Stealing Into Winter
A breathtaking tale of adventure, survival and loyalty.When the thief Jeniche finds her prison cell collapsing around her, she knows it is not going to be a good day.Certainly, the last thing she wanted once she escaped was to become involved with a group of monks and nuns being hunted by the Occassan soldiers who have invaded the city. Nor did she want to help the group flee by being their guide through the desert and mountains. Unfortunately, Jeniche’s skills are their only hope of making it out alive.But the soldiers are not the only danger waiting for them in the mountains.
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Stealing into Winter
Book One of Shadow in the Storm
GRAEME K. TALBOYS
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2015
Copyright © Graeme K. Talboys 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015.
Cover photographs © iStockphoto.com (figure); Shutterstock.com (all other images)
Graeme K. Talboys asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 978-0-00-810355-2
Version: 2015-06-16
For Barbara
Table of Contents
The wall opposite the door exploded. Thick, stale dust billowed into the dark cell. Particles of shattered stone ricocheted about the confined space, and lumps of rubble spilled in noisy profusion across the stone floor, tipping the bed on its side. Fast asleep at the time, Jeniche found herself sprawling in the debris, confused and in pain. Grit found its way into her mouth and she spat. Dust settled into her eyes and tears laid grimy tracks down the hollows of her dark cheeks.
She pushed herself into a sitting position while stones and chunks of mud brick cascaded from her hair and clothes, more dust drifting into the air. Resisting the temptation to rub her eyes, she blinked and winced, blinked again. And then began to cough as the pervasive dust caught the back of her throat.
Hunched in the deep gloom with her eyes streaming, still not understanding what had happened, she hacked until her lungs hurt. Perhaps it had been an earthquake. She had heard such things happened in Makamba now and then, but there had not been one in all the years since she had settled there. For the moment, as she sat waiting for the air to clear enough for light to filter through the barred window in the door, it was all she could think of by way of an explanation. Only when she had fallen silent, drawing cautious breaths of still dusty air through her nose, did she begin to hear faint, distant sounds.
They reached her through thick walls, long corridors, and many locked doors; through heaps of shattered masonry and thick dust. Disturbing sounds that filtered into her cell. Shouts. Screams. Faint exhalations, like sudden gusts of wind, followed by crushing thuds that made the ground tremble. Perhaps not an earthquake after all. She listened for anything closer, but just beyond her prison door, all was silent.
Feeling about her legs, she pushed lumps of crumbling mud brick away from her bruised shins and pulled herself upright. Grit cascaded to the floor stirring more dust into the air. She listened again, expectant, tense; the smell of fear mingling with the stale odour of sun-baked clay. Even the distant noise had subsided.
Placing her bare feet with care, she picked her way across the dark space to the metal door. Faint light showed through the iron bars at the small window. From a few paces back, she went up onto the tips of her toes. There was little to see. Blinking away the fog of tears, she stepped forward again.
The area beyond the door was filled with a haze of fine dust, illuminated by the pale flame of a lamp on the far side. Apart from that, the room seemed unchanged. A table. An arched entrance to a corridor at the far end. Rows of cell doors. In the window of one, large hands appeared, grasping the bars. She heard a heavy metallic rattle and tried the same with her own door, but it seemed as firmly locked as ever.
