Arrows of Promise (Kingmakers Book 2) Read online

  Published by Raconteur House

  Antioch, TN

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ARROWS OF PROMISE

  Book Two of Kingmakers

  A Raconteur House book/ published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Raconteur House mass-market edition/February 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Honor Raconteur

  Cover by Katie Griffin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information address:

  Raconteur House

  3425 Daisy Trail

  Antioch, TN, 37013

  www.raconteurhouse.com

  Other books by Honor Raconteur

  Published by Raconteur House

  THE ADVENT MAGE CYCLE

  Book One: Jaunten

  Book Two: Magus

  Book Three: Advent

  Book Four: Balancer

  Advent Mage Compendium

  The Dragon’s Mage

  The Lost Mage

  Warlords Rising *

  Special Forces 01

  The Midnight Quest

  Kingslayer

  THE ARTIFACTOR SERIES

  The Child Prince

  The Dreamer’s Curse

  The Scofflaw Magician

  DEEPWOODS SAGA

  Deepwoods

  Blackstone

  Fallen Ward

  KINGMAKERS

  Arrows of Change

  Arrows of Promise

  *Coming soon

  You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'

  You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Chapter One

  Mayhap they should have planned this better.

  “You can’t put a tannery right here near the shoreline!” a red-faced man was blustering, arms windmilling in aggravation. “The smell alone, man!”

  “I need direct access to the water,” the tanner argued back, a vein twitching in his forehead. “And there’s only so much cleared land, you idiot, so where else am I supposed to build it? EH?!”

  They really, truly, should have planned this out better. This wasn’t the only argument near Riana. Her ears picked up bits and pieces of about five arguments, two calmer discussions, and a great deal of confusion. She glanced over her shoulder at her wizard-partner.

  Ash had one hand cupping his left ear, the other plugging his right, all in an attempt to hear better. Catching her eye, he twitched his mouth into a quick frown and gave her a minute shake of the head. So, he couldn’t reach either Ashlynn or Edvard? Well that wasn’t good.

  Clearly, they’d fallen short here. Someone should have thought this through. They’d been so focused on contacting people, putting in the contracts, and gathering the supplies that they had failed to plan out how the new settlement should be built. They had no layout and so people were jockeying for position. They’d only been on the new land three hours and barely had anything unloaded from the boats and already there were arguments springing up all over the place.

  Riana turned to Ash and asked, “Be it no’ possible to just use the layout of the city?”

  He blinked at her as if this idea had not even occurred to him. “We don’t have enough land cleared to be able to mimic it exactly. I only had time to clear fifty acres. We’d need ten more to pull that off. At least. Well, no, actually we can’t afford to do that as we still need some of that acreage for crops.”

  She put her hands on her hips and looked at him with a bemused exasperation. “Coriander take it, man. We do no’ need to do the exact layout of the city right this second. All we need to do be start the bare bones of it.”

  Ash looked up the shoreline and then slowly turned, taking in everything that he had cleared. A contemplative frown furrowed between his eyes. “There is enough space for that. At least, if we limit it to three streets. Hopefully we can get the essential buildings in before I have to clear more land.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder and squeezed before raising his voice so that the whole crowd could hear him.

  “Everyone listen up! We have a plan in place. We will duplicate the layout of the city here in the settlement. For now, I will mark where the roads are going to go. As I do that, I will also mark out how much land each building will get. In the meantime, get everything off the boats, and if you know what street your business should be on then organize yourselves to where you were on the correct street. Anyone that doesn’t have a corresponding location, choose a lot that you like and speak with me. We’ll mark property down as it’s claimed.”

  That stopped all the arguments in their tracks. Some did not seem very enthused by this idea, but most agreed that it was the only sensible way to approach the matter. Riana had a notion that people would not be able to organize themselves quite as well as Ash expected them to. So as he went around burning lines into the soil and creating magical signs to name the roads, she tried to organize the people into the right groups. It took a lot of hopping on her part and shouting the same words over and over, but eventually she was able to get them more or less sorted.

  Edvard’s hopeful estimation that they would be able to start construction by the second day turned out to be a total miss. By the time that they got the boats unloaded, the lines of the settlement drawn out, and people sorted out to where they should go, they were in danger of losing the light completely. There were just too many supplies that they had to bring over from Estole. Most of their time was eaten up with unloading the cargo and carting it to the right spot. People stopped at sunset and set up tents and cook fires and got ready to make dinner for the night. Riana and Ash were no exception, although Riana was the one setting up camp for the night as Ash worked on creating what he called ‘a plan of attack.’

  Ash came back to their camp when the light failed him completely. He flopped down next to her like a puppet with its strings cut. Even in the dim lighting she could see that he was covered in sweat. Without a word, she ladled up a bowl of soup and dropped a long piece of flat bread into it before handing it over. He ate the whole bowl so quickly that it seemed as if he inhaled it. He handed it back to her for a refill, which she did, but this time he actually said something to her before eating. “How is it?”

