Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Backlash
Backlash
Backlash
Ebook130 pages1 hour

Backlash

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

()

Read preview

About this ebook

Samel Dorwen is a young, shopkeeper, trying desperately to save his family’s business during the throes of a nationwide crop shortage. .Mired in debt and struggling to care for his ailing mother, Samel is working himself to death. Constantly ground down by the apathetic nobility and their tax collectors, Samel is close to admitting defeat. Until he meets Joren, the assassin. Desperate to rid himself of debts, and finance a cure for his mother, Samel apprentices under the brutal tutelage of Joren, learning the trade of murder. But each decision comes with a price. Little does he know how much the consequences of his decisions could cost him, but the world he finds is extraordinary.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherT.R. Lemke
Release dateDec 17, 2015
ISBN9781311221551
Backlash
Author

T.R. Lemke

Tim is a martial artist who writes, but unfortunately still has a day job. Born and raised in the wonderful Pacific Northwest, he doubts he'll ever leave for long. He’s studied Taekwondo and Hapkido since 1999 and is a 3rd degree black belt in Taekwondo and 4th degree black belt in Hapkido. When he’s not working or training, he’s probably hiking or rock climbing with his wife, or riding sportbikes..He also teaches intuitive archery.

Related to Backlash

Related ebooks

Fantasy For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Backlash

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings

0 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    Backlash - T.R. Lemke

    Backlash

    By T.R. Lemke

    Copyright 2015 T.R. Lemke

    Smashwords Edition

    Smashwords Edition License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Table of Contents

    Prologue

    Chapter One

    Epilogue

    Acknowledgements

    About The Author

    Connect with the Author

    Prologue

    Samel Dorwen strolled lightly through the thinning crowds of the Drankairni streets. The crispness of the spring twilight air invigorated his senses. Many lamps were already blazing against the approaching dusk, but not all, so that there were pools of yellow and orange lantern light interspersed with puddles of shadow.

    It was in one such shadow that two men approached him, easily matching his ambling pace. They were younger men, for sure. Where his peppered hair reflected the light, their dark locks absorbed it. Where their large frames and easily apparent muscle mass blocked the lanterns’ rays, Samel’s wiry frame did not. The men’s rough faces, crooked nose on one and scarred on the other, would have been intimidating to most people.

    Ho there, sir.

    Samel nodded calmly. Gentlemen, how can I help you this fine evening? He recognized the pair, Bent and Daved, as bruisers for a local gang boss, notorious for their brutality. Samel’s skin was suddenly tingling with nervous energy.

    The two exchanged looks and the scarred face one, Bent? Samel thought, responded, Well, Master Dorwen, we were led to believe you have something we need and were hoping we could accompany you back to your storefront where we could acquire said commodity. No, no, Bent was named such for his bent nose, so the story went, The scarred one must be Daved.

    The older man adopted a shocked and worried expression and shook his head. I'm afraid not, boys. Not headed to the shop tonight. There's a pint with my name on it waiting at The Broken Bucket.

    Bent, the bruiser with the once broken nose grabbed Samel’s elbow in a crushing grip and pulled him down a shadowed alley.

    This shouldn't take too long, and we’re so close. Here's a shortcut.

    Daved smiled as they slowed in the middle of the alley. You see, Boss Jakov was informed that you are well acquainted with Boss Metek. In fact, there's a rumor that you're the only person who knows what Metek looks like.

    Samel raised his hands in feigned protest, sneakily disengaging from crooked nose’s grasp of his elbow. Gentlemen, please, there must be some mistake. I've heard of Metek, I mean, who hasn’t? But to say I know him would be absurd.

    Jakov was very convinced. In fact, he told us we were to do whatever it took to convince you to share what you know.

    The other responded, Short of killing you, anyway. Never did mention maiming. Or crippling.

    Samel took a deep, centered breath and looked to both ends of the alley for passerby. No way he was convincing these two thugs to leave him alone. Even so, they were but a symptom of a larger problem— Jakov. Time to be done with these two, permanently, he thought. They knew who he was, intimidation or injury could only further damage this cover he had worked so hard for so long. They had walked into their own death sentences, unknowingly.

    Samel lowered his hands and dropped his right foot back. He purposefully widened his eyes and turned toward his right and made as if to run away.

    As he'd hoped, Daved grabbed his left shoulder with a meaty right hand and yanked him back. At the same time, Bent stepped forward and lashed out with a fist.

