The Man in White: A Dark Tale of Sacrifice (Free Dark Fantasy Romance, Gothic Fairytale, Epic Fantasy)



  By Jean Lowe Carlson

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  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright 2016 Jean Lowe Carlson. All Rights Reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. 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 use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  First Kindle Edition, 2016

  ISBN 978-1-943199-14-3

  Published by: Jean Lowe Carlson - https://jeanlowecarlson.com/

  Cover Design: Copyright 2016 by Jean Lowe Carlson. All Rights Reserved. Modified from photograph on Pixabay.com. Chapter Graphics: “Typo Backgrounds” font by Manfred Klein. Free Commercial Use.

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  OTHER WORKS BY JEAN LOWE CARLSON

  Three Days of Oblenite

  Breath

  Tears

  Blood

  The Kingsmen Chronicles

  Blackmark

  Bloodmark (Coming Feb 2017!)

  Goldenmark (Forthcoming)

  Short Fiction

  The Man in White

  The Family

  The Grasses of Hazma-Din

  I

  A hacking cough ripped Litha, tearing her body from the inside out. She doubled over in her cane-woven chair, succumbing to its vile clutches. Gasping, the heavy wetness in her lungs clung to her insides, and left her perspiring with an acrid sweat. Litha clutched her ribs through her worn woolen wrap, trying to breathe without the hard thump of panic in her chest, her head hanging and eyes closed.

  “Mother?”

  A gentle hand settled to Litha's knee, squeezed her leather leggings. Gwynnae had always been a kind child, but her fingers were not wan. No, Gwynnae was a strong as Litha had once been, before this last illness, her hands calloused from chopping wood and tending goats. A billy-goat bleated in a lonesome corner of the farmhouse, nosing in the straw hopefully. Its bleat was returned by the few nannies they had left, three of which were pregnant. All had joined them indoors after the second week of snow. And now, as the winter wore on, snow piling ever higher atop the roof and making the gables groan, there were few of the herd left.

  And fewer stores in the cupboards.

  Litha tried to breathe easy, but the rattle in her chest had that death-knell sound. She knew it well. Her own father had died of a lung malady in a winter such as this. And Litha, hearty though she had once been as a young woman, and even this past summer, was now not far behind.

  “Mother?” Her sweet girl prompted again. “Can I get you anything?”

  Litha shook her head, gripped her daughter's hand with her own hearty calluses. “No. I'm fine, child. Just a bit of a cough. That's all.”

  A goat bleated again, and suddenly, Litha heard the woeful little wail of Gennoch from his crib in the back of the house. Gwynnae paused, called to feed her little one, but a worried frown pinched her dark brows for her mother. Litha could see that Gwynn's woolen shift and leggings hung off her broad-shouldered frame now. Haggard bruises deepened her calm brown eyes, and her breasts seemed flat beneath her shift as she stood with a sigh. Her hipbones protruded from her woolens as she turned, listening again for her infant son. Again, the shrill little wail came.

  He was good and truly awake. And hungry.

  They all were.

  A hacking tirade doubled Litha over again, her head hanging by her knees. She gasped for air around the thick rattle, whooping. Spittle dripped from her lips and Litha sucked it hastily away so that her daughter didn't see it.

  “Go to Genn, my child,” Litha managed between coughs. “He needs to be fed.”

  “You need more medicine.”

  “The medicine runs thin. Save it. Cold is the best thing for my lungs.” Litha gasped herself to standing, feeling a familiar trembling in her limbs. The emaciated weakness of starvation. Just this summer she had been hale and fit, slender and tall like her daughter, robust with muscle from hunting and tending animals. Now there was little of her left, and nothing could be spared to feed her back to health. Litha brushed back her silvering black locks and bound them into a bun at her nape with a bit of cording.

  “I'm going out to hunt. See if we can't get some game. I'll be back in a little while.”

