The Man With No Hands Read online

  The Man With

  No Hands

  My Lady Series Book Two

  by

  TOBY NEIGHBORS

  The Man With No Hands

  © 2018, Toby Neighbors

  Published by Mythic Adventure Publishing, LLC

  Idaho, USA

  All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Copy Editing by Alexandra Mandzak

  Books By Toby Neighbors

  Jack & Roxie

  Avondale

  Draggah

  Balestone

  Arcanius

  Avondale V

  Wizard Rising

  Magic Awakening

  Hidden Fire

  Fierce Loyalty

  Crying Havoc

  Evil Tide

  Wizard Falling

  Chaos Descending

  Into Chaos

  Chaos Reigning

  Chaos Raging

  Controlling Chaos

  Killing Chaos

  Lorik

  Lorik the Defender

  Lorik the Protector

  The Vault Of Mysteries

  Lords Of Ascension

  The Elusive Executioner

  Third Prince

  Royal Destiny

  The Other Side

  The New World

  Zompocalypse Omnibus

  We Are The Wolf

  Welcome To The Wolfpack

  Embracing Oblivion

  Joined In Battle

  The Abyss Of Savagery

  My Lady Sorceress

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Lorik Book One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Click here to read more from the Lorik trilogy

  Dedication

  To Sunshine, Samuel, Andrew, Thomas, and Bella

  This book and everything I do

  is for you.

  I hope you can always feel my love.

  Toby Neighbors Online

  www.TobyNeighbors.com

  www.Facebook.com/TobyNeighborsAuthor

  Instagram @TobyTheWriter

  On Twitter @TobyNeighbors

  Prologue

  King Olmas’ fury was unrivaled. The old king screamed and threw over tables, lashing out with his ornamental sword at whoever came within reach. The king was attended by his heir, Prince Alvee, and the lordless knights of the Darnish Counties inside the palace that was built within the bailey wall of the once grand fortress known as Glory Keep. The tall, square tower that had been the pride of the Darnish Counties had been burned by the man with no hands, the king’s firstborn son, his disowned and disavowed heir.

  It had taken King Olmas three days to return to the Darnish Counties. He had attended the funeral of his biggest rival. Earl Uthar had died at the hands of a sorceress named Feray. It was the most outrageous criminal act in King Olmas’ lifetime. A common woman, sorceress or not, had murdered an earl, and his sons had let her escape.

  Prince Alvee, the object of the king’s fury, stood like an oak tree, weathering the storm of his father’s rage.

  “Why?” the king shouted as he slammed his sword down on one of the long tables in the feasting hall. “Do you hate me that much, you fool? Would you give up an entire kingdom just to spite me?”

  “No, father,” Alvee said in a placating tone.

  “Then why, pray tell, would you let the witch escape?”

  “I did not let her escape,” Alvee said. “My men are watching her every move.”

  “She was in your grasp, fool! She should be in chains at my feet this very moment.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the prince said. “You see what she did to Glory Keep.”

  “Your brother did that. My children are vile traitors, both of you.”

  “Orin destroyed your chief rival’s strongest fortress,” Alvee argued. “The widow killed Earl Uthar. You’ve heard the stories. She is a powerful sorceress.”

  “She is a woman, and I don’t care how powerful she is. I will not be cowed by a woman. I will not be turned away. I am the king of Floralon and you are my heir, although you act like a cowardly traitor. Were my orders to you unclear? Did you lose sight of the goal, my son? Or did you simply wish to thwart my plans for the future of this great kingdom?!”

  “Don’t do that, father,” Alvee said. “You know I would never turn against you.”

  “No, but you have your own ideas, don’t you, boy? You want to be king and so you have allied yourself to this witch, hoping she will be my undoing. Fool, she is nothing to me. I will crush her.”

  “Don’t underestimate the widow,” Alvee pleaded. “That’s what Uthar did.”

  “She killed one man, one overly ambitious earl who thought he could replace me, and you lose your courage. What kind of king will you be?”

  “I did what I thought was best,” Alvee said. “She is leaving Floralon, escaping through the Mountain Veil. She will never be seen again. We have the opportunity to replace Uthar with someone loyal to us. No one will threaten your rule father. This is a good thing.”

  “You are a weak-minded, nearsighted, fool,” King Olmas spat. He moved close to his son, the great sword held dangerously close to Alvee’s neck. “I will have the witch, and her son. I will make them both my slaves, no matter what treasonous plans you have made.”

  “I made no plans, father,” Alvee said, trying to ignore the sharp blade as it moved slowly under his chin.

  “Tell the truth, worm,” King Olmas snarled. “Or I will slice your throat here and now.”

  “No you won’t,” Alvee said quietly, his voice barely a whisper. “You need me. Without an heir the other lords will plot against you.”

