Liars and Thieves

By D. Wallace Peach

Behind the Veil, the hordes gather, hungry to savage the world. But Kalann il Drakk, First of Chaos, is untroubled by the shimmering wall. For if he cannot cleanse the land of life, the races will do it for him. All he needs is a spark to light the fire.

A MISFIT ELF PLAGUED BY FAILURE
Elanalue Windthorn will never fit in with her willowy people, her skills limited to creating spheres of light. When she abandons her soldiers to hunt a goblin, she strays into forbidden territory.

A CHANGLING WITH A BLOOD DEBT
Talin Raska is a gambler and thief, a talented spy with a shifter’s repertoire of shapes. but he makes a fatal mistake—he falls for his mark. To save her life, he betrays his home.

A HALFBREED GOBLIN WITH SECRETS
Naj’ar struggles to balance his goblin nature with his elfin emotions. He’s a loner with a talent he doesn’t understand and can’t control, one that threatens all he holds dear.

A HOPELESS MISSION
When the spark of Chaos ignites, a group of miners goes missing. But they won’t be the last to vanish. As the cycles of blame whirl through the Borderland, old animosities flare, accusations break bonds, and war looms. Three outcasts, thrust into an alliance by fate, by oaths, and the churning gears of calamity, must learn the truth. They hold the future of their world in their hands.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Wallace Peach
• Release date: Aug 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636259871

D. Wallace Peach

D. Wallace Peach started writing later in life after the kids were grown and a move left her with hours to fill. Years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books, and when she started writing, she was instantly hooked. Diana lives in a log cabin amongst the tall evergreens and emerald moss of Oregon's rainforest with her husband, two dogs, two owls, a horde of bats, and the occasional family of coyotes

Book preview

Table of Contents

Liars and Thieves

Map

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Allies and Spies

Chapter Two

About the Author

Liars and Thieves

Unraveling the Veil: Book One

Copyright © 2020 D. Wallace Peach

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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. The author/publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

ISBN-13: 978-1636259871

Cover Art © Cover design by D. Wallace Peach

Dedication

To all those who do the hard work of speaking, writing, and marching for truth, compassion, and kindness.

Acknowledgments

A book takes a village.

Perhaps, most of all, this trilogy took a spouse who, for three years, was willing to live like a bachelor as his spouse escaped into her writing room after breakfast and reappeared for dinner. That beloved spouse is the bedrock upon which the garden of my imagination is free to flourish. These books would not have bloomed without Randy’s loving support.

Members of my writing village include three beta readers who not only provided feedback on the story but recommended stylistic changes and corrected my typos and gaffs. To Cathleen Townsend, Erik Tyler, and Jessica Bakkers, I can’t begin to express the depth of my gratitude.

And all around me is the wonderful support of the WordPress community of writers and poets as well as artists, teachers, travelers, photographers, and friends. Writing is a solitary vocation and your support has cheered me and kept me company along the way.

Finally, thank you to all the readers who have read my books and the reviewers who shared their thoughts. You make the journey worth every word. Be well.

Map

Chapter One

Kalann il Drakk

"You believe me evil, but in truth, I am merely unpredictable."

—Kalann il Drakk, First of Chaos

Kalann il Drakk, First of Chaos, aimed his horde’s cannons at the Veil. From the eastern sun to the western moon, the curtain of light spanned the peaks, banishing him to the green emptiness that stretched north beyond the known lands. The silver wall shimmered, undulated with elemental power, the essence of matter. Its energetic core wove the world together like the intricate net of a spider but with the strength of goblin steel.

He would destroy the rippling wall that divided him from his kingdom, shatter the balance of creation, and wreak chaos on the myriad patterns of the world. His brethren, the host of First, the exalted and flawed, worshiped by mortals with the blindness of suckling kits, would vanish from the face of the land.

Held aloft, his sword crackled, spat veins of lightning that illuminated the black-bellied clouds and fractured the rock beneath his army’s heels. The tortured earth swallowed slaves and renders alike, their screams lost beneath the grinding rock and the wind’s hungry howl.

I will destroy you! he roared up the mountain’s slopes.

The First, his noble brethren, stood sentinel along the ridges, white robes billowing in the awakened storm. Like ancient watchtowers, they guarded a doomed creation. Hands raised in silent defense, they fed the Veil’s mass with heat harvested from the mountains’ core, from pristine forests and wildflower meadows, from creatures of hoof and wing. All withered, browned, and blackened. Then they stole the light from the dawn.

