D. Thourson Palmer's Blog, page 5

Indie Books Feature for Ours Is the Storm

Indie Books on the Interwebs

A while ago, I applied for an feature on indie books on Literary Lightbox. LL’s Indie Spotlight features twelve authors per year, one each month. The list is specially curated out of a pool of many millions (possibly jillions) of applicants (Probably, I don’t know).

Yesterday, I got this:

2016 Indie Spotlight

Loretta Milan over at Literary Lightbox has named Ours Is the Storm as a 2016 Indie Spotlight Finalist. Literary Lightbox is a book blog and writing community attracting over a million yearly readers. The site’s full of book reviews, articles on writing topics, and all kinds of great stuff for both writers and readers.

Spotlight Winners

Ours Is the Storm joins five other selected authors and their books: Carrie Morgan, with The Road Back From Broken; Michelle Louise Cox, with A Girl Like You; Ellie Holmes, with The Flower Seller; Gary Corbin, with Lying in Judgment; and Terri Lee, with Paper Castles. These writers will be featured along with me in the upcoming months. Big congratulations to all of them!

I’ll be appearing on the site sometime in the next few months. Doing what? Who knows! Probably answering questions and waxing lyrical about judo or cartoons or the importance of beer, so keep your eyes open.

Tell Your Friends or the Squirrel that Lives in Your Attic or Whoever

As always, please help me spread the word about Ours Is the Storm and about my web serial, RAZE. If you know someone who’s into reading fantasy, let them know – or, remember that the holidays are on the way, and who doesn’t love books to curl up with like a nesting gazelle (that is a thing, right?) during the winter? I’ll tell you who. Replicants. Beware.

For those of you indie authors out there who might be reading, consider submitting your book for the Indie Spotlight here.

The post Indie Books Feature for Ours Is the Storm appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 037 – For What Has Rotted

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com. Your vote each week helps me get new readers. Share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Blame. As the years pass, there is little else for which the use diminishes so much, even as it increases in power and enticement in greater measures.

I found myself in the broad main road of Onappa-ka. Arrows tore the air and everywhere the walls echoed with screams amongst carts and half-repaired houses, tents, shit in the road and dogs running and oxen bellowing. Fog and drizzle clotted my vision and people ran, flashing formless shapes, crowding, pushing. A team of cathelles honked and kicked up splashes of mud, jerking their wagon along behind them, bowling people down, smashing a rickety scaffold. The press cared not for me. I might have fallen, been trampled. I stumbled in the mass. Their bodies choked me, the pressure, the stink of their fear-breath and bodies and unwashed cloth and piss and flesh shoving up against me, my nose and mouth. Some of them fell, arrows drawing out red fountains, while others simply succumbed to the herd’s terror and were knocked flat, heads stomped, chests caved in, unable to breathe. To the faceless screamers and runners, I roared back. I lashed out with my spear and shield. They made way. We broke from the crowd, the rest of the Hand and I, and ran on.

There in the street, lashing down with bright sabers at stragglers, raising bows, wheeling wild-eyed foaming mounts, we saw them. Riders. Serehvani warriors, fighters from Naban in bright yellow cloth, bronze rings and hoops shining wet on their turbans and wrists, blood on their arms and legs. Dogs lay with their faces cut; camels, dying and groaning, churned up muck with their writhing. Folk lay dead in the street, good as rotten meat, naught but mud and trash, carved and slashed open, pinned with arrow shafts. Colonists, not warriors. Lonireilan colonists. The invaders pointed at us and raised their bows and spurred their mounts.

They bore on through the fog and rain, screaming war cries. They were terrors, shadowy, loud, huge. What was I to do? I stood because the others with me did, even though fear gripped me, stabbed me in my heart, a blank sudden cold that rushed all through me, shook my arms, made me wild. I screamed. We all did. We raised our spears in terror or in hatred or in nameless need as the phantoms thundered at us too fast, too big, and then fell on us.

I saw hatred in their eyes. Should I blame them? I wore the white brigandine coat of a Lonireilan soldier (for I had not yet earned paper armor). What might I have done in their place, and would I have asked my rivals’ names first? Perhaps greater men would have turned on their captors and slavedrivers at this moment. I was a child. I had lost everything, and then kind hands came from those who took me. My own had failed to save me, and now they’d kill me before asking my name. They’d kill my new family, those baptised, like me, in heartache and loss and new purpose.

As they attacked, we defended. We fought for our very lives. The Tash ran up beside me and we raised our spears together. Her spear-point met the horse’s chest and the beast ran up on it, shattering the spear with a crack that rang my ears. We fell, battered, in the muck, and I stumbled up as quick as I could, dragged my sword out rattling. I lashed around, slipped, blind at first, then hewed the kicking body. A phantom appeared, yellow and shrieking, a glint carving the air. By luck, I caught the wild blow on my shield. Felt nothing. I slipped and fell, as did the phantom, tripping on its broken leg. I saw blood. Tash rushed in, wordless, and the phantom met her with a round shield in the gut. Her collapse and gurgles drew me back to my feet and I slashed her attacker as he tried to rise, to lift his sword over her. He flailed but I cut him again and again till I was certain and he ceased to move. For most, two foes is enough to guarantee failure, no matter how inexperienced they may be.

Screams of horses, of men. I spun about, choking. My eyes filled up with mud and grit, fog, impossible to see. I blinked and my eyes watered. Was that my voice, screaming along with the rest? I rushed out again, saw Estevo and three others stabbing with spears, saw Ahdan and Ecena hacking at a red shape on the ground. Another shadow emerged from the fog and I rushed at it before it reached them, caught it unawares in the side. It fell. The tears flowed from me now, bright and clean, washing me, my anger, my hate, burning bright as I released all the things that held me. My shame fell away. I was bold, shining. I killed, mighty again. No one was there to force me to anything, to bind me, to break me, make me small. I spun, looking for another. I raced into the fog and saw one of the archers. Her eyes flashed beneath her turban in the rain. I was too close for her to draw another arrow. She tried to guide her mount away, to run, but I caught her leg and dragged her. Tried to kill me. Tried to kill my friends. I felt as if I released a great, held breath as I hacked at her in the road where she lay, dazed from the fall. I could breathe. Finally, I could breathe. I raised my sword and brought it down again, and breathed, and wept, and the great wracking breath-sobs that escaped me were like a break in the clouds, and then I was laughing.

