The First Casualty

  Book One of The Sharp Places

  Qwame C.S. Skinner

  Katana

  Copyright © 2025 Katana

  All rights reserved

  The First Casualty is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-physical: 979-8-218-62162-9

  ISBN-digital: 979-8-218-66159-5

  Cover design by: Corey Brickley

  Watermark Design by: Samuel Harvey

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2025907544

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Nana,

  For making sure I always had the space, comfort, and love to write this

  “…for it is truth, that dies as the first casualty of war.”

  Bríghid Finnr, The Zeal of War

  PART I

  A Lucky Break

  Niaz flashed that crooked smile. The same one Northerners called devilish, that women called bastardly. Nobody had recognized him, and opportunities tended to be few and far between. Scarcer every year.

  Funny he’d found one here of all places, where it reeked like piss and wet dog. He doubted it was a coincidence. Dim torchlight frisked shadows over thieves, murderers, and Lords sheltering from the storm, shouting over each another, leaning close to each other and dangerously close to their mugs. It sounded like a brawl was festering in the far corner, not that anyone cared much. You’d be more taken aback if you saw a loving embrace in a place sprawling with as much opportunity as this.

  Niaz drained the contents of his mug and slammed it on the table. “Deal us in!”

  The guildsman on his left, Ulric, grumbled. “Place your ante in and we can be on with it.”

  The others muttered agreements and Niaz’s grin crumpled as he scrabbled around his pockets. He tossed his last silver talents spinning over the tired wood to where the other scales and talents waited. All he needed was his luck to turn, just for a bit. Win a few scales and put himself up somewhere until he could make an honest living. Every man deserves a second chance, even the Devil of the Clay. “Deal the cards.”

  Ulric took a swig, flipped a card bare, and flicked it toward the antes. A dragon. He drained his mug and slid two cards to each of the players, foam sticking in his beard.

  Niaz hid his deal with his hands as he peeked at it. A king and a lady, both good against the dragon. Took all his restraint to keep from smiling. This had the makings of a good break. Didn’t let himself think about what it might come to if he lost. He was trying to be better now, but desperate people . . . so on and so on. He clutched the cards like a knife and took stock of his opponent’s reactions.

  A stonemason dozed in and out of a drunken stupor across the table. He’d come to the game too drunk to give his name, looking like he might retch and smelling like he already had.

  The doctor, Borin, frowned next to the mason, sweat glistening over his bald head. His gut slumped out from under his coat, and the fur trim wasn’t doing him any favors with the sweating.

  Niaz flared his nostrils. Here was someone no better than him, wearing fancy coats while the mason was in tatters and Niaz was forced to risk his last talents. Sure, the Devil of the Clay had done some dark work, but at least the work was even. Niaz doubted tending to orphans and the poor led to fur-trimmed coats. The Broken Standard had a doctor, Rajon, and he hadn’t been about any greater duty or calling. He’d supervised sieges and raids. Truth be told, sometimes he’d even picked which hostages were made an example of. The world would’ve been a better place if Niaz was well-off instead, more lives would’ve been spared at the very least.

  Ulric wasn’t a rich fool like Borin, but a fool just the same. Didn’t even have the sense to pay attention to his hand. Busy wiping his hand and staring greedily at a woman sitting with her bare leg stretched out in front of her. Nobody’s heralded beauty, but then neither was Niaz. If she ever had a shapely figure it’d faded with age, and the braid hanging over her shoulder was streaked with grey.

  Truth be told, Niaz noticed a new grey of his own every time he caught his reflection. He didn’t look down on her line of work either. He gave a heavy sigh. That’s what life’s about—doing whatever it takes for you and your loved ones to wake up each morning.

  He refocused.

  The soldiers wore matching grim expressions. Tybalt looked around Niaz’s age, with a grey head of hair and a neat beard, worm of mustache shriveled over his lip. His jaws clenched and he bent his cards like they might warp into a different draw.

