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Shadow of the Overlord, chapters 3 and 4

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Shadow of the Overlord, chapters 3 and 4

(please keep in mind that these are very rough, unedited versions)

 

CHAPTER 3

“Hold it steady, Master Dargon,” Jorimund said.
“You hold it bloody steady,” Dargon snapped under his breath. Who needs a bow, anyway?
“Young Master, you cannot hold the bow steady while you breath, especially when breathing so rapidly. Release the string.”
Dargon let the bow go slack.
“Now, follow the steps. Breath in as you draw back, hold your breath while you hold the string to your cheek. Take one second to aim, and fire.”
Dargon nodded glumly, but did as instructed.
Or tried to, at least. He arrow didn’t come within six spans of the straw man which was his target.
“Better, my lord. Better.”
Dargon scoffed. “If missing the broad side of a barn is better.”
“It is. You cannot hit if you do not fire. And you cannot improve your aim if you do not fire.”
He nodded, conceding the point. “Give me a sword and I’ll hack your arm off, but I’m wasted on the bow.”
“Not true, Master Dargon. You’re a quicker study with the sword, that is true. But you only need more practice with the bow. Remember the—”
“I know, I know. Remember the steps. String the bow, nock an arrow, draw with an indrawn breath. Hold the breath while I aim and do not breath out again until after firing the arrow.”
“I have never doubted your memory,” Jorimund said. “Your wit is sharper than any sword.”
Dargon felt certain there was a backhand to that compliment somewhere, but he couldn’t help beaming at the praise.
“Again,” Jorimund barked.
Dargon dutifully obeyed.