  “Everyone be sorted out,” she assured him. “They might rearrange themselves a little as there was talk when I left about who be best where. But they all know more or less where they need to be.”

  “Thank Macha for that. We really should have come over here ahead of time and worked everything out before people arrived.”

  They truly should have, but even now Riana had no idea when they would’ve found the time. Ever since she had arrived in Estole, she had been going hither and thither without more than ten minutes to sit and gather her peace of mind. And the idea of the settlement itself was so new that they had not even assigned a provost to it yet. Ash had been deemed the Interim Provost until one could be officially appointed.

  As settlements went, this one was well-funded and well-supplied. The
y already had more people here than the entirety of her hometown. They had tanners, blacksmiths, loggers, carpenters, and at least one innkeeper that had the sense to get in on the ground floor.

  As Ash recuperated, Riana sat there and tried to think logically through what needed to happen next. Not everyone over here was set to create a business, of course, as they had at least a hundred contracted workers who had agreed to do specific things in exchange for land and building supplies. So they had people on hand to build the city structure itself. With that in mind… “Ash, I be thinking that the docks should be built first.”

  “Considering the trouble that people had today unloading, I think that a splendid notion. I suppose I should be the one overseeing that.”

  “I’ve no notion on how to build docks,” she said dryly, “so aye, that be best. While ye be focused on that, I think I will stay on top of people and mediate any arguments.”

  “Someone will need to,” he agreed. “That, too, was clear today.” Lifting his head, he looked at her. “After the docks, I think we need to focus on specific buildings. The question is, which ones to build first? We need a lumber mill, a blacksmith, a carpentry, and a marketplace all set up at basically the same time.”

  Riana gave him a level look. “Ash. Do ye like to eat?”

  “Of course. Who doesn’t?”

  “Then mayhap ye should put the inn in the top part of yer priorities. For the kitchen, if nothing else.”

  He opened his mouth, closed it, and hummed thoughtfully. “You do have a point. If we can have the kitchen up and running, then they can feed the whole camp and let us focus on the work. Do we have enough supplies to get at least the main level of the inn built?”

  “Near enough to make no nevermind.”

  Ash nodded, decided. “Inn first. Well, actually, we have enough help up here that I should be able to set some people to building the inn while others build the…lumber mill? Blacksmith?”

  “Smithy be faster to build, I think,” she mused. “Most of what the man needs is a kiln, a hearth, and work benches. Bulk of his equipment he brought in with him.”

  “I think he might need a few more things than that,” Ash demurred. “But it will be faster setting him up than getting the mill in.” Taking a rumpled piece of paper from his pocket, he grabbed the pencil that was balanced behind his ear and started scratching things out and re-ordering them. “I’ll get the foundations in for each of the buildings tomorrow, it’s faster if I do it, and then I will focus on the docks. Can you get the work crews in place and make sure people know which buildings to focus on?”

  “Leave it to me,” she assured him.

  Ash folded the paper back up and pocketed it before resuming his dinner. “Was this what you expected? I know at first you weren’t keen on the idea of coming up here.”

  “This be a far cry from Cloud’s Rest.” She snorted, amused at her own fears. “In fact, it do no’ have a thing in common with it.”

  “I agree. Actually, a strange thought just occurred. When we spoke of this before, you said that eventually the settlement would grow to be a city in its own right and would probably get close to Cloud’s Rest, right?”

  Wondering where he was going with this, she agreed, “Right....”

  “But wouldn’t that mean that Cloud’s Rest would meld into Estole?”

  Her eyes crossed as she realized what he meant. “Ye think they will be part of Estole?”

  “Why wouldn’t they be?” he challenged. “Think about it. Iysh claims that territory, but they don’t govern it or have any real contact with it. The village runs itself. If another kingdom came within a stone’s throw of its borders, then….”

  He was right. It was very possible that in the future Cloud’s Rest would be folded into Estole. The thought boggled her mind. “But that would mean…?”

  “Yes, it would.” Ash seemed to be able to read her mind in that moment. “That you would eventually be a Councilwoman over your former hometown.” He slapped a hand against his knee in open amusement. “I’m actually looking forward to this. The expression on their faces is going to be classic.”

  Aye, it would be at that. Actually, now she was looking forward to it herself. How did that saying go…? Something about revenge being best served cold. She had to wonder if it was the same for comeuppance. Shaking the fancy away, she focused more on the here and now. “After the docks, what be best to do next?”

  “Hmm,” he hummed as he thought it through. “I think it would be best to put in the sewer system under the streets after that. Best get that in there before they build too far into the road. After that, I guess we will see what needs to be in the most?”

