All The King's-Men (The Yellow Hoods, #3) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Eorthe

  Chapter One - Head and Heart

  Chapter Two - Childhood's End

  Chapter Three - All the King's-Men

  Chapter Four - Making Cracks

  Chapter Five - A Great Fall

  Chapter Six - The Pointy Stick Inn

  Chapter Seven - An Eg Unscrambled

  Chapter Eight - Homecoming

  Chapter Nine - Flaky Roads Ahead

  Chapter Ten - Mercy of the Red Hoods

  Chapter Eleven - Safe House

  Chapter Twelve - Like a Brother

  Chapter Thirteen - Pascal's Dilemma

  Chapter Fourteen - King's-Horses

  Chapter Fifteen - The Liar

  Chapter Sixteen - Abominators and Friends

  Chapter Seventeen - Trust Me

  Chapter Eighteen - What a Sharp Mind You Have

  Chapter Nineteen - A Neu Way

  Chapter Twenty - Brotherly Love

  Chapter Twenty-One - Forked Road

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Lady in Red

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Not a Moment to Breathe

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Mother's Son

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Cracked

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Karm'ing Home

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Crumbled Ginger

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Badge of the Conventioneer

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Grimy Roof

  Chapter Thirty - Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

  Chapter Thirty-One - Loose Ends

  Chapter Thirty-Two - The Great Escape

  Chapter Thirty-Three - Bite Marks

  Chapter Thirty-Four - Fare Warning

  Chapter Thirty-Five - A Bargain Made

  Chapter Thirty-Six - The Gingerbread Man

  Chapter Thirty-Seven - Armed and Dangerous

  Chapter Thirty-Eight - Humpty Dumpty

  Chapter Thirty-Nine - Faith in Family

  Thank You

  About the Author

  Book 3 of

  THE YELLOW HOODS

  All the King’s-Men

  An Emergent Steampunk Series

  by Adam Dreece

  ADZO Publishing Inc.

  Calgary, Canada

  Copyright © 2015 by Adam Dreece.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator” at [email protected].

  ADZO Publishing Inc.

  Calgary, Alberta, Canada

  www.adzopublishing.com

  Printed in Canada, United States, and China

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Dreece, Adam, 1972-, author

  All the king's-men / by Adam Dreece.

  (Book 3 of the Yellow Hoods : an emergent steampunk series)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-0-9881013-6-4 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-0-9881013-7-1 (pdf)

  I. Title. II. Series: Dreece, Adam, 1972- Yellow Hoods ; bk. 3

  PS8607.R39A64 2015

  jC813'.6

  C2015-901435-2

  C2015-901436-0

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2015-04-01 71,149

  DEDICATION

  To my daughter who is my muse,

  To my wife who is my rock in the windstorm,

  To my sons who reignite my

  imagination every day,

  and

  To the incredible people who have become fans of the books and encourage me to keep going…

  You are

  “All The Awesome.”

  EORTHE

  Cartographer: Driss of Zouak, 1793

  Created at the behest of the Council of Southern Kingdoms

  CHAPTER ONE

  Head and Heart

  “I’m coming with you,” said Richy adamantly. “Bakon and you are family to me. I’m coming.”

  Egelina-Marie smiled proudly at the yellow-cloaked young man. It seemed like an eternity ago that he’d come running up to her in a flash of yellow on her first day of guard patrol. He’d been so nervous and desperate when he’d asked for her and the sergeant’s help to save Nikolas Klaus. Her smile grew as she remembered taking the leap of faith to follow him, and how her superior threatened to shoot her for it.

  That scared boy, who had quickly become a haunted teen, now stood before her as a young man of conviction. His electric blue, almond-shaped eyes and yellow, hooded cloak contrasted sharply with the old brown ledger under his arm and the Ginger Lady’s decrepit house behind him.

  Egelina-Marie stared at the ledger. How could so much ill have come from such an old thing so quickly, she wondered. “I can’t begin to imagine what that moment was like for you.”

  Richy folded his shoulders in and tucked his head down, as if bracing himself against the icy-cold truth that threatened to hit him again. “It…” He paused, lost for a moment. “I’m glad Bakon was there.”

  “I should have been there, too,” Eg replied. “I can’t—”

  “Honestly,” interrupted Richy, an awkward expression on his face. “I think it was easier for me to just be with Bakon. To have him be the one to tell me that ten years ago I was sold to the Ginger Lady, to help me understand that for two months I lived in a place like that... it made it easier for me to hear it from him. Is that wrong?”

  Egelina-Marie gave him a hug and kissed him on the forehead. His words lightened her emotional burden. “Did you have any sense from him what he was thinking? That he suspected that maybe he and his brothers were in those ledgers somewhere?”

