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  The Delving

  Overthrown – The Chronicles of Denoril

  Aaron Bunce

  Autumn Arch Publishing

  Iowa

  www.AutumnArchPublishing.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Aaron Bunce as “The Delving”.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof, many not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotation in a book review or literary publication.

  Publisher’s note

  This is a work of fiction. All names, places, characters, and incidences are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, alive or dead, events or locations, is completely coincidental.

  A product of Autumn Arch Publishing

  Cover design: Christian Bentulan

  Interior design: Aaron Bunce

  Map Design: Francesca Baerald

  Proofed by: Yvonne Bunce

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978-0-9992026-9-2

  Amazon Kindle: B07MCW3X35

  1st Edition 2019

  –The Overthrown Series–

  Volume 1

  The Winter of Swords (Available Now)

  Volume 2

  Before the Crow (Available Now)

  Volume 3

  A March of Woe (Available Now)

  Volume 4

  The Prince of Orphans (Coming Soon)

  Volume 5

  Blade of Ashes (Coming Soon)

  Volume 6

  A Song of Bones (Coming Soon)

  –Overthrown – The Chronicles of Denoril–

  (An all-new supplementary series)

  The Delving (Out Now!)

  Acknowledgments

  I want to take a moment to consider my awesome group of Beta readers. You guys and gals helped make this book into what it is today. Thank you for your dedication and honesty! Behind every author is a fantastic and equally talented group of developmental readers, and mine are:

  Adrienne Gilmere, Dennis Green, Kara Nordberg, Leah Gough, Lyric Kali, Sara Vogt, Sarah Ockershausen Delp, Colton Peyton, and Seth Douglas.

  For Gary B and Gary S – your examples have helped me become the man and father I am today.

  By Decree

  No Delving

  Delving is hereby declared a heinous crime, deserving of judgment and punishment, to include enslavement, the lash, and a hot brand upon one’s flesh. If any man or woman, high born or low, be caught entering sealed crypts or burial chambers, with the intent of plunder, theft, desecration, or dark magical crafts, they will be punished immediately, and severely. That punishment shall extend to the end of their days.

  Professed on this day, the first moon of Autumn, in the first Thaw of the Council’s rule.

  The voice of the Council, Gladeus DuChamp

  Chapter One

  For a Family

  …Tenth winter thaw of the Council’s rule, pre-harvest.

  Thorben Paulson scanned the wall of wooden racks, using the candle’s gentle glow to pierce the deep shadows. He lifted a bag of grain, only to find a dead mouse underneath. He cursed, and swept the dead vermin onto the ground, before carefully pulling the sack free.

  “Idle mouths and empty bellies,” he groused, looking around the dark room. Boot prints covered the dirt floor, tracing the circuitous route the Earl’s men had woven to empty the small space.

  “Thieves! And they spit on me for not having the coin to fill the Earl’s coffers. They fill their bellies with our food…grown in our land…and tended by our hand. Ah, I hope they choke on a turnip,” Thorben yelled as he pulled himself free of the root cellar. He stomped his boot and slammed the rickety doors behind him.

  He stuffed the swollen pin back into the latch and gave the doors an exploratory tug, confirming they were locked before dropping to a knee. He gathered up his findings – a handful of brown potatoes, dried garlic, greens, and onions, but they were all well past their season.

  His wife was a wizard in the kitchen. She had regularly filled their bellies when times were lean, concocting savory meals out of odds and ends mixed with meat scraps, but this was well beyond anything she’d had to work with before.

  Thorben’s anger turned cold, twisting at his heart as he looked down at the armful of pathetic food. Somehow, he needed to keep his family fed – six boys and a growing girl, whose appetite rivaled every man in the house. But how would he do it? The woods around the house provided no immediate reply. Not that he expected one. He had to do something, or the people he loved would starve.

  Tromping around the house, Thorben threw his body up against the wall as a girl appeared suddenly, her head down and in a full sprint.

  “Gracious, girl!” he yelled, but she laughed breathlessly and bounded into the tree line.

  He made it around the house, his youngest son, Kenrick, almost bowling him over, too.

  “Father!” Kenrick yelled, his five older brothers stacking up behind him and almost knocking him to the ground. “Where did she go?”

  “And why…” Thorben started to ask, but his question devolved into a barely-suppressed chuckle. The six young men were a mess, but more than usual. A clump of mud broke loose from Kenrick’s shirt and landed with a plop on the ground. He looked between each of his sons, taking note of their dirty faces and soiled clothes.

  “You boys are right filthy! Wait until your ma sees you. She’ll have at your rears with that wooden spoon of hers,” he said.

  “Not our fault, Pa! She crawled up into a tree overlooking the fishing hole and threw dirt clods at us while we was swimming. Then, we get out of the water to tell her to stop and find she put worms in our boots. If you ain’t gonna punish her, then we’re gonna pound the stuffing out of her, Pa!”

  Thorben coughed to hide his mirth, and after a moment of contemplation, said, “She went that way, boys,” and pointed in the vague direction of the outhouse. She actually ran south, towards the town square, but he wouldn’t tell them that. “And don’t hurt her. She’s smaller than all of you!” he hollered at the boy’s retreating backs.