They were dead, as were many of us, and I hated the Nabani for fighting. We drew together as the drizzle fell in shrouds and found more blood on the ground, more mud, unknowable mounds of bodies, no longer yellow or Lonireil white, just dead and brown mud and muck. I laughed, crowed, even as the tears and rainwater mixed on my cheeks. Some others puked, some wept, but I shouted. I needed more. “Come on!” I shouted. “They’re by the fort! To the fort!” I ran and others followed.

We raced out, across the bridge, through the fields. We seized on more foes and caught them or chased them out, their horses throwing up sprays of water and mud as they fled through the fields. Those we met, we chopped apart. We surged up the hill, to the fort, those black walls slick with rain, and there they were ready.

As we dashed through the gates, a volley of arrows rained down. One pounded into me, above my hip, a searing bolt that tore and tugged. I sprawled face-down in the mud, rolled, drove it in further. I couldn’t rise, and waves of seething dark rolled out from the place, stole my ragged breath. Through fog and rain I saw the others around me, some fighting more yellow-clad warriors, some fallen, dead by arrow, or stricken. I tried to rise and fell, my leg useless, body a bright point of pain, agony overwhelming any hope of standing.

Through eyes I strained to open, I watched Estevo rush to me. He grabbed beneath my arm, a gods-damned cigarette somehow still dangling from his lip. “Get up!” he shouted.

Another Nabani warrior streaked toward us, a spear aimed at Estevo’s back. I warned him, wordless, but enough. He dropped me, lurched away, but the spear caught his arm. He bowled me down trying to escape, and then wriggled away in the mud while the Nabani jabbed at him, stabbing the earth, struggling not to fall in the mud. I strained even to breathe as Estevo rolled against the wall, and his fleeing was cut short.

The Nabani raised his spear, shouted an oath. Estevo, blood running from his arm, raised a broken saber at arm’s length and spat, swearing in Lonireilan. Across what seemed miles of mud and distance, his eyes met mine for a moment.

I struggled up just as the Nabani thrust out. I staggered, fell, but as the spear leapt in his hand, my sword caught the Nabani’s leg. It was just a nick, but he fell and his spear stuck in the wall behind Estevo, instead of in him.

The Nabani staggered up. He sneered down at me, swore, lifted his spear. Of course, I was not to die. A web of cuts appeared on him from nowhere. His eyes widened in shock, then agony, then nothingness. Before he could let out a sound, he fell apart. The chunks tumbled and slipped down on one another in a heap. Never before had I seen such a torrent of blood. Behind him, in the rain with her arm outstretched, was Weckar. She stood for a moment, then turned and strode away into the fog. I couldn’t move to watch her go, but screams followed in the rain.

In the mud I lay, broken and moaning. I heard a voice and saw Estevo. He sat heavily beside me, heedless of the wet and filth, and the chewed, soaked cigarette fell apart on his chin. He spat it out, flakes of tobacco, and despite my pain I laughed a little. The arrow hurt even more.

“Very funny, il-Lonireil.” He peered at my arrow. “You stupid shit-lick.”

“Saved your life.” Even speaking hurt. It was getting worse. My legs felt a hundred leagues away and my chest was tightening, shortening my breaths. I groaned and wanted to roll about, but even the thought of moving made hot shards skitter through my insides.

“You did. Thanks.” He leaned over me. “Try not to move. We’ll get someone to see to that arrow.”

It didn’t take long. Several others had gathered around me. It seemed they felt I’d done something special by leading the Hand up to the fort. They brought me a cup of some thin, black, earthy smelling stuff, and from the back of my mind I recognized the same smell from when my mother had made poppy tea for me, for a tooth that had rotted. This smelled much, much stronger. I sipped a little, and soon the rain was gone. I was warm. I was tired. And I was very, very happy.

Many thanks to my Patron (via Patreon): Donna Palmer.

Click the link if you’d like to be a Patron too. Set your own monthly donation amount and help me support this ad-free story and improve the site and experience of Raze, and get some cool stuff!

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers.

Or, click one of the social media buttons below to share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Get weekly updates about new RAZE posts and other announcements by entering your email *

 

The post RAZE – 037 – For What Has Rotted appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 036 – The Unbreakable

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com. Your vote each week helps me get new readers. Share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

There are many varieties of spirits in the worlds – both this one and on the Shores and Docks of the Last River, and in other worlds I suspect that exist beyond those. In the Gray Sea, there are spirits great as the sky, slow moving, unending, vast, with purpose and thought beyond imagining, aims beyond mortal things and life and time.

The Smoke Walkers were theurgic spirits, things summoned and bound, unnatural forms constrained by incantations, will, pacts, and trickery. They are called and bound to an unnatural function. Other spirits are benign, unknown. They are invisible. Currents of air and water, sparks and heat, deep-dwelling obdurates in stone and wood. Some were mortal once. Others are parasites who’ve pulled human skin stretched and taut about them like cloaks, their fingers of glass clutching the hearts, cutting in, feeding and squeezing till the life leaks out the sides. They are aware. They have designs. Such a one was Weckar.

In Serehvan, in the fading of the year as the cold came on and the sky turned to slate and the rains lashed and the hills vanished in haze and cloud, Weckar stood on the outcrop overlooking the border of Rouk and the bridge and fields and the walls of Onaap-ka. As the carts of lumber, bricks, and pitch came north from Lonireil, pulled by the teams of feathered, scale-legged cathelles, Weckar stood on the hill. She did not sleep. While we toiled in the mud, digging roads, diverting the river, while we drove posts down and made walls and palisades, while the sweat poured from our brows into the earth in summer’s fade, while the colonists came and brought their slaves and their animals and songs and shit and wine and beautiful, mournful, guitars such as I’d never heard, she stood. She watched from the holes in her smooth, lacquer-like face and gave orders from her red mouth. She ate sparingly, of poppy flowers. She seldom moved. She never slept. She never shut her pearl-and-onyx eyes.

We built atop the hill, at the old trading post. By winter a black crown mounted the hilltop, a timber wall with watchtowers and a squat, brick-and-timber house for de Trastorces and the other commanders, the new lords, within, thick walled and dark, with a commanding view. Soldiers went into the city Onappa-ka and we built more watchtowers, walls, battlements. Settlers came from Lonireil and took the homes of the dead, pushed those Serehvani, those like me, into a ghetto on the outskirts, far from the river, to live in hovels and cram into old stables in the muck and straw like stinking oxen. Yamurik, and a few other worthies like him, those men with money and voices in other cities, in the capital of Ibandran, kept their homes. They wore new cloth, Lonireilan cloth. New servants and clothes and livestock were brought to them. They gained new Lonireilan advisers and Lonireilan guards. They profited, and so Serehvani became Lonireilan; rivalry became loyalty; one land became another.

