Skyes fall, p.1
Skye's Fall, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Will Forrest
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by law.
For permission requests, contact info@hardcastlebooks.com
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons living or deceased, places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by Hardcastle Books
Images licensed by Depositphotos
ISBN: 978-1-990115-74-5
1st edition 2023
SKYE’S FALL
BOOK ONE OF: THE JAIME SKYE CHRONICLES
Jaime Skye is an ordinary man. Or so he’s always hoped, but magical blood runs in his veins.
A legacy that cannot be denied. A power that makes him a target.
Or a weapon.
CHAPTERS
TAKEN
THE DOLDRUMS
THE MINDER
SUBMISSION
THE GIFT
THE STORM
MUTINY
THE ST LAWRENCE
PORT OF CALL
STRIKE & ECKHART
SMALL MERCIES
SHAME
NEED
LES BOYS
YONGE STREET
BETTER OFF ALONE
PORTAGE
THE DUKE’S MAN
LAST WORDS
DESCENT
COLD COMFORT
COMRADES
WHAT WAITS BELOW
CARY’S REMORSE
THE BOMB
RUIN
RESCUE
SIR DEATH
SOUTHBOUND
AT LAST
THE JAIME SKYE CHRONICLES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS
TAKEN
For the fifth time today, Cary Robb weighed the worth of murdering Lord High Magister Hercule Sandover. He’d be doing the world a favour to rid it of the odious mage, though it cost Cary his soul. If it was only his soul alone which hung on their diabolical master’s whim, but for Cary to curse his kin-folk to the same spiritual exile was too great a sin in a lifetime of such sins. And so he followed Sandover through the filth and noise of the Portsmouth dockyards, bound for the ship that would take them westward to the Americas, where their ordeal would truly commence.
They’d spent the day securing the last of the crew and cargo, Cary’s role confined to standing at Sandover’s elbow looking menacing as the Lord Magister did his business. All above board, but Sandover dressed like a Versailles fop, gauded up in last century’s pink sateen knee-breeches and a tricorne with a plume amid the dockyard’s flannel and canvas and muck, and was a ready target for thieves of all stripe. Cary was there for the thieves’ protection, for the mage was capable of killing with a thought and a snap of his manicured fingers, and he had left more than one eager-handed lout choking in the dirt. Dead men lead to complications, such as the police, who had to be paid off, or a thief’s companions, who had to be threatened with worse violence.
Their ship was moored at the next wharf, and as they rounded the corner of a warehouse, a shout of alarm rose from the water. Wharfmen and sailors leapt to secure the lines of their vessels, the masts of every ship in sight pitching back and forth as a freak wave struck the harbour. Seamen clung to the ropes of the tilting gangplank of their ship as another man—scrawny, panicked—scrambled on all fours towards solid ground.
Sandover cursed, baring his teeth. “Skye,” he hissed. “You shan’t escape me twice.” Pointing at the man, he gripped Cary’s sleeve. “Stop that man at once.”
Any other man, and he’d not think twice about refusing, for anyone clever enough to flee this doomed venture deserved their freedom. Skye was another matter, was the very reason for the venture, though the duke had not lowered himself to explain further. Merely ordered Cary to keep Skye alive at any cost, and to not let him escape. One man’s freedom against Cary’s ancestors, his blood, all his dreamings, and he shook off Sandover’s greedy hand and began to shove his way through the frantic dockyard towards the runaway.
Pinned by a pair of drays heavily laden with sacks, Skye had hesitated. Cary reached for him, meaning to catch his arm, grabbing a short handful of his hair instead as he made to duck between the vehicles. As he shrieked and clutched at his head, Cary got an arm around his middle and yanked the slender bloke awoke clear off his feet.
“Quit squirming, you ratbag,” he grunted, letting go of Skye’s sweat-dampened hair to thump him a good one on the side of the head. Groaning, he sagged in Cary’s grip as he lugged him up the gangplank. As Cary stepped onto the swaying deck, Skye awoke in a frenzy, hissing and clawing at him like a feral cat, his sharp heels hacking at Cary’s shins.