He loosed arrow after arrow after arrow. By the time the old Master-At-Arms let him stop, the blisters on his fingers had popped, regrown, popped again, and regrown to the size of grapes and his arm ached so badly he could scarcely move it.
I suppose this is what Father meant when he instructed Jori to work me ‘to the bone.’ With a sigh, he slowly unstrung the bow with his left hand, to avoid doing further harm to the blistered fingers of his right, and put both back in the small shed which passed for an armory here in the Moritz keep.
The oaken boards which passed for walls were splintered and beginning to molder. The inside of the shed stretched perhaps a span and a half and the inner walls were lined with four common bone swords and one supposedly of black torthugra-bone, though Dargon had his doubts about the legitimacy of the claim. there were a dozen wood-and-bone axes, each matched with a shield and the remaining wall was hung with unstrung bows of ash, elm, and horn, with two crafted from diamondwood.
In the middle space of the shed stood four oak dummies from which hung a suit of banded torthugra-bone armor, a massive suite of plates supposedly made from teranthric bone, a basic breastplate of oak, and another of diamondwood complete with greaves, epaulets, and coif.
Dargon hung his bow on its peg and wrapped the string around its length. Turning from the shed, he closed its heavy door and dropped the bar in place, clasping the thick, wooden padlock in its place to secure the bar.
Why do we bother with locking it? he thought, annoyed. It is not as though there’s actually anything of value in there. We don’t even have enough weapons to quell a peasant uprising, much less any real threat.
“Go and get that hand looked at,” Jori said.
Dargon nodded and, as though the Master-At-Arms’ words had caused it, his hand began to throb. Something wet dripped down his palm.
He tried to clench his fist, but the fingers wouldn’t curl past the shape of a sickle. Determined not to look at it, he spun on his heel and marched toward the keep.
Within moments, he was out of the hot sun and into the stone keep. The granite floors were smooth, if bare, but the stone of the walls had numerous cracks and were chipped almost everywhere. At seemingly random intervals, framed canvas paintings hung from the walls.
Dargon couldn’t help wondering why they bothered with decorations when the keep was in such a constant state of disrepair.
His feet followed the four turns and countless stone steps seemingly without his direction, leading him up into the central tower and into the Trevan’s office. His sturdy diamondwood door stood wide open, as it usually did during the day.
Leather-bound books lined the walls and a long marble counter at the back of the room held glass jars of pulpy, meaty things better left uninvestigated. Or so the Trevan always told him.
Even now, with blood dripping from his throbbing hand, however, he wanted nothing more than to go back and explore the grotesquery.
He pulled his attention to the front of the chamber where the Trevan himself sat. He was a large, thickly bearded man in midnight blue robes with kind, glittering gray eyes.
Quill in hand, the Trevan wrote ceaselessly in a large, green, leather-bound tome. The bright red desk was of a stone Dargon didn’t recognize, its surface textured with bumps almost half the size of cobblestones. The Trevan had once claimed the desk was carved from stone pulled from the eastern ocean, though Dargon didn’t see how that was possible. The thing was massive, surely— even now, it its carven state —it had to weigh at least forty, perhaps even sixty stone. What would the original chunk of material have been? A hundred stone? A thousand?
Dargon waited, though with the ache in his hand rapidly working toward a crushing inferno his patience waned quickly.
After a minute, the crimson light of Kaustere reflecting off the eastern sea as it sank toward its home there caused the stone of the Trevan’s desk to blaze scarlet and the youngish man lifted his quill to dip it into the inkwell. Dargon cleared his throat softly.
Face still turned down toward his page, the Trevan glanced up at Dargon with arched brows. “Yes, milord?”
Dargon raised is arm and brandished his bloody hand as though it were a flaming torch. Tiny crimson droplets spattered half the desk, one or two of them soaking into the page of the Trevan’s open book.
The Trevan’s flinty eyes narrowed for an instant, then went wide as he seemed to process Dargon’s meaning. “Come and sit, boy,” he said softly, patting the seat of a chair next to his.
Dargon felt certain the chair hadn’t been there a moment ago, but with the pain in his hand he didn’t fully trust his senses.
After a moment of confused hesitation, he stepped around the desk and eased himself down into the carved mahogany chair, careful not to jar his still-bleeding hand. The seat proved much more comfortable than it looked.
The Trevan pulled a bowl of carved bone from beneath his desk and gently eased Dargon’s hand into it. The healer then pulled a stone pitcher, full of clear water, from the same place and sat it on the desk. “How did this happen?”
“Training.” Dargon’s voice was tight.
“Jorimund?”
Dargon grimaced.
“I thought so. I am going to have words with him over this,” the Trevan growled through clenched teeth.
“No!” Dargon snaked his hand out to grip the Trevan’s arm as hard as he could. “Promise me you will not!”
The Trevan stared at him a moment, then nodded. “Okay, Dargon. Calm down.” He pried Dargon’s fingers from his arm. “We need to take care of this hand.”
Dargon nodded and looked down at his ravaged fingers for the first time since training had ended. His stomach surged and he fought his body, forcing the bile back down his throat.
He couldn’t see much through the blood, which covered his palm and fingers. He didn’t have names for the shapes of the popped blisters covering the top two segments of his fingers. Thick, congealing fluid of sickly yellow and rotting green mixed with the blood at the tips of his fingers.
How is this so bad? All I was doing is firing arrows, he thought in some confusion.
The world seemed to swim, spinning around him, and the edges of his vision began go darken.
“Well, this looks a lot worse than it really is,” the Trevan said brightly.
Dargon blinked and his vision cleared. Looking down at his hand again, he squinted. “Are you certain?”
The Trevan smiled and pulled a folded piece of parchment from his robe. He carefully unfolded its contents and dumped them into the stone pitcher, the water foaming at the top and turning dark blue. He lifted the pitcher, his hand high on its handle, and whispered under his breath as he poured the blue water over Dargon’s hand.
Dargon couldn’t hear the words, but guessed at what they were. In many city-states, he had heard, Trevan was merely a title for a scholar, healer, or wise man, but here in Moritz they held to the old ways. The Trevan was, first and foremost, a priest of Trevandor. Some even said he was one of the rare few priests with true healing powers.
Dargon had never seen any proof of that, however.
From the moment the blue liquid touched his hand, the pain seemed to vanish. The liquid seemed to glow slightly, but it could have been a trick of the dwindling light of Kaustere.
As the blood and pus were washed away, Dargon was astounded to find that they Trevan was largely correct. A laceration near the base of one finger bled freely and the remains of several blisters covered the pads of his fingers, but there was little else.
I would swear there had been more than that, he thought.
The Trevan pulled a silk washcloth from his roe and soaked it in the blue— now purple —liquid, then gently wiped the remaining grime from Dargon’s skin.
“You see?” the Trevan said. “Just get this bleeding stopped and apply a salve for the blisters and you should be as good as new by morning.”
“So I see,” Dargon said in wonder, though he could hardly believe it. From the fire of agony in his fingers, he’d been certain the flesh must have been shredded to the bone.
The Trevan held a linen strip to the open cut while patting the rest of the hand dry with another silken cloth. Once it was dry, he wrapped another strip of linen about the cut finger and tied it, then put a paste from a jar hidden on one of the bookshelves onto several smaller strips and tied them onto the pads of Dargon’s fingers.
Smiling, the Trevan pushed aside the pitcher and bowl and eyed his handiwork. “How does it feel?’
“Good,” Dargon said, a bit suspicious now. He peered deep into the healer’s shining eyes for several moments. “Trevan, what was that light in the solution you poured on my hand?”
The Trevan’s eyes widened slightly. “Light? What light? I can only guess you must have been seeing a refraction of the light of Kaustere.”
“I’m not so sure. Are you certain it’s nothing you did?”
“Of course,” he said with a laugh just a bit higher pitched than usual. What could I have done?”
“Well, you are a priest, after all.”
The Trevan laughed again and this time it was genuine and mirthful. “Few priests, of any god, are granted real power, milord. Most of them are sorcerers and charlatans.”
“But they say you are one of them,” he blurted, shocked with how direct he was being.
“Not only is that presumptuous, Young Lord, but that question is a rather rude one. Priests do not flaunt such things.”
“And yet, you’ve done so enough for people to talk about it.”