They day after I brought Yamurik to Weckar on the bridge of the dead, de Trastorces called us: me and Estevo, the Tash, and a dozen others. Many of us were those that had been taken from our homes. We walked in our ranks to Weckar where she stood, wind whipping at her white robes, on the hill. De Trastorces surveyed us, then spoke. “You are hers, now. The Hand of the Knife. When Weckar speaks, you’ll listen. When she orders, you’ll obey. There’s nothing else to it.” He met my eyes, then those of the others in turn. “She’s asked for all of you by name, for one reason for another.” The meaning was clear. Dwell on that a little. Why does she know you? Would you like her to remember you better?

For most of what followed, we worked with the other soldiers. They called us the Hand, and the Hand did as ordered, but the others looked on us with fear. No more did I hear cruel words from them. They avoided my eyes at the mess table, at digging. When I carted barrows of earth, straining and sweating in the early rain, they got out of the way without me raising my voice. When we rested, they left space for us – too much space. Once again, Lonireil had raised me up. I had station. The Hand ate together, took the best places to bunk. We trained beneath de Trastorces himself, and I learned the rudiments of War.

I had chosen to learn. To learn the art of death. At the time I didn’t know it. How could I have? What inkling could I have had as to what my life would one day be, one day mean? At the time, when I clutched a spear and snarled like a beast, drove at my sparring partner with sudden, reasonless hatred, I didn’t know the grace of which I would one day be capable. When I raised a shield and the Tash broke my arm with her blow, I didn’t know the scars that yet awaited me. When I fell in the dirt, took a boot to the kidney and shat blood, when I shattered Ofin’s jaw and he died of the infection and inability to eat, I didn’t care. I got up again, went on, and left others behind. I learned to fight and kill and understood so, so little.

So what did I take from those early lessons, those toiling hours, the sweat and cuts, the strange hatred that came over me when we sparred and the way the sobs filled me like water in a reservoir and broke out in choking, gasping torrents when I was alone, when no one could see? I had already learned the First Lesson, of Passion, but I would learn little else of note in that time, except what was the business end of a spear, of the sword I had taken from Yamurik’s guard. I would, however, live, because of those lessons. They bore me through blades and fire, first in the failing of the year, when the riders came from Naban; and then again, in spring, when the Serehvani massed and tried to retake what had been theirs.

Weckar was many things, but she was not prescient. She was not omnipotent. Without warning, without blood, she was limited, and the knife wind was still. The Serehvani warriors are not many, and they are not renowned, but there are reasons few sought to conquer our lands before the Lonireilan Empire.

It is lucky that the Hand were never set to watch, to patrol the outskirts of Lonireil’s new colony at Onappa-ka. We were safe in the city when the attack came, when the Serehvani warriors slaughtered a company of scouts and came thundering down on horseback.

I was at training when the warning bells rang. We cast down our false weapons, took up edges, spears and shields, and ran into the street. De Trastorces’ voice still echoes behind me, even as my pen navigates the imperfections on the page. We went to fight, to die, some of us with more intent than others. I… I went to prove myself again, and I would gain a friend, but I would lose something that I would not replace for a long, long time.

Perhaps it was this moment that best defined the rest of my life. It is hard to determine. I know, however, that my errors have resonated from this moment in ways I never imagined, not in nightmare or darkest dream. It is for this moment that I beg greatest forgiveness, for it was in this moment that my great enemy first stirred. Behhallan. The Unbreakable. This moment was the genesis of Behhallan. I wrought my enemy. No one else can be blamed.

We ran into the street and immediately fell behind our shields. Arrows rained down, so fast there was naught but the impact, like hoofbeats on the ground, like invisible knives lashing out. Behind my wall of iron and wood, I shook and lurched as an impact wracked my arm, still healing from the break. How hard the arrows fell. They stopped and at more shouting, we stood, and we ran into the death that came for us.

Many thanks to my Patron (via Patreon): Donna Palmer.

Click the link if you’d like to be a Patron too. Set your own monthly donation amount and help me support this ad-free story and improve the site and experience of Raze, and get some cool stuff!

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers.

Or, click one of the social media buttons below to share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Get weekly updates about new RAZE posts and other announcements by entering your email *

 

The post RAZE – 036 – The Unbreakable appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 035 – Blades of Ash, Hammers of Air

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com. Your vote each week helps me get new readers. Share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Each of them was taller than I, hulking, looming. Their bodies were gray ash, smooth and at the same time roiling, human-shaped but made of embers. In those shifting, black and white forms, bright edges, edges of fire, gleamed out. They surrounded us.

Askuwheteau hefted his club and our elk pranced, snorting, bellowing. The ash floated around us on the wind and fire roared. “What are these?” I breathed. I drew up my stick like a blade.

Askuwheteau looked from one to the next. I heard fear in his voice. “I don’t know.”

They shattered. As if torn apart by wind, they streamed and drove and then were on us.

The first pass cut my elk from under me and I fell in the black. Ash filled my mouth and stone hammered my body but I rolled, climbed, rose up.

Two of them tore about me, howling, roaring like flame. Askuwheteau had remained on his mount and fought, but I had precious little concentration to lend him.

The Smoke Walkers swirled, turned, struck. I leapt back and tried to hone my will but they ripped at the stick in my hand. They hammered me, struck to and fro. I felt a rib crack, a sharp sound in me that echoed in every bone. Searing heat burned my face, filled my throat and choked, an assault like none I’d ever felt.

My mind was my own, though. I brought up my will, the pain whetting the edge of my steel, and ran. They howled behind me, but I was still armed, more than these things knew. Spirits? The best thing about them is that they never learn.

I leapt over fallen, blackened timber, splashed into a deep place. Ashy water soaked my leggings, fell sour on my tongue. I raced two steps up a short rise, my feet on rock, and then turned and slashed and honed. My blade – a humble bit of wood, but also my will – tore the air in its passage, too fast for anyone, too much, driven, real, beyond real.

The nearer Smoke Walker was upon me, but then my blade hit home. The being howled, roared, broke. It fell to wet ash, torn asunder, and the remains floated by on either side of me.

The other screeched then, took shape, stalked and circled me where I stood on my patch of rock. It spoke, spirit-tongue, a shuddering rumble in words unknowable.

“Your brother was too quick,” I rasped out. My side ached, my words came cold. Something wrong with a lung. The pain sharpened me further as I turned to keep watch on it while it stalked.

