The Ranger of Marzanna Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Jon Skovron

  Excerpt from The Queen of Izmoroz copyright © 2020 by Jon Skovron

  Excerpt from The Obsidian Tower copyright © 2020 by Melissa Caruso

  Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

  Cover illustration by Magali Villeneuve

  Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Map by Tim Paul

  Author photograph by Ryan Benyi

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Edition: April 2020

  Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Orbit

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Skovron, Jon, author.

  Title: The Ranger of Marzanna / Jon Skovron.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2020. | Series: The goddess war ; book one

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019049456 | ISBN 9780316454629 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780316454605 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Fantasy. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Revolutions—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.S628393 Ran 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019049456

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-45462-9 (paperback), 978-0-316-45460-5 (ebook)

  E3-20200122-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Part One: The Ranger of Marzanna

  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

  Part Two: The Wizard of Gogoleth

  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

  Part Three: The Warlord of the Uaine

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Part Four: The Rebel of Roskosh Manor

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Part Five: The Battle of Sestra River

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Discover More

  Extras

  Meet the Author

  A Preview of The Queen of Izmoroz

  A Preview of The Obsidian Tower

  Also By Jon Skovron

  For Ryan, a brother not in blood, but in heart.

  Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.

  Tap here to learn more.

  PART ONE

  THE RANGER OF MARZANNA

  “Of all the enemies I have faced during my many years of loyal service to the empire, none have equaled the Rangers of Marzanna in sheer unflinching savagery. It was said they had sacrificed their very humanity in exchange for power, and that they worshipped Death itself.”

  —General Matteo Fontanelli,

  Memoirs of a Humble Servant to the Empire, Vol. 8

  1

  Istoki was not the smallest, poorest, or most remote village in Izmoroz, but it was close. The land was owned by the noble Ovstrovsky family, and the peasants who lived and worked there paid an annual tithe in crops every year at harvest time. The Ovstrovskys were not known for their diligence, and the older folk in Istoki remembered a time when they would even forget to request their tithe. That was before the war. Before the empire.

  But now imperial soldiers arrived each year to collect their own tithe, as well as the Ovstrovsky family’s. And they never forgot.

  Little Vadim, age eight and a half, sat on a snow-covered log at the eastern edge of the village and played with his rag doll, which was fashioned into the likeness of a rabbit. He saw the imperial soldiers coming on horseback along the dirt road. Their steel helmets and breastplates gleamed in the winter sun as their horses rode in two neat, orderly lines. Behind them trundled a wagon already half-full with the tithes of other villages in the area.

  They came to a halt before Vadim with a great deal of clanking, their faces grim. Each one seemed to bristle with sharp metal and quiet animosity. Their leader, a man dressed not in armor but in a bright green wool uniform with a funny cylindrical hat, looked down at Vadim.

  “You there. Boy.” The man in green had black hair, olive skin, and a disdainful expression.

  Vadim hugged his doll tightly and said nothing. His mother had told him it was best not to talk to imperial soldiers because you never knew when you might say the wrong thing to them.

  “Run along and tell your elder we’re here to collect the annual tithe. And tell him to bring it all here. I’d rather not go slogging through this frozen mudhole just to get it.”

  He knew he should obey the soldier, but when he looked at the men and horses looming above him, his whole body stiffened. He had never seen real swords before. They were buckled to the soldiers’ waists with blades laid bare so he could see their keen edges. He stared at them, clutched the doll to his chest, and did not move.

  The man in green sighed heavily. “Dear God in Heaven, t hey’re all inbred imbeciles out here. Boy! I’m speaking to you! Are you deaf?”

  Slowly, with great effort, Vadim shook his head.

  “Wonderful,” said the man. “Now run along and do as I say.”

  He tried to move. He really did. But his legs wouldn’t work. They were frozen, fixed in place as if already pierced by the glittering swords.

  The man muttered to himself as he leaned over and reached into one of his saddlebags. “This is why I’m counting the days until my transfer back to Aureum. If I have to see one more—”

  An arrow pierced one side of the man’s throat and exited the other side. Blood sprayed from the severed artery, spattering Vadim’s face and hair. He gaped as the man clutched his gushing throat. The man’s eyes were wide with surprise and he made faint gargling noises as he slowly slid from his saddle.

