The forge is hot. I'm sweating through the cotton shirt and leather pants I'm wearing. My feet are slowly seeping into the muddy ground of my father's open forge, and I squelch my toes around as I prepare to pull down on the rope attached to the bellows. As I pull I can feel my body strain against the counter weight and push of the heat from the heart of the...
"Raspberry Fudge" "Oh, it's you!" Samuel said to Father O'Sheehan as he stepped into the diner. "For a moment there we thought you were some random stranger." "I thought I could drop by and have my favorite lunch." The tall priest looked at the crowd. "Oh...my...Charles, are you busy?" "Kind of." Charles said to him. "Why don't you sit somewhere cozy. Thi...
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. I soundlessly pivoted around the tree and kicked the man in his back. He was propelled eight feet through the night air, slammed into an oak, slid to the ground and moved no more. Like vermin, they had infested the woods in the bucolic French countryside surrounding...
Part 30 LANGORET She'd saved my ass at Tonol, no matter how much, or how often, she pretended that I'd been the one who won that battle. As far as I was concerned, I'd just picked up where Colonel Storana had left off. Langoret and Tudino had bailed me out. From that moment on, Langoret had been my partner (in every sense but the personal or intimate). Sh...
Sunlight slit the darkness of the plane's passenger cabin open with hard white radiance when he lifted the windowshade. Dust stirred by the overhead vent speckled the broadening blade slashing in to cut away airline artificial night. He yawned and reminded himself where he was. There had been so many planes in the past months, so many cramped economy class s...
A light rain fell just before midday as Nandi arrived at Lulathe's compound. Like Nandi, her kin lived well outside the town of Murutse. The outer walls, made of mud brick, were surrounded by crops of beans, melons and honeybush. A perimeter of pillar-like ancestral stones guarded the entire area. In most settlements, these carven obelisks were consecrated...
Notes to the reader: All characters are over 18 at beginning of story. Story includes 7200 words (13 book pages). ***** I'll admit I was a bit of a dork. (That's an impolite polite way to say 'late bloomer,' right?) I suppose that's why the three of them decided I would be the one they'd use for their little scheme. All four of us attended the same...
HVAD CHAPTER 14 Barsam's father passed away in late autumn. No one was surprised, and very few people showed any real regret. The old Duke had been in poor health for the better part of a decade. The funeral and other observances would be mere ceremonies, rituals devoid of any genuine sorrow. Northern Izumyr had a new master. His subjects had watched the y...
William sat on the bench outside of the mage tower and sighed. Since that day many weeks ago, Lulu had not spoken a single word to him, and Lunari had not shown her face either. Not that he did not care about Lunari, but it was difficult to know that she was just attracted to the succubus taint. There was nothing to be done about it. Only Lulu knew how he tr...
"Pay attention, you silly girl," the cook said. Razai grimaced. She'd been listening for any sounds coming from upstairs, but the noise of the footmen clomping through the hallway outside the kitchen had drowned out anything else. "Yes, Cook," she said, appropriately obsequious. "Sorry, Cook." The job Renny Senshall had given her, determining whether two...