Christopher Kellen's Blog, page 2

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 23

“Good, you’re awake.” Emelethana’s voice was quiet, barely above a whisper as she ducked into the shallow cave.

“How long has it been?” Mirhalan asked.

“Nearly two hours. We’ve been lucky.”

“I don’t feel terribly lucky.”

“Consider that the alternative was being devoured by darkhounds as you slept.”

Mirhalan snorted a laugh. “See, now I feel lucky after all.”

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 22

“They’re not hunting us,” Afrith said, very quietly. “Look.”

Brynjar did just that, when he finally got his breath under control. He peered around the far side of the tree, and saw not just one, but three darkhounds prowling through the forest, pressed together as though they’d been born from the same womb. Their heads turned from side to side as their massive nostrils flared, blank white eyes searching for something that they could never see.

He held his breath again, not out of fear this time but out of simple caution, as the darkhounds passed them by. They moved with a sense of driving purpose, and Brynjar was almost certain that he saw dark red blood drying on the claws of one, too dark to be human, as they marched past.

Following close behind the hounds, perhaps a dozen paces, was a pair of wytchen thralls. These were not the bloated monstrosities that Brynjar had slain nearly a dozen of during the battle—they were tall, lean, their eyes the same blank white as the darkhounds. In their long, clawed fingers they clutched wooden spears, casting furtive glances as they swept the area, but their eyes never fell on the tree which Brynjar and Afrith used for cover.

“There’s someone else out here,” Afrith said, after the hounds and the thralls had vanished into the trees beyond.

“Someone or something,” Brynjar said.

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 21

She had never wanted for much in her life, but even as a child she had chafed against the restrictions placed on her as a daughter of the priestesses. Never allowed to roam the hills with the young boys or the lesser girls, her life was one of constant learning almost from the time she could walk. Language, medicine, the history of her people, legends and lore, herbalism and, when she was old enough, combat.

Everyone always talked about her life as though it were privileged, but Emelethana had never felt lucky to have been born into the priesthood. She’d watched the other children of her clan come back from far-ranging adventures with dragon bones or strange rocks or tales of something amazing that they’d happened on, or strangers that they’d met on the road, and only felt envy for their freedom.

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 20

“Will he be well enough to walk on his own?”

She nodded. “The wound is healing nicely. There will still be some discomfort remaining, and the limb will be weak, along with the rest of him, but he should have enough stamina to run without collapsing.”

“Good. The healing arts have served him well.”

Emelethana gazed out at the bubbling stream. It was late in the day already, and nightfall would be approaching again. “Yes, they have. He believes that he owes me a debt for what I have done for him.”

“Does he not?” Aspar asked.

She frowned and looked over at the old warrior. “Of course not, Aspar. It is clear that he was brought to us by the Mother’s hand. It is my duty to restore him to health.”

“Some might say that those arts should be reserved for your own people.”

“Those people would be wrong.”

Aspar turned to her, his dark eyes burning in the afternoon light. “Emelethana—”

“Priestess,” she corrected.

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 19

“I can’t just run away,” he said at last. “The wytchen lord wants to take my people as slaves, and as long as I draw breath, I can’t abandon them to that fate.”

“What difference would one blade make?” she asked him. “Could your people not stand without you?”

He blinked, startled. “Are you saying you want me to come with you?”

She looked away again. In the dim light, it looked like she was blushing, but it was hard to be certain. “I merely wonder what you could contribute, in your wounded state. Would it not be safer to accompany Aspar and I?”

“Safer, perhaps,” he said. “But not honorable.”

“Is honor worth spending the second chance at life that I have given you?” He wasn’t sure whether she was angry with him; her voice turned hard, unyielding, and he nearly flinched away.

For a moment, her question forced him to think. Was his honor really worth his life? If going back and standing with his people meant that he would die—or worse, be subjugated to the wytchen lord and forever a slave—was that worth knowing that he could have escaped and lived somewhere else, away from all of it?

“Yes,” he said finally. “It is.”

She looked down at him with a strange expression on her face—almost entirely impassive, but there was just a hint of embarrassment, or something akin to it, in her eyes. “Then it appears that I saved the right life.”

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 18

“My people have ways of healing wounds,” she said. “It will sap your strength for a short time, but once it is complete you should be able to walk again.”

“Is that why I can’t move my arms?”

“Most likely,” she said. Reaching down, she picked up one of his hands and lifted it. The muscles quivered and his fingers shook, but the feeling of her hunter-rough hands on his sent electric tingles down his spine. “Can you hold it here?”

She let go, and the hand dropped like a stone to the ground. He winced as it struck. “I cannot.”

Emelethana nodded grimly. “The fever must have been worse than I thought.”

“Fever?”

“It felt as though you had lit a campfire behind your eyes,” she said, with a little smile.

“That’s not generally a healthy thing to do.”

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 17

There was no fire this time.

Mirhalan floated in a dark, endless void. Perfect silence surrounded him. Even in sleep, he could feel the aching wound in his leg, shooting flares up pain up through his thigh and his back that seemed like invisible versions of the cracks and pops of green wood tossed on a bonfire.

A pair of impossibly-pale hands closed around his neck, and he began to choke—

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 16

A twig cracked.

Emelethana looked up sharply, her fingers drawing the string of her bow taut. The fletching scratched along the wood and she brought it up, searching, aiming… but all she saw was the Dorejn hound, standing a few dozen yards away. Krejk looked up at her with what she swore was a sheepish expression on his canine face, one paw lifted off the ground as though in surprise.

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 15

She pulled away from him and looked down, refusing to meet his gaze. “One of the skalds said that the wytchen lord uses his power to turn enemies and those who displease him into darkhounds,” she whispered. “Do you think—“

“Hogwash,” Brynjar snorted. “Stories told to frighten children.”

“It frightened me,” she whispered.

“A darkhound isn’t anything more than a sorcery-touched Dorejn hound, or something much like it,” Brynjar said, “but you know Krejk, how intelligent that mutt is. That should be plenty frightening enough without any more nonsense piled on.”

She paused for a moment, and then nodded. “It is.”

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 14

The darkhound retreated a few steps, giving her an appraising look, as though reevaluating an opponent that it had underestimated. The intelligence in its expression unnerved her, and tingling claws of fear walked down her spine.

She heard Mirhalan shout something from behind her, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the darkhound. It ducked to the side, sliding behind a tree, almost as though it was withdrawing. Her brow creased in a frown, and she took just a split second to look over her shoulder—and saw a second darkhound barreling toward her at full speed.

There was no time to move.

She stared into the second hound’s blood-red maw, and saw her own death in its teeth.