Again it rumbled, roared, shrieked. Its face contorted and roiled in flame and smoke, a sneer, an insult, a threat.

“Do you not know?” I sneered back. The light of battle was on me, filling me. “I am no warrior you have seen before. You face a Crade.”  I changed my stance, ready to attack. “Come on. I am war itself.”

Now it was my turn to surge. I thundered at it, and my feet cracked the earth. My fury burned it. Passion. The spirit fell back beneath my assault as I drove and hammered. Ash burst from it as it deflected, guarded, my blows falling against it like a storm on dust.

With a thought, I pushed it back, spun, struck. The blow threw the creature and it fell, tumbled, vanished in the smoke and dust on the air. I took up a stance, listened. Every fiber of me strained, but these were not men. Did they make a sound when they chose not to?

Some distance away, Askuwheteau growled and strove, but I waited, patient. Position.

No sound came, but the air moved. I whirled to face my foe as it crashed, suddenly roaring, streaming from the dark, taking shape. Blades of ash, hammers of air rained down on me, so fast, so strong. I battered one aside, a second, caught a third, turned the fourth. The fifth bit into me, tearing my cheek. The cut went to my teeth, rattled me, but the next blow was falling and I had no time to feel pain. As it fell, I honed my mind and swept my blade up, caught the spirit and sundered it.

The spectral arm burst to ash, but the rest of the creature fell on me, tore me to the ground. I fell, it atop me, choking, a cloud, asphyxiating. Smoke and dust filled up my lungs and I had nothing to breathe.

Immediately I felt my mind waver. No air. The death blow was coming, I felt it, a lightless summons in the air above me, within the fell spirit astride me, falling, ripping, calling, killing.

With a last act of will, I caught at the formless thing, forced it with my mind to take shape. My hands met flesh, or something like it, wet, heat beyond words, my fingers pressing into it. I switched my legs, used my body, turned, forced it over, and then I rose up, gasping. A little air, enough. I lifted the stick like a blade and bore it down, a stake into the heart of the world. There I drove it, stabbed, leaned on the weapon and shoved it cracking through.

The Smoke Walker howled beneath me, undone. It tore apart and there, in the ash and dust, was the burned out husk of a person, pinned to the ash with my stick.

I marveled for a moment. The face was like burned paper, a mask of ash. The body was wrinkled, charred, curled and cracked like firewood in the hearth. The light faded from it and I remembered Askuwheteau.

I found him by the sound of him in the ash. His elk had fallen, burned and torn, beside mine. One of the Smoke Walkers was dead, the other swirling around Askuwheteau like a whirlwind. He fell and blood sprayed from his mouth, his nose, covered his shaved head. A black shard, like a broken bough, protruded from his chest. His club flew from his hand and the spirit towered above him, mounting, gathering like a thunderhead.

“No!” I shouted. I raced toward them, too far, but close enough. The spirit, faceless, faced me. I felt its gaze. I saw its intent, to kill, to leave Askuwheteau dead, destroyed, ended below it. My head hammered, aching, spent, but I had denied it, and I would not be disobeyed.

I swung an arcing cut, backhand, waist to shoulder. Into it I poured my spirit, myself, my will. The stick was a dozen yards from my foe, but not the blade. A clap of thunder rolled out from me, arcing wide and tall, following my cut, and it shredded the earth and tore the air, sending up ash and sparks and dirt, and in a flash, crossed the distance and burst the spirit in a spreading cloud of black and embers.

I stumbled to my knees in the cloud and the roar built in my ears and blood was in my mouth, red and copper taste. These were not the last of that kind that I fought in that northern land, but the first had been many years before: when I fought Weckar in Serehvan.

Many thanks to my Patron (via Patreon): Donna Palmer.

Click the link if you’d like to be a Patron too. For as little as $1/month you can help me support this ad-free story and improve the site and experience of Raze, and get some cool stuff!

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers.

Or, click one of the social media buttons below to share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Get weekly updates about new RAZE posts and other announcements by entering your email *

 

The post RAZE – 035 – Blades of Ash, Hammers of Air appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 034 – Smoke Walkers

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers. Share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

In the evening of the seventh day, I saw smoke in the east, a high, thick column billowing up and dragged to curling waves on the wind from the ocean. Askuwheteau and I were on the third terrace of the old temple, far above the bog land at the edge of the city. The mist was so thick that it appeared as if clouds were below us, and the breeze bore along curtains of silver droplets to cool our hides and wet our brows. We practiced the technique I had promised, over and over, a thousand times, to understand it fully. Later, we would discuss how to recover or avoid it.

Askuwheteau was almost my age, but a good pupil, and he had little ego when it came to the Open Path. To excel in the path of the Crade, one must remain ever the student. So it was with me. I fumbled along as a teacher and doubtless learned more than he.

When a pause came in the rhythm of our training, I noticed the smoke, first as a scent, a glowing, stinging change in the mist. I turned and looked and pointed, and shortly after Askuwheteau led me down and out of the village. We rode on elk-back, and I was a little saddened, as I always was when riding out on a beast of any kind. Memory does unusual things and strikes with honeyed barbs at the moments we least expect. I muttered a few words to a long-gone friend as we rode.

The elk were strong, wary things, with great antlers and thundering hooves that found the stable places between stones and moss and mud. We neared the smoke and the scent increased. The elk did not seem to mind.

Our first stop brought us to a clearing, burned clean and black with damp ash. No undergrowth remained. The stones stood as gray bubbles and a dozen of Askuwheteau’s folk were piling the remaining trunks while others dug rocks from the earth and rolled them away, using a system of ropes and levers and timber.

“We’ve been fortunate with the weather,” Askuwheteau said. He pointed off toward the smoke. “For the burning. But it could be drier.”

“Is it ever dry up here?” My clothes felt somewhat sodden at all times, but at least the wool was warm.

“This is dry!” He grinned.

“And this?” I looked around. “This was your peoples’ fire?”

“Just before you arrived. It takes some time for the burnings to cool.”

That I knew. Memory flashed, the inside of a house, all black and heat, such heat as cannot be forgotten, emanating, rising up like from a spirit’s gullet.

“Raze?” Askuwheteau spoke again and the memory was gone.

“Nothing,” I said. “You’ll make more fields here?”

“After winter, yes. When the rains begin in earnest. Would you see the burning?”

