Text copyright © 2010 Jonathan French
All Rights Reserved
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental and unintentional.
ISBN 978-0-9882845-0-0 (trade paperback)
eBook ISBN: 978-0-9882845-1-7
Autumn’s Fall is a registered trademark of Jonathan French
Forge Born is a registered trademark of Jonathan French
Cover Art by Ivan Zanchetta

D EDICATION

DEDICATION

To Liza, my wife. To Ann, my mother.
The midwives of this book.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY ONE

TWENTY TWO

TWENTY THREE

TWENTY FOUR

TWENTY FIVE

TWENTY SIX

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

P ROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

Death was the darkness and he slept it away. Eyes open or eyes closed made no matter in the darkness where he squatted. Eyes open or eyes closed, he slept. Three hundred and two thousand, two hundred and twenty days. Three hundred and two thousand, two hundred and twenty days of sleeping death. Three-hundred and two thousand, two hundred and twenty days since they shoved him into the darkness.

His prison was underground, deep in the Earth. Far below the kingdom he sought to conquer, far above the kingdom that was once home. There were days before he was taken. Days of light and lust and war and the only darkness was night.

Night!

He wanted to laugh, but did not want the darkness to claim his tongue. The true darkness, deeper than black, where the eyes see nothing and cease to matter, cease to exist. There was no sight. What was night, compared to that? A bad mimic, a poor mockery, a whore playing at being a lady.

The darkness ate him. Piece by piece. Took his eyes first, popped them into its blacker than black maw like sweetmeats. Gone, pop, pop, the instant they tossed him in. It took his ears next, but it did not eat them quickly. It leaked slowly in, filling the cavities, dissolving his eardrums with cautious cruelty. He did not realize they were gone until it was too late. He was deaf. He could dispel it if he spoke. Shouted. Laughed. Cursed. Screamed. Screamed. Screamed. But he dare not, lest the darkness snatch his voice out forever. Three hundred and two thousand, two hundred and twenty days.

There were days before. Days after those of lust and war. Days when there was still light. He was a prisoner then, as now, but they did not keep him so deep underground, so deep in the dark. He escaped. Once. Twice. Thrice. More. He escaped and they caught him. Once. Twice. Thrice. More and more. They caught him. And put him in the dark.