chin, because unlike the local men, he’s tall. Probably a mainlander recruited for the job.

  “I’ll have that back, please,” I say, trying to keep my voice even.

  He ignores me, tossing the wrap to the dirt beside his boots. “Scruffy as a dog,” he says, eyeing my short, wavy black hair with disgust. The other soldiers hoot with laughter, and I have no doubt that in a moment they’ll take the dog analogy a step further. And what they’ll do after that….

  Skreeeee!

  The soldiers shout, ducking down. A small dark object whizzes past over their heads. I leap onto the counter and jump to the next stall from there before the soldier even realizes he’s lost me. The woman there grabs me by the waist and swings me down, using my momentum to shove me out the back exit of her stall. I stumble slightly as I hear her screech, “My fish! You stepped on my fish! You better run, girl, or I’ll pull your ears off! You scared of soldiers? I’ll give you something to fear!”

  She’s protecting herself, I realize. Grinning fiercely, I sprint between the backs of two other stalls and emerge into the next aisle. The woman’s shouts have alerted everyone in the next aisle to my running. They are tense and quiet, watching me as I leap into the center aisle. The sellers bend over their counters to see; the customers turn to stare at me.

  “Mercenaries,” I call. “Blackflame’s!”

  “Here,” a woman selling shrimp gestures to me. I race to her stall, the crowds parting and then closing back up behind me. I slide over the counter, dropping to a crouch. The guards tear around the corner after me, but they have to shove their way past the men and women in the aisle, granting me
a few precious moments. Once more, I find myself careening through a back exit, this one nothing more than a bit of cloth tacked up over a gap in the wooden planks.

  I sprint down the aisle, leaping over a broken crate, and duck through another back exit into a stall in the next aisle.

  “What? Who—” An older woman this time, her face lined. A boy stands on the other side of her counter, a coin in his hand. He gapes at me as well.

  “Blackflame’s guards,” I gasp out.

  She yanks open a crate hidden beneath her counter and pushes me in, slamming the top down as soon as I pull my head in. I lie on my side, my cheek pressed against … smooth rocks? In the fish market? As my breathing slows, I take in the faint, woody scent of green coconuts. Of course. I’ve left the fish market, crossing the invisible line into the fruit and vegetable sellers’ section. Karolene’s local markets run together, bleeding into each other. It’s only the import and export markets, carefully regulated by the sultan’s palace, that each have their own special streets.

  Curled on top of the fruit-seller’s wares, I listen for pursuit. I still have one weapon left: a secret I have kept and guarded my whole life. My friends think the charms and magical items I own come from a connection to one of the mage families living here. It’s not an unlikely scenario: that’s how most people get such things.

  But the truth is that I’m a Promise, a young magical talent, trained in secret by my parents. At least until they died. While I’ve continued training on my own, I don’t know any defensive spells that would do me much good right now. I’d have to make something up, and that could endanger the people who have sheltered me. So I lie as quietly as possible, ignoring the pain of cramping muscles, and hope the soldiers don’t find me.