Shadrak the Unseen should have known better. Stealing from one wizard on behalf of another was the sort of job he’d sworn never to take. But times were tough and grief had left its mark.
The thing that should have really warned him off, though, was that the artifact he’d been commissioned to retrieve was a ring crafted by none other than the Witch Queen of Thogani, the Desecrated City.
With the job half-done, Shadrak is caught between the minions of one wizard and the threats of the other. If he could just get the ring back to Pellor and the Stygian sorcerer who’d hired him, he’d have enough money to appease his creditors and buy himself some time.
But then his pockets are picked, the ring is taken, and the thief… is a ghost, silent, invisible.
Not daring to return to Pellor without the prize, Shadrak has no choice but to follow a barely discernible trail toward the last place in the world he wants to go:
New Londdyr, the greatest city on Aethir, where he once lorded it over the unified guilds.
And where the Senate have named him wanted…
DEAD OR ALIVE
Dead or Alive is a novella set in the same universe as Legends of the Nameless Dwarf and featuring one of D.P. Prior's most popular characters, Shadrak the Unseen, a homunculus assassin.
The book was released on February 22nd 2017.
A job well done had turned into a scut of a day, and Shadrak hadn’t seen the last of it. Six of Jankson Brau’s thugs lay sprawled in the dirt twenty feet below his ledge on the mesa. If only it had taken just six shots to kill them. One of Shadrak’s Ancient-tech flintlocks was clean out of bullets, and the other can’t have been far off. He reached behind to reassure himself his old “thundershot” pistol was still tucked in the back of his belt. It didn’t hold as many rounds as the faux flintlocks, and it wasn’t half as powerful, but it had gotten him out of many a tight spot over the years, and he was in one right now. He’d lost sight of the wizard and the last of the thugs. At this point, they could be anywhere.
He pressed his back to the rock wall beneath an overhang. One of the suns chose that moment to pitch into its haphazard descent. It didn’t matter how long Shadrak remained on Aethir, he’d never get used to the frenetic sequences of its twin suns, the phases of its three moons. He shielded his eyes against the sun’s glare, and when it was safe to open them again he could see nothing but white spots.
A boot scuffed the ledge above him. Shadrak blinked rapidly to clear his vision then raised his flintlock and waited. One heartbeat. Two. Voices from up top, muffled, arguing. A man swore, then a pair of boots dangled over the edge. Shadrak shot one, and blood spurted. The owner screamed. He shot the other, and a man fell, flailing and wailing, till a thud from below shut him the shog up.
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Translated by Paolo Rol
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