We went on, a short distance farther. On the way, we passed a long, burned swath, wide enough for a pair of carts. There, nothing was left; no undergrowth, no timber. All the fallen trunks had been hauled away, leaving just an empty, black stripe. “To stop the flames,” Askuwheteau explained as we crossed.

We moved into the smoke, which hung in the air like a greasy mist. Soon I felt my skin graying, ash-coated. Ahead, Askuwheteau guided us without concern, and his elk picked its way through a forest of felled trees, all of them lying, facing the same way. Only the undergrowth and a few shrubs and saplings remained. All of it would soon be blackened, lost, turned to ash. This land, in a few years, would be an orchard, or a bright field. Askuwheteau’s people would come in dozens to hack away the rock, carve the earth, rip out the roots, and then plant something new, something else. Life would spring from death, as it ever did. The old and weak and worthless die. The strong and young and new take their place, drawing nourishment from the discarded, sometimes without even knowing it.

The smoke thickened. Somewhere ahead the flames roared, but there was little other sound; no birds. No bugs. I began to feel uneasy, and the sensation of being watched returned, although anyone within sight should have been visible, at least as far as the ash and smoke allowed. I watched around me listened for sounds between the thuds of our mount’s hooves.

Askuwheteau stopped. He peered one way, then the next, and continued.

Bits of ash floated around us and the smoke was so still and gray that we couldn’t see more than a dozen feet around us. Embers fluttered above, around, like burning moths, undulating and drifting on the still air, wafting at currents, glowing hot and bright then fading to red, to white and black. My elk snorted and sneezed. I stopped, and a moment later Askuwheteau did likewise.

“This isn’t right,” he said.

“No,” I answered.

Before I could dismount, they came on out of the smoke. Four of them, like ash coalescing into shadows, then shapes. The Smoke Walkers.

Many thanks to my Patron (via Patreon): Donna Palmer.

Click the link if you’d like to be a Patron too. For as little as $1/month you can help me support this ad-free story and improve the site and experience of Raze, and get some cool stuff!

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers.

Or, click one of the social media buttons below to share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Get weekly updates about new RAZE posts and other announcements by entering your email *

The post RAZE – 034 – Smoke Walkers appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 033 – Sword Magic

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers. Share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

I had stayed a week in Muspuahtche when the first Smoke Walkers came to kill me.

After the council, Askuwheteau took me the home of an old man who had little interest in me, but his wine was good and he liked company while he drank. This suited me fine. At the end of the day, he would awaken from a nap and, shortly after, a trio of young women would come to the door of his little bark and bough house with food. I took to retrieving it, and the three stared curiously at me and passed me hot clay pots and cloth-wrapped packets; fried chicken or fish and bread one day, a stew of squash and apple and potatoes the next. I’d give them the previous day’s pot and the old man and I would eat, and then he’d get wine. We sat outside on a blanket beside his door and drank. People walking by waved but he didn’t acknowledge them. By the time I’d had enough and went in to sleep, wrapped in a wool blanket on an animal-skin bed on the floor, it was well after dark, although the sun was still visible above the mountains. It never got quite so dark as I thought it should except for a few hours around midnight. In the morning, the old man would already be up and about, squinting and tottering on his cane, giving me a bare, scowling nod at best. I liked him.

The first day I bathed in a big basin. My clothes were whisked away and, while they returned my blue Serehvan turban so that I could wrap my head, the rest were beyond repair, I was told. I got new clothes in the local style, skins and the finest wool you ever saw and an old bearskin cape to keep me warm. It was a cold country. I rested and drank with the old man and slept for a long time. When I awoke, already it was light and the sun was high. In the cold, for that place never came to feel warm to me, I went to the broad street and green place behind the main walls. There, I stretched and trained. I lost myself in the Way, moving, feeling. I sparred with the biting wind, not as I had once fought the knife wind, but as a partner, a friend.

There is no summoning or calling in what some call sword-magic or sword-wizardry. It is focus, and fortitude, and will. It is nothing more complex, or more simple, than belief.

That morning I fought the Wind Way. There are spirits in all things, and they may be entreated and placated and forced, and it requires no charts or chants, no etchings or blood or whatever else stupid thing it is that theurgists require. These are crutches.

“Face me,” I whispered, and I willed, and the wind obliged. When a breeze came, I let it press me. The stick I had found on the beach came up in my hand and I let it speak to me. A wind drove down at me, a sudden turning, gusting up. I caught it, the stick in my hand like a Toji greatsword once again, and deflected, giving ground only to whirl, to catch the breeze unawares. With a gentle sweep, I carved and the the air parted. It shuddered with a sound like deep, distant thunder, but rolling through my bones. Then it drove back at me, darting whisps, a long press, a feint low, an attack high. I raised my makeshift sword. What the weapon is makes no difference. I deflected, shifted under, swept my own attack up and again felt and heard the shuddering of the air fracturing, parting, coming back together in a rush and a clap.

“Very fine.” I looked up and Askuwheteau stood some distance away on the green sward. His club rested on his back and he grinned his broad grin and thudded a fist to his chest, something I took to be like clapping. While the wind rushed away, I returned my stick to my belt and gave him a Serehvan salute, touching my breastbone, face, and forehead in sequence. As focus faded and the world returned, I saw many others had paused to watch. Four warriors riding elk, a group of children, mouths hanging open, some tradesmen with their tools and a few farmers on their way inside with a load of crops in barrows. All had stopped along the road to stare. When I noticed them, they returned to their affairs as if embarrassed.

Askuwheteau came nearer, and beckoned as he turned to face away from the main road. “Come,” he said. “I would show you something.” With a light sheen of sweat cooling my brow in the mist and chill breeze, I followed.

We wound along the step pyramid and then away, through the low, stone creekbed-like roads, flanked by cliffs of black timber houses, smelling of moss and damp and wet wood. Passing these, we went to the far edge of the city. Most of the houses there were bark and timber, sturdy and stout but small. Smoke issued from the roofs. Small gardens surrounded each structure, and a few sheep and pigs wandered free between the houses, raising their heads and scampering a few steps at our approach and then going back to cropping the low grass. Two shaggy dogs, big brown things with eyes hidden by hair, took to following us. My guide and I didn’t speak.

When the mist ahead began to clear, Askuwheteau pointed without a word. No farms or homes, at this end.  Above a rank of bogs for farming berries, separated by green earthen walkways, a great gray form at the edge of the city began to emerge, towering. The mound walls surrounding the city came together and then seemed to huddle away, leaving a stone step to part them where it came down from the great shape. My eyes followed the stones up, into the mist, and as we neared the structure beyond became clear. It was a looming thunderhead, foreboding, shadow and stone. Trees as great as mountains overhung it, clung to it, their roots binding and curling, digging into the masonry, jealous fingers. The temple, for temple it was, hung above us like a threat, itself leaning out from the mounds and the mountain just beyond, with black windows ready to swallow us and broad terraces like open hands reaching out.

