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    Bardsong: Glimmer Vale Chronicles, #7
    Bardsong: Glimmer Vale Chronicles, #7
    Bardsong: Glimmer Vale Chronicles, #7
    Ebook207 pages2 hours

    Bardsong: Glimmer Vale Chronicles, #7

    By Michael Kingswood

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    About this ebook

    Julian, Melanie, and Jared have returned to Lydelton.  And not a moment too soon.  Snow has begun falling in the passes, and soon no one will be able to travel in or out of Glimmer Vale and its environs unit the spring thaws arrive.

     

    But other new arrivals have made unexpected changes in the town they remember.  And as strange, almost mystical, events begin to unfold around them, the re-united team will need all of their wits and skill to get to the bottom of it all.

     

    Bardsong is the seventh novel in the Glimmer Vale Chronicles, a fun and exciting mystery set in a world of valor and magic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSSN Storytelling
    Release dateDec 2, 2024
    ISBN9798230823957
    Bardsong: Glimmer Vale Chronicles, #7
    Author

    Michael Kingswood

    Michael Kingswood has written numerous science fiction and fantasy stories, including The Pericles Conspiracy, The Glimmer Vale Chronicles, and the Dawn of Enlightenment series. His interest in scifi/fantasy came at an early age: he first saw Star Wars in the theater when he was three and grew up on Star Trek in syndication. The Hobbit was among the first books he recalls reading. Recognizing with sadness that the odds of his making it into outer space were relatively slim, after completing his bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University, he did the next best thing - he entered the US Navy as a submarine officer. Almost seventeen years later, he continues to serve on active duty and has earned graduation degrees in Engineering Management and Business Administration. Fitting with his service onboard Fast Attack submarines (SSNs), he does his writing on Saturdays, Sundays, and at Night. He is married to a lovely lady from Maine. They have four children, and live wherever the Navy deems to send them. Sign up to receive email announcements of Michael's new releases and other exclusive deals for newsletter subscribers here: http://eepurl.com/eND22 .

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      Book preview

      Bardsong - Michael Kingswood

      1

      COLD RETURNS

      The whistling of the wind past the walls of the Constabulary drew Raedrick Baletier’s eyes away from the report he was finishing and over toward the building’s stout, and firmly shut, pine door.

      Pine, like the rest of the building. But the door was stained a darker color than the walls, floor, and ceiling. Those were more pale, barely stained at all in truth. But it was well put together, the gaps between the planks of the walls well-sealed and the space between the inner wall and the outer structure insulated with…well, Raedrick wasn’t sure what with.

      He knew for a fact the men who built it, like all the other structures in Lydelton, had insulated it somehow. But in spite of that he felt the chill seeping in from outside. Only the cast iron wood stove that sat in the corner across the room from his desk, adjacent to the desk Julian normally used, kept his office close to comfortable.

      The cell block, extending from a barred door between his desk and Julian’s didn’t have that benefit. Oh, there was a small stove at the rear of the space, but it wasn’t nearly enough to heat the half-dozens cells back there much at all.

      For some of the miscreants he had locked up in there since he came to town almost two years ago, Raedrick wouldn’t have felt too much sympathy. But the man back there now, huddled beneath a pair of thick wool blankets on his cot in the middle cell on the left, was different.

      Trevir wasn’t a bad man, just a man who had his world collapse around him. An errant word from one of his fellow fishing men on their boat had sparked an inferno within him, and he’d lashed out.

      Fortunately, Raedrick had been able to talk him down before he did any real harm, aside from a cut to Gilroy’s leg. But still, Trevir had an appointment with the judge. Raedrick had expected a light sentence, pressed for it, actually. But whether because he wanted to set an example, or because of the fishing company’s importance to the town’s—and really the entirety of Glimmer Vale’s—economy, or because he’d just gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, the judge had rejected that notion.

      So Trevir had to spend the rest of the month in Raedrick’s cell block, on top of the fine the judge imposed.

      Not outside of the requirements of the law; in fact the judge could have gone much more severe. But as he listened to the wind outside and looked back toward the closed door to the cell block, Raedrick couldn’t help frowning in dissatisfaction.

      Trevir had three children and a wife—an unfaithful wife, it turned out, which is what had set him off—to care for. He couldn’t do that in a cell, not very well, anyway.

      Fortunately, Horace, the head of the fishing guild, had arranged with the Covington Brothers to pay their fishing men year-round, not just during the months when they were actually out on the boats. So Trevir’s family would have some money coming in. But…

      A particularly strong gust whipped around the building, and Raedrick frowned over at the wood stove again, but really at the empty desk next to it.

      And that was the real source of his pique today, he realized.