  His mate was younger, with dark hair and a wide bluff of a grin. Tybalt had proved a passable cards player, but the lad laid down a serious expression every time he’d had decent cards and painted a smile on whenever he had shit.

  Borin snapped Niaz from his thoughts. “This is all shit! It’s this damned Godless continent. No good can come of it.”

  Ulric nodded. “Aye. Leave the Southern Twin to the beasts and demons. I hate even thinking about what I saw on the plains last week.” He gobbled down a swallow from his mug and leaned over the table and hushed his voice. “Remember what I told you? With the children?”

  Borin eyed him with thin slits and shuffled his cards over one another. “Still don’t believe it much.”

  “I swear it!” Ulric hissed. “They was children, what was left at least. Seven of ‘em, lined up in a circle, worms burrowing through grey skin. No telling how long they was like that. And the fucking eyes. Nothing there. Just the whites. I swear it on The Mother, Father and Son. It ain’t no coincidence Haralda’s boy been missing.”

  Borin just shrugged.

  Ominous enough, especially the part about children looking like Lost, but the Void didn’t claim its half of the exchange that fast. It was more likely Ulric was just trying to distract himself from his deal. That was too bad. Niaz would still be walking away with the table’s scales.

  The mason spattered something unintelligible and tottered into Tybalt’s side, who shouldered him off and sent him leaning the other way. Tybalt curled his lips over browning teeth, like someone who’d found a fly on their supper. “What even brings your sort here?”

  The mason straightened himself and gave a wet gurgle that must have been a laugh. “It’s mouths t’ feed and work t’ be done. Lots o’ building t’ be had here.”

  Tybalt huffed, but there was a lifetime of work for a mason here. Twenty years ago, and Niaz remembered the sky black from the smoke like it was yesterday. The fires lasted a week or a month depending on who you asked. It was hard to believe that Niall Vonungr had been dead for two decades. Harder still that his old capital belonged to Dacian Kilton. Niaz had met the Kilton boy once, before he’d taken to calling himself King or The Uniter, and he hadn’t been all that majestic. Just a slobbering spoiled shit with his pudgy head up his own arse.

  Ulric broke the quiet. “Fuck this.” He flipped his cards face up on the table.

  Niaz did his best to keep from frowning. Most men would have pressed on with that hand. He definitely would have. It wouldn’t have beaten his cards, but it was damn close. That old nervousness prickled up his spine, like a scratch he couldn’t reach, until it made the hairs stand on his neck. He shook himself out of it. This was his hand to lose.

  “I’ll have no parts,” Tybalt grumbled. He laid his cards bare on the table. Now there was a shit hand.

  The youth next to him grimaced and laid his own hand on the table in resignation. A pair of knights. Niaz blinked and raised his eyebrows. If the boy had been capable of thinking for himself, a pair of knights would have beat the dragon, silly as that was.

  Niaz clutched tighter to his cards in one hand and shifted the other to the dagger on his hip. You could never be too careful about these things.

  “Fuckin’ coward,” spat the stonemason, teetering side to side. “Ha! I reckon I got all o’ya by the fuckin’ cock!” He gave the grimiest smile Niaz had ever seen. Most of his teeth were missing. The ones that weren’t were soiled and yellow. What a beauty. “Ten more scales I’m good for,” he spattered, tossing the coins rattling on the table.

  “I’m in!” Borin shouted over the inn’s clamor. He shoved ten more scales into the center of the table, sweat gleaming on the coins, and threw his hands behind his head as he leaned back close to the point of tipping over, like there was no way in all the Sharp Places he could lose.

  Niaz almost felt bad. Almost. He’d come to the table with a few silver talents, and he’d leave with twenty scales plus. “I’ll match.”

  He was still turning his cards over when Borin laid two kings on the table. He rechecked his cards, then Borin’s, and blew air into his cheeks. Just his luck. Lost to one of the only hands out there that could’ve beaten him. He flung his deal onto the table.