  A look of guilty disappointment stared back at her as she released him from the hug. “I couldn’t think straight. He was my anchor. I—”

  “Hey,” she said, wiping the fledgling tears from her eyes. “You are amazing. Don’t forget that. I don’t know what I would have done in your situation.” She’d seen something in Bakon’s eyes when she’d arrived with his brothers to pick up him and Richy. She should have suspected something when he’d insisted on catching up with them, rather than leaving with them immediately for Mineau. She was disappointed in herself for letting the man she loved run into the arms of his greatest insecurity alone.

  A gunshot startled Egelina-Marie back to the present.

  “What was that?” asked Richy.

  Eg scanned the forest and clearing, finding nothing. Remembering a trick her father had taught her, she closed her eyes and turned her head slowly, trying to remember where the sound had come from.

  Another shot rang out and Egelina-Marie pointed sharply. “There,” she said, opening her eyes. “I’d guess that it’s at least two parties shooting at each other. We need to check it out.”

  “Are you sure?” said Richy, willing to back her, but nervous.

  “For all we know, this whole area is about to get overwhelmed with more foreign soldiers. Richy, can you find us a ladder to a canopy bridge to take us toward the shots?”

  “Yeah, I’m on it,” he replied, pulling his ho
od down and running off to study the surrounding trees in detail.

  Egelina-Marie quickly walked her horse over to a tree and tied it up. She freed the repeating rifle from its saddle strapping and checked it: there were only two shots left. “Richy?” she called out, glancing around.

  “Over here!” he yelled, a surprising distance away.

  As she approached the tree, she marveled at how hard it was to see the ladder carved into the large tree’s trunk, even up close. The bark had regrown over it perfectly, and though it had clearly been used recently, it looked perfectly natural.

  When she arrived at the top, Richy pulled one of the two levers and a walkway expanded out from their tree through the canopy to another tree in the direction Eg had requested.

  “Are your shock—” she started to ask.

  “Charged and ready,” said Richy, smiling and tapping the hidden pockets of his cloak. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”

  Eg stopped herself for a moment. “What did you do with the ledger?”

  “I dropped it by my sail-cart,” replied Richy. “Why?”

  “Don’t bring it with us when we go, okay? I don’t want any part of this cursed place coming with us.”

  Richy nodded. He could see something in her face, and felt the same way.

  Two shots snapped the air in rapid succession.

  “Let’s go,” commanded Eg.

  A minute later, as they were halfway across a second canopy bridge, they caught sight of the scene. A wounded soldier was stumbling through the forest, clutching his right side. Two other soldiers were chasing him with their rifles drawn, all of them dressed like the ones they had encountered earlier in the day.

  “There,” said Egelina-Marie, taking the rifle off her back and going down on one knee. “Are you sure no one can see us up here?”

  Richy nodded. “Even if they knew what they were looking for, they’d have a hard time finding us.”

  “Good,” she replied. “Now we just need to figure out what’s going on. I wish we were closer.”

  The wounded soldier slumped against a tree a hundred yards away. He gestured feebly, yelling something at the other two.

  “Hmm,” said Egelina-Marie, squinting and trying to glean any detail that she could.

  “Should I get closer? I think there’s another bridge right over them,” said Richy, eager to help.

  Eg leaned against the metal, crisscross-barred side of the walkway. “Those riflemen are reloading.” She put her rifle back up against her shoulder and got into position. “We’re going to have to guess. What’s that expression? The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

  Richy raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Doesn’t your dad say that the enemy of my enemy is my next enemy?”

  Egelina-Marie chuckled. “He does. He’s never wrong on that either.” She paused as she drafted a plan. “Okay, when I shoot, I want you to get as close to their position as possible. That wounded guy’s arm just slumped, so I’m guessing we won’t have a lot of time to get to him.”

  “Ready,” said Richy.

  Taking a well-practiced, calming breath, Eg thought back to her earliest days, when she would borrow one of her father’s rifles without permission and slink off into the forest to shoot targets. Every type of rifle had its own personality, and not having fired this type before, she knew she had at most one chance to learn how to use it before needing to fire its last shot perfectly.

  Richy jumped as Eg fired. The shot just missed one of the riflemen’s legs.

  “Okay, so it fires low and to the left,” she said, cranking the side of the rifle to prepare it for its next shot. She glanced in Richy’s direction and saw the canopy bridge over the action expanding out.

  The two riflemen started to argue, and one pulled a pistol on the other. “Woo,” said Eg to herself. “These guys are some really nasty pargos.” Steadying her hand, she pulled the trigger and nothing happened. “Jammed!”

  Eg caught the glint of something falling from the trees, and smiled as both riflemen flailed about while the shock-sticks made their presence known.

  She scrambled over to Richy’s position, and they descended together.

  “Who are you?” asked the wounded soldier as they approached him. His face was pasty white and his uniform jacket was soaked in blood.