      The weather had finally begun to turn, Glimmer Vale’s short autumn collapsing into the frigid cold that would grip the high elevation community for the next five months. There hadn’t been any appreciable snowfall…yet. But the first dusting had fallen just yesterday.

      Raedrick snorted. Dusting. Where he grew up, in the lowlands well east of the Saddleback Mountains that housed the vale, what was deposited yesterday would constitute a heavy fall.

      Here…not so much.

      Still, hearing the wind blow, and knowing the rapidity with which winter was coming on, as he looked at the empty desk he could not force down concern that was rapidly growing into full-on worry.

      Julian Hinderbrook, his partner in the Constable’s position, had embarked on a journey out of the vale with Melanie Klemins and Jared Tolburt months ago, before spring had fully turned into summer. From the distance they had to cover to get to The Falconer’s Stairs and back, they should have been back long ago.

      Unless something had gone wrong.

      Several times over the last couple months he’d considered sending a pigeon down to Caperick Leminster, one of the Royal Marshals posted in Mangin City, the first city to the east of the Saddleback Mountains, to inquire if he’d seen or heard from them and perhaps ask him to send out a search party.

      But he’d held off. The place they were going had been lost for five hundred years or so, and no one else knew about the treasure hidden there. And he really didn’t know where to tell Leminster to look.

      There was also the fact that Melanie wasn’t supposed to leave the Vale, by agreement with Vigilant Haversted of the Magestirium in exchange for them not pressing charges against her for unlawfully practicing magic.

      So he really hadn’t wanted to draw official eyes toward their expedition, for her sake.

      But now he realized that was a mistake. The weather had turned and they were not back yet. Very soon the pass through the mountains to Mangin City would be impassable, if it wasn’t already—the mountains’ snowpacks had already visibly increased and indications were the pass had already seen a fair amount of snow even if they hadn’t here in the Vale…yet. So they would be stuck in the lowlands if they hadn’t already made the journey. Or if they had attempted the pass they might be in dire peril now.

      There were still pigeons in the town’s hutch. Perhaps he should send one to Leminster now, before the weather got worse. And he ought to talk with Povol, one of the local mountaineers. He could lead an expedition into the pass to see if they were laid up there…

      Raedrick snorted again. Foolishness.

      Julian could be impulsive but he was no fool. Neither was Melanie. They wouldn’t attempt the pass if it was clear there was no way through. So maybe they’d have to remain in Mangin City until spring. Not a big deal, was it?

      And anyway, without actual information that they were in trouble, sending an expedition would most likely be a waste of time and effort, and put other people into potential harm’s way without cause.

      You’ve got enough to worry about right here, he said softly to himself, and forced his eyes away from the stove—and the empty desk—and back to the parchment he’d been writing on.

      It was time for his monthly report to the mayor, and he had the report just about done. Really he’d finished it last night, but he was reading it through one last time before their meeting at noon. It⁠—

      A gust of chill blasted Raedrick as the front door swung open and a cloaked figure stepped into the room. A few flecks of white swirled through the air around him as he paused in the doorway for a second, then he kicked the door shut behind himself.

      The door latched with an audible clack and the cloaked man shrugged off a long, furred scarf that he had wrapped around his neck and the lower portion of his face. Then he turned and, doffing the cloak, hung both up on pegs driven into the wall next to the door.

      Uncloaked, he stood about Raedrick’s height, with shortly-cut brown hair. His coat was deep green, and smudged with dirt and soot in various places, his leggings grey-brown. His boots were thick leather and came up to his calves, and he wore a sword belt around his waist. A longsword with a hand-and-a-half hilt hung on his left hip and a shorter, curved blade on his right. As he turned back around from hanging up his cloak and scarf, he shot Raedrick a grin through three or four days’ growth of beard.

      Hey, Rae, he said, and clumped over to the stove, where he held out his hands toward the warmth.

      Julian!

      Raedrick was up onto his feet and around the desk almost before he realized what he was doing. Then he was over next to his long-lost—or seemingly long-lost anyway—partner. He grabbed Julian by the shoulder and spun him around, almost unsure whether he was seeing things or not.

      But no, he was real, and he had that semi-joking grin on his face that he almost always seemed to.

      It was Julian, all right.

      Raedrick pulled him in and gave him a hug—a masculine and brotherly hug. Julian flinched slightly for a second, then he clapped Raedrick on the back.

      Good to see you too, he said as Raedrick stepped back.

      You’re back, Raedrick said. What about the others? Are they⁠—?

      Julian made a dismissive gesture. They’re fine. Melanie’s gone to, and I quote, tackle the mountains of dust that she’s sure has piled up in her shop. Jared’s squaring things away with Molli’s stablehands and seeing to his flat.

