Taken in the Dark of Night: A James of Darkwood Novella: James of Darkwood, #1.5

By Daniel Howard

Daniel Howard's debut novella brings James of Darkwood out of the shadows to the pastoral Eastlands: a land of magi who commune with the Source to protect the realm and simple folk who work hard to build themselves a better life.

But dark things dwell beyond the lights of town... They come in the night. They come for the children.

Slavers.

Tabitha is a girl who dreams of vanquishing monsters and rescuing the innocent. Then she is sold to a mysterious man of grotesque appetites. She discovers that monsters are very real and innocence is a fragile thing.

James of Darkwood is an Eloria'an with a dark secret. Brutally trained as an assassin by the House of Knives, James may be the only hope for children bound for slavery – and worse – as he leaves a wake of death across what was once a peaceful land in his search for vengeance.

Can James rescue the children, and with them a small part of his soul? Or will the Void take them all into dark oblivion?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Howard
• Release date: Oct 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781514350454

Daniel Howard

Daniel Howard is an author and editor living in Taipei, Taiwan with his wife, daughter and dog - though not always in that order. When not writing (which is often), he spends his times consuming good food, cheap scotch, and questionable films in equal amounts.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

IT STARTED LIKE ANY other day.

After lessons, Tabitha finished her chores early and went to play knights and princesses with the other children until supper. The others had long ago learned that she was a knight, not a princess. That lesson had required a number of bloody noses and black eyes, but it was well learned.

When her mama called her in for supper, Tabitha rolled down her sleeves to cover the red welts that she had earned sword fighting with the boys. They hurt, but she had given her opponents back the same or worse.

Tabitha and her papa came in together.

Read me a story tonight, Papa? she asked, doing the little-girl voice that she saved for home.

Not tonight, Tabitha, he said. Something’s been stealing Stepford’s sheep, and some of us are going out into the fields tonight.

All right, she said, though she huffed and put on her best pout.

Tomorrow night, I promise, her father said as he ruffled her hair and they sat down for supper.

Supper was a stew eaten with trenchers of bread, and by the time they were finished the sun had set.

Reba, darling, I’m off, Tabitha’s papa said to her mother, kissing Tabitha on the top of the head as he left.

You be careful, Carlin, she called after him with a fond smile as he shut the door behind himself. 

Tabitha and her mother did the washing up and then settled in by the fire. Reba took up some weaving while Tabitha found her worn doll and started playing pretend. In her mind, she continued the game of knights and princesses from earlier, with the doll being the princess she had to rescue. No, a prince she had to rescue. That was so much better. Mother and daughter sat in a gentle silence broken only by the odd crackle or hiss of the fire in the hearth.

Then the door exploded off its hinges.

Tabitha and her mother both shrieked as a figure loomed in the doorway, dark against dark. A filthy man with big shoulders and broken teeth looked at them as if they might be good to eat. Tabitha’s first thought was she had to protect her mother somehow, but her body betrayed her and froze with terror.

What you find in there, Cham?

One hen, one chick.

Pluck the hen, and bag the chick then.

Will do, he said as he reached for Tabitha’s mother, who lunged at him. He backhanded her with a meaty fist.

Mama! Tabitha screamed as her mother went to the ground. Tabitha went for the man, trying to scratch his face but not being tall enough to reach.

Look at this! the man said as he wrapped a big hand around her arm. Little chick’s got claws!

We gotta finish, Cham, said the voice outside. Put her in the bag and let’s go.

The one called Cham jerked Tabitha’s arm. In response, she wrenched her arm up with all her strength and bit him in the hand as hard as she could. She tasted blood.

Little bitch! he shouted, pulling his hand back and dropping Tabitha. She hit the ground hard enough to stun her. She bit me!

A head poked in around the corner. You gonna take that from the little chicky?

Void, no. He grabbed Tabitha again, rougher this time, and struck her hard across the face. He did it with an open palm, but with enough force to rock her head back.

Everything was fading to darkness, but she caught a few more words as if from a great distance.

Now time to pluck the hen, the far-away voice said, followed by the ripping of cloth and a panicked scream.

That scream almost sounded like her mother, but before she could be sure the world blacked out.

