Excerpt: multiple novels

Prolouge
He stumbled over the cold ground at the base of the hill in the darkest part of the autumn night. The horse refused to go any further than there and the young man, trying to shed the last of his boyhood tossed the reigns aside trying to bluster his way past the cold chill that had nothing to do with the icy winds.
“Be gone then.” He hissed at the horse as it turned and bolted. “Coward!”
His words hung in the white cloud that came from his mouth. The wind seemed to snatch them up and tore them away into the dark with a howl.
He stared up the hill at the top where there seemed to be a faint difference in the darkness.
It seemed at first to be just as dark as the rest of the night, free of fire or candle. But he let his eyes wander, seeking the sought location, and as they left the hilltop a faint glow could almost be found out of the corner of his eye.
This had to be it.
This was the location he had traveled for miles to find.
Qickly he unbundled his woolen coat, and in his gloved hands held out the offering in awed reverence.
Finding his strength bouied by the small object in his hand and scrambled up the slope toward the very top.
The night air was wiping about him in a frenzy that seemed to infect him. Driving him up building to a climax of anticipation.
When at last he crested the hill he stopped suddenly, confused, and alone.
The hill top was empty and dark. No light shined, no figure awaiting him. Just darkness and cold.
He felt the loss of hope and very nearly began to cry. This wasn’t right, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. A promise was a promise. It’s not fair.
He wanted to yell at the wind, to vent the frustrations that had turned hope into this bitterness. But the wind wasn’t there anymore. The air was still and sharp. The bitterest of colds settled in around him and gnawed at his exposed face.
“Hello?” He called out, but found himself coughing as the cold tore into his lungs like a thousand firey shards.
“Hello.” Came a whispery voice so light it almost seemed to be a trick of the wind.
He spun around looking for somebody, anybody in the darkest hour on this cold autumn night who would keep their promise to a boy all alone. He saw nothing.
Cold dark empty nothing spread out before him in all directions. He wished fervently that he had thought to bring a lantern. Anything to help him find his way in the pitch black of night.
But as he thought the very idea he noticed the darkness seem to fade at the corner of his eye. Whirling with new hope at finding somebody coming with a lantern or a torch only brought him face to face with more inky blackness. Still the darkness seemed to be fading in the corner of his eye.
“I brought an offering.” His voice quavered. “I did What I was supposed to do.”
The boy turned his head trying to figure out who he was addressing and where they were.
“Offering.” The voice came again, a whisper on the wind that wasn’t there. Yet it still chilled him.
“Yes.” He squeeked out after several aborted attempts to get his voice working.
“No.” The voice seemed to laugh. Was it mocking him.
He felt confused and pathetic standing in the darkness with his paltry offering held out before him. But most of all he felt angry. Angry that he was being mocked, that he had been made to look the fool and that he was scared. Scared and alone on a dark hilltop some distance from the edge of the town into the wild.
The Anger brought with it heat and a firey crackle to his eyes. A steady voice fairly roared with the heat of his anger.
“AHHH!” the wind caught up his coat tore it open with a shriek.
The boy felt the heat of his body escape and the icy wind blast into the open coat blowing him backward onto the ground clutching at his coat but struggling to maintain his grip around the proferred object for fear of loosing it in the darkness all around.
The darkness however seemed to be all but gone. The light at the corner of his eyes had spread in a growing whiteness to consume all his vision, all his vision but a section of night directly over him.
And the darkness moved closer with a section of itself extending down toward him into his open coat.
The darkness reached out toward him, grasping at his chest.
The scream of terror stopped cold in his throat as he felt an icy hand press against his flesh and then sink through it. Past the thin layer of skin, through the last of his baby fat that had mostly given way to the muscled chest of the boy bocoming a young man. Past the muscle and bone through the soft wet inner warmth of his body. Brushing the edges of his flttering lungs as they spasmed frantically to draw breath into the cold paralysed chest.
Stark terror seized the boys mind as he felt cold fingers touch his heart. They seemed to carress it with a loving gentleness, a longing, a hunger. Then one by one he felt the frigid fingers wrap themselves around his heart.
His mind seemed to crumble under the fear that now consumed it. All things faded from him as he stared up into that darkness. Why was he here? Where was here? What was happening? Who was the dark figure? Who was the boy? Beyond that his mind seemed to even forget how to think and resorted to frantic paralyzing fear as he felt those cold, infinitely cold finger squeeze.

