All the Plagues of Hell Read online

  Table of Contents

  Map of Northern Italy

  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

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Epilogue

  Cast of Characters

  All the Plagues of Hell

  Eric Flint and Dave Freer

  NEW FANTASY BY NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR ERIC FLINT.

  Orkise is loose. The snake-god of plague has been awakened by Lucia del Maino, the bastard daughter of the recently overthrown duke of Milan, Phillipo Visconti. With the venomous magic of Orkise at her command, Lucia plots to marry and then murder the usurper who now rules Milan, the condottiere Carlo Sforza—known to friend and foe alike as the Wolf the North.

  Other trouble is brewing as well. Sforza has his own bastard, Benito Valdosta, who is returning to Venice after having conquered the Byzantine empire. Benito has a score to settle with his father, and he will have the help of his half-brother Marco, who is the embodiment of ancient Etruria’s mighty Winged Lion of St. Mark.

  Adding further to Sforza’s predicament, yet another power has entered the fray. The terrifying sorcerer Count Mindaug has decided to settle in Milan. Will he ally with Sforza, or oppose him? Either will bring trouble, for if Mindaug aids the usurper he will arouse the fury of the Holy Roman Empire and the Knights of the Holy Trinity. Both of those great forces have sworn to destroy Mindaug and anyone who shelters him.

  On his side, Sforza has only the skill and cunning of his physician, Francisco Turner—who is on good terms with the Valdosta brothers and may be able to neutralize Venetian hostility. But even if he can, will that be enough to save the Wolf of the North? For out there in the countryside of northern Italy, Orkise is uncoiling all the plagues of hell.

  The Heirs of Alexandria Series

  The Shadow of the Lion, by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer • A Mankind Witch, by Dave Freer • This Rough Magic, by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer • Much Fall of Blood, by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer • Burdens of the Dead, by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer • All the Plagues of Hell, by Eric Flint and Dave Freer

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  The Boundary Series, with Ryk E. Spoor

  All the Plagues of Hell

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Eric Flint and Dave Freer

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4814-8361-2

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-672-1

  Cover art by Tom Kidd

  Map by Michael Knopp

  First printing, December 2018

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Flint, Eric, author. | Freer, Dave, author.

  Title: All the plagues of hell / Eric Flint and Dave Freer.

  Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen, [2018] | Series: [Heirs of Alexandria ; 6]

  | “A Baen Books Original.”

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018041834 | ISBN 9781481483612 (hardback)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Historical. | FICTION / Fantasy /

  Epic. | FICTION / Fantasy / General. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3556.L548 A79 2018 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041834

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)

  Printed in the United States of America

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  Dave, who is public-spirited, dedicates this book to Australia’s volunteer ambulance officers.

  Eric, who seeks peace and harmony, dedicates this book to the cat.

  Prologue

  Venice

  Marco Valdosta greeted the news with a breathless hopefulness. “Are you sure?” He looked around their bedroom as if the sight of the chamber where the child would have been conceived brought some sort of reassurance that the news was accurate.

  Katerina Valdosta, the last child of the ancient House of Montescue, nodded at her husband. “I can count, Marco, even without Maria’s assurances.”

  “We’re pregnant!” he yelled, jumping into the air with delight.

  “I’m late. I may be pregnant. You are just fat.” She poked him in the stomach, trying not to endanger her own ears with her smile. “I know Maria says it is definite but it’s too early to be absolutely certain, Marco.”

  He folded her into his arms anyway.

  A small, old castle near Arona, in the Duchy of Milan

  Staring out the window of her own bedroom, quite some distance northwest of Venice, the expression on the face of Lucia Maria del Maino was not at all like that on the faces of Marco and Kat. It was sour, sullen, disgruntled.

  The stirring of life in her womb gave her no pleasure. Firstly, it was too late. And secondly, it was just a tool to g
et what should have been hers by right. She would have her reward, even if it meant turning the serpent that devoured loose on all of them. She’d already given its blood price—her sister. If the great wyrm wanted more, it would have it.