 

CHAPTER 4

In the Verdant forest far to the south of Moritz, beneath the eternally green canopy where the light of Kaustere never touch, Rintalas stood with his hands raised. His green eyes darted from axe to pick to spear to arrow, he counted more than twenty of the bearded gnelwyn surrounding him.
He dropped the twin blades of giant bone he held in his hands, they stabbed into the loamy forest floor less than a handspan from his toes.
Too late to flee, too many of them to kill, he thought in frustration.
A pair of the diminutive creatures in the third rank from him conversed openly in the Gnelwyn language. Clearly they didn’t expect a ‘savage’ from the other side of The Spine to understand their language.
“What do we do? Since the dragons came our prisons are overflowing. Is there even room for another?”
“We’ll make room,” said the second. Between the higher— though still low, by his reckoning —voice and thin, silk facial hair, he expected this was was female.
Dra-guns? he thought. What in the name of all the gods is a dragon?
“As you say, Sureeka,” said the first in his gravelly voice. “Bind him,” he added in a shout.
Not good.
A few of the gnelwyn broke off from the rest. They searched him roughly, relieving him of every weapon he owned, including the tiny iron knife he kept hidden in his right boot to choruses of “oooooh,” and “ahhhh,” when the others saw the rare metal weapon.
The tiny blade was probably worth more than their homes were.
Once fully disarmed, his hands were pulled behind his back and bound in a length of black cord which looked as though it were made of a multitude of vines braided together.
Within minutes, they were marching to the east, away from the rising orb of Kaustere. He tested the bonds by yanking his hands apart. After a dozen tries, all he had to show for his efforts were aching shoulders and raw wrists, with a trickle of blood leaking into his left palm.
Damn, he thought. How am I going to get out of this? I have work to do.
Rintalas took a deep breath to center his mind and looked around him. He was surrounded by four ranks of gnelwyn warriors. Although most of them looked almost identical to him, the nearest one to his right seemed older than the others, his beard gray and grizzled and lined marring his face, particularly around the eyes and over his wide, angular forehead. Like the others, he wore his hair long and pulled back in a tight, thick braid. His clothing was plain, but appealing. Rintalas appreciated the natural, woodsy green of the vest and the dull, bark-like brown of his breeches. Under the woolen vest, this gnelwyn wore soft linen of midnight black which covered his arms down to the gray leather gloves and his feet were booted in soft black doeskin.
It was an excellent choice for stealth, Rintalas was forced to admit.
The gnelwyn’s face was grim and he stared straight ahead.
An itch in the back of his mind forced Rintalas to act. He leaned toward grim-face. “Hey, Grim,” he whispered. “Mind telling me where we’re headed?”
Grim-Face kept marching, eyes straight ahead, as though he hadn’t heard.
How rude.
“Hey, Grim,” he whispered louder. “Come on. Talk to me. It isn’t as though I could hurt you. I’m bound here.”
“Shut. Up,” Grim growled between clenched teeth.
“You know, that’s an awfully kind suggestion, but I think I’ll have to pass. You see, I came here for a reason and getting captured by you lot is rather far from that reason. So, since you’re keeping me from my job, you might as well give me some information.”
The gnelwyn to his other side turned to glare him.
He shrugged. “I know. Prisoners aren’t supposed to talk. I’ve taken a few prisoners myself in my time. But see, the whole silent thing doesn’t work for me. So how about we have a chat?”
Turning back to Grim-Face, Rintalas just caught the ghost of a faint smile which transformed instantly back into a grim scowl.
Progress, he thought.
“Come on. Anybod-”
Something wide and hard slammed into the back of his head, cutting him off and knocking him to his knees.
With muddled thoughts and swimming vision, he looked around in a daze. A think bead of something warm and wet trickled down the back of his neck.
Hmmm, he thought. Perhaps silence would serve me better just now.
Soft, grim chuckles surrounded him.
Slowly, the haze over his vision cleared and his own rugged leather boots came into sharp focus. In retrospect, and he should have foreseen it, his rough cow-hide boots and deep green, doeskin leggings made him stick out like a wolfhound in a fox den in this place. Of course, the silken tunic and furred vest didn’t help either.
For the first time, Rintalas looked past the gnelwyn at the forest around him and couldn’t help but marvel at it. He had never actually been to the Verdant Forest before. He’d thought he had been prepared for the reality of the place.
The dark trunks of trees glistened in the darkness, some smooth and some with bark grittier than sand. All reached hundreds of spans into the air where their leaved branches formed an impenetrable canopy overhead. The forest floor was black, with not a glimmer of light, yet Rintalas felt certain it was very near midday. His internal sense of time was generally flawless. Nevermind that he hadn’t seen the light Kaustere in over a week.
How do plants thrive on the forest floor without the touch of the Crimson God? he wondered.
Between the steamy moisture in the air, the black vines wrapped about tree trunks, and green ones hanging from the branches, and the plethora a vermin, insects, and snakes creeping, crawling, and slithering through the fauna convinced him that the Verdant Forest was no true forest, but rather a living jungle.
Had it been misnamed, all those centuries ago? Or had something changed this place? Could it have something to do with.. what was the word the gnelwyn had used? Dragons?
But how? What power in the world could alter the very landscape?
Away from the path, the jungle grew denser, the trees closer together and the vines and fauna proliferated more than usual. The path, however, grew wider, with the shrubbery and vermin reducing the farther they traveled, almost to the point of vanishing altogether.
Without warning, the path widened further until the trees vanished, leaving perhaps a hundred spans of open ground before the rocky slopes of the Spine of the World mountains. The gray stone towered over the trees, utterly dwarfing them.
The towering walls of rock trembled, shook, then began moving toward him! Slowly but steadily, and shaking all the while, they moved toward him and the troop of gnelwyn.
By Gaeia’s hammer! he thought. What is this?
A narrow gap appeared at the center of the moving wall of stone, small rocks and a mist of dust falling into it as it slowly widened, revealing a dark, empty chasm beyond.
A sharp jab in his back urged Rintalas forward, while the wall of stone continued to move toward him, gap widening like the jaws of some massive predator.
“What is this?” he asked, voice trembling.
Something struck the back of his head again, but not nearly as hard this time. Taking the hint, he clamped his mouth closed and let himself be herded into the darkness.
Within a dozen steps past the still-moving wall, his eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness and the massive cavern around him took his breath away.
Where did this place come from? he wondered. Gnelwyn are not dwarves. They are many things, but skilled miners and expert stonemasons are not among them.
Prodded by his escort, he walked the center path through a forest of dark pillars, each one decorated with an engraved face. Most of the images were narrow-eyed and stern, but one to his right had wide, bright eyes and a mouth turned up in a joyous grin.
The walls around the cavern were too distant to make out, but they seemed to sparkle in the slivers of crimson light arcing in from beyond the doors. Only then did he realize, truly realize that the moving wall of rock was, in fact, a set of massive double doors. It was a well-known fashion of the dwarves to build gates into their mountain cities out of the natural rock itself with minimal alteration so as to make it as indistinguishable from natural stone as possible.
The inside of the doors, though! They were engraved with images of great tunnels being mined, incredible structures being built, and metals being cast. The images were inlaid with sparkling gems and jewels and even spots of metal in a few places. Some grayish metal inlaid a dwarven hammer and a bright yellow metal formed a circlet around another dwarf’s brow.
“Incredible,” Rintalas breathed.
“Move, elf,” said a rough gnelwyn voice with another jab to his back.
“Only half,” he grumbled under his breath. It wasn’t worth another clout on the head to express his displeasure about his parentage being confused.
He started forward again at a quicker pace than before. Whatever awaited him in the depths of this mountain, it had to be better than how the warriors had treated him so far. Didn’t it?

