Small delay
Cold medicine has interesting side effects on me. None of them involve producing coherently written or well edited text. Who knew. This too will pass. In the mean time, have another picture by the amazing Asher Dumonchelle:
Tag: portraits
Shandor, Year 676, David Lindmer
David trudged back from University through the narrow streets and alleyways of the Dockside Quarter of Logansburg, capital city of Arien. His scholar’s robe was carefully rolled and stowed in his pack, and he always changed from his good blue coat to the old brown one with the patched sleeves before he headed back to the flat. No point standing out more than he already did. He’d almost managed to shed his Shandorian accent; his friends at University told him he only sounded like a peasant from the provinces, now. It was perfectly acceptable, in Dockside, to sound like a peasant. A foreigner, however, or someone stupid enough to put on airs by attending University . . . Continue reading “Shandor, Year 676, David Lindmer”
Shandor, Year 676, Gavin Sheridan
At first sight, the man in the tree might have been mistaken for a scarecrow. Gavin Sheridan was the tallest man in Greendale and possessed the sort of body the charitable might term “loosely built.” His ears were a size too big, his nose beaky and amiable, and his smile was set on crooked. Angles that ought to have been flinty were turned to gum-rubber by his grin. Straw colored curls crowned the scarecrow image, and the outgrown clothing confirmed it. Today, with the acquisition of a new title, the grin had become permanently entrenched.
Captain Sheridan. It has a good ring to it, Gavin decided. And folk thought I’d not amount to anything. In addition to being a half-savage, a clever rider, and downright learned, he had become a captain through blind luck. Having studied some military history, Gavin did not find this sequence unusual. He grinned and, with a good swing, climbed higher into the tree. He needed a point from which to aim. Continue reading “Shandor, Year 676, Gavin Sheridan”
People of Madrahar
Tiiro shrugged. “I didn’t care for fishing. I liked the port at Shiahan. There was a tea shop, and then there was the mage school. I had some money in my pocket that day, so I enrolled. It’s easier to travel on the wake sometimes. You can lay back and watch the clouds, and see where you drift. I mostly just do that.”
“Ho, long jaws! Women and children are small eating. Face me!” Neharu threw the river stone hard at one of the beasts who was chasing the boy. The stone smacked the side of its head and it stumbled. Both the Coatau nipping at the boy and the three from the base of the tree swung their snouts round to sniff at Neharu. They all began to growl. Neharu smiled at the very surprised people he had rescued, and almost waved. Then he saw that the angry looking Coatau had indeed decided to face him, all at once together.
Neharu considered, as the first one lunged at his throat and caught his upraised arm instead, that maybe he should have found a weapon of some kind before announcing his arrival. He punched it hard in the face with his free arm and kicked another of them in the ribs before it bit at his leg. If I am torn limb from limb by monsters, that would be stupid of me, Neharu thought, as he was buried under snarling Coatau.
Kai gritted his teeth and ignored Lynx. Just give me your strength and shut the hell up.
The creature slammed into him and he was crushed against the wall, his skin burning away beneath its touch. At the same time, an entirely different sort of burning engulfed him, the rush of power that his beast spirit only gave him at times like this. He felt intensely alive. He felt intensely in pain and he didn’t care. His knife hand plunged into the creature’s chest, just beside its heart. The acid ate away at both knife and hand, but before he lost all feeling in his fingers he found something that was neither muscle nor heart nor bone, and forced his hand to close around it. Then he yanked it out.