Wardsmith: Tales of the Avernine, #2

By M.S. Hund

Where the cursed gun rides, blood will follow…

Former slave Ezra has escaped servitude with a damaged gun and the memories of the priest who bore it. Pursued by the ghosts of his past, he reluctantly embarks on a quest to find a wardsmith who can repair the cursed weapon before it damages the land Ezra is trying to save. Can Ezra survive gunfights, betrayals, and the machinations of an old foe, or will the journey leave him as broken as his gun?

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Wardsmith is the sequel to Gunmage and the second book in Tales of the Avernine, a dark fantasy western series featuring demons, witches, mutants, and possessed guns.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jebesyl Press
• Release date: Apr 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386939085

Book preview

1

Arider emerged from the shimmering heat haze, a long finger of shadow stretching out before him. From a lonely rooftop, a crow marked the rider’s approach. It saw him shudder as the horse passed through the ring of warding posts that surrounded the town, keeping the demons at bay.

Black, avian eyes studied dusty and ragged clothes, the battered hat smashed down over an unruly cloud of curls, the dark features obscured by the shadow beneath the hat’s brim. The rider dragged his horse to a halt in front of the blacksmith’s shop and slid from the saddle. He remained still, head bowed against the horse’s flank as if gathering strength or courage or desire. His hand crept toward his belt.

Hesitated.

He snatched the hand away with a violent jerk, and the crow dipped its beak, peering at the gun that rode at the man’s hip. It could taste the malevolence caged there. The man turned to face the smithy, his shoulders bunched as if he bore an invisible burden.

The crow cocked its head and cawed.

Yes. This was the one. The one the crone was looking for.

Dark wings beat the stifling air, bearing the bird aloft above the cursed and demon-haunted land known as the Avernine Territory.

Ezra shivered and glanced up as a crow clawed its way into the sky. Whispers slithered in his head, and Keren’s eagerness for action made his throat sticky. The bird had been watching them. Spying.

His fingers flexed. Curled. Inched for the gun.

No.

Ezra forced his hand to relax. Sweat trickled down his ribs, Keren’s frustration dancing on his skin like a thousand ants. With a shudder, he took the long step up to the porch fronting the blacksmith’s. Beyond the open double doors, the smith worked in the hellish gloom, his back to Ezra, bare arms gleaming as he swung his hammer. On the far side of the anvil, the smith’s apprentice watched his master. He wasn’t much older than Ezra. Faint spray of a mustache beneath pockmarks. Metal wards glinted on the smithy doors, pushing against Ezra. He locked his jaw and stepped past them.

The apprentice glanced up as Ezra pulled off his hat, tearing the layer of dried sweat and grit that bound it to his brow. The young man’s eyes went wide. He whispered to the blacksmith, and the big man straightened, head tilting first one direction, then the other. Little pops and twinges worked their way down Ezra’s spine and shoulders, echoes of the smith’s aching muscles and joints.

He sighed. The apprentice had doubtless said something disparaging about the color of Ezra’s skin.

The blacksmith turned, narrowed eyes fixing on Ezra’s face for a long moment before trailing down to his hip. Grab some grub from Mal’s, he called over his shoulder.

But—

Do it, boy. I’ll take care of this…customer.

The apprentice scowled, shoving dirty hands in his pockets as he made his way past Ezra and out the door.

Afraid he’d touch the darkie?

Ezra fought to keep a sneer from twisting his lips.

If only the boy understood how much worse a touch could prove…

The blacksmith grabbed a rag from a bench beside him and dragged it across his brow. You’re the one looking to fix his gun?

Ezra frowned, and the blacksmith caught the look, spat a little laugh.

Word moves fast in these parts. ‘Spooky half-breed with a warded gun’ been making the rounds of the local forges, I hear.

Ezra slipped the gun from its holster, gratified to see the big man’s shoulders tense before Ezra spun the weapon and offered it to him, grip first. The wards are broken. His voice was rough from disuse, a papery whisper that cracked and fluttered in the infernal confines of the smithy.

The blacksmith stepped toward him and leaned forward to study the gun, but he made no motion to touch it. He twisted the rag in his hands. Very broken, he said.

Ezra swallowed. Most of the smiths he’d consulted had stared blankly at the weapon, never having seen its like. At least this one seemed to understand.

Cost you plenty to fix that, the smith said, eyes still on the gun.

Ezra watched the sweat beading on the man’s bald pate and swallowed his disappointment. The uncertainty wafting off the smith told him all he needed to know. He was just like all the rest. A blacksmith, not a wardsmith. Blacksmiths could craft simple, protective wards for houses and barns. The best might even try their hand at the more delicate work of buckles or the like, but the wards worked into the gun were beyond their limited skill.

Not that Ezra could boast better. Despite the memories of the dead gunmage, Xabiera, that haunted his thoughts, and the diagrams in the book he’d inherited from her, Ezra didn’t have the skill to do the repairs himself. How many towns had he visited now? How many smithies?

He needed a wardsmith.

The prospect frightened him. Wardsmiths were a rare breed, almost wizards, and he worried they would recognize him for the cursed demon-spawn that he was. Recognize him and have the training and tools to hurt him.