Book two

The large stone cottage was lit by the lantern in the richly dress mans hand.
“Oppulant indeed. Why you are right, the food stained and unfinished wooden table doesn’t totter at the slightest touch, and the woven rag carpeting only has a faint worn spot on it. Why this is quite obviously suited to a king and not some lowly servant such as myself.”
A loud snort came from the doorway as a weathered and plump old woman entered the room with a stack of undyed coarsely woven fabrics.
“Speak up, let us see what wonders of wisdom an old house maid has for her betters.” The man sneared at her.
“Oh you do make quite a jest. Since a long time before me the order that dwelt on the keep above has waned in prestige, but we do our service.”
“Your service would be done with faster if you’d learn to be silent and respect someone in my position.”
“Oh I don’t know that silence would be advisable.” She smiled at the Diplomat as if unaware of his dislike.
“You may not know woman, but thankfully the world doesn’t care what you know. I’ve told you to keep silent and you will do it.”
The old woman just shrugged as she brought the cloth sheets to the bedchamber in the back and upon returning to the main room set about silently laying a fire in the hearth.
The well dressed man stepped to the doorway and called out.
“Captain, see to it that my personal effects are brought indoors immediately. Then You are to post a watch at my door and see to the rest of your men in the Baracks.” He soon turned back into the cottage and looked at the old woman warming her hands against the first flickers of flame in the hearth.
“You may leave.”
The old woman walked silently through the door and passed by to men dressed in light armor carrying a heavy oaken trunk. Two more guards where unloading two smaller trunks and several bags from the back of a dark coach.
The woman Just quietly walked past them across the cobblestones following the stones as they lead out in the dying daylight. The cottage was the largest structure in the tiny village at the base of the temple mount. Even so it was little more than a whitewashed circular building with thatched roof and a small room off the back.
The fact that it had not been lived in for some time was attested to by the three or four fields surrounding it that had been allowed to go fallow for far too long. Where there should have been fields now grew wild twisted brush and old looking gnarled weeds in thick clumps.
It was as she passed one of these thick patches of weeds that she stopped and turned back still silent and looked at the cottage.
The well dressed figure stopped in the doorway and glared at her.
The guards seeing the look stopped what they were doing and stared at the woman.
All activity stopped and the still silence hung on wait as she made a slight gesture. A simple wave of her hand.
With a rustle and thump a small figure, little more than a child by the looks of it lept down from the thatch roofing where it had been hanging over the edge to peek in the window.
The child scurried past, head held low, embarrassed at being caught.
“How long has the boy been there?” Howled the Richly garbed man.
The woman said nothing. She just waited for the child to catch up to her.
“Answer me!”
“The entire time. The child arrived with me.” She simply shrugged as the man got loud and swelled up to appear more menacing. She saw through the show. Saw that in the center of it all was the same thing she saw in some of the small animals from the woods at the edge of the village when they were scared and trying to bluster off the fear with a show of how much they are not to be trifled with.
“You knew he was there? You knew and yet you let him stay a spy on me and my men? You knew and you said nothing?” The man was livid.
“You ordered me to keep silent, I am but a servant. I do my service.” She replied. “What harm is there in a child watching a visitor to the town? You mention spying, but as we are all servants of the empire I cannot see that we have anything to spy on, or to hide from one another.”
“Indeed. We will see about that during the course of my stay here. The New emperor if not as forgiving of spies as the old fool he replaced. You would do well to remember that. He turned his back to her and before entering the cottage again snarled out. “You would also do well to be sure the child stays away from this cottage and that he does not cross my path again.”
The old woman shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her walk up the cobblestone road leading to the next few farm houses that encircled the temple mount.
The child looked nervously at the womans face. Faltering to say something but not quite sure what to say.
“You are took a very big risk girl. Tell me do you think it was worth it?” The old woman kept walking not looking directly at the child but observing her from the corner of her eye.
“I just wanted to know what makes that man so important and so dangerous.” The girl replied ruffling her hand through her short brown hair embarrassed.
“Did you get your answer?” The woman stopped and looked down into the hazel eyes of the girl. She may look like a young boy but she was indeed becoming a young woman, and they couldn’t pretend otherwise for very much longer.
“I don’t know, I’m very confused by him.” She looked up at the older woman looking for permission or perhaps approval. “He seems to not be strong and not be respected, he talks about things he doesn’t understand like he is the expert…”
“like what?” The older woman asked seriously watching the young girls face.
So this was some kind of lesson after all. “He talks about being the servant of the empire but all he serves is his own interests, and the things he said to you and not thinking that he could be taught anything by somebody else. And…” She stammered, faltering over the next thing she wanted to say.
“And?” The older woman pushed.
“The things he said about my father,” The girl clenched her fists at her side and glared, not at the older woman but in defiance at the memory of those words. “My father was not a fool. My father cared for the empire and it’s people.”
“Your father also left you and your mother out here on your own. You were not part of the palace or it’d grand balls and rich fineries.” The woman said unfeelingly.
“I don’t care about any of that. I know my father probably didn’t even know I existed but.” She resisted the earge to stomp her foot, this wasn’t some tantrum, she was serious.
“Oh, he knew you existed. Why do you think the foolish advisor to the Usurper is here. You my girl, no matter how illegitimate you are, no matter what lowly life you’ve lived to this day, you are the last heir of the emperors line. As long as you live, the usurper is not legitimate on his throne.”
“He’s here for me?” It really hadn’t occurred to her.