  As a bastard son, and the only child, Lucia might still have ruled Milan.

  As a woman, no.

  For a while her mind dwelled on revenge. She’d met Carlo Sforza, and he’d paid her no particular mind. She hadn’t liked that, even if he was a mere commoner. But then, she too had paid him no particular mind. And it was not as if she’d loved her father. Rather, she had loathed him. But he had been a lever. And now he was dead, by Sforza’s hand. Her anger at being thus cheated flamed white-hot.

  It took a while before she realized Carlo Sforza would have to take his place.

  She steeled herself, knowing it would have to be done. In a way, the serpent had honored the last bargain, given her power to capture Filippo Maria, to snare him away from her mother.

  The castello at Arona had been a Visconti holding for time out of mind, perhaps even their original land, her father had said. It had certainly been built on the ruins and with the stones of older buildings. Down beneath the castello were cellars and the dungeon which had been adapted from several limestone caves. And those cellars lay atop of an even lower cellar, the old one, the one with the crude carvings in which the rock itself seemed to have flowed, making them look like a nasty accident. Lucia and her sister had found the key to it nearly eight years ago, now. The room in which it was hidden had once been their father’s room, and probably the nursery for every generation of noble children raised in the castello. It had fascinated them: why was it so carefully hidden, in a block that swung out of the wall, when touched just so with something sharp? The indent so painstakingly cut into the rock held the key neatly.

  It had taken them nearly a month of dreams of treasure, secret passages and hidey-holes to find the door it fitted at the back of the cellars. Heavy, iron-bound, and with rusty hinges that shrieked. They had always been forbidden to go down into the cellars at all.

  What they’d met there had cost her sister her life. Neither Lucia nor the dying, feverish girl had ever admitted where they’d been, or what they’d found there, or what had happened. But what was down there had said that next time she would have to come to it.

  And that she would come.

  She could have flung that key into the river. But she’d put it back into its hiding place.

  In the old cellars, the dark had been hung with trailing cobwebs, touching her face like ghostly fingers trying to hold her back. But they had gone now, along with the light of the candle, so abruptly snuffed as she entered the round black maw in the far corner. She understood: no light came down here. No light ever had. No light was allowed. This was the place of the dark, and of its power.

  The tunnel wall was curved and polished to an oily smoothness under her hand. The rock of it was cool on her fingertips as she felt her way, cautious step by cautious step, into that stygian blackness. Lucia needed that wall, for the floor of the tunnel had been cobbled, but the round edges of each hand-sized stone caught at her probing toes. The cobbles too were made of some unpleasant material that almost seemed to give a little underfoot. It wasn’t slippery, at least, which as the descent was steep, was just as well. Instead it seemed to cling to her soles. The tunnel wound down, turning left and right, seemingly at random. The silence was such that she could hear her own shallow, nervous breathing, her own careful footsteps, no matter how much she tried to keep quiet. Even her heartbeat was like a fast drumbeat in her ears, relentless, marching her cautious feet onwards, onwards, onwards, downwards, into the pit.

  The air was dank and stank of rat urine. They must dare this tunnel, too. Yet her reaching ears could hear no scurry, no chitter nor squeak. Just a silence, heavy and oppressive, as heavy as the hatred and anger that drove her down here. Drove her on, down, down, into the darkness.

  Despite the pitch darkness, she somehow felt that the tunnel had opened up. Perhaps there was a breath of air movement, or perhaps…just a feeling. She edged out reaching for the far wall, reluctant fingers leaving the rock that gave her orientation and position. The tunnel had been two arm-stretches wide at the mouth.

  “The other side can’t be that far,” she muttered to herself, as she edged further and further from the security of the wall.

  There was a soft, shuddering, susurrating shiver in the very floor of the pit under her.

  “Far.” The sibilant word came from behind her, and then, as she turned in terror, it echoed back from some vast distance. “Far, far…” The cobbles beneath her shuddered and clattered again, and she fell to her hands and knees, as the vast serpent shook its plate-sized scales, and it moved under her.

  She screamed, realizing. The scream, too, echoed. It sounded very thin and small.