Shadow of the Overlord, Chapters 1 & 2

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Shadow of the Overlord, chapters 1 and 2

(please keep in mind that these are very rough, unedited versions)

 

CHAPTER ONE

The wind keened, high and sharp, through the leaves of the few trees to either side of the path which led from the smattering of farms into Cuularan. Though early in the day still, the dual suns had risen over the towering Spine of the World mountains in the west more than an hour ago.
Crimson Kaustere sat slightly above his black cousin, Asmodere, and both served to bake the hard ground. Taliesimon wondered idly if one could fry an egg on stone in the heat of those twin orbs.
The floorboards beneath her creaked as the flat bed of the wain leaned to one side on the uneven path, then jounced to the other without warning. She fell, cracking her knee against the sturdy, if weathered, oak.
“Blast it,” she muttered, massaging her knee. “That’s going to bruise.”
“Maybe that will teach you not stand in the back of a moving wain,” Father said gruffly.
He meant well, of course. She knew that. But he would never understand. Could never understand. She was too excited to sit.
Today is The Day, she thought. You’re content to be a farmer, father, but not me. Oh, no! Not me! I’m going to be a warrior, see if I don’t!
“Don’t know what you’re so excited about,” Jalaisen said. “They only agreed to let you test to shut you up. They don’t let girls into the Dragoons.”
“You take that back!” she shouted.
“I will not.”
“Take it back, Jay!” she yelled, pitching her voice even higher, her small hands clenching into fists at her sides. Somehow, she wasn’t sure how, exactly, she had gotten back to her feet. She glared at her older brother.
He glared right back, arms folded. “I will not. It is truth. You shall see.”
Taliesimon thrust her small fists against her hips. “I will be a dragoon, Jay. You’ll see. I don’t care if they’ve never accepted a girl before. I’ll be the first.”
Jalaisen scoffed. “We’ll see, little sister.”
She clenched her teeth in frustration. I’ll show them all, she thought. They’ll see.
“Don’t pout, little one,” Father said.
She ground her teeth. “I’m not.” She hated when that whiny note crept into her voice.
Father shook his head. “Are you certain you want to do this, Taly?
“Yep.”
Father sighed again. “Jalaisen, stop antagonizing your sister. She’s made her choice. She’ll stand or fall by merit of her own skills. Nothing you can say or do will change it.”
“Yes, Father.” Jalaisen turned his attention back to the road and took a few jogging steps to pull up even with Father on the bench at the front of the old wain.
Taliesimon did her best to push her outrage to the back of her mind. That was pride in his voice, talking about my skills, wasn’t it?
She smiled.
The wain jounced again, leaning wildly to one side as the wheel feel into a rut in the path.
This time, Taliesimon slid her feet with the motion and managed to stay standing.
Her grin broadened.