He grabbed Skye about the neck and slammed him against the cabin wall. The duke had spoken of this Jaime Skye as a fearsome mage of unparalleled power. If so, that power lay deep within, for he looked like a salamander found under a damp rock, gawping and pale, his hair a reddish fuzz clinging to his scalp, sweat beading across his translucent forehead and cheeks despite the steady breeze.
“Get on with it then,” he choked, his face pinched with bitter defiance. “Whatever it is you’re going to do to me.”
As if he expected the worst. As if this was not the first cruel hand he’d felt. With that familiar wrenching sense of justice ill-served, Cary yanked open the door to the bare, cramped cabin Sandover had prepared to contain both the man and his magic. He thrust Skye inside and shut the door, then latched it, barred it, and walked away.
The waves had caused plenty of damage, spilling barrels and tumbling crates in the hold. Preparing to weigh anchor offered chores enough to keep Cary’s hands occupied. He struggled to occupy his mind as Skye began begging. Not for mercy but for intervention. Louder and louder, until his screams reverberated through the very marrow of the ship: don’t let them take me.
At last his voice gave out. The sky had lowered while the tugs had drawn their ship into the seaward current, and as the sails caught the wind, a miserable rain began to fall.
THE DOLDRUMS
For all he’d endured in the series of terrible events which passed for his life—the loneliness and dreariness, the self-doubt and denial, in and out of orphanages, foster homes, and asylums—Jaime Skye had never once known thirst. Hunger, yes, and of that far too much on this wretched voyage. The water his powers allowed him to draw from the air was enough to keep him alive but only barely. As he had more than once in his thirty-four years, he hoped this time he might die.
Slumped against the corner of the rank closet that served as his cabin, his chin resting on one up-bent knee, he shut his eyes against the assault of daylight as the door scraped open. His stomach tightened as the burnt treacle scent of Sandover’s magic rolled over him.
“I don’t care what state he’s in.” Though he spoke in English, Sandover’s French birth was apparent in his sneering sibilance. “If this ship doesn’t start to move, we’ll not live to see landfall.”
“You can bloody well fetch him yourself,” the man known as Robb grunted through his teeth, his voice like tumbling rocks.
“With pleasure.”
Jaime was flung into full awareness by a catastrophic pain, as though his very bones had caught alight and were burning him alive from the inside, eclipsing anything he’d suffered in his past. As quickly as it began, it ended, leaving him trembling and drenched with his peculiar sweat. A blessing and a curse of his condition, for more than once Sandover had ‘bled’ him in a similar fashion, torturing him then licking the salt-less water straight from Jaime’s skin. A vile exploitation that transcended the merely physical.
“I can do that all day and night, Mr. Skye,” the magister called from the door of Jaime’s cell.
“I can’t do what you want.” Barely a breath, but the magister’s ears had uncanny reach.
“You can and will. Bring him to the prow.”
He might disobey Sandover’s words, even his torture. He could do nothing to resist Robb’s mighty grasp as he hoisted Jaime to his feet by his coat collar. His legs had cramped from so long in his huddled position, and hating his weakness he clung to the man’s arm. A massive limb, hard as stone, tanned as leather. The arm was a piece with the man, his brow permanently furrowed, his woolly brown beard blurring the lower half of his even darker face as he half-dragged Jaime out of the miserable hatch where they kept him between Sandover’s futile attempts to make him wake the water.
Futile because Jaime didn’t know what to do. He’d had so few chances to learn how to use his powers, after a lifetime of being told they were a figment of his broken mind. For all he knew, everything that he’d achieved in that underground battle with Sandover had been Adrian’s doing. Adrian’s wishful thinking that Jaime was his equal in magical ability and not a conveniently placed madman.
Sandover didn’t believe him. Or didn’t care, and was hoping that Jaime would intuit the means by either luck or force of will, neglecting the fact that Jaime was more than happy to starve to death on this wretched ship in the middle of the Atlantic if only he could be sure of taking Sandover with him.