CHAPTER 2

IT HAD BEEN DAYS SINCE he had slept. Whenever he closed his eyes, the darkness closed in on him. When sleep overtook him, it was foul smelling and cold. The deeper darkness contained flickering shadows and whispered voices. He knew they were only the voices of the dead, but he was terrified of what they might say if he listened. 

So instead of sleeping, he let his rage and the trail pull him onwards through exhaustion.

His quarry had come through here, that was clear enough. His contact was good enough for that at least. One hardly needs to be a woodsman to follow this destruction, but he was afraid that their trail out would be lost in the general devastation.

As he stood on a rise overlooking the farming hamlet, smoke drifted through the ruined market square. Several other plumes of smoke in the distance coiled up into the early morning sky, presumably from farmsteads. The sound of chanting emanated from the village shrine to the Five Pillars, but beneath it the wind carried faint wails of despair.

A shout rose up from the base of the hill. A knot of townsfolk had noticed him and were moving toward him with angry strides and gripping farm tools as weapons. It had taken them long enough.

The hunter adjusted his bow and quiver then raised his gloved hands above his head to appear as non-threatening as possible. He needed information, and it would be easier to get it from willing townsfolk. By the look of things, they may even have need of his services.

Besides, it was too early in the day to start killing people.

CHAPTER 3

TABITHA SAT ON A DIRT floor in stinking darkness and hugged her knees. In the vague light seeping in between cracks in the wall, she could see the small hunched forms of the other children. Some of them clustered together for warmth and security, while others sat alone. She saw a few eyes shining at her in the darkness, but more were closed. A few moved in fitful bursts as they suffered from bad dreams. It was so unfair that even sleep was no escape from this.

She heard the sounds of the camp, the village, the wherever she was. Gruff men shouting and laughing. The clink of steel on steel that was probably a forge, but could have been men fighting for all she knew. There were a few high-pitched squeals from outside that could have been children or pigs. Again, she couldn’t be sure.

The children were clustered in a rough shack of some kind. Though they could hear the bustle of the outside world, no one ever answered their cries for help. It was hard to tell what time it was outside, but what appeared to be daylight was leaking through cracks in the walls. Tabitha figured they had been gone less than a day.

Finally, one of the older boys tried to open the door. It was locked. He rattled and shook it violently, even kicked it a few times, but it didn’t do more than tremble in its frame. He kicked it several more times, until finally it opened. From the outside.

You the one making all that noise, boy? asked a hulking man with a greasy beard.

The boy had played knights and princesses with Tabitha. He stood up straighter and set his jaw. Let us out, he said. Or I will tell the magus.

Will you now? the man said with barely restrained laughter in his voice. How are you going to do that?

The boy deflated slightly. I-

Then the man swung a bulging arm around in a vicious backhand. When it connected with the boy’s face, there was a loud crack and the boy sailed through the air. He landed in a heap in the middle of the floor as the other children squealed and back-pedaled as far from him as possible.

Anyone else have anything to say to me? The big man glared at the huddled children. Didn’t think so. Now shut your rotting holes.

The man closed and locked the door. All the children remained silent, including the boy on the floor who shook with soundless sobs into the dirt.

Tabitha was ashamed of her silence, but she kept quiet too.

CHAPTER 4

THE TRAIL HAD GONE cold again, but it led to a smallish town of no more than a few hundred, Shearer’s Heath. There was a market square and shops for all the necessities of life. There was a large tavern and an inn nearby, and thick smoke came up from its brick chimney. A roast, maybe.

Everything was sturdily built and in good repair, in stark contrast to the devastation of the small farming village. The roads were packed dirt and houses had little gardens out front. It was a perfectly ordinary little town like any of the others dotting the countryside, maybe even better than most.

But it smelled of people.

The hunter came into town off the road unnoticed. It was dusk, with the gloom gathering and readying itself to pounce. He had a smooth economical gait that made him seem more like a figment of one’s imagination, a lingering bit of a troubled dream made solid and real. Despite his outward calm, however, he was troubled.

He wrinkled his nose at the accumulated sights and smells of all these people living and working, giving birth and dying. The odor hung in his nose and left a bad taste in his mouth. He would have preferred to stay to the tracks and trails of the surrounding