*     *     *     *     *     *

 

Cuularan was large. Easily the biggest place Taliesimon had ever seen.
Like most of the Free States, Cuularan had no fence, no walls, and no gate. The forest had been cleared for a full league around the outbuildings— to aid in defense, she supposed —and a three-span wide stream cut through the center of town.
Arching her back and neck, Taliesimon counted as many of the brick, stucco, wood, and stone buildings as she could. When she was young, she had realized with delight that she could count beyond ten by using her fingers multiple times. All she had to do was use a raised finger to denote each repetition of ten.
She used the trick now, and added a raised two within her soft, doeskin boots when she ran out of fingers.
At two-hundred she stopped, being out of tricks to help her count higher, and marveled. These were only the buildings she could see from out outskirts, which was obviously only a small part of the total within. Nevermind that there were many more that she didn’t have an accurate way to count!
Woodcutters, mills, storefronts, inns, taverns, guard towers, gem cutters, tanners, bone shapers, coopers, wainwrights, this place had everything!
“Papa, where do you think the testing grounds will be this year?”
“Same as always.”
She chewed her lip nervously.
“Don’t worry, Taly,” Father said without looking back at her. “I’ll get you there. As soon as we unload these wine casks at the Birdsong Inn, We’ll head that way.”
She nodded. It seemed silly, nodding when his back was to her. But she knew that somehow he knew she’d nodded. Somehow, Father always seemed to know. A part of her suspected he knew everything.
Ahead, the road seemed to level out and the usual ruts in the road vanished.
Why don’t they keep the ruts out on the whole road? she wondered. Surely, that would make the trip into town far more pleasant for everyone.
Without warning, the wain’s wheels hit… something. Something hard and unyielding. The wain rose in a high bounce and Taliesimon pitched forward. The back of Papa’s bench flew up toward her with sickening speed and bashed her in the face.
Her cheeks felt wet. She rolled over and looked up into the bright midday sun. Her eyes burned with moisture.
Father’s and Jalaisen’s faces broke her view of crimson Kaustere. Concern showed in their eyes, but though their lips moved, no sound penetrated the high, sharp ringing in her ears.
Did I black out? she wondered.
She didn’t know how to tell if she had or not. She hadn’t dreamed. She hadn’t seen blackness overshadow her sight. She remembered her fall and even the impact— she winced at the memory. It was similar to being struck with a shield or the flat of a wooden blade.
Now, however, her face just felt numb.
She reached up to feel her cheeks, chin and nose. Her fingers touched wetness and cold flesh— was her nose crooked now? —but it was as though she were touching someone else’s face. The flesh had no sensation at all.
She couldn’t help thinking it was a bad sign.
Father and Jalaisen looked worried, their expressions drawn.
“Father,” she tried to say, though she couldn’t hear her own voice over the ringing in her ears either, so she was not at all certain she was speaking at all. “I can’t hear you. But I think I’m okay. My face feels numb.”

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

Quillliaurran looked up from his meal of blood oranges, wild carrots, and diamondwood bark. Sindorriaunna was always the first to make sport of him for eating the bark, as she was doing now, but he knew it to be great for adding sparkle to the scales.
“I know you are only trying to steer me toward better health. But truly, the bark is the most nutritious part of the meal.”
Sindor scoffed. “What you need, my dear clutch-mate, are eighteen or twenty good haunches of venison. That would sharpen those teeth and claws right up and add a brilliant sheen to those purple scales.”
“And yet,” he said placidly. “My scales sparkle more than yours do.”
She scowled. “What would you know,” she muttered.
Quill beamed at her, a grin splitting his snout.
“Truly,” she said as a purple streak flashed seemingly from nowhere to strike the side of his head with an audible crack which spun his head down to one side. “You must learn to be less trusting, less kind. This world will eat you alive if you don’t learn this lesson.”
Quill spit deep violet blood from his mouth to splatter the rocks near Sindor’s paws. “Thank you for the lesson.”
The larger wyrm nodded to him and turned away, stalking into the deeper forst. A few paces before disappearing from his sight, she turned her head, twisting around to watch him. “I almost forgot, you have been commanded to take audience with the Underlord today at midday.”
“B-b-but,” he spluttered. “But that’s less than an hour from now! And the Underlord is all the way across the strait on Thorutia!”
“Then you’d better hurry,” she said sweetly.
Quill opened his mouth to argue further, but the glare she shot him made him close it again. He nodded as he recalled who it was he was dealing with.
While it was true that sometimes Sindorriaunna could be reasoned with or persuaded, the Underlord was another matter. The enormous malachite wyrm who ruled Thorutia in the Overlord’s name could not be persuaded. She could not be reasoned with. That one lived in a reality all her own, in which anything she desired was hers and all things she opposed were punishable by death.
“Do you know what it’s about?” he called belatedly, after Sindor had disappeared into the woods.
“Not sure,” her voice came back on the wind. “Might have been something about your bonding.”
“What?” Quill breathed. “Bonding?”
What could it possibly have to do with my bonding? he thought. I’m still far too young to be bonded. What use would I be in the union?
Quillliaurran shook his head violently, to clear the questions. It was only partially successful.
He dove back into his meal and gulped down the last of it in three large bites. There was no more time to dally, he knew. While it wasn’t a long flight across the strait, it was long enough that his arriving on time was still far from assured.
He wiped a thin stream of blood orange juice from his jaw and leaped into the air, snapping his wings out at the zenith of his leap. With several thrusts of his wings, he climbed to cruising altitude.
Even after seeing it hundreds of times, Quill was still in awe of the beauty of the landscape below. The trees of the Verdant Forest were eternally green and blanketed the hills with thicker foliage than seemed possible, especially for a wold so recently out of a years-long winter.
Seasons didn’t seem to affect the Verdant Forest like it did other forests, though. Even with half a wingspan of snow covering the land, the Verdant forest had been thick and green.
A short distance ahead, a flight of blackbirds broke from the cover of the trees and raced away from quill in all directions.
He laughed heartily. I’m not going to hurt you, little birds. Other dragons may choose to make a tender morsel of you, but not me.
In some places, the trees ended less than a wingspan from the eastern shore. The treeline zigged and zagged up and down the coast. The one consistency, however, was that by the time one was a wingspan past the treeline into the woods, the density of the trees became overwhelming.
Once he passed the beach, Quill dipped lower in his flight. Ordinarily, he didn’t enjoy flight any more than he did walking. It was boring and tiring. well, except for the majestic view over the Verdant Forest. That was an experience all it’s own, but could be done without the effort of traveling in flight.
Sea spray, though. That could only be felt in flight. Certainly, one could catch the occasional spray hovering over the water, but the constant spray of droplets in his face? That could only be felt with traveling over the ocean at high speed while less than a wingspan above the surface of the water, where the waves would almost touch him.
Sea spray in the face was the ultimate feeling. Sometimes, when the waves would crash just the right way, instead of droplets, the spray would come up as a fine mist. That was the best. The tiny droplets making up the mist could get under his scales to touch the hot flesh beneath, cooling it just a bit.
Thinking of it made him tingle with anticipation and he dropped lower toward the water.
Almost immediately, the droplets sprayed upward to splash on his belly and underjaw. He shivered with pleasure at the sensation. The droplets cooled the heat in his scales and almost… tickled.
Tickled wasn’t quite the right description of the sensation, but Quill could come up with nothing more accurate.
After several minutes, a tall wave came up to just graze his lazily hanging rear claws and he grinned in anticipation.
An instant later, when the wave crashed back to the surface of the water, a spray of mist flew up just in time to envelop the lowest tenth of his tail. He squirmed with the pleasure of it.
Okay, that’s enough, he thought after a minute. Time to fly like the wind. I need to be standing in front of the Underlord by the stroke of midday.
Rising higher, Quill pumped his wings harder and faster. To the very edge of his endurance, he pumped his wings faster and faster.
It wasn’t that he was afraid of the Underlord, exactly. It was only that he preferred not to face the consequences of failing to obey her.