How long had they drifted in the doldrums? Two weeks? Three? He’d stopped counting days ago, for he so rarely saw the sky. No matter the day, Robb stayed Robb, and Sandover changed clothes ever y hour, and the rest of the crew stayed out of sight as best they could, for Sandover’s temper was vile and his punishments medieval.
The mage was waiting at the prow dressed in pristine mauve silk, the fabric kept clean by magical means for everyone else aboard stank like stable leavings. He smiled, not showing his teeth, for like several others his gums had begun bleeding now that the stores of fresh food had run out. Served the vainglorious shit right.
“Mr. Skye, I do wish you would be reasonable.” Days of next to no water had dried Sandover’s sweetly tuned voice to a witch’s rasp.
“I told you, it’s not a matter of reason,” Jaime replied, his parched lips cracking anew. “I don’t know what to do.”
“That is a lie,” Sandover hissed, a deadly light sparking in his eyes as his polite façade fell away. “I know you have power. I felt it when you emptied the canal.”
“That was Lear’s doing.”
“There’s no need to be humble, Mr. Skye,” he said, smiling again. False to the core. “We could achieve so much working together. How can it serve you to refuse what I ask?”
“Anything that frustrates you serves my purposes.”
“You do realize if we don’t find some wind you’ll be dead soon.”
“So will you.”
“You want to think that, but I’ve a deal with Sir Death. He works for me, you see? And now so do you.”
“Go to hell.”
This close, Sandover’s magic hit with indescribable force, Jaime’s shriek tearing at his arid throat as he fell writhing to the deck. At once it ended, the agony echoing through his limbs as Robb dragged him to his feet once more.
“Your choice, Skye. And don’t even think about jumping overboard. I don’t care how undrownable your damned family is, you’ll starve to death before you reach land. If the sharks don’t get you first, that is. Now where’s that barrel?”
“He’s no good to us dead,” Robb grunted as Sandover wrenched Jaime from his grasp to frog-march him across the deck.
“He’s not much good now,” Sandover spat.
“Perhaps if you fed him—”
“He’ll eat when he earns it.”
The barrel of seawater stood waist-high and had sat open on the deck for a week. A salty green crust rimmed the inside of the barrel, the stench pummelling Jaime’s overly sensitive nose. He braced his hands on the splintering rim as Sandover grabbed a handful of hair to force his head under the noxious water.
The first time he’d fought like the devil. Sandover had set him alight with pain then starved him for three days. He’d fight again, to the death. Sandover had taken everything he had, every friend, every comfort, every hope. The oily water seethed, ripples forming as he struggled against the wrenching grip on the back of his head.
“We don’t have to do it this way, Mr. Skye,” Sandover hissed. “I ask so very little.”
“I can’t do what you ask.”
“Then suffer.” Beyond summoning pain, Sandover’s power allowed him control of others’ bodies. Less so when one was endowed as Jaime was with Unordinary powers, but he was sickened, weak, far from home and so wretchedly tired of fighting. A shade passed over Sandover’s grey eyes like the flick of a reptile’s false eyelid as with a jolt Jaime’s arms gave way. He shut his eyes and mouth as his head plunged beneath the surface. There was no way to close his nose, his sinuses inundated by the foul water.
The Skyes were undrownable. He knew it was so, and yet he struggled, unwilling to give Sandover the least quarter, as his lungs burned and his face ached,. Suddenly he was yanked upright. He fell to the deck to see Sandover and Robb standing off, Sandover’s sunburnt face purple with rage.
“How dare you!” the mage shrieked in his hawk’s rasp.
“You were killing him,” Robb replied bluntly, his carven face inexpressive.
“No less than he’s doing to me.”
“Lay off him,” Robb said more harshly as Sandover took a step towards Jaime. “I reckon he’s telling the truth.”
“And what do you reckon that on?” Sandover replied, though he came no closer.
