Blood Redemption: Blood and Flame, #0

By Katt Powers

A magic that shouldn't exist. A madman with an empire-destroying weapon. Can an alcoholic anti-hero can save the world from chaos?  

 

Rashid Yezuddin was once a sharp shooter in the Imperial Assassins – until he fell in love with whiskey and women. Now, he's about to lose his job, his marriage and what's left of his reputation…unless he can come up with a miracle.

 

When he stumbles upon a vital piece of information about the whereabouts of a wanted artefact thief, Rashid sees his chance. Knowing he has just one shot to redeem himself, he convinces his commander to let him pursue the thief and his caravan before it reaches hostile territory.

 

The hunt takes Rashid and his company deep into inhospitable mountains wrought with storms and danger, he must wrestle with his inner demons and muster all his strength to stop the caravan. As the storms grow harsher and a mad sorcerer begins to unleash the artefact's mysterious power, Rashid realizes there's only one path to redemption…

 

If you like fantasy with tons of action and danger, then you'll love this page-turning fantasy adventure novella.

 

US readers please note: this book is written in UK English.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katt Powers
• Release date: Apr 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393976769

Book preview

1

Long before the sun rose, Rashid Yezuddin cursed the red and gold dawn, knowing it was only going to get worse.

His temples throbbed from a hangover the size of a continent, his fingers were numb, his cheeks so cold they felt like they’d been flayed. Even his ears burned, though not from the chill mountain air or last night’s drink. They stung from an arse-chewing he wasn’t likely to forget.

He’d been late for the pre-dawn briefing.

Again.

He kicked at a stone, pulled his knitted cap over his ears and ignored the nausea roiling in his gut. This morning, Major Khorsandi had promised him this mission would be his last.

Right in front of the entire squad.

Rashid massaged his temples and swore at the sun again, even though it wouldn’t change a thing. He needed a miracle, and if not a miracle then at least an idea. Something that would save the mission, his career, and most of all, his reputation. 

But first, he needed to get rid of the damned headache. 

Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat, he squeezed past a group of old women arguing over the price of millet seed and elbowed his way further into the early morning market. A dog’s yapping bark added to the squadron of brightly coloured stalls, fluttering prayer flags, the shouts of buyers and sellers assaulting his head. He winced.

Everything was too loud, too stark or moving too fast. The jagged, snow capped peaks surrounding the city of Rhangdesong singled him out and glared down with the force of small suns, whilst its bowl-shaped valley, filled with tens of thousands of blindingly whitewashed houses, made his head throb even more. After gagging at the sickly sweet incense the mountain people—Yargans—burned for their morning prayers and clutching his stomach at the sight of a newly butchered goat, he made a mental note never to drink millet beer again.

Two strides later, the promise was forgotten. The day he gave up drinking would be the day he took his last breath.

A small, mop-haired child stood at a stall as he passed, hawking a collection of bladed weapons. A gaudy ceremonial sword caught his eye, the pommel and guard embossed with swirling patterns and fanciful beasts. He slowed to take a second look and instantly regretted it.

"Sir! Sir! the child’s sing-song voice shrilled. She scampered after him, cradling the blade. It was half as tall her. I give you good morning price, sir! Good luck price for good luck sword! Sir! Sir…"

He warded the child off with a wave of the hand. The only good thing about this morning was the small, self-abasing pity party taking place inside his head.

He vowed not to make eye contact with anyone again, and hurried towards the market’s final stalls, wracking his brain for a plan.

Grand plans and little plans and dreams of blood redemption…

He couldn’t recall where he’d heard the saying, but there was no denying the wisdom. What he needed was the grandmother of all grand plans—and a good dose of the Empress’s own luck—to dig himself out of the latest hole he’d put himself in.

Hell, he’d trade his own life to salvage his reputation, if that was what it took.

Grand plans and a miracle…

The miracle he needed—and preferably within the hour—was a clue, a rumour, some trace of the large caravan his squad had been chasing for weeks; a caravan that had entered Rhangdesong just two days before and then seemingly vanished into the high, thin air of the Yargan mountains. Before the caravan reached the border and passed beyond the Jhiriyan Empire’s reach, it needed to be found. That he could somehow find it was his one and only chance at redemption.

At the end of the market, a laneway led to a broad, paved caravanserai peppered with animal manure and shingle-topped, rammed earth stalls. Rashid wrinkled his nose at the smell, but it was better than the market’s head-splitting noise. The caravanserai was the third he’d visited since his reluctant pre-dawn awakening at the hands of a furious Major Zefira Khorsandi two hours before. Knowing his luck, it wouldn’t be the last.

A swift glance over his shoulder and his gut sank even further. Four, tall willowy blondes like himself dressed in drab grey trailed through the market, stark and foreign amongst the raven curls, light honey skin and garishly coloured tunics of the Yargan populace. His fellow operatives. Every so often, one of them paused to ask a stall holder the same question they’d asked hundreds of times, always with the same answer. Elsewhere in the city, Khorsandi’s other operatives would be doing the same. Just how a caravan of three hundred shaggy, long horned yak, fifty ponies and thirty-something people managed to disappear time and time again was something no one could quite explain.

He turned away, tried to calm his innards with a series of long breaths and focused on what lay ahead.

The caravanserai’s long rectangle was flanked by a line of inns and teahouses on one side, and a sprawling, grassy flat where animals were hobbled and fed on the other. This morning, several enterprising farmers were scouring