  “Why do you disturb my rest?” hissed the great wyrm, in a voice cold as its scales.

  Milan

  Francisco Turner sat at his ease with the ruler of Milan—who occupied that position at the invitation of its people, if not the acclamation of the noble houses of Europe. Carlo Sforza did not insist on protocol unless it served his purposes, and he knew his trusted lieutenant and personal physician well enough not to waste time and energy on show. They’d shared quarters across the bloody campaigns and small wars of the Italian principalities, ranging from palazzos to mud hovels, and Francisco knew appearances worried Carlo Sforza not at all. If he put on airs and graces, they were for other people’s benefit. Left to himself, Sforza was rather Spartan in his quarters and his dress. But that was not what was expected of a powerful condottiere, let alone a duke. So now he was dressed accordingly.

  “An elegant cotte, m’lord,” said Francisco, amused by his chief’s irritable pulling at the obviously prickly gold braid at the collar.

  “When you have usurped the position, you need to live up to the people’s expectations,” said Carlo. Much like Marco had done just a short while earlier in Venice, Sforza looked around the luxurious salon in the palace as if to reassure himself that he was, indeed, the new duke of Milan. “But you would think that the wealthy and powerful would put their comfort ahead of fashion.”

  “Something I have yet to see any evidence of,” said Francisco. “Perhaps you could start a new trend, m’lord.”

  “Perhaps later, when they don’t need to be reminded by my appearance or the sword,” said his master. Moved by a restless impulse, Sforza rose from his chair and began pacing about.

  “Or cannon. Cannon make very effective fashion statements,” said Francisco.

  “So, does Venice plan to show us how fashionable they think they are?”

  “Not at the moment, m’lord. The leader of their fashion house is not himself yet. And he is disposed to make a grumpy acceptance of your marriage. Not too hastily, of course, as that might cause more problems than it would cure. The gift you sent was well received, and I think they got the message.”

  “Hopefully one less source of poisoners, for now.”

  “Oh, I think if he was sure it would weaken Milan, and be to Venice’s advantage, there is no doubt Petro Dorma would order you poisoned tomorrow. Marco Valdosta is otherwise. He’s too good for this world. If and when he comes to rule Venice, I think she will plunge headlong into war. Too many people will perceive him as weak. I think they may find out that they are wrong.”

  “Besides, there is Benito,” said Benito’s father with a wry smile.

  “Yes, but having spent time with Marco, there is more to him than meets the eye at first glance, m’lord. Depths most people will not suspect. And there is a magical side.”

  “A story to frighten children, my rational friend.”

  “I am not so sure, this time, m’lord. I’m not gullible, but I have spent quite some time with the man. Besides, there was our little experience with the winged horse.”

  “That was Benito,” said Carlo.

  Francisco took a
pull at his inevitable flagon of beer. “They say that magic runs in families, sometimes. You are undeniably Benito’s father. I’ve been one of your captains for seventeen years now, and seeing him at the Villa Parvitto was a shock to me. It should have been for him too. You looked very like him when I first met you. You have the same turns of expression, the same shape to the mouth and nose. For him, looking at you is a look into the future.”

  “I hope he is wise enough to learn from that future. Yes, he is very much my son, although the Dell’este strain is there, too. But what does that have to do with it, Francisco?”

  “You are as magical as a brick, m’lord,” said Francisco with a smile. “Therefore, if it runs in the blood, and if Benito has it, it must come from…”

  “Lorendana Dell’este,” scowled Carlo Sforza. He went back to his chair and sat down. “And if she used such skills for anything, it was wild idealism and leading my head astray. I would have killed her if I’d gotten my hands on her, Francisco, I was so angry at the time.”

  “But in the end, you didn’t. Anyway, I was about to say the Dell’este line rather than Lorendana.”

  “Famous for being blacksmiths.”

  “Famous for being smiths, anyway. Those were reputed to be magic workers back in my father’s homeland. Weyland Smith, for example. Magic work… It is one area Milan has little depth in, and Venice, at least a reputation.”