Hello and welcome to Track of Words, where today I have an exclusive excerpt for you from the upcoming novella In The Shadow of Their Dying by Anna Smith Spark and Michael R. Fletcher, coming in March 2024 from Grimdark Magazine. Featuring two big names from the Grimdark fantasy scene, and excellent cover art by Carlos Diaz (design by Shawn T. King), this looks like one to watch for all you Grimdark fans out there. Read on for the cover and official synopsis for In The Shadow of Their Dying, and then an exclusive excerpt to give you just a little taste of what to expect.
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The third best assassin.
A second rate mercenary crew.
One terrifying demon.
As Sharaam crumbles under siege, a mercenary crew hires an assassin to kill the king. For Tash, it’s a chance at glory–to be the best blade in the dark Sharaam has ever known. For Pitt, it’s a way to get his cutthroat crew past the Tsarii siege and out of this hellhole, maybe even with some gold to their name. For Iananr the Bound One, it’s a dream of shadows and human blood.
The third best assassin in Sharaam.
Who in the pale hells started negotiations with that? Who led with, “Since you’re the third best assassin in the city…”
Someone about to low-ball your rate, Tash decided. That’s who.
But Tash had been desperate and, let’s face it, he was the third best assassin in a city no more than a week from being conquered by an invading army. The gates were closed, the walls manned. The harbour was crammed full of ships, but every time one tried to escape, the Tsarii blockade sank it. No one got in or out, unless you counted those soldiers falling from the wall.
A dozen flaming balls of pitch arced over the distant city wall to fall, sputtering, somewhere in the Taharishae District where all the politicians and Masters of Industry lived.
Couldn’t happen to nicer people.
On good days the Tsarii threw rock and fire. On bad days it was alchemical sorcery, exploding clay orbs filled with nightmare narcotics, or bits of dead Sharaami soldiers.
Every night the Tsarii attacked, and every night the Sharaami soldiers sprinted to their stations to shove away scaling ladders or put out fires or get stabbed in the throat by someone scaling a ladder they’d been too slow to shove away. While there was plenty of killing going on in and around the city, there wasn’t much demand for assassinations. For the most part, people who find themselves and all their most treasured enemies on the losing side of a siege don’t bother hiring assassins to off their opponents. They’re going to die anyway. Why waste money better spent drinking yourself senseless?
Moving door to door, shadow to shadow, Tash slid ever closer to the palace. A pair of guards passed in the street, chatting about whores they’d rut and whiskey they’d swill once their shift was over. They saw nothing.
Third best, my puckered arse.
The sky cracked, a jagged scar of blinding light forking across the heavens, illuminating an impenetrable dome of iron grey. The clouds loosed their water like a startled dog pissing and fat drops of icy rain hurtled toward the earth.
If it wasn’t stone it was mud, and if it wasn’t mud it was a pond. If not for the incessant rain, Sharaam might have been somewhere worth being.
Why do the Tsarii even want this miserable swamp?
On the other hand, if not for the incessant rain, the city would’ve burned to the ground in the first week of the war. No matter how much fire the Tsarii threw over the wall, it hissed and sizzled and died with a dejected sigh before managing to do much damage.
A roar of raised voices, a thunder a thousand times more terrifying than what followed the lightning, echoed in the streets as the Tsarii hurled themselves against the city. Apparently, they’d taken the lightning as a signal. It’d be funny, all that pointless death, if they weren’t going to win. According to the soldiers he overheard drinking in the Dripping Bucket each night, the Tsarii army went on forever, blanketed the world all the way to the horizon.
Sharaam would fall, no doubt. The question was, how many would die before she did?
I’m saving lives, that’s what I’m doing. History will remember me as noble. Selflessly heroic, even.
He’d sneak his third best arse into the palace, kill King Inshiil, and the war would be over. Not that Tash would be around to see it. Pitt, the man who hired him, had an escape route. A way out of the besieged city. Once Inshiil was dead, Tash would meet up with Pitt at !e Dripping Bucket, collect his pay, and flee this doomed swamp.
South, he mused. Somewhere with sun, no invading armies, and women who find pasty pale skin exotic. That was real, right? Somewhere someone must find his dirty blond hair and sun-starved complexion attractive. Or just somewhere with sun, frankly. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be dry, for his toes not to be wrinkled prunes every moment of every day.
Come to think of it, why hadn’t Qwneera or Geln taken the job? The pay might be substandard, like what you’d pay the third best rather than the first and second best, but the gig included guaranteed passage through the encircling army and away from Sharaam. Tash had heard both assassins were still here; neither escaped before the Tsarii invaded.
Weird thing about war: You don’t believe it’s going to happen until it’s too rutting late.
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Thanks so much to the team at Grimdark Magazine for this exclusive excerpt! If this has whetted your appetite for In the Shadow of Their Dying you can check out the official release announcement over on Tor.com, and get your pre-orders in ahead of its release next year.
In the Shadow of Their Dying is due out on the 19th March 2024 from Grimdark Magazine – check out the links below to pre-order* your copy:
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That combination of authors is 😳
It’s an interesting combo, isn’t it! Not what I’d have ever expected, but we’ll see how it goes…!