  The mason tipped over drunk. “Fuckin eh,” he said from under the table.

  “Where’s the coin?” Borin growled.

  Niaz flashed that sideways grin. “How ‘bout we raise the stakes on the next hand, eh?”

  Borin scoffed. “Fine you brown bastard, but I’ll be needing the marks I’m owed fist.”

  Leave it to simple men to judge someone by the color of his s
kin rather than his character. Not that Niaz’s character wasn’t stained darker than his skin, but still.

  Tybalt cleared his throat before raising his voice. “Pay what you’re owing. Else I’ll be forced to distribute His Majesty’s justice.” He reached under the table and started pulling his sword free of its scabbard, and the young one mirrored him.

  Niaz slumped in his seat and rubbed his brow with a rough hand. Or maybe it was his brow that was weathered. Probably both. That’s the way of things. When you think you’re close, when you think your luck’s finally turning for the best—it all goes to shit. Now he had to be someone he didn’t want to be. He cracked his neck and looked up; face turned his face hard. “There’s no King on the Southern Twin far as I’m aware. Not since Niall Vonungr burned in the fires. You ought to keep his justice in the north. Nobody fucking needs it here.” He wrapped his fingers around his knife. Some folks would rather be clay than forget about ten scales.

  The younger soldier stood and leaned over, slamming his hands on the table and making all the coins jump. “Fuck you! Pay the scales ‘fore I spill you over this table.” He slid his sword halfway free, face so close Niaz could see the rot setting in his teeth.

  The others in the inn closest to their table were taking notice now, speaking in hushed tones and sliding quick glances.

  “I suggest you lay the coin on the table,” Tybalt said. “Better to lose your scales than an arm or a hand.”

  The young soldier snorted. “All these Southerners think they’re the Devil of the Clay. They can all get gutted. Fucking savages.”

  Ulric grunted his agreement and Borin urged Niaz to pay so they could move on, but Tybalt’s eyes narrowed on Niaz. The last thing any of them needed right now was The Devil to make an appearance, but the worst-case scenario always had a nasty habit of coming to pass. Seemed it didn’t matter whether he was trying go straight, live decently. He flexed his fingers around the hilt under the table. The fact was he didn’t have the coin to pay, and this was ending one way.

  Tybalt’s eyes poked wide as he recognized who he was sitting across from. His sword was out in a blink.

  Niaz jerked away, howling as the metal nicked his shoulder. He ducked under a second slash and flashed his dagger over the table. He jammed it through Tybalt’s throat, blood spattering about.

  Tybalt gurgled and collapsed on top of the cards, scales and talents clattering to the floor. The young soldier had just finished pulling his sword free when Niaz’s knife found his eye. He crammed it in until he saw the end of it out the far end of the skull, piece of pink attached to the point.

  Screams were starting now. The people closest to the action clawed at each other to get away. One man threw the lady on his lap in Niaz’s direction and ran, tripped onto his face, and had his head smashed in by someone’s boot.

  Ulric screamed, fell backward, scrambled to his feet, and ran for the door. The doctor dislodged his heavy arse from the table and followed suit. By now everyone had some idea what was happening. Nothing to hear or see but shrieks and fleeing bodies.

  A bow snapped, and Niaz felt the wind of an arrow as it whistled past his face. He flung the dagger toward his would-be killer, and it landed squarely between the eyes. His own fault: only fools played hero. Shame about the knife though.

  Three more heroes charged toward him. Two from the front, one from his left.

  Niaz grunted as he flipped the table and the dead bodies on it. The two coming from the front halted in their tracks. Niaz swerved away from a sloppy swing of an axe from the man to the left and drew his own sword. The years had dulled it, and its tip was nicked off, but it still got some killing done. Just had to hack a bit harder.

  Niaz swerved by a swing and cleaved his sword down. Opened the man from shoulder to hip, warm blood splattering his face.