“The Crade temple.” I stopped to stare, breathe, listen. I could almost hear the instructors, the students, the ring of steel and the hum of will. But there were none of these things. The temple was long neglected and empty, a hollow shell.

“The first.” Askuwheteau took a few more steps and then beckoned me and grinned. “Maybe.”

“Why have you taken no students?” I followed while we began to mount those crumbling steps, passing up and into a history older than the world.

“I am no teacher.”

“You are skilled enough.”

“My thanks for such confidence.” I chuckled at him and he gestured out to the sides, to ancient statues that guarded the way, so old they no longer had faces but for the green moss and trailing vines. “I could not do justice. My first responsibility is as a Story-breather. But I thought you should see it.”

At that moment, I had the sense of being watched. In silence I tried to look around with nonchalance, but in the trees and mist and red woods, I saw nothing. It was a feeling that would follow me throughout most of my time in Rowatokon.

Many thanks to my Patron (via Patreon): Donna Palmer.

Click the link if you’d like to be a Patron too. For as little as $1/month you can help me support this ad-free story and improve the site and experience of Raze, and get some cool stuff!

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers.

Or, click one of the social media buttons below to share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Get weekly updates about new RAZE posts and other announcements by entering your email *

 

The post RAZE – 033 – Sword Magic appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 033

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers. Share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

I had stayed a week in Muspuahtche when the first Smoke Walkers came to kill me.

After the council, Askuwheteau took me the home of an old man who had little interest in me, but his wine was good and he liked company while he drank. This suited me fine. At the end of the day, he would awaken from a nap and, shortly after, a trio of young women would come to the door of his little bark and bough house with food. I took to retrieving it, and the three stared curiously at me and passed me hot clay pots and cloth-wrapped packets; fried chicken or fish and bread one day, a stew of squash and apple and potatoes the next. I’d give them the previous day’s pot and the old man and I would eat, and then he’d get wine. We sat outside on a blanket beside his door and drank. People walking by waved but he didn’t acknowledge them. By the time I’d had enough and went in to sleep, wrapped in a wool blanket on an animal-skin bed on the floor, it was well after dark, although the sun was still visible above the mountains. It never got quite so dark as I thought it should except for a few hours around midnight. In the morning, the old man would already be up and about, squinting and tottering on his cane, giving me a bare, scowling nod at best. I liked him.

The first day I bathed in a big basin. My clothes were whisked away and, while they returned my blue Serehvan turban so that I could wrap my head, the rest were beyond repair, I was told. I got new clothes in the local style, skins and the finest wool you ever saw and an old bearskin cape to keep me warm. It was a cold country. I rested and drank with the old man and slept for a long time. When I awoke, already it was light and the sun was high. In the cold, for that place never came to feel warm to me, I went to the broad street and green place behind the main walls. There, I stretched and trained. I lost myself in the Way, moving, feeling. I sparred with the biting wind, not as I had once fought the knife wind, but as a partner, a friend.

There is no summoning or calling in what some call sword-magic or sword-wizardry. It is focus, and fortitude, and will. It is nothing more complex, or more simple, than belief.

That morning I fought the Wind Way. There are spirits in all things, and they may be entreated and placated and forced, and it requires no charts or chants, no etchings or blood or whatever else stupid thing it is that theurgists require. These are crutches.

“Face me,” I whispered, and I willed, and the wind obliged. When a breeze came, I let it press me. The stick I had found on the beach came up in my hand and I let it speak to me. A wind drove down at me, a sudden turning, gusting up. I caught it, the stick in my hand like a Toji greatsword once again, and deflected, giving ground only to whirl, to catch the breeze unawares. With a gentle sweep, I carved and the the air parted. It shuddered with a sound like deep, distant thunder, but rolling through my bones. Then it drove back at me, darting whisps, a long press, a feint low, an attack high. I raised my makeshift sword. What the weapon is makes no difference. I deflected, shifted under, swept my own attack up and again felt and heard the shuddering of the air fracturing, parting, coming back together in a rush and a clap.

“Very fine.” I looked up and Askuwheteau stood some distance away on the green sward. His club rested on his back and he grinned his broad grin and thudded a fist to his chest, something I took to be like clapping. While the wind rushed away, I returned my stick to my belt and gave him a Serehvan salute, touching my breastbone, face, and forehead in sequence. As focus faded and the world returned, I saw many others had paused to watch. Four warriors riding elk, a group of children, mouths hanging open, some tradesmen with their tools and a few farmers on their way inside with a load of crops in barrows. All had stopped along the road to stare. When I noticed them, they returned to their affairs as if embarrassed.

Askuwheteau came nearer, and beckoned as he turned to face away from the main road. “Come,” he said. “I would show you something.” With a light sheen of sweat cooling my brow in the mist and chill breeze, I followed.

We wound along the step pyramid and then away, through the low, stone creekbed-like roads, flanked by cliffs of black timber houses, smelling of moss and damp and wet wood. Passing these, we went to the far edge of the city. Most of the houses there were bark and timber, sturdy and stout but small. Smoke issued from the roofs. Small gardens surrounded each structure, and a few sheep and pigs wandered free between the houses, raising their heads and scampering a few steps at our approach and then going back to cropping the low grass. Two shaggy dogs, big brown things with eyes hidden by hair, took to following us. My guide and I didn’t speak.

When the mist ahead began to clear, Askuwheteau pointed without a word. No farms or homes, at this end.  Above a rank of bogs for farming berries, separated by green earthen walkways, a great gray form at the edge of the city began to emerge, towering. The mound walls surrounding the city came together and then seemed to huddle away, leaving a stone step to part them where it came down from the great shape. My eyes followed the stones up, into the mist, and as we neared the structure beyond became clear. It was a looming thunderhead, foreboding, shadow and stone. Trees as great as mountains overhung it, clung to it, their roots binding and curling, digging into the masonry, jealous fingers. The temple, for temple it was, hung above us like a threat, itself leaning out from the mounds and the mountain just beyond, with black windows ready to swallow us and broad terraces like open hands reaching out.

“The Crade temple.” I stopped to stare, breathe, listen. I could almost hear the instructors, the students, the ring of steel and the hum of will. But there were none of these things. The temple was long neglected and empty, a hollow shell.