  “We’re under attack!” shouted one of the other soldiers.

  “Which direction?” shouted another.

  A third one lifted his hand and pointed out into one of the snowy fields. “There! It’s—”

  Then an arrow embedded itself in his eye and he toppled over.

  Vadim turned his head in the direction the soldier had been pointing and saw a lone rider galloping across the field, the horse kicking up a cloud of white. The rider wore a thick leather coat with a hood lined in white fur. Vadim had never seen a Ranger of Marzanna before because they were supposed to all be dead now. But he had been raised on stories of the Strannik, told by his mother in hushed tones late at night, so Vadim knew that was what he saw.

  “Get into formation!” shouted a soldier. “Archers, return fire!”

  But the Ranger was closing fast. Vadim had never seen a horse run so swiftly. It seemed little more than a blur of gray and black across the white landscape. Vadim’s mother had said that a Ranger of Marzanna did not need to guide their horse. That the two were so perfectly connected, they knew each other’s thoughts and desires.

  The Ranger loosed arrow after arrow, each one finding a vulnerable spot in a soldier’s armor. The soldiers cursed as they fumbled for their own bows and let fly with arrows that overshot their rapidly approaching target. Their faces were no longer proud or grim, but tense with fear.

  As the Ranger drew near, Vadim saw that it was a woman. Her blue eyes were bright and eager, and there was a strange, almost feral grin on her lips. She shouldered her bow and stood on her saddle even as her horse continued to sprint toward the now panicking soldiers. Then she drew a long knife from her belt and leapt toward the soldiers. Her horse veered to the side as she crashed headlong into the mass of armed men. The Ranger’s blade flickered here and there, drawing arcs of red as she hopped from one mounted soldier to the next. She stabbed some and slit the throats of others. Some were only wounded and fell from their horses to be trampled under the hooves of the frightened animals. The air was thick with blood and the screams of men in pain. Vadim squeezed his doll as hard as he could and kept his eyes shut tight, but he could not block out the piteous sounds of terrified agony.

  And then everything went silent.

  “Hey, mal’chik,” came a cheerful female voice. “You okay?”

  Vadim cautiously opened his eyes to see the Ranger grinning down at him.

  “You hurt?” asked the Ranger.

  Vadim shook his head with an uneven twitch.

  “Great.” The Ranger crouched down beside him and reached out her hand.

  Vadim flinched back. His mother had said that Strannik were fearsome beings who had been granted astonishing abilities by the dread Lady Marzanna, Goddess of Winter.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” She gently wiped the blood off his face with her gloved hand. “Looks like I got you a little messy. Sorry about that.”

  Vadim stared at her. In all the stories he had ever heard, none of them had described a Ranger as nice. Was this a trick of some kind? An attempt to set Vadim at ease before doing something cruel? But the Ranger only stood back up and looked at the wagon, which was still attached to a pair of frightened, wild-eyed horses. The other horses had all scattered.

  The Ranger gestured to the wagon filled with the tithes of other villages. “Anyway, I better get this stuff back where it came from.”

  She looked down at the pile of bloody, uniformed bodies in the snow for a moment. “Tell your elder I’m sorry about the mess. But at least you get to keep all your food this year, right?”

  She patted Vadim on the head, then sauntered over to her beautiful gray-and-black stallion, who waited patiently nearby. She tied her horse to the wagon, then climbed onto the seat and started back the way the soldiers had come.

  Vadim watched until he could no longer see the Ranger’s wagon. Then he looked at all the dead men who lay at his feet. Now he knew there were worse things than imperial soldiers. Though he didn’t understand the reason, his whole body trembled, and he began to cry.

  When he finally returned home, his eyes raw from tears, he told his mother what had happened. She said he had been blessed, but he did not feel blessed. Instead he felt as though he had been given a brief glimpse into the true nature of the world, and it was more frightening than he had ever imagined.

  For the rest of his short life, Vadim would have nightmares of that Ranger of Marzanna.