  The rich smell of baking sweet rolls drifted past him as he approached the kitchen. The top half of the door was pinned open, while the bottom remained latched. Thorben stopped short and leaned into the doorway, resting his weight on the lower door.

  Dennica finished kneading some bread dough, slapped it with some flour, gave it a twist, and slid it into their open, clay oven. Then she used the flat spatula to pull a hot loaf out and drop it on the wide cutting table.

  “Nothing smells like your bread, love,” he said, hanging his head further into the room.

  Dennica jumped, her hand jumping to her breast. “Curse you, husband. You startled a ghost out of me,” she cried.

  “Sorry. I just love watching you work. It’s truly magic of the most delicious nature,” he said, unlatching the door and stepping inside. He walked over and unloaded the armful of food onto the table, where it came to rest next to the steaming loaf of bread.

  “Is that it?” she started to ask, her gaze lifting to his. His face felt tight, matching the despair swirling inside of him. He tried to smile, to show her that it would be all right, even if he didn’t believe it himself. He could tell immediately that she didn’t buy it.

  “They cleaned it out,” Thorben said, flatly.

  “All of it?”

  “Mostly,” he said, pulling the vegetables into a tighter pile.

  “Damn, blithering, tongue-biters,” Dennica growled, her flour-covered hands balling up into fists.

  “At least we have your bread. That fills bellies as good as anything else!” he said, trying to lighten the conversation. “And we can sell a loaf here and there for
some extra coin.”

  Dennica started shaking her head before he finished speaking. “What am I to bake with? I have enough flour to make bread this day, but you know how the boys eat. We should have just given them the coin and hoped they left our cellar be.”

  “Shhh,” he hissed, jamming a finger to his lips and turning to look out the open door. “We told the Earl’s men that we hadn’t any coin. That is why they took our food. If they find out that we stashed it away, they’ll lock us up in a hole in the ground, and our children will never see us again. If we’d given them that coin, they would have just taken our food anyway.”

  “But what are we to eat? Yes, harvest is coming, but our garden and field stake is small. That won’t fill our cellar. You’ve got six hungry boys to feed, Thorben. And Dennah eats almost as much as the lot of them combined. How many cold days do you think we’ll manage through before they’re eating each other?”

  “I could use the saved coin to buy smoked sausages, salted pork, and dried garlic. That would help us get by–”

  “And then what do we buy our seed for next season with? If we don’t have grain seed, we don’t have wheat and a field share to take to the mill to grind, and then we have no bread. We talked about this, husband. Mayhaps our garden flourishes, and if Mani is shining her blessings down, the south field doesn’t flood next year and we can finally grow a proper crop of our own…have food goods to sell at market beyond what we need. If we can, we might be able to dig ourselves out of this hole.”

  Thorben reached up and rubbed his weary eyes. He tired of the struggle, the fight just to safeguard his family another season of meals.

  “I thought the Council was to make things easier…not harder. Their tax is no better than that damned mad fool, Algast king, Djaron.”

  “Shhh. Don’t spit that name in this house, husband!” Dennica snapped.

  “I’m sorry, love. The drearies have me bad now. We’ve been all throughout these parts, at least the parts safe enough for folk to travel in, and what did we find – some mushrooms, a few rabbits, and some wild rhubarb? Folks’ve foraged these parts clean. Can’t earn a wage mending fences or roofs, as most folk don’t have the coin to spare. We’re in a bad way, and I can’t think of a–”

  Dennica came forward suddenly and pulled him into a hug, cutting off his despair.

  “We’ll make due, like we always do. You just can’t see that yet,” she said, quietly, squeezing him with a strength born from a life of hard labor. She pushed him out to arm’s length after a moment. “Why don’t you take your pipe, have a nice little smoke, and take a quiet walk. The best ideas always come when you’re not looking for them.”

  A loud commotion sounded outside, and the bottom half of the kitchen door flung open with a bang. A girl darted into the kitchen, a crowd of red-faced and cursing boys at her heels.

  “Wow, and what is this?” Dennica yelled, as Dennah leapt behind her, hiding under her apron.

  The six brothers all tried talking as one, shaking their fists and pointing to the crusty splotches of mud dried to their clothes. Thorben turned on his sons, his patience exhausted.

  “Enough!” he bellowed, stomping his foot and silencing them.

  “But, father!” Reginald, the second youngest complained. “She–”

  “No!” Thorben interrupted, and then pointed at the door and yelled, “Out!”

  The group of boys grumbled but filed back out of the kitchen.

  “You best avoid them for a time, girl,” Thorben said, addressing the little girl hiding under wife’s apron. Dennah appeared from her hiding spot, looking quickly from the door to his face. She flashed him a mischievous smile, jumped up to kiss her mother’s cheek, and took off at a run, disappearing out into the sunshine.

  “That girl…” Dennica said, shaking her head.

  “I’m not sure her brothers are made of strong enough stuff to handle her.”