“The first.” Askuwheteau took a few more steps and then beckoned me and grinned. “Maybe.”

“Why have you taken no students?” I followed while we began to mount those crumbling steps, passing up and into a history older than the world.

“I am no teacher.”

“You are skilled enough.”

“My thanks for such confidence.” I chuckled at him and he gestured out to the sides, to ancient statues that guarded the way, so old they no longer had faces but for the green moss and trailing vines. “I could not do justice. My first responsibility is as a Story-breather. But I thought you should see it.”

At that moment, I had the sense of being watched. In silence I tried to look around with nonchalance, but in the trees and mist and red woods, I saw nothing. It was a feeling that would follow me throughout most of my time in Rowatokon.

Many thanks to my Patron (via Patreon): Donna Palmer.

Click the link if you’d like to be a Patron too. For as little as $1/month you can help me support this ad-free story and improve the site and experience of Raze, and get some cool stuff!

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers.

Or, click one of the social media buttons below to share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Get weekly updates about new RAZE posts and other announcements by entering your email *

 

The post RAZE – 033 appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 032 – The Third Promise

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers. Share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Before my statement was done, they erupted. Shouting, oaths, disbelief, anger. “Blasphemy!” “You’re not serious?” “He mocks us!” Disbelief. Interest. Intrigue. A boat to travel the River and Sea of the World After?  “It can’t be done!” “It can!” “A boat for the Spirit Ways?”

It took some time to calm the assembly. I offended them, although some were more academic in their shock. A few wished to honor my request, and these few I took mental note of. A few emissaries called for my death in their games, or even immediately, and Askuwheteau had to bar the way in from the attendants outside. Guagom’s men in black paint pushed against him and I saw one of them reach for his hatchet. Askuwheteau, too, saw the move, and shouted.

This was no ordinary shout. It was a Crade technique. We can all be thankful he only used a measure of his will.

The cry raised dust from the stones. It cowed those before him, made some fall, others scream. In the silence that resounded after, a few crows cawed in the distance and Askuwheteau spun back to the council.

“Once before our guest was threatened, and now again in the very Listening Room!” he thundered. “This is not Rowatokon. This is not right.”

“And what if he is here to harm us? To steal and murder?” Guagom sat, looking pained, and wrapped her raven cloak tight around her. “You invent these invisible attackers to drive sympathy.”

“Do I?” Askuwheteau glared at her and she returned the stare, then looked away. “Do I lie? I, for one, won’t make any accusations, but I know what I felt.”

Guagom shot him a glare. “I sent no assassins.”

“And I said I made no accusations. But send on your assassins against this man. Whoever sent them.” Askuwheteau’s voice was clear that he knew, but he did not say. “And you’ll witness the meaning of battle.”

“Of that,” Guagom said. “I have a concern. What if I am right?” Others murmured along with her. “Who will stop him, if I am right? Who will even slow him, if he means to steal or kill or even conquer?”

“I will.” Askuwheteau gave me a sharp glance. “For the three days he waited, I studied techniques in the vaults, old scrolls and graven stones of Crade teachings. I can stop him, if it comes to that.”

“It won’t,” another emissary said. “He should leave. Tomorrow.”

Again, chaos overtook the council chamber. Again they fought and argued. I remained silent, knowing the damage was done, and trusted Askuwheteau even as I wondered. I watched him. Secret Crade teachings? He went to the center of the chamber and again asked for calm.

It was for naught. Kiche called for a vote.

One by one, the emissaries raised their hands for me to remain, to learn from them, to have my boat. Others shouted that the boat could not be made. Rage threatened to derail the vote. They calmed themselves and raised their hands in groups for me to leave, and the matter was decided.

“So this council sees,” the emissary in wolfskins sighed. “The stranger Raze must leave tomorrow.”

I steeled myself to disagree, but once again Askuwheteau did so for me. “He can’t. We have an agreement.” He faced me. “How long will it take for you to fulfill your third promise? To teach me how you turned my club, when we met on the beach?”

I nodded and concealed a grin. “Some time. Perhaps a month.”

“There. A month. He and I had a prior agreement. Or will this council deprive me of fulfillment of an agreement?”

Again there was a vote. This time, with much grumbling, they agreed I should stay to discharge my obligation. Guagom led the faction who voted for me to leave regardless, and her loss made her seethe. When the vote was done, she stood. Many others stood with her and left the council chamber, and the rest of us stayed there in the chilly sun.

“Don’t worry too much.” Kiche had stayed. He came to my side, backed by his followers. “These are complex matters. That I think you should leave should not sting you personally.”

“Little does.” Again, I extended my hand.

It was a gesture of peace, a sign of goodwill, to all observers. Kiche knew. He met my gaze and again his eyes flashed silvery and he made no move to grasp my wrist. We stared at each other, and in his eyes I saw something hard as steel, deep as sea. There was a loss there, a distance, inscrutable. I withdrew my hand when he nodded and turned, and his followers went out with him.

Other emissaries greeted me. They took my hand and apologized or welcomed, and said that I should see them later about the boat. Askuwheteau said I would only stay to help him learn, as I’d promised.

The council was done, and so we left. Askuwheteau and I descended the steps together. A burn set into my legs, a reminder of how little I’d rested in weeks prior. A stay in Rowatokon would do me good, regardless of the emissaries. I would find a way, with or without them.

“That Kiche,” I said. “What do you know of him?”

“He’s our youngest emissary. He has the Sight of the Forsaken, as you heard, and he has seen the Last River.”

“Truly?”

“Indeed. Died and returned, and returned with Sight.”

I considered this for a few more steps. Below, from the base of the pyramid, music came up, drums and wooden pipes and a droning gut-stringed harp. We reached the base and I watched musicians compete for coin beside food-sellers hocking sugar sweets and fried things. The people gathered for a sort of impromptu festival, or town square, following the meeting. Emissaries met with their folk on blankets or beneath shade trees. Attendants set to purifying the steps and corners of the pyramid with smoking clay censers they held in both hands.

“This way,” Askuwheteau said. “I have secured lodging for you. You can refresh yourself and rest till tonight.”

I followed and as we went into the streets, I spoke again. “Did you truly find Crade teachings to learn a way to fight me?”

He shook his head, but said nothing. We spoke no more of it.

Many thanks to my Patron (via Patreon): Donna Palmer.

Click the link if you’d like to be a Patron too. For as little as $1/month you can help me support this ad-free story and improve the site and experience of Raze, and get some cool stuff!