A blizzard of snow swept into flight, blew sideways in the skirling winds, and blotted out the sky.

Il Drakk’s sword swept down, sliced a gash into the Veil that the First snapped shut with a thunderous clap. The mage laughed at his feint as cannons strung along the foothills belched pulses of disruptive power, stripped matter of its binding force. The white-hot blasts generated surges. Waves bulged along the Veil’s magnetic lines like sound along an instrument’s string. Veins of power tore and reconnected, unleashing eruptions of unbound light.

The Veil fractured. Rifts slashed open where the energy splintered. Like a stone-shot mirror, it burst apart. Shards of light flung outward, and il Drakk ordered his renders through, hid them in the shattered wedges that sprayed his enemy’s land. Another volley of fire penetrated the weakened wall. The bulk of his vast horde stormed up the slope.

But the cannon’s power proved unstable, uncontainable, as if carried along the frayed curtain by fickle winds. His foes threw up shields like patches on torn cloth, stitched up the gaps with new manipulations of heat and light. Mended, the Veil cooled, shedding waves of power. Snow transformed into steam as the mountains burned and the elements bound into new matter, altering the foundations of the world. The First, guardians of the wall of light and the failed civilization on the other side, raised their arms in glorious victory.

Below them, trapped in the barren desolation he had made of the north, il Drakk shook a curled fist. But hubris was their flaw and his fury a clever ruse. For a moment, the cannons had unraveled the fabric of matter. Not enough for an army to slip through, but a seed sufficient for chaos to spread its roots.

The mortals would see to the rest.

Naj

Bats squeaked in the blackness overhead, and an enduring cold leached from the walls. Neither troubled Naj’ar. His kind were accustomed to the leather-winged company, and his muscled frame, though half-elfin, tolerated the chill almost as well as the purebloods. The shaggy pelt of a red bear warmed his shoulders as he navigated the tunnelways beneath the mountains.

Random veins of quartz glimmered in the rock’s wet crevices, their latent power spiraling as if they’d captured wisps of cloud. Their dim glow cast long angular shadows on the walls. Yet, the reflective surfaces of his golden eyes granted him the ability to lope through the rough passageways with sure feet. 

He gripped the shaft of his glaive in his right hand, prepared for whatever awaited him.

The weapon was bladed on both ends, its razor-sharp edges curved like scythes and etched with the runes of Ar, the First of Reason, patron of his clan. A year ago, in the forges of Mak’ra, Pree had it crafted for him, a gift given on their cleaving day. Her artistic touch swirled in the patterns of air ornamenting the steel surfaces. Her symbols entwined with his along the carved shaft. The glaive was precious, unbreakable, and like Pree’s gleaming eyes, it never required polishing. Nor honing.

The earth shook, and he paused, a hand reaching into the blackness for balance. Sharp fingernails scraped a wall. Grains of igneous rock sifted from the ceiling. The tunnels to the peaks twisted in a maze of forks, crumbling stairways, and long sloped passages, familiar to him though he’d never toiled in the upper mines. His interest lay in the Veil and the lure of the secret world resting beyond.

A pragmatic people, goblins rarely indulged in make-believe. Yet, legends told of a holy land, the birthplace of the First where the brave and just found welcome. Others speculated that behind the shimmering Veil lay the answers to ancient riddles, the secrets of eternity. Those who had attempted to cross through had never returned, and still, the mystery’s allure tugged at his curiosity, a barbed thorn hooked in his mind.

His feet slid, and he dropped to a knee. He reached out with his fingernails and dug into the sheet of ice varnishing the sloped floor. With his balance regained, he frowned. Spring journeyed up from the Riverlands at a toddling pace, but even in winter, ice rarely breached the tunnels. His gray skin prickled. The air froze on the walls in a glassy rime, glittered as the mountain’s deep heat surrendered to the unnatural cold. The crust of frost thickened. Clouds billowed with his every breath, and for the first time, the frigid chill seeped into his bones. He sniffed the air. Scents of blue snow and dank earth mingled with something new—the electric tang of power.

With greater caution, he pressed forward. At the end of a winding incline, thin fissures of daylight edged a crude doorway, forcing his eyes to narrow. The snow-laced tors of the Raveen Mountains lay beyond. And along the divide, the Veil.

