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The Bloodbaths
Book One of the Aqua Pura Trilogy
Steve Libbey
Subatomic Books
www.subatomicbooks.com
The Aqua Pura Trilogy
The Bloodbaths (2007)
The Quartz Odalisque (2008)
The Good King's Tomb (2009)
To Kenneth and Barbara,
for putting me to work on the world.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
THE BLOODBATHS
Copyright (c)2007 by Steve Libbey.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
Cover photo and author photo by Giovanna Descoteaux.
Published by Subatomic Books.
1942 SE 30th Avenue, Suite D
Portland, OR 97214
www.subatomicbooks.com
ISBN 978-0-9793915-0-7
The Bloodbaths
1. Water
Crixus Oraan and his two assistants lounged downhill from the dowser and his entourage. The water shaman chanted, anointed himself with pungent oils, cast wild eyes about the hillock, and in general gave a good show for the nobleman who hired him. Salty wind tickled their hair, relieving the humidity common to Rond in summer.
"The usual wager?" Stamm produced a sestric, its silver plating scratched from decades spent in belt-pouches. Crixus dug out a sestric. They held the coins up between thumb and forefinger.
"Two hundred yards," Crixus said.