  “Is that so?” Olmas said, matching his son’s soft tone.

  “It is, father. We both know it. Now stop this foolishness. It is unbecoming.”

  “She isn’t your ally?”

  “Of course not,” Alvee said.

  “You didn’t let her go in exchange for fealty to you, to work magic on your behalf behind my back?”

  “I swear it on my life, father.”

  “On your life,” the king said. “Interesting choice of words.”

  The sword moved forward in a quick, darting thrust. The blade was honed to a razor’s edge, and cut easily through Prince Alvee’s throat, the point stabbing into the thick column of nerves between two vertebrae and killing Alvee instantly. The prince’s body fell to the floor, pulling itself free of the sword as it dropped.

  There were gasps and murmurs, but King Olmas ignored them all. He was the Raven King, so called because he look
ed like a carrion bird in his thick robe with his hunched shoulders and large, curved nose. He watched the blood ooze from his son’s neck, his fury like a roaring fire in his mind. For more than three decades he had ruled as king of Floralon, the title taken by force, and ever since his greatest fear had been betrayal. He could live with failure, but he could not tolerate disobedience. In his mind, it was better for his subjects to die trying to carry out his will than to disobey him.

  “Carry this traitor out of my sight,” Olmas said. “I do not want to hear his name spoken in my presence ever again.”

  “You killed your own heir, my lord,” Horace said, aghast at the murder he’d just witnessed.

  “I can make a new one, never fear,” the Raven King declared. “The Darnish Counties are now under my direct command. I want the widow and I will not stop until she is mine, is that clear? Nothing else matters, not the earldom, not my lineage, not even your own lives. Until I have her, no one is safe.”

  Chapter 1

  “My lord, it is dying.”

  “I see that,” the elf snapped. He was slender and tall for his race, almost six feet. His skin was alabaster, and his hair was white, the long nails that ended in points on his slender fingers looked like polished marble, and the irises of his eyes glowed white. He was an elf of the Ivory Clan, living among the shelter of the moss-covered trees in the great forest south of the Devil’s Teeth Mountains. His name was Allric and he was more than just an elf. He was a sorcerer.

  “Should I end its suffering?” his companion, a shorter, more rotund elf asked.

  Unlike Allric, the other elf had caramel-colored skin, dirty blond hair, and dull, gray eyes. His name was Hollis, an outcast, a half breed, with no magical attributes. Most elves were receptive to magic. They could commune with animals and often had the power to preform small, useful tasks such as kindling fire, or levitating small objects, although greater magic was spurned by most elves in the Ivory Clans. Their history with magic was not something they were proud of. Mastiphus the Terrible had been an elf of the Ivory Clan, and most of his descendants had not recovered from the shame of his horrifying deeds.

  Allric was not the type of elf to live in shame or to spurn the magical powers he had been born with. In fact, Allric saw his power as a way to shape the world into a new order. His greatest power lay in his ability to join animals of differing species together. It was a power he intended to use to build an army.

  “No,” Allric replied to his companion, the magically stunted Hollis, as he breathed deeply of the aroma of fear rising from the wretched creature at his feet. “Leave it be,” he ordered.

  “As you wish, lord,” Hollis replied.

  It took several minutes for the creature to die. It had once been a powerful bull elk and still had the thick body and strong legs of an elk, but where the shoulders, neck, and head should have been were the chest, arms, and head of an elf. The pale skin of the slender elf was stained with blood, and more was oozing from the mutated creature’s mouth, nose, and where the great antlers protruded from its oval-shaped head.

  As soon as the abomination died, Allric felt a sense of failure. The heady scent of the creature’s fear and suffering that had held the sorcerer entranced dissipated quickly, leaving the elf feeling strangely hollow.

  “Another failure,” he said, speaking more to himself than to his companion. “What is needed is a more pliable species. Intelligence mixed with a hardy constitution.”

  “A dragon perhaps,” Hollis said.

  “Don't be a fool,” Allric snapped. "Dragons are much too rare. I will mix their kind only when I am sure that I have a viable host. The point is to make an unstoppable army, not merely experiment for the sake of knowledge. Elves are too fragile.”

  “Dwarves then,” the rotund elf suggested.

  “No, the people under the mountains are hardy, but stubborn. They will not accept what they become.”

  “Who then?” Hollis asked.

  “I think I will try to cross a human,” Allric said.

  “They are not intelligent,” Hollis said. “They are warmongers. Weak orcs, nothing more.”

  “Do not speak of things you do not understand,” Allric growled as he paced back and forth in the clearing under the huge oak tree draped with hanging moss. “Humans are physically unimposing, but their will to live is strong. I must have a group of them to experiment on.”

  “Where will you find humans?” Hollis asked.

  “Across the mountain veil.”

  “You would leave the forest?”