He shoved the stubborn door open, scraping aside crisply frozen drifts, and pushed into the muted light. Wind battered his skin, howled with a lupine ferocity, and drove him back. A blizzard blasted the heights. The Veil shimmered through gaps in the storm-borne snow, a sheet of silver light. It shuddered and bulged. A monstrous creation, the wall of power channeled electricity through its arteries and veins. Lightning crackled, fractured, ribboned across the sky. 

Ears swept back, Naj bent against the wind and trudged upward, determined to reach the ridge. Ice caked on his face, his skin freezing, hands and feet numb. An eruption of energy flung him backward and he tumbled down the steep slope, hurled into a black and white slide of rock and snow, past the tunnelway’s door. Glaive still tight in his grip, he smacked into a boulder with a breathless gasp. The air hummed with electricity. He creased his nose against the distinctive odor of elemental power, both clean and burned.

The Veil splintered along serrated cracks. Naj climbed for the tunnel when a blinding explosion slammed him onto his back. His glaive flipped from his grasp. Colossal shards of light shot outward and streaked through the storm as snow and stone lost its grip on the mountainside, roared in his ears, and buried him alive. He clawed and kicked free of his icy tomb and scrambled for the tunnel over the sliding terrain.

Then the wind died. Rock and snow rumbled to stillness. The Veil of light began to weave itself together. Threads stitched across the sky with the swiftness of starlings, reconnecting and patching the jagged wounds. The blizzard transformed into rain, slackened to a lazy drizzle, then evaporated before it struck the ground. Sunshine lanced through the tattered clouds in a rapidly changing sky. Snow vanished in a hot fog, and then the fog too burned away.

The Veil thinned and solidified, releasing the energetic mass that had fortified it against the storm. Naj spared a glance for his lost glaive and caught a glint of steel in the sunlight. He clambered down the slope and snapped it up, then hastened for the tunnel entrance, his soles pained by the hot stones. Tufts of grass, moments before buried in ice, began to burn. He dove into the passageway, leapt to his feet, and dashed into the comforting blackness.

Alue

Alue Windthorn pinned her wildfire of red ringlets into a knot. She tugged on her vest, the additional layer a tribute to the formality of the occasion and necessary despite the spring heat. She faced Farwood, the second-rank rusty enough to be her grandfather. And as dear to her heart. His shorn hair stood at attention like stiff, gray soldiers, and his aging frame had thickened around the waist, a rarity among elves. He was also respected by his soldiers, level-headed under pressure, and best of all, he didn’t resent her promotion.

In moments, Ka Radiff’s governing body would elevate her to third-rank despite her youth and shallow experience. Her father’s position on the council had cleared the way, and she’d accepted the honor over more qualified soldiers. The truth of it irked her. The whispers infuriated her, and she intended to earn her right to lead, even if after the fact.

Farwood reached out and adjusted her sash, a rolled scarf the color of steeped tea that served in the Borderland as a source of added warmth, a shield from the sun, or a mop for sweat, dependent on the season. The knee-length tevara came next. She shrugged into the feminine version of the jacket with its flared waist and left it unfastened for the moment, afraid she’d wilt beneath all the official clothing.

The fussing over apparel left a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Almost done, Farwood handed her a reassigned pulser. Though scratched from years of use, he’d oiled it and buffed it of dust.

Alue smiled as she slid open the chamber to inspect the crystal’s charge and satisfied, holstered the weapon. Chin lifted, she straightened for a final inspection. Do I look presentable?

Official to the core. Farwood saluted. It will be a pleasure to serve you, Windthorn.

Alue’s heart melted and not from the weather. I’ve been meaning to… Gratefulness welled in her eyes, and she choked on the sentimentality. As an officer in the newly-formed Borderland Army, she needed disciplined control over her emotions, not only her awkward tears but her far more common outbursts of anger. 

I suppose we’d better take our seats, Farwood said, saving her from an unsoldierly display.

During the morning, workers had erected ivory canopies in the plaza fronting the Borderland Authority. Linen shades billowed like Riverland sails in the blue-skied breeze, sheltering rows of benches for soldiers and spectators alike. An elevated dais for the Ka Radiff Council extended from the building’s terrace over its wide steps. The Borderland’s leadership, all nine members—three representatives from each race—took seats in a gentle arc, elves in the center, changelings to the left, and gray-skinned goblins to the right.

Alue brushed the inevitable Ka Radiff dust from her dahn, the wide-legged trousers that she’d tucked into her polished boots. Her feet would be well-cooked by the time they called her name. She edged onto a bench. Moths of nervousness fluttered in her stomach as she peered between the heads in front of her for a glimpse of her father. He chatted with Chief Councilor Lonestriker who cast furtive glances at the other members. And when the conversation concluded, her father met her gaze, affording her a snappy wink and a twitch of a smile. She raised a hand to brush aside an errant curl and added a tiny wave.