  Egelina-Marie kneeled down beside him and studied his jacket. “We’re the guys who just saved you. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “What?” said Richy, trying to make sense of why the soldier was giving up. “You’re going to be all good soon, right, Eg?”

  Egelina-Marie and the soldier stared at him, letting him in on the reality of the situation.

  Knowing they didn’t have much time, Eg turned back to the soldier and said, “We’re from Minette. We saw some soldiers like you earlier today. Why were you running?”

  “Mineau?” said the soldier, blinking, his eyes going wide with each painful breath.

  “Close enough,” said Eg, opening his jacket and wrinkling her face as she saw the extent of his wounds.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, gulping for air.

  “Eg, do something!” said Richy, his eyes welling up.

  A moment later, the soldier’s face went slack.

  Egelina-Marie bowed her head and closed his eyes with her hand. After whispering a few words on the wind, Eg saw the expression on Richy’s face. She knew that expression all too well.

  “Richy? Are you okay?” she asked, walking over to him and rubbing his shoulder.

  “Yeah,” he said, retrieving his dropped shock-sticks.

  “What do we do now?” he asked, still half-dazed.

  “We get back to my horse and your sail-cart.”

  “We’re going after Bakon, right?” he asked hopefully.

  “I… I need to think,” replied Egelina-Marie, a sadness creeping across her face.

  “Egelina-Marie, you are not going out with those friends of yours without this backpack!” thundered Lieutenant Gabriel Archambault to his fifteen-year-old daughter. His huge right hand pointed at the leather backpack he’d prepared for her. He looked like an average father in his brown pantaloons, beige knee-high socks, jerkin, and white shirt.

  The ponytailed Egelina-Marie glared at him, arms crossed, her brown eyes narrowed. She was the spitting image of her father, just smaller and female. She had his eyes and was similarly dressed. “Papa, it’s heavy! You can’t expect me to carry that much!”

  Gabriel rolled his eyes. “That’s because it has two days of food and water, and proper supplies! You can’t expect it to weigh nothing.”

  Egelina-Marie leaned forward. “I don’t need that! I’m just going into the forest for a couple of hours with some friends! We aren’t going to sleep in the forest overnight or anything. I’ll be home before the sun goes down. Anyway, none of the other parents are making their kids take anything like that. I’ll look like an idiot.”

  Gabriel leaned in and put his meaty hands on his hips. “If I wanted you to look like an idiot, I’d use more imagination than giving you a backpack!”

  Victoria slipped into the room. “He wanted you to wear a winter coat. I told him it’s only September!” she said as she vanished again.

  Egelina-Marie scowled at the bedroom door as it closed.

  “No!” said Egelina-Marie, turning back to her father.

  Gabriel rubbed his famously huge, black-and-gray moustache and paced about, his eyes locked on his daughter.

  He could see Egelina-Marie was ready for a fight. He also knew that was the last thing the two of them needed. Gabriel had promised Victoria that he’d handle this in a way that she’d approve of.

  He walked around the table, and pulled out a chair. “Sit,” he commanded, pointing. Egelina-Marie intensified her glare and folded her arms more tightly.

  Gabriel took a deep breath and stared at the well-worn wooden floor. He tapped the back of the chair as he thought.
“Sit. Please,” he asked nicely.

  After some hesitation, Egelina-Marie slowly made her way to the old wooden chair. Gabriel noticed a slight wobble in the chair as she sat, and had half a mind to go get some tools and have Egelina-Marie help him repair it, as she usually did, but he stopped himself. He wasn’t going to allow himself to escape from the situation. He needed to bridge the gap that had been growing between them lately.

  Gabriel sat down and tried not to glare at his daughter over the backpack. “There are a couple of rules…”

  Egelina-Marie scoffed and started to get up.

  “No, listen,” said Gabriel firmly, but without raising his voice. His daughter sat back down, folded her arms, and leaned back.

  Gabriel fumbled with his fingers and glanced around the kitchen. “When I was your age, I had an uncle go missing in the Red Forest. He was—”

  “I know, he got lost and died,” said Egelina-Marie rudely. She stared at her dad, and recognized for the first time that he was making a serious effort. “Sorry, Papa.”

  Gabriel nodded and continued. “My uncle Jacques was a strong and very capable man, but arrogant. He’d been a Procession Scout for the Frelish royals for years. Always out there, hundreds of yards ahead of wherever the royal family was traveling to, checking for enemies and whatnot. There’d never been a single incident when he’d been on duty. A year after he’d retired because of his eyesight, one of the young Frelish princes was kidnapped and taken into the Red Forest.”

  Egelina-Marie unfolded her arms and straightened up. She sighed. She’d heard this before, but could tell her father wasn’t saying it simply to wear her down.

  Gabriel smiled sadly. “Now, as it happened, Jacques had been traveling along the road with his younger brother—my father—and a few neighbors that day. Jacques was in his late forties, the oldest of the group by a few years.