Graeme Talboys - Stealing Into Winter

Book One of Shadow in the Storm

GRAEME K. TALBOYS

Harper Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2015

Copyright © Graeme K. Talboys 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 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 author’s 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

Cover

Title Page Stealing into Winter Book One of Shadow in the Storm GRAEME K. TALBOYS

Copyright Harper Voyager An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2015 Copyright © Graeme K. Talboys 2015 Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 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 author’s 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

Dedication For Barbara

PART ONE: City PART ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

PART TWO: Desert

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

PART THREE: Mountains

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

About the Author

About the Publisher

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.

Only then did it occur to her in all the confusion that if the wall had collapsed…

Peering back into the gloom, she surveyed the damage. The splintered remains of her bed poked out at odd angles from a landslide of rough bricks and fragments of masonry. She looked at it, calculating. Somewhere beneath it was a lump of hard bread she had been saving, as well as her sandals. All she managed to retrieve was the thin blanket.

Beyond, the wall seemed intact, mostly coarse bricks and cheap mortar. The corner furthest from the bed bulged near the ceiling, as if something had hit it from outside, causing the inner section of wall to collapse. But bulge was all it did. There was no way through to the outside and the wall did not move when she pushed against it.