Tower bells chimed midday. Minutes ticked by like hours, and she drooped beneath the sun, listening to a rollcall of names of new enlistees and elevations in rank. The specialness of her promotion seemed to pale as previously interested spectators lost interest.

After a while, she too blocked out Lonestriker’s drone, and her gaze wandered, lighting upon Evindel Greenfall. Her tall suitor took advantage of the shade cast by the building abutting the Authority. He leaned on the jail’s stone wall, in uniform but with his tevar unbuttoned and shirt untucked. His blonde hair hung loosely over his shoulders, and he wore sandals instead of boots. His sculpted features lent him the appearance of an elfin lord, but he dressed like a drunkard. 

A grin flashed across his handsome face when he noticed her appraisal. She appreciated his presence but not his slovenly attire. This day mattered. He’d tried more times than she had toes to dissuade her from a military career, and he hadn’t been shy about his complete lack of support for her privileged and dangerous promotion. If she didn’t know better, she’d guess that jealousy oozed through his veins, when in fact, he possessed the ambition of a well-fed cat on a sunny sill.

Since he’d captured her attention, he pantomimed his utter boredom with the proceedings, followed by his discomfort with the heat. Her irritation escalated as she observed his antics, and she mulled over the perfect punishment to inflict upon him the moment she was free. Evin jabbed a finger at the dais, his eyebrows arched in alarm.

Elanalue Windthorn, Lonestriker called again.

Alue popped up, lost her balance, and nearly sat on the lap of the young soldier beside her. She sidled to the aisle and climbed the dais steps, quickly buttoning up her tevara while a mortifying sweat bloomed on her forehead.

Congratulations. The white-haired Chief Councilor narrowed his eyes and handed her a sash the color of ripe persimmons, the designation of her new rank. It is with pleasure that the Borderland Council, in defense of our laws, promotes you to the third rank. She smiled at her father and turned to face the withering audience. Before she found Farwood, her gaze rose to the distant mountains and the Veil. A massive storm brewed across the horizon.

Halfway down the steps, she flinched as a brilliant flash of lightning snapped across the distant sky. Its path fractured and shattered into tiny fissures as it traveled the length of the Veil. The ceremony silenced. Every head turned as thunder drummed over the city. A wild gust of wind lifted the canopies like kites and flung them onto the spectators.

Then the land shook.

Alue stumbled down the platform’s treads and landed on her hands and knees. The plaza’s pavers grated and buckled. Soldiers leapt to their feet, and civilians ran, their shouts and cries competing with the rumble of a city on the move. A building across the plaza cracked, and a section of wall tumbled into the street. New screams added to the growing chaos.

She looked for Evin, but he was gone from the jail’s wall. Farwood pushed aside the broken shelters and freed those trapped beneath. Alue struggled to her feet and fell forward again as the dais collapsed and nearly crushed her foot. With a gasp, she yanked her boot free and spun. Her father crouched on the slanted platform, fighting for balance as he dragged aside a torn canopy, eyes fixed, not on her, but on the horizon.

As she followed his gaze, another flash of lightning exploded in the north. Brilliant splinters of electricity streaked through the cloudless blue above the city. A strange crackling thunder sped on its heels, sharp and sizzling.

She scrambled up the dais to help her father free the Chief Councilor of a tangle of chairs and tables, but Lonestriker thrust his palms out with a pulse of kinetic energy that sent the furniture tumbling. She too would have hurled from the platform’s rim if her father hadn’t gripped her arm. In the pandemonium, the council’s three changelings had disappeared into the plaza’s panicked crowd. The trio of goblins loped across the uneven pavers, backs hunched as they fled.

Lonestriker shook off Alue’s attempt to assist him. His tapered ears reddened with fury as he glared at the retreating goblins. Trust me. This is the work of those beasts.

Talin

Talin and Daruk waited for the signal with the other hunters. They stood within the stone walls that kept the jungle’s unkempt lushness from encroaching on the changeling city—almost. Glenglisan’s plazas and columned buildings, its ancient bridges, temples, and the queen’s palace with its lofty towers blended into the green world’s dappled shadows. The high walls didn’t repel the creeping lacework of vines or curtail the sheen of damp moss coating the ivory stone. Nor did they prevent the daily invasion of howlers and macaques, birds and insects.