  “Mother!” Gwynnae put a stalling hand upon her shoulder, even as Litha shrugged into her thick woolen coat from the peg by the farmhouse door. “You can't go out there! Jenndar went just yesterday and nearly froze to death getting a few squirrels.”

  “I'll be fine.” Litha sat to pull on her high-topped leather boots, then stood, yanking her woolen hat from a peg. “I know these woods far better than your husband. He's a potter, child, not a hunter. But we can't eat fine porcelain, and he hasn't got nearly as much practice with a bow as I have. I got that wolf two weeks ago. There will be something hungry in these woods today. And I will find it.”

  Another fit of coughing bent her double, and Litha braced with hands upon her knees, struggling against the panic of asphyxiation. She hawked phlegm at last, and turned to spit it into the fine blue porcelain spittoon, one of Jenndar's creations. It belonged in a better house than this. Litha's farm was roughshod, just like she was, just like her father before her. Gwynnae was a good girl, but she ought to have finer things.

  Maybe if they survived this winter, Gwynnae, Jenn, and their baby could move to the city.

  Litha fetched her yew-wood bow and tucked it behind her foot, stringing it swiftly. Her arms trembled from the strain, and she wondered if she would have the strength to pull it. But then she remembered that this outing wasn't about game.

  Litha would never shoot her bow again.

  Another rasping fit took her, bringing the acrid sweat out all over her body beneath her woolens and leathers. Her flaxen undershirt was already soaked. It was never really dry these days. For weeks upon weeks, Litha had been sweating like this, and coughing so deep. Wasting away, bit by bit. Chills swept her with a wash of faintness, but she did not put out a hand to steady herself upon the stout beams of the doorframe. She would not cause Gwynnae to hold her back. Litha was going, and she was going today. The few goats left would last Gwynn and Jenn and the baby through the winter.

  They would have a better chance without her.

  Gwynn gave her mother a hard look, her lips set in that stubborn press Litha knew well. They say children become a mother's clearest mirror, and Litha lingered upon this thought as she brushed a lock of her daughter's black hair back from her fine, strong face. Her high cheekbones were wide and robust, just like Litha's. Her jaw was angular and her nose straight. Her tall limbs were hearty with muscles even in her starvation, and Gwynn had her mother's curvaceous hips. She had borne her son with absolute ease.

  And she was a fine huntres
s and tracker, just like her mother.

  “I'll come with you,” Gwynn murmured. “Just let me get my bow.”

  “No.” Litha cupped her daughter's haggard face. “I'll be fine. The baby needs to be fed. That is your priority. You can come out with me tomorrow. I'll be back before sundown, even if I find no game. But you know the rules.”

  Gwynn sighed impatiently. “No coming after you in the dark, if you're not back.”

  “Yes. I can make a snow-blind and hunker in until morning.” Litha drew her daughter forward, setting her lips to Gwynnae's concern-wrinkled brow. “The cold is good for my lungs. I'll have stopped coughing soon, without using up the last of the medicines. Keep them for Jenn. His fever is worse than mine. Kiss the baby for me.”

  Gwynn sighed, her arms reaching around her mother's middle in a sullen embrace. “Yes, mother.” She rested her chin upon Litha's tall shoulder for just a moment.

  The baby wailed again, a thin, gurgling cry.

  Litha heard Jenndar wake, coughing, heard the creak of the bed as he shifted, and then cooing as he shushed and rocked the baby.

  “Jenn is a good man.” Litha murmured into her daughter's ear. “Never forget that.”

  Gwynn pulled back with her brows knit and confusion in her steady brown eyes. But then the baby began to wail in truth, too long unfed. Gwynnae kissed her mother upon the cheek, then turned, heading towards the wolf hide flap over the stout doorframe and into the back room.

  A hot prickling of tears stung Litha's eyelids as she watched her daughter go, but they weren't shed. She took up her bow and buckled her quiver around her waist, then pulled on thick woolen gloves. Litha unbarred the farm door and lifted the latch, a heavy spill of snow falling inwards as she opened it despite the depth of the eaves.