Shadow of the Overlord: Prologue

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THE CALAMITY, BOOK 1

SHADOW OF THE OVERLORD

Prologue:

 

It isn’t every day a dragon gets to kill their own mother. You should savor it. Don’t rush it. You’ll want to remember this moment.

Dam! Sindor snapped back across the telepathic link.

Of course. My apologies.

Even more than his using the human words, she hated being connected to the human in this way. Why did he have to be inside her head, exactly?

In spite of him, however, she smiled. She’d been looking forward to this day for a long time and she did, in fact, intend to savor the moment.

She reached within herself to the glowing purple gem of power, the seat of the arcane, The Apex of The Soul. She pulled forth a few strands of arcane power and wrapped her paws in silence. There was no sense in waking her dam prematurely. Or ever, she added with a silent laugh.

In utter silence, she passed her clutch-mate’s chamber. It was mete that he sleep through the Grand Plan. He din’t have the stomach for such work.

Quillliarran, you weakling, she thought with a sneer.

She prayed that, Tiamat willing, she could beat that tender heart out of him one day. It would do him no favors. They did not live in a gentle world, nor did they serve a gentle master. Brutality was what was needed to survive here.

A dozen wingspans deeper into the cave, she entered her dam’s cavern. This deep there was no natural light, but such was not an impediment to her vision. She was a dragon, not some weakling torthugra like her dam. They had to have torches or other sources to light their way in the darkness.

She stopped.

Never before had the troubled to question, but she did so now. How was it that she was a true dragon with only one dragon parent? Did the torthugra blood somehow not weaken the draconic?
Sire had assured her, and all his other broods, for that matter, that they were, in fact, pureblood dragons. But how was that possible?

She made a mental note to ask and filed it away for later use.

Stepping forward once more, she entered her dam’s small chamber. With another small stream of power, she covered the entrance in a field of silence, then turned back to the sleeping form of her dam.
Her long, slender tongue slipped from her mouth to lick her lips. She was determined to enjoy this for as long as possible.

She crept to the back of the chamber and stood over the slender serpentine form with its soft scales and feathered wings. So unlike her own wings. Thin, membranous, yet powerful. How had a creature of such majesty and power come from the body of one so fraught with weakness?

At almost double her dam’s length, she was still not a large dragon. Far from it. Her sire utterly dwarfed her. He had spinal spikes larger than she was.

Sindor shook her head. She would grow. Given enough time, she would grow into a suitable match for her sire. One day.

Snaking her head down to the base of her dam’s trail, she opened her jaws, slimy saliva dripping from them.

“Do you hate me so much?” whispered a breathless voice.

Sindor froze. How had she misjudged so completely?

“Sindorriaunna?”

With a silent snarl, she raised her head. She hated her full name. It sounded so… feminine. While Sindor, on the other hand, sounded powerful, destructive, and strong.

“I do not hate you, dam. I pity you.”

“Pity? Me?”

“For the weakness of your flesh. The powerlessness of your soul.”

Her dam gave a slow nod. “I see. So this is… for my own benefit?”

Sindor laughed. “Hardly. It is commanded. No more, no less.”

“You were commanded to chew up my body from the bottom up? You were commanded to make my death the most painful, drawn out death you can imagine?”