    Samel used the momentum the tug gave him instead of fighting it, and let his left foot step into and underneath Daved’s arm, and grabbing it, simultaneously dodging the others punch.

    Using the arc created by his thumb and forefinger, he struck hard with his right hand into Daved’s throat, producing a sickening crunch.

    Continuing his step, he ducked under the arm, pivoted and drew the attacker back down to his knees. Bent pivoted to follow, but was too slow and Samel kicked sideways through his knee, dropping him also. Without lowering his foot, he slammed his knee into the scarred man’s face.

    As Bent fell in agony, Samel stepped behind him and using one hand on chin and one on his forehead, he twisted hard and quick. With a loud pop, the man crumpled to the alley floor, lifeless.

    Stepping over him, Samel faced the wheezing man on his hands and knees, wrapping his arm around his neck. Daved scrabbled at his legs futilely. Samel bent his legs, tightened his snaking arm and stood up. There was another crunch and then Samel was the only man standing as the larger man collapsed with a quiet thud.

    Casually, he glanced to both ends of the alley again, seeing no one. He dusted off his hands and the front of his jacket, turned and walked out of the alley without a backward look.

    He was busy instead calculating his next move on the real problem, Jakov. He would have to be dealt with, and soon. Samel Dorwen’s profession did not suffer inquirers happily. On the surface, he was a shopkeeper, and a fairly prosperous one. But that was not all. And it seemed that to protect his identity, blood would have to be spilled again.

    It was not that difficult to snuff out the life of a man, thought Samel Dorwen. For someone skilled, it required as much thought as blowing out a candle.

    He knew. In fact, to his amusement, he’d lost count of his vics. In the early days of his career, he had carefully counted and mentally catalogued each and every light he had extinguished. But that had been a long time ago, before his hair had started to go gray, before he had resigned himself to a solitary life, back when he cared.

    Killing a man was easy; there were many ways to stop the machinery of man’s body. This too he had carefully catalogued in his younger years. In general, he categorized the ending of someone’s life in four ways: blood, brain, heart, lungs. Of course, these things intersected, like many areas of study often do, and he and his teacher had had many a discussion about this.

    Blood. In short, you let enough blood out of a person, they close their eyes and never open them again. Heart. You stop the heart from beating, from pumping blood, and it’s a short wait for the twitching and that awful stench. Samel’s teacher argued the point that this was just an extension of blood, but Samel had argued that he’d hit someone so hard that his heart had stopped, without any blood loss.

    Brain. Remove brain function, remove the spark of life. Of course, subcategories being; snapping of the spinal cord, removing head from body and destroying the brain with blunt force trauma. Of course, the latter two involved quite a bit of category one, blood. Finally, lungs. Man needs air to breathe, deprive him of it, and you could watch his eyes turn a different color. A rare treat.

    The methodology of murder was so simple and yet so vast and nuanced, Samel had made studying this his life’s work.

    Killing a man was easy, like putting out a candle. But, just like snuffing a candle, the effort, the skill was not in extinguishing the flame so much as not being caught with the wax on your fingers.

    He walked on in the gathering gloom, no longer really wanting that pint at the Broken Bucket. Unfortunately, he still had to attend. His agent had sent a missive that read cryptically, BIG JOB!! And so he would come, just to sate his curiosity. As he continued, Samel’s mind wandered back to his beginnings in his current profession. He remembered with a twinge of painful nostalgia how he had come to know Metek and set foot on the path still before him.

    Of course, he had not always been a killer. In fact, very few people even suspected he had a violent bone in his body. He had come, according to his teacher, to the assassination business later in life than most. He had begun at the ripe old age of twenty. None of those who employed his services knew his real name, or even his face. They only knew him as the most feared assassin in Drankairn. Though there was much whispering, no one knew how he had become that way.

    This is the story of how.

    Chapter 1

    Samel Dorwen opened his eyes, grainy and bleary. Pressing his hands to his face, he emitted a low sigh, secretly hating the sun for rising so promptly. He tried hard not to notice the knot of stress between his shoulder blades, which had been his long-term companion for well over a year.

    He could not easily remember a specific time when the stress, the ever present weight of despair had not been there. Childhood, of course, but that was different. A better time. His father had been alive then.

    Now, his father had passed on, nearly three years ago from an infection brought on by a broken arm that had never healed properly. His mother was in steadily failing health. Hers was a wasting sickness of the lungs and heart. Both their long illnesses had combined with the beginnings of a Drankairn-wide crop shortage to put the family business deep in debt with only

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1