The blacksmith glanced up. I studied awhile with Daedalus MacGowan. He might help you if the price is right. He frowned when Ezra did not react to the name.

Daedalus MacGowan? Ezra asked.

Wardsmith. Out Blue Gulch way. Surely you’ve heard of him?

Ezra shook his head, and the blacksmith snorted.

Must not be from around here then. He wiped his hands on the rag, tossed it in the corner, and held out a calloused palm. Gonna let me have a closer look?

Ezra stared at the scarred hand, the cracked leather fingers. Skilled, perhaps, but not skilled enough. Not like a wardsmith would be.

He spun the gun, shoved it back in the holster. You can’t fix it.

The blacksmith’s features twisted in a complicated dance, but Ezra didn’t need to read the play of emotions. He could taste it.

Anger that another man would question his skill.

Frustration at his own lack of ability.

Relief that he wouldn’t have to touch the demon gun.

Knew you didn’t have the coin anyway, the blacksmith spat.

Which was true enough, but Ezra would cross that bridge when he found someone capable of repairing the wards that kept Keren safe within the gun.

Where do I find this Daedalus person? Ezra asked.

The blacksmith laughed. Likes of you can’t afford him. Locke & MacGowan don’t come cheap.

Ezra stared, unblinking, and the blacksmith’s bluster faded.

Told you. Blue Gulch. Mining town south of here. His agent haunts the Arcadia Hotel, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope. Daedalus MacGowan’s a busy man, but he’s getting old. Been focusing more on some secret project of late. And you don’t have the silver.

Ezra nodded. Thank you.

But the blacksmith had already turned away, scowling and muttering to himself, making his way back to the anvil. Ezra crushed his hat down over his hair. Keren whispered from the gun. It was getting too painful for her to remain within the town’s wards. She’d bound herself to the damaged cage that had once held the gunmage’s demon, but strong wards like the ones around towns hurt her, made her want to flee from her dark iron lair.

I’m working on it, he muttered, returning to the porch.

A pair of men pushed through the doors of a saloon across the road, and Ezra caught the flash of a sallow, pockmarked face behind them.

The apprentice had been spreading word of his arrival.

And someone had listened.

The men pulled travel-worn dusters back from their hips.

Cold seeped into Ezra’s chest from the cross beneath his shirt.

Forgive me, Protector, for what I am about to do, he whispered.

And stepped into the road to face the two men.

2

Minerva hunched over the delicate curl of witchsilver, staring through the emerald lenses of her glasses. The wards etched on the glass sparked and twisted, and she trapped the tip of her tongue between her teeth, pulling and shaping with pin and tong, trying to convince the eldritch metal to take the form she wanted. The client’s sketch lay on the bench beside her, but Minerva didn’t need it. A careful moment of study had committed the design to memory, and she knew intuitively what modifications to make to give the jewelry power. It was one reason her father valued her as an apprentice.

Father.

Minerva’s eyes twitched to the workroom door, remembering his scream, the fall, the frozen look of…

A moment’s distraction was enough to ruin her concentration.

Damnation, Minerva spat, dropping the pin and tongs as the witchsilver twisted and hardened in the wrong shape. Still powerful, but wrong. Minerva knew the metal couldn’t smirk at her, but she imagined it doing so anyway and wanted to hit it with the shaping hammer. Instead, she pushed the warded glasses up into the tangled nest of her hair and rubbed at her eyes.

Too many jobs. Too many late nights. All her fault.

She spun away from the workbench and stood, prompting a chorus of protests from various cramped and disused muscles.

How long could she keep going like this? What other choice did she have?

Minerva’s eyes returned to the door. The workroom of the great Daedalus MacGowan, most talented wardsmith in the Avernine.

And her father.

She walked to the door, conscious of her steps slowing and getting shorter as she approached. Intricate wards of obsidian and witchsilver decorated the dark wood. Similar patterns covered the walls of her father’s workroom, shielding it from within and without. Minerva tried not to notice the differences between the wards she knew were her work and the ones her father had fashioned. She only realized her fingers were drifting to the doorknob when she focused on the ragged edges of her nails, chewed to the quick, spotted with blood.

Snatching her hand back, she spun and retreated to the front door, navigating the clutter that always seemed to breed and expand no matter how often she tidied the place. Not that she had enough time to clean. Would things have been different if her father had never caught her working with witchsilver shavings? Would she have accepted a life as his maid and bookkeeper?

Minerva pulled open the door and stepped out onto the veranda.

He’d hesitated to take her on, of course. A girl doing smith-work? But in the end, talent and necessity won out. Her father saw she had a gift, and they were never short of jobs. He’d driven off or dismissed a half-dozen apprentices already and was keen to focus on his own projects rather than client work.

She’d had her own doubts. What if she failed as an apprentice? He couldn’t drive her away like the others. Not if he wanted to survive. Who would cook his meals, clean the smithy, deal with the accounts?

But witchsilver spoke to her. She needed to shape it to her will.

Minerva flexed her aching fingers and scanned the horizon with eyes gummy from lack of sleep. Theo was due two days ago, but she hadn’t seen another soul in weeks. The smithy was close enough to Blue Gulch to ensure a steady supply of witchsilver from the mines, but far enough away to discourage regular visitors. While she enjoyed the solitude and silence, there was a price to pay for