      Jared. Not Tolburt. Raedrick couldn’t remember ever hearing Julian use his first name, not since the last time they saw him back in their army days. Or the end of those days, at least.

      When did you get into town?

      Julian shrugged and settled down into his desk chair. About an hour and a half ago. And not before time, he added, gesturing toward the wood stove. It’s getting positively cold our there. Big snowfall in the pass two nights ago. I thought we were going to turn into icicles. But we made it.

      Raedrick nodded slowly, still not quite believing what he was seeing and hearing. Julian had been gone for so long…that he was back, and so suddenly, was like being on one of the fishing boats during an unexpected gale and having the deck tilt out from under your feet.

      Fortunately, he had never actually been out on the boats in those conditions. But he had watched from the shore this past summer when a gale swept in, saw how far over those boats heeled in the sudden wind, and cringed to think of that feeling. Wondered how the men aboard could handle it without one or all of them going into the lake and drowning.

      Julian looked away from the stove back toward Raedrick’s side of the office and raised an eyebrow. What’s with the new desk?

      That brought Raedrick out of his thoughts of the summer storm. He looked over to the corner of the room opposite the wood stove, and grinned.

      He had set up a small, lightly-stained pine desk there a few weeks ago, vacant now but outfitted with a blotter, pen, and ink jar.

      That’s for Amos Melton, our new assistant.

      Julian looked him askance. Melton. He seemed to chew on the name for a moment, then his eyes widened slightly, in recognition. The rancher?

      Raedrick nodded. His son. His father thought he needed…direction, so he volunteered him to work for us.

      And how’s that working out?

      Alright so far. He narrowed his eyes at Julian. Are you going to tell me about what happened to you three or am I going to have to beat it out of you?

      Julian chuckled. That’s a long story, and we all decided it’d be best to tell you this evening at dinner. He smirked. Melanie seemed to think I’d miss a detail or two in the telling. And besides, he waggled an index finger at Raedrick, she wants to see that daughter of yours.

      Raedrick couldn’t help chuckling at that. Women never could get enough of babies, it seemed. But still, he burned to hear what had happened on the companion’s journey. The idea of waiting…

      The clock on top of the shelf of case records next to the barred door to the cell block chimed softly, drawing his eye to it, and he shelved the annoyance that had begun to grow.

      There’s no time now anyway. We’ve got a meeting with Mayor Holliman in a couple minutes.

      He turned back to his desk, and the report he had been reading over. No time to go over it now, and anyway it was fine enough as it was. He hoped.

      Mayor…Holliman? Julian said, confusion in his voice.

      Raedrick picked up the report and looked back over his shoulder toward his friend, and grinned at him. You’ve missed a lot around here as well. Come on, I’ll fill you in as we go.

      Julian got that semi-pouty expression that he sometimes got when he wanted to protest doing something, but just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished. He nodded and stood. He paused for a moment to rub his hands in front of the stove again, then he straightened and grabbed up his cloak from where he’d hung it.

      Let’s get to it.

      2

      MEET THE NEW BOSS

      As he followed Raedrick down Lydelton’s main street toward the Town Hall, Julian couldn’t help comparing it to the streets of Mangin City. Not that he’d spent all that much time there, or that he thought highly of it—the opposite actually—but compared with the tightly-packed, compressed, and more built-up buildings there, Lydelton seemed spacious, spread out.

      And small.

      He had visited plenty of places larger than Mangin City back in his army days. His travels had taken him through many of the Kingdoms largest cities and deep into the territory of their enemy to the west, and he’d seen plenty of places that more deserved the title metropolis than cities.

      Compared with them, Mangin City was small and Lydelton positively tiny, almost non-existent.

      But it had been more than two years since he’d been in a town larger than Lydelton, except for Mangin City. And the time he’d spent there during the journey to the Falconer’s Stairs had left an impression on him, a feeling for how a city is.

      Cramped. Stacked high. Filled with bustling humanity striving and surging en masse for a living, and maybe a tiny bit of prosperity in the clutter.

      Lydelton, by contrast, was almost tiny. About a thousand adults total, and maybe the same number scattered throughout the rest of Glimmer Vale. Even here in the middle of what passed for the vale’s hub of civilization the buildings were smaller, more spread out. Even the lowliest of the houses had at least a small plot of land between itself and its neighbors, and the boarding houses were only two stories tall. All boasted the steeply-sloped roofs required by the heavy snowfall of Glimmer Vale’s winters, with at least one stone chimney poking out apiece.

      And none of the streets were paved. Except Main Street, which was solid flagstone, quarried from the mountains east of town once upon a time until the residents realized

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