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers.

Or, click one of the social media buttons below to share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Get weekly updates about new RAZE posts and other announcements by entering your email *

 

The post RAZE – 032 – The Third Promise appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 032

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers. Share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Before my statement was done, they erupted. Shouting, oaths, disbelief, anger. “Blasphemy!” “You’re not serious?” “He mocks us!” Disbelief. Interest. Intrigue. A boat to travel the River and Sea of the World After?  “It can’t be done!” “It can!” “A boat for the Spirit Ways?”

It took some time to calm the assembly. I offended them, although some were more academic in their shock. A few wished to honor my request, and these few I took mental note of. A few emissaries called for my death in their games, or even immediately, and Askuwheteau had to bar the way in from the attendants outside. Guagom’s men in black paint pushed against him and I saw one of them reach for his hatchet. Askuwheteau, too, saw the move, and shouted.

This was no ordinary shout. It was a Crade technique. We can all be thankful he only used a measure of his will.

The cry raised dust from the stones. It cowed those before him, made some fall, others scream. In the silence that resounded after, a few crows cawed in the distance and Askuwheteau spun back to the council.

“Once before our guest was threatened, and now again in the very Listening Room!” he thundered. “This is not Rowatokon. This is not right.”

“And what if he is here to harm us? To steal and murder?” Guagom sat, looking pained, and wrapped her raven cloak tight around her. “You invent these invisible attackers to drive sympathy.”

“Do I?” Askuwheteau glared at her and she returned the stare, then looked away. “Do I lie? I, for one, won’t make any accusations, but I know what I felt.”

Guagom shot him a glare. “I sent no assassins.”

“And I said I made no accusations. But send on your assassins against this man. Whoever sent them.” Askuwheteau’s voice was clear that he knew, but he did not say. “And you’ll witness the meaning of battle.”

“Of that,” Guagom said. “I have a concern. What if I am right?” Others murmured along with her. “Who will stop him, if I am right? Who will even slow him, if he means to steal or kill or even conquer?”

“I will.” Askuwheteau gave me a sharp glance. “For the three days he waited, I studied techniques in the vaults, old scrolls and graven stones of Crade teachings. I can stop him, if it comes to that.”

“It won’t,” another emissary said. “He should leave. Tomorrow.”

Again, chaos overtook the council chamber. Again they fought and argued. I remained silent, knowing the damage was done, and trusted Askuwheteau even as I wondered. I watched him. Secret Crade teachings? He went to the center of the chamber and again asked for calm.

It was for naught. Kiche called for a vote.

One by one, the emissaries raised their hands for me to remain, to learn from them, to have my boat. Others shouted that the boat could not be made. Rage threatened to derail the vote. They calmed themselves and raised their hands in groups for me to leave, and the matter was decided.

“So this council sees,” the emissary in wolfskins sighed. “The stranger Raze must leave tomorrow.”

I steeled myself to disagree, but once again Askuwheteau did so for me. “He can’t. We have an agreement.” He faced me. “How long will it take for you to fulfill your third promise? To teach me how you turned my club, when we met on the beach?”

I nodded and concealed a grin. “Some time. Perhaps a month.”

“There. A month. He and I had a prior agreement. Or will this council deprive me of fulfillment of an agreement?”

Again there was a vote. This time, with much grumbling, they agreed I should stay to discharge my obligation. Guagom led the faction who voted for me to leave regardless, and her loss made her seethe. When the vote was done, she stood. Many others stood with her and left the council chamber, and the rest of us stayed there in the chilly sun.

“Don’t worry too much.” Kiche had stayed. He came to my side, backed by his followers. “These are complex matters. That I think you should leave should not sting you personally.”

“Little does.” Again, I extended my hand.

It was a gesture of peace, a sign of goodwill, to all observers. Kiche knew. He met my gaze and again his eyes flashed silvery and he made no move to grasp my wrist. We stared at each other, and in his eyes I saw something hard as steel, deep as sea. There was a loss there, a distance, inscrutable. I withdrew my hand when he nodded and turned, and his followers went out with him.

Other emissaries greeted me. They took my hand and apologized or welcomed, and said that I should see them later about the boat. Askuwheteau said I would only stay to help him learn, as I’d promised.

The council was done, and so we left. Askuwheteau and I descended the steps together. A burn set into my legs, a reminder of how little I’d rested in weeks prior. A stay in Rowatokon would do me good, regardless of the emissaries. I would find a way, with or without them.

“That Kiche,” I said. “What do you know of him?”

“He’s our youngest emissary. He has the Sight of the Forsaken, as you heard, and he has seen the Last River.”

“Truly?”

“Indeed. Died and returned, and returned with Sight.”

I considered this for a few more steps. Below, from the base of the pyramid, music came up, drums and wooden pipes and a droning gut-stringed harp. We reached the base and I watched musicians compete for coin beside food-sellers hocking sugar sweets and fried things. The people gathered for a sort of impromptu festival, or town square, following the meeting. Emissaries met with their folk on blankets or beneath shade trees. Attendants set to purifying the steps and corners of the pyramid with smoking clay censers they held in both hands.

“This way,” Askuwheteau said. “I have secured lodging for you. You can refresh yourself and rest till tonight.”

I followed and as we went into the streets, I spoke again. “Did you truly find Crade teachings to learn a way to fight me?”

He shook his head, but said nothing. We spoke no more of it.

Many thanks to my Patron (via Patreon): Donna Palmer.

Click the link if you’d like to be a Patron too. For as little as $1/month you can help me support this ad-free story and improve the site and experience of Raze, and get some cool stuff!

Vote for RAZE on topwebfiction.com Your vote each week helps me get new readers.

Or, click one of the social media buttons below to share and tell your friends. Thanks. – Dave

Get weekly updates about new RAZE posts and other announcements by entering your email *

 

The post RAZE – 032 appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

Your emails – I don’t want to crush them

Hey all. In an effort to continue streamlining/refining/subliming, I’ve made a couple of near-invisible changes around the site. One of those involves your emails and the updates I send. If you’re getting a few too many or having trouble keeping up, I’ve changed things up to include a monthly email digest option. All you have to do is go to the bottom of your most recent email from D.ThoursonPalmer.com and click “Edit your subscription.” That will take you to a page where you can change your setting to the monthly email.

 

As always thanks for being a subscriber and watching my work. Don’t forget to Vote and tell your friends about RAZE!

 

Best,

Dave

The post Your emails – I don’t want to crush them appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.