  “Would it no’ be best to put in wells at the same time ye put in the roads? The channel be no’ freshwater after all.”

  “That is a very good point. I will focus on doing that at the same time then. Why does it feel like everything needs to be done at the same time?”

  That last bit had come out as more of a complaint. But then, the man had the right to complain. It had been a hard few months. “Because it does?”

  “Not reassuring,” he sighed. Rolling over onto his side he heaved himself to his feet and staggered for the open tent. “Do not wake me before sunrise. Not unless something is on fire.”

  “Aye, that I will do.” Lifting the dishes, she headed for the channel. If the man had to do his own washing up, he would’ve thought of the wells, but she never asked him to do any of it as he was always so drained and tired at the end of the day. It was just as well, as she did not think that Ash had been trained in how to do chores to begin with.

  She finished what needed to be finished and put things away before taking off her boots and coat and sliding into her own bedroll. By the time that her head hit the pillow, she was fast asleep.

  Day three dawned as warm as the previous days. Riana sat on Ash long enough to get breakfast down him before he went off to work on the lumber mill. Because of the dedicated efforts of the workers, the docks were now finished, the main frame of the inn was up, and the blacksmith had a makeshift space to work in as well.

  Things were actually going well apace. Riana had assigned ten women to cook for the camp. People brought them ingredients in the morning and then came back at lunch and dinner to pick up something warm and tasty. It was a good system that would pull them through the makeshift camp until they had proper walls around them.

  Edvard sent over supplies regularly, which they were grateful for, as they didn’t have the structures up yet that would let them make anything themselves. Riana met the shipment as it came in, checking off a list of inventory and making sure that everything that they needed had come in. She did fine up until she reached the barrels that were marked ‘paint’ on the outside. It was a mite early to be thinking of painting things, wasn’t it? They didn’t even have walls up on anything yet, the frames still being put together.

  Curious, she borrowed a pry bar and cracked open one of the tops.

  Yellow.

  Strange color. What were the rest? She went from one to the next, opening every lid.

  They were all yellow. Riana stared at the open barrels, sputtering in flabbergasted disbelief. Eighteen barrels, and not one of them was a different color. Or even a primer. Or a stain. Just yellow paint. It wasn’t even a pretty color of yellow, either! Someone likely had ordered a ‘custard’ sort of color but it was off, becoming more of a burnt yellow that looked revolting.

  Master Rod ran the back of his hand against his chin, peering over the rim of a barrel. “Yellow again, I take it.”

  Riana slapped the lid back on in a huff before spinning to face him. “This be ridiculous. We can no’ be painting the whole town yellow!”

  “Oh, I won’t disagree there, Miss. No, can’t disagree there.” He peered down the line of barrels, all neatly stacked, still rubbing at his chin. “Now, what to do with these?”

  Indeed, what were they to do with them? Riana wasn’t sure either.
/>   Rod Hatcher was the dockmaster for Estole. He had kindly taken on the responsibility of making sure that people and supplies got to the settlement without delay or more aggravation than could be helped. He looked like the epitome of an old seaman. His hair was thick and white, skin hard and dark after decades in the sun, hands rough from years of hard labor, but he had the most brilliant smile that made a person laugh along with the joke, no matter how bad it was. So when he started laughing, Riana laughed as well, even though she was aggravated that some idjut had ordered eighteen barrels of yellow paint.

  “Well, we should all be in a cheerful mood, with this much yellow about. Man can’t help but be otherwise.”

  She shook her head in disagreement. “Or it be making people sick to their stomachs. One or the other. Well. What about the rest?”

  “Oh, the rest of what you need arrived fine. Nails, boards, floor boards, pipes, tiles, and roof shingles.” He stopped ticking things off his fingers and thought for a moment before nodding in satisfaction. “That should be enough to get you started. I reckon the paint is a mistake on someone’s part. What do you want me to do with it?”

  Not much to do, now that it was mixed. “Mayhap Ash can take a look, turn it to a different color?” she aired the thought doubtfully.

  “Wizards have tricks up their sleeves. Wouldn’t doubt he could.” Master Rod turned and peered behind him, going up and down the coastline. “It’s him, I take it, that’s putting the docks in?”

  “He put the posts in,” she corrected. “The rest of the docks be built by the workers.”

  “Ahh, that so? They made good progress. It was nice, having a proper place to dock.” He extended a sheet of paper. “Sign off for me, Missy.”

  She took it, scanned through the list, and didn’t see any discrepancies. With a flourish, she signed it, and handed it back. “So what’s happening in the city?”

  “Missy,” Master Rod sighed, “it be the usual. I ain’t sure which is harder, dealing with troublemakers in Estole or trying to build a town from the ground up over here in the settlement.”