  “Of course not. We don't have the numbers. Not yet at any rate. Our animals are powerful, but they are not enough to protect us. We must have an army. The dragons will fly south and we are not yet ready to face them.”

  “So how do we get humans?”

  “I shall send the mi’nochs.”

  Hollis looked frightened, but Allric ignored his cowardly companion. His brethren did not support his ambitions. In fact, if the elves of the Ivory Clans knew of his experiments they would hunt him down. He could use his magic to slay them, but that was not only a waste of his talent, it was in direct opposition to his plans. For generations the Ivory Clans had hidden in the Mossy Woodlands, their strength dwindling, their magical acumen fading like fog in the morning sunlight. Allric had known right from the moment he realized he had the gift that his power would be used to return the Ivory Clan to its proper place among the people of the Western Realm.

  He could heal, but that power seemed weak, almost laughable in the face of his clan’s shame. The gods had used magic to fashion the world, to create life, both animal and botanical. Allric would use that same power to remake the world. He would combine the strength of various beasts to create an army of unstoppable warriors that even the dragons would fear. They would march through the kingdoms of the Western Realm until every race bowed at Allric’s feet. The Ivory Clan would rule the lesser races. Every resource would be theirs, every creature would serve the elves. In time, he would be known as the greatest sorcerer who ever lived, but first he had to perfect his army. And to do that he needed men.

  Allric raised his hands to his mouth and screeched, his voice echoing through the trees just like an eagle's scream. From the high branches overhead large avians descended, hopping from branch to branch until they could glide down on their massive wings. The birds, if they could still be called birds, were easily twice the size of a full-grown eagle. Enlarging animal species was a specialty of Allric’s. He found it fascinating that simply unleashing his power within most animals was enough to cause them to grow larger, stronger, and more vicious than they normally were. He had packs of dire wolves roaming throughout the Western Realm. Huge lions with massive fangs that arced up from their wide, muscular jaws obeyed his commands as they hunted through the jungles and across the mountains. But the mi’nochs were his most successful creations. The huge raptors were all eagle in body, wings, and head, but their legs and talons had been replaced with the long, powerful bodies of vipers.

  Allric reveled in the sight of the mi’nochs as they dropped to their reptilian half, the long slender snake bodies gliding over the ground. The avian portion of their bodies rocked back and forth as the snake portions propelled them. When they were close, the snake bodies coiled up and raised the eagle heads to the same height as Allric. The eagle eyes blinked, their massive beaks opened slightly as they tasted the air around them.

  “You will go west,” he ordered the strange avian creatures, “over the mountains to the land of humans. Bring them back to me, as many as you can carry.”

  One of the mi’nochs screamed in reply.

  “Do not take chances,” Allric replied. “This is not a battle. There is no need to fight. The humans are weak. They have no claws, their teeth are not sharp, their bodies are soft and fleshy. Bring them to me. Do it quickly. Go now, all of you. Do not return without the humans I need.”

  The mi’nochs, a dozen in all, screamed in reply. Hollis was behind the thick t
runk of the ancient oak tree, his hands over his pointed ears and his eyes closed. He was terrified of his master’s creatures.

  “Hollis!” Allric called out once the flapping of the mi’nochs’ wings had faded away. “Come out. They are gone. No need to hide in fear any longer. We have work to do.”

  Chapter 2

  It was dark when Feray approached the sturdy house on the edge of town. She was alone, uncertain what their welcome would be in the small town of Greenhaven. Feray, her son Luc, their new friend Via, and the man with no hands had left Glory Keep the day following the earl’s death, moving quickly through the Darnish Counties toward the Evergreen Forest, but news of the events raced ahead of them, and rumors sprang up faster than mushrooms after a spring rain.

  For the most part they avoided settlements whenever possible, but Greenhaven had been Feray’s home for nearly a decade. She had friends there, people who loved her and her late husband, Marc. She knocked on the stout door and waited, hoping they would still have kindness in their hearts despite what she had done in Glory Keep.

  “Who’s there?” came a familiar voice.

  “It’s Feray,” she said.

  The door opened and a skeptical-looking face peered out. The man inside glanced at her, then looked into the darkness beyond her as if expecting to see a war band charging toward them at any second.

  “What are you doing, Henri?” Stella said, hurrying up behind her husband. “Let her inside.”

  “Are you alone?” he asked.

  “I have friends nearby,” she said. “We were hoping we might stay with you tonight.”

  “Of course you can,” Stella said.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Henri complained.

  “Don’t be a fool,” his wife chided. “Stop believing everything you hear.”

  “I’ve heard some terrible things,” he argued.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” Feray said. She couldn’t help but smile at the carpenter and his wife. “Let me fetch Luc and the others.”

  “I’ll put on some tea,” Stella said. “Henri can help with your animals.”