  2

  Sebastian Turgenev Portinari sat on the floor of his bedroom and stared at the bowl of water in front of him. He took one of the rusty bolts from the small pile beside him and gripped it tightly in one hand. He stared at the water in the bowl, focusing his intent on the metal in his hand. After a moment, he felt a surge—the bolt crumbled to rusty flecks, and the water spiraled up into a delicate point of ice.

  “Oh, that’s lovely, Sebastian. You’re getting quite good at controlling it.”

  Sebastian turned to see his mother, Irina Turgenev Portinari, standing in the doorway. Her pale face was framed by her long white silky hair as she smiled down at him.

  “Thank you, Mother,” he said. “But I would prefer to practice at the lake, where I could really let loose.”

  “Your father said you must not be so ostentatious right now.”

  “But why, Mother?”

  She sighed. “Why don’t you come down and ask him yourself. Dinner is ready.”

  “Fine…”

  Sebastian followed his mother downstairs to the small dining room in their farmhouse. His father, Giovanni Portinari, was already seated at the head of the table. He was a solidly built, clean-shaven man with the olive-tinged complexion of an Aureumian, close-cropped gray hair, and thick bushy eyebrows.

  “Sebastian,” he said by way of greeting.

  Sebastian nodded. “Father.” He noticed that a fourth place had been set at the table. “Is Sonya coming home?”

  “She usually makes an appearance after the first snowfall,” said his father. “If not today, then perhaps tomorrow.”

  Sebastian wasn’t entirely sure what his older sister did for months at a time out in the wilderness. Hunting, camping, becoming one with nature, he supposed. Or as best as she could without the gift of elemental magic. Whatever it was, she’d been doing it for a couple years now, only stopping in now and then, and more often than not getting into an argument with their father when she did. She always upset the normal routine of the house whenever she appeared, and these days Sebastian found that he somewhat dreaded her visits because of that.

  He sat down at the table as his mother brought in a platter of sour bread and boiled potatoes.

  “Really, Mother?” he asked. “Potatoes again?”

  “Now that it’s winter, we need to be conservative with our stores,” she said.

  “No, we don’t,” he said. “I could go out there right now, thaw that field, and have a whole new crop growing in weeks.”

  “No, you can’t,” said his father. “It draws too much attention.”

  “From whom?” asked Sebastian. “I’m tired of keeping my magic a secret.”

  “Tough.” His father sliced a potato as he spoke with the calm authority of a retired general. “You are only sixteen and as long as you live under my roof, you will do as I command.”

  Sebastian glared at his father as he gnawed on a chunk of bread, but his father seemed not to notice. It really wasn’t fair. Ever since Sebastian had discovered he could perform elemental magic, his parents had constantly pushed him to hone his abilities. But what was the point if he was never allowed to show anyone what he could do? His sister was only two years older than him, yet she could go off and do whatever she wanted, while he was stuck here, practically a prisoner in his own home.

  Then Sebastian heard an odd noise outside the house. Something he couldn’t place. The clank of steel, perhaps? His parents paused in their eating.

  “Is that Sonya?” asked Sebastian.

  His father’s thick eyebrows curled down into a scowl. “No.”

  Suddenly the sound of breaking glass and splintering wood filled the house. Imperial soldiers charged into the dining room, their sabers drawn.

  Sebastian froze, partly in terror and partly in awe of the absolute precision that these men displayed. But his father was a hardened veteran of the war. Without hesitation, he flipped the table, sending bread and steaming potatoes into the air, then grabbed Sebastian and his mother and hauled them in the only direction available: the staircase that led to the bedrooms.

  Sebastian stumbled up the steps as his father yanked him roughly by the arm. Once they were inside his parents’ bedroom, Sebastian’s father slammed the door shut and shoved the wardrobe in front of it.

  “Why are soldiers here?” Sebastian asked in a shaking voice. “What do they want?”

  “Sebastian, you must listen to me!” Giovanni pulled his own imperial-issued saber down from the wall, his face set. “I will hold them at bay for as long as I can. You jump out the window and run to Olga Slanikova’s farm down the road. Hide in her cellar until…” He paused. “Until the soldiers are gone.”

  Sebastian gaped at his father. Even in the fog of his panic he could see that those instructions made little sense. How would Sebastian know when the soldiers were gone if he was hiding in a cellar? And even more importantly, what would he do after?