To Ride Hell’s Chasm. Janny Wurts
Voyager
TO RIDE HELL’S CHASM
Janny Wurts
To Ride Hell’s Chasm
For the warriors, may they keep their hearts open.
For those who make decisions and hold sway over others, may they do the same, only more so.
And for all who have given or lost their lives because one or the other fell short — this story.
Table of Contents
The closet was dark, dusty, stifling, and the pound of her heart, ragged thunder in her ears. Her breaths went and came in strangling gasps. If death took her now, it would come filled with horrors, and strike without sound from behind…
IN THE LONG SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAIN SPRING TWILIGHT, UNDER THE GLOW OF A THOUSAND LANTERNS, ANJA, CROWN PRINCESS OF SESSALIE, failed to appear at the banquet to celebrate her official betrothal. The upset and shock caused by her disappearance had not yet shaken the lower citadel, though more than an hour had passed since the midnight change in the watch.
The public festivities continued, oblivious. Farmwives and tradesmen still danced in the streets, while the unruly crowds spilling out of the wine shops teemed and shouted, a hotbed for fist fights and arguments. Mykkael, Captain of the Garrison, kept a trained ear on the tone of the roistering outside. He listened, intent, to the off-key singers who staggered arm in arm past the keep. The noise ebbed and flooded to the tidal surge of bodies, jamming the bye lanes and thoroughfares.
The racket funnelled into the cramped