Though they guarded well against big cats. And most snakes.

Talin possessed a particular dislike of his reptilian cousins and shuddered at the mere thought of their scaly, poisonous, slithery selves. Not the ground-snakes as much as those dangling in the trees, pretending to be harmless vines. A cat’s claws could shred his human body in seconds, but they were unlikely to drop on his head unannounced.

A tiger had entered the Reaches and dined on a woman from one of the villages near the Spine. Words of warning had spread through the trees along with notice of a hunt. His fellow changelings would be wise to avoid taking a feline shape until the hunt concluded, specifically that of a giant striped cat.

He patted the pocket of his dahn, the crystal’s uncut lumpiness comforting in the event he needed wings. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his bronze face and made his jaw itch. He raked back his long hair, ready for this adventure to be over. And it hadn’t even begun. His partner for the hunt, Daruk, watched the signalman at the gate like a leopard studying its prey, shoulders rolling, and ready to pounce. He hunted with a bow and Talin with a spear.

Talin rocked the spear from hand to hand. You seem eager for a kill.

The leather-clad man’s coal eyes gleamed as he turned his gaze from the gates. Daruk had two years on Talin and was as sleek as a panther, ebony hair swept back like a shiny pelt. Colorful beads wrapped his wrists and neck, and a single tiger’s claw, curved like a sickle’s blade, hung on his chest. Our brother is a maneater. Daruk shrugged at the obvious logic. But we are kings of the jungle, the deadliest of our siblings.

Kings? Talin cracked a smile. Our queen won’t relish the competition.

Princes then. Daruk raised a scarred eyebrow, the gift of a wild panther. Arianna wants the pelt, and I intend to present it to her.

The tall gates swung open, and Talin whispered a prayer to the Shifter’s First, an appeal for protection, but also a plea for forgiveness from the magnificent predator that would surrender its life before the day’s end. As the tigers were driven from the Borderland into the southern jungles, they were bound to encounter changelings. Every brother and sister needed nourishment to survive. He couldn’t blame the creature for the woman’s death. Yet, he hunted.

Daruk led, arrow nocked. For a few minutes, they curtailed their conversation, voices drowned out by the roar of the falls cascading over the rift’s edge. They crept into the fine mist that hovered like a fallen cloud above the frothy pools. Visibility dropped and the air cooled. Leaves and fronds glistened as if fashioned of glass.

Talin’s shoulders relaxed when they left the falls behind, and he puffed out a breath at the welcome return of the humid sun. The two of them worked with an efficiency born from years of practice. They veered toward the Spine, the coastal range curving along the eastern fringe of their isthmus. At the same time, the villagers of the Spine would beat sticks and drums, driving the tiger toward Glenglisan. Somewhere in between, hunters would invoke the blessings of the First, feed on the beast’s heart, and assume its pattern.

Near the sweep of cliffs, the dense jungle flourished, and shadows deepened. The soaring overstory captured the sun’s light and filtered its rays through the canopy’s ceiling of close-knit branches. Probably full of snakes. Talin rested a hand on the bole of a giant moss-cloaked tree and calmed his nerves.

Daruk pointed into a tangle of green leaves with his arrow and whispered, Are you hunting or daydreaming?

Snakes, Talin replied.

Daruk smirked and waved him ahead. Take the lead. It will help you focus.

And get me killed if I don’t. Talin gave him a slit-eyed glance and crept through the forest’s riotous growth with renewed concentration. He sought a path through the territory’s depth toward the Spine’s foothills. His human vision was limited by the tangle of trees, hanging roots, rotting debris, and low-growing ferns. And probably snakes.

He spied a panther slinking along a stream. A timid leopard padded south, blended in with the dappled light. Wild dogs loped along a deer trail, their kits’ noses down to the musty ground. The drums were half a day away, and yet the jungle seemed to be on the move. Hornbills squawked and hawks screeched. A giant squirrel sprang from branch to branch, and howlers roared, their voices reaching across the green leagues.

Talin shared a glance with Daruk and whispered, Something’s coming.

Daruk nodded, drew his bow’s string, and stepped lightly. Talin hefted his spear over his shoulder. A low growl rumbled in the brush from a big cat’s throat. If a tiger crouched in the shadows, its stripes were indistinguishable from the tangles of vegetation. Daruk froze, his string taut to his chin. Talin planted his feet and cocked his spear for a throw.

Another roar, a low gravelly thrum, vibrated into Talin’s