How in the name of the Overlord was she so calm? She obviously knew what was about to happen. How could she face it without the slightest tremor in her voice?

Sindor sighed. “No, not that part. That is of my own choosing. But your death, and those of all your kind, comes now. Tonight. All across the isle.

The torthugra’s wings bunched upward then fell again. It was a s close to a shrug as the legless creatures were capable of. “I expected no less.”

Sindor narrowed her eyes. “You expected this? Then why stay? Why remian here and allow yourself to be made a victim? Why not flee to the mainland?

“To be slaughtered by dragoons? No thank you. Besides, it was worth it to watch my children grow. Even if Quilliarran has not yet achieved his wings yet, it was still apleasure to watch you grow into the beauty you have become.”

Sindor growled. “Of all the nonsensical prattle—”

“Enough, daughter. You have come here to do a thing. Get on with it.”

With a snarl, Sindor bit into the center of her dam’s body, cleanly severing muscles, sinew, and bone.
To Sindor’s astonishment, the serpent made not a sound. Not of protest and not of pain. Nothing. She did not shrink away, nor did she so much as twitch.

Perhaps I have misjudged her.

She pushed the thought away. Whether her dam was as weak as she thought was irrelevant. The Overlord had commanded the deaths of all the torthugra, so she would comply. No one who wished to live disobeyed the immense wyrm.

She set to devouring her dam one bit at a time while the sill-living upper half of the body endured, spurting blood from the severed mid-section of her belly.

 

From his mind’s eye, the Overlord watched with immense satisfaction as his children destroyed their dams, one and all. Not all did so with the malice or gusto of Sindorriaunna, but that was part of why she was one of his favorites. If she maintained her focus and learned to rein in her brutality, she would rise hi and fast.

He smiled to himself. His plans had been a long time in the making, he still recalled with not a little discomfort his years in the void and the hundreds of failures he had before learning to harness his energies in the proper manner to produce true dragon children from the bodies of the small serpents.
No matter, he thought. What is done is done. It is time to look to the future.

He watched the hatchlings destroy the last of the torthugra with a smile.

“At last, we wash away the last of the old order so we can build the new one, eh… what are you calling yourself these days?”

“Novarel, Divinity.”

The Overlord snorted. “Not very inventive, is it?”

The human bowed. “I never was overly creative, Divinity.”

The Overlord snorted again, a jet of orange flame erupting from one nostril. This human was far less amusing than he thought he was, but at least he didn’t quail before the Overlord’s gaze. Such confidence was worth its weight in diamonds. It was so exhausting having his every subject tremble in terror before him.

“He isn’t ready yet, surely it will be another century, but how would you feel about bonding with your Quillliarran when the time comes?”

The human rubbed his jaw. “The whelp? The one with the oh-so-destructive sister?”

The Overlord snorted. He disliked the old words for them. He nodded his great head.

“I would be honored, Divinity. But why lavish your attentions on him?”

The Overlord shrugged. “I find I have an affinity for the runts and the powerless.”

 

 

The MEG 4-star movie review

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First, let me offer a disclaimer.

I do not (not not not not not!) believe in giving reviews that are actually just plot summaries. There will be no spoilers here.