  Niaz turned to face the last two heroes, but they were scrambling the other direction, out of the inn. Intelligent men then, sharp as they come. Plain as tat, the entire affair was over as fast as it’d started. Only now the inn was empty, all opportunities having fled with the people. And now that he wasn’t moving around he realized he was huffing, gasping really, for air that wasn’t coming quick enough, and that his shoulder was howling where Tybalt had opened it. He grimaced and tossed his sword to the side and held a hand to the bleeding. He was getting too old for this.

  When his breath steadied, he was pleasantly surprised to see the mason had survived, muttering gibberish on the ground. Niaz grinned. At least he hadn’t had to kill a good man, bleak as everything else had turned out. Most of the bodies were conveniently wedged under the table he’d flipped. It’d be a hassle lifting the table to get to the bodies, but he needed coin more than any dead man. He bent down and shoved all his weight at the table, body groaning in protest. The table wobbled off the flat bodies and he fell over in a heap on top of the corpses.

  He rolled onto his back huffing again. Now that he was thinking on it, he’d be leaving with their scales after all. It’s about getting where you have to go, not the route you took. He swung himself back onto his knees and rummaged through sticky coin purses.

  Then the air tightened around his throat and he crumpled over, clawing at his neck. He writhed in the dark blood, trying to scrape whatever air he could into his lungs, pressure popping behind his eyes.

  Then he saw him. A small man hiding his face under a dark hood stepping toward him. The hood stood over him. Beneath it, slimy veins crawled over the empty whites of the eyes where pupils should’ve been. The bastard was Cursed.

  Niaz would’ve liked to know which feud this was about, but he’d lost track of all his enemies a long time ago. Was never good enough with sums to count that high. Even as the light faded from the world, Niaz swore over his luck. He always found himself caught up in shit.

  The Little Things

  The pounding in his head was the worst of it. Next were the hunger pangs, but those were on pace to pass the pounding any moment now. Two days. That’s how long he’d been in the cell. How long he’d been awake anyway, and he’d yet to sniff a whiff of food. He hacked up what little spit he could and sloshed it around his mouth. Wasn’t water, but at least it was wet.

  Niaz kicked his feet, rattling his chains against the floor, cringing as the metal chaffed his skin. Dried blood mucked up his ankles where they’d been chained together. He was all set to give up and wait, but still—doing anything is better than doing nothing at all. So, he swallowed the pain, shouted for help, and flailed his legs some more, clanking metal ringing down the corridor.

  When he finally tired of it, he slumped against the cold wall. Three stone walls and a caged door. That was his world. Moonlight leaked in through small slits at the top of the cell, where ash and soot were constantly kicked down and muffled voices trailed in. He’d spent some time in Ilysílos before it fell, and he’d never known about an underground prison, but supposing it was Zurun and Dwenir slaves who’d built the city, it tracked. If there was anything the Zurun could do well, it was dig and tunnel.

  He was almost positive there was someone across the hall, sulking deep into the shadows of his own cage, but the only evidence he had was the occasional rattle of chains. He’d hollered across the corridor, but naturally he never got a response. Eventually, his throat turned sore, and he let it go. Besides, he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t hallucinating his lively companion.

  So, he sagged against the stone, head ringing, throat parched, stomach aching, ankles sore and bloody, wondering how he always found himself in shit. But truth be told, it was far from the worst situation he’d ever found himself in. He hadn’t been tortured, not really at least. And he doubted anyone would’ve captured him just to let him die of thirst. So, at the very least he’d probably be fed soon.

  He’d played at figuring out who his captor was, but simply put there were too many people who wanted him dead. Cursed weren’t common though. There’d been a couple Cursed with the Broken Standard, but he’d turned them back to clay and dust. He’d killed a lot of men. Should’ve been no surprise he’d made more than a few enemies he didn’t know about. And it was in line with his usual shit luck a couple of them happened to be Cursed.