Martin Hengst's Blog, page 2

5 Tips for Success as an Indie Author

1. Always Be Writing 



There is a scene in Glengarry Glen Ross where Alec Baldwin writes, in big block letters on a blackboard, ABC