  “Her brothers?” Dennica laughed, “The darkest wilds of Denoril don’t stand a chance!” They laughed together for a few moments, the levity a welcomed change, but then the weight of their circumstances floated back in, hanging over them like a dark cloud.

  “I’ll take that walk. I have some thinking to do. Thank you,” Thorben said, leaning over and kissing Dennica on the cheek. Their eyes met, her strength and resolve shining through. Thorben managed a weak smile and walked out of the kitchen, leaving his wife to make sense of their soon-to-be empty bellies.

  Chapter Two

  Surety

  Once outside, Thorben knocked his pipe clean against the side of the house, stuffed it with fresh leaf, and stopped at a lantern hanging from the edge of the roadway to light it. He puffed on the pipe and walked, letting the sweet smoke drift lazily over his face, intermittently thinking and letting his mind go blank.

  He skipped around some road apples and turned, tracking the sound of a girl laughing. Dennah jumped and ran in a field to his left, scattering and chasing a swarm of brightly colored butterflies. Thorben watched her play for a few moments, marveling at her energy and fearless nature.

  He’d silently cursed the notion of having a daughter those seasons back, wondering how a lone girl would fare growing up in a household of rowdy boys. It didn’t take Dennah long to prove his concerns false. She was fierce.

  Thorben’s thoughts inevitably slid back to their empty cellar and he started to worry anew. He took a long drag on the pipe, and methodically started working through the problem. It always boiled down to coin, as there was no food shortage, only the ability to buy it. Boats floated in from Pinehall and Freedom’s Point regularly, carrying salted thrasher fish and smoked crab. But those merchants listened only to the song of jingling gold and silver. They wouldn’t parlay or trade, and they surely weren’t plied with sob stories or the promise of repayment.

  His meanderings took him down the road, the brisk, fall wind whistling gently through the canopy overhead. Occasionally a leaf would drift down from above, so he would stop and watch its lonely journey all the way to the ground.

  Of course, there were always jobs available to men and women of select trades and skills, if they knew who to ask or where to look. Thorben took another drag on the pipe and tried to shake away the thought. He’d lived a very different life when he was a younger man – been a different person, done things that clashed with his ideals now. That life paid handsomely, but could just as easily reward a man with death, or worse, a life sentence spent breaking rocks in the Council’s mine.

  Thorben considered something he’d heard around the common hall fire a few moons before, about a wealthy merchant in town providing loans of gold and silver coin to folks hard up for food. Word was he was asking interest paid along with coin in repayment.

  If it could get a person by for a time, a handful of copper might be well spent to keep a man’s family from starving, the old grey-haired man had said, telling Thorben as much as rationalizing his own dilemma out loud. He’d stubbornly argued the point, based squarely off his own closely-guarded principles. But who was he to tell someone they had to suffer through the pangs of an empty stomach, when he would turn around and do the same, or more, to keep his own children from suffering a similar fate?

  The idea of borrowing coin from a stranger sounded as odd a concept as a fish walking across the road or a bird swimming through the water. And yet, if it kept his family fed until his fortunes changed, how could he consider that a bad thing? The seasons changed whether he wanted them to or not, but each brought new risks and opportunities. Perhaps that was the key, biding time until new chances could arise.

  Thorben picked up his pace and turned left at the next road, making his way across one of the many rope and timber footbridges. Frogs and other animals chittered and croaked beneath him as he crossed the small gorge, calling out to him from the brown-tinged reeds.

  The idea felt less strange with every step forward. He would secure his family’s immediate future, and not have to watch his children lick their fingers
hungrily, or scrape at empty bowls. He would see their bellies full and eyes bright, no matter the sacrifice. It was a risk, yes, but it would see him forward just long enough to search out the next prospect. It was time Dennica didn’t have to scrape meals together out of old vegetables and weevil-infested grain. Yes. He just needed more time.

  The next bridge brought him into Yarborough, the large town so embedded in the borough’s thick forests that many travelers wandered into its midst without even realizing it.

  A mule cart rumbled by, the wagon filled with the body of an enormous beast. A mass of legs hung over the side rails, the beast’s hooves twice the size of his fists. Thorben couldn’t see the creature’s head, although he could see its blood-red fur, and mane-like frill of branching antlers. A single, thick arrow shaft stuck out of the beast’s side, the striped fletching as long as half his arm.

  “A successful hunt, it appears!” Thorben said to the older man perched on the wagon seat.

  The man pulled his straw hat off, scratched his head, and chuckled, but there was no mirth to the sound.

  “Damn buck appeared in the night. Knocked down two trees and killed my prize bull…never seen a rootstag this large or aggressive before. Beast would have killed me and mine, too,” the old man said, slapping lightly at the reins.

  Thorben grunted, pulling on the pipe as the wagon rumbled away. Rootstags weren’t uncommon in the boroughs, but they normally weren’t so large.

  Thorben had seen the beasts from a distance on several occasions, and often mistook them for an elk or large deer. After all, their fur was normally brown. Normally timid, rootstags kept to groves of dense trees, occasionally wandering down streams in search of food. And yet, for those that stumbled across the red-furred beasts, that mistake could prove deadly. Once a season, male rootstags would travel far and wide in search of rare pauper trees.