Okay, now that’s out of the way…
This is my review of the FILM The MEG, (very) roughly based on Steve Alten’s book of the same name, which just opened in theaters yesterday.
My wife and I went to see the film tonight. I have to say, while I enjoyed it, it wasn’t fantastic. I give it a solid 4-stars.
I’ll start with the good. Praise is always so much better.
First, let me preface with the fact that I always make it my policy to do my best to completely ignore the book when I see a movie based on one. Much less disappointment that way. In this case, that was an exceptionally wise decision, as there is very little of the book in this film.
Now, I know the goal of an adaptation is never to make a carbon copy of the book. We wouldn’t like it even if they did, as it will never live up to the book. Even if they spent an hour of screen time for every 50 pages (making for CRAZY long movies), we’d still all come away saying “the book was better, so why didn’t they do something different with it?”
To get things started, let’s talk actors. Even before I found out about the movie, Jason Statham is almost exactly what I always imagined in Jonas Taylor when reading the books, so obviously that’s spot on. I’ll admit to wishing he had toned down his accent just a bit (we know he can do that, as he’s done it before), but otherwise he’s perfect for the part.
Jessica did a superb job as Lori Taylor, and physically she was a perfect match (not to mention being a WAY more likable character than she was in the book).
Really, if I’m being honest (and why not?), all the actors did great jobs here. There were a few points where the dialogue maybe could have been better, but I think they nailed exactly the feel they were going for. They wanted it to be fun. They wanted some well-placed humor to break up the tension. And it worked beautifully.
On a final note concerning actors, I have to say I felt a rather irrational squee when I saw Masi Oka. I didn’t realize he was in the film, and I’ve been a fan since Heroes back in 2006.
Other than a couple of minor blips, the special effects were phenomenal. The sharks all looked fantastic, from the MEG itself to the various Great Whites, Hammerheads, and others portrayed in the film. I’m not sure the MEG’s movements were exactly 100% spot on, but we can forgive them that. After all, who can really say how a Megalodon would move?
Now, concerning story.
The film’s opening was quite good. As much as I wish I could have seen the events depicted in the prologue to the first book, it did a good job of introducing Jonas and the strength of his character (as well as his internal conflict).
The story progresses a bit slowly at first, but once things get moving there really aren’t any hitches for a good hour. And then, it really only stalls on account of mostly unrelated conversations happening in the midst of a Megalodon attack!
Apart from that aside, the majority of the story flows smoothly with lots of suspense and more than a couple “jump” moments. Even my wife (who is a HUGE horror fan, so doesn’t scare easily) jumped a few times.
Okay, now on to my limited complaints about the film (still spoiler-free).
For those who have read the books, you’ll know there was a strong explanation as to why the MEGs were where they were and why they haven’t been among us all this time. I really wish they had stuck with that, as the explanation given in the film is… rather weak, in my opinion. And the idea that we haven’t known about the Mariana Trench and the Challenger Deep for over a century is absurd.
This next is one point where I can’t help comparing the film to the books. I feel like they completely misrepresented Jonas’s character. At his second introduction, it seems they are trying to present him as a bit of an anti-hero with a rather Devil-May-Care attitude. And yet, twenty minutes later he’s acting like Captain America, making it his personal responsibility to save everyone. Honestly, the contradiction was rather jarring.
I really missed the Crusader Jonas Taylor that I met in the first MEG book. I also wish there had been the “memento” he carried throughout the entire first book.
And lastly, the ending.
If you’re hoping for that awesome, visceral climax you got from the book, let me disabuse you of that here and now. Don’t get me wrong, the climax is still pretty visceral and well done, but this is one place I was really hoping they would stick with how it was done it the book.
In closing, as much as I would LOVE to see more MEG, I have my doubts it will happen. The fact that it wasn’t left nearly as open-ended as the first book doesn’t really mean a whole lot, I’ll grant you that. There’s still plenty of room for more stories, be it adaptations of further books or original stories.
But simply based on conversations I heard from others on my way out of the theater, I get the general impression not everyone liked it as much as I did. And I feel like, between the high profile actors and the killer special effects budget, this is one of those movies that if it doesn’t do amazingly well in the theater then we’re not likely to see a sequel.
And now, over to you. What did you think of the movie?
Let me know in the comments.

Sexual Harassment

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I want to talk about something serious for a minute.

First, I want to thank a man I admire. Dan Wells, author of “I Am Not a Serial Killer” and many other wonderful books, recently tackled this issue head-on in a blog post which you can read here on his site, fearfulsymmetry.net.

Dan, if you happen to read this, you are an incredible human being. Thank you for being you.

Now, back to what I want to say.

Sexual harassment, in all its forms, is a VERY serious issue and should always be taken seriously. I have mad respect for anyone, man, woman, both, or neither, who has the courage to come forward about it. I too take the stance that an accusation of this nature should always be believed and addressed.

Many industries are currently being inundated with reports of this sort of behavior on a wide scale. As a human being, this saddens me greatly. I don’t understand what has changed recently to empower victims to come forward, but I applaud them. Every. Single. One.

And before you go thinking that some of them could just be making stuff up, I want you to think again.

Okay, sure, false accusations do happen. I don’t understand why they happen, I don’t get what anyone would think they have to gain from such behavior. But I accept that it does happen.

With that being said, however, just because someone doesn’t believe they’ve been a harrasser, doesn’t make that true. You never know how your words or actions will affect another. I’m sure we would all like to think that if we’re making someone feel uncomfortable they would say something so we could stop. Unfortunately, if someone feels that uncomfortable, they are unlikely to confront us about it directly.

That’s the thing about fear. If we are behaving in such a way that we are inducing fear in others, then that same fear is going to prevent them from contronting us about it.

In most cases.

For myself, I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-examine my own behaviors and make changes to ensure that I’m not ever “that guy.” I don’t ever want to be the one making someone feel uncomfortable. I definitely don’t want to be the guy making someone feel unsafe or as though I’m expecting some kind of recompense for doing the things I do.

That’s not me. I hope it’s not you.

 

Finally, I would like to challenge anyone and everyone who may be reading this to not only be better in their own lives, but to encourage others to be better as well.

For me, “If you see something, say something,” is not an empty phrase. And it doesn’t always mean police involvement. If you can see that someone is making another person feel uncomfortable, please, for the love of whatever you choose to believe in, do something about it. 

Now, I’m not saying to do anything physical. That is rarely (if ever) an appropriate response. Especially because, in my experience, 99 times out of 100, that person doing it doesn’t even realize what they’re doing. They are just being themselves and have no idea they’re having such a negative effect on someone.

So say something to them. Bring it to their attention. Be the force for positive change in someone’s life. We could all use a little bit more of that.

 

Also see Janci Patterson’s post about it here. She’s much more comprehensive (and specific) about it than I could ever be.

 

 

Thank you for reading.

Please feel free to share this with anyone who might appreciate it or need to hear it.

Review – Nothing Left to Lose by Dan Wells

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This is the first of what I hope will be a long-running series of book review posts 🙂

To get things started, I just finished reading Dan Wells’s brand new book in the John Wayne Cleaver series, Nothing Left to Lose.

 

 

 

The short version of my review is this: If you enjoyed the previous books, you won’t be disappointed. It’s definitely better than the first two books of the second trilogy.

Read on for my detailed review:

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