“No man wants to die.”
“Speak for yourself,” Jaime croaked. Fool, such a fool, as with another savage shriek Sandover leapt upon him, grabbing him by the hair again.
“I knew it!” he snarled, shaking him so hard his teeth rattled. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? Killing us all along with yourself. How revoltingly selfish, Mr. Skye. Tell me, do you know what it means to keel-haul a man? Because I’d be very happy to demonstrate.”
He dropped him again and stepped back. With a terrible smile he drew back his foot in its pointed slipper, preparing to kick him in the stomach. Froze with his foot suspended in the air, his face in a rictus of conflicting emotions, the smile belied by the panic in his wheeling eyes. Unbalanced, he tumbled to one side, hitting the deck with a pinched wheeze of agony.
Then Robb’s massive hands were under Jaime’s arms as he lifted him. Higher, laying Jaime’s limp body across his plank of a shoulder as he started for the hatch that would take them below.
THE MINDER
In the cramped forward hold, Cary propped a moaning Skye on a crate to strip off his fouled shirt. He wiped his face and neck clean of the scum from the barrel while Skye batted at him with limp hands.
“Why did you do that?” he asked in a breathy sigh, the words sliding into one another. “Why did you stop him.”
Not how, but why. “Because I need you alive.”
“If you have such power…why haven’t you killed him?”
“I need him alive, too. He has something I want.”
“Stolen, no doubt,” Skye breathed with a hint of a laugh. Cary said nothing. It wasn’t Skye’s business. “Like I was,” he went on. “I shouldn’t have left him. Adrian, I’m so sorry…”
Then he was gone into sleep, his features slackening before Cary’s eyes. Yet so starved he was that Cary lifted the man as easily as a child. He laid him in his own hammock, where the poor bugger curled up and started shivering though the hold was as stifling as ever.
He had just settled a woollen blanket over Skye when Sandover’s grotty slippers came clacking down the ladder. The rotter paused in the square of sunlight falling through the hatch, which bleached Sandover’s face back to its northern pallor, his fair hair glowing like a froth of wattle blossoms. He was a cesspit.
“That was a clever little trick, Mr. Robb,” he said in his cawing rasp.
“I’d stay there if I were you. It’s dangerous down here in the dark.”
“It’s not you I’m here to see.”
“Which is why you ought to keep to yourself.”
“Have you’ve forgotten who’s in command?”
“I haven’t forgotten, I just don’t bloody care. And you’d do well to remember whose command you’re under. What will his grace say if you damage his toy?”
Sandover’s rage shimmered hotly, but Cary had the read of him. The man was foul but insignificant, a fly buzzing around an open wound, as much a slave as Cary to their dreadful master, who could crush them all with a thought, raise the ship from the water and dash it to bits on the nearest island, or simply submerge them. A man who could have magicked his way across the sea and instead sent his servants to risk their lives in his place. Cary hadn’t expected the greatest danger would be from one of their own.
“If I’m to mind Skye, he stays where I can see him,” Cary said, daring Sandover to overstep and give him an excuse. Any excuse, even if it saw them all sent to Davy Jones.
“If he should escape—”
“To bloody where?”
Sandover didn’t blink. “If he should, it shall be you who suffers his grace’s displeasure, Mr. Robb.”
He performed a courtly bow, all twirling wrists and simpering, then scurried up the ladder. Skye hadn’t stirred, his shoulders rising and falling naturally under the fraying blanket. Sleep would do him right. Hopefully he’d find his way into a good dream.
Cary hadn't had much luck finding any for himself. Then again he’d been away from country for close on four years. He could feel the landscape below them, great mountains and valleys to dwarf those above the surface of the water, their fragile ship a twig in a flood. Sandover was right, even if Skye survived immersion, the bugger would never reach land. Things got strange in the deep. Cary had seen enough impossible creatures dragged up from the bottom of the sea to know it was a place unlike the world of humankind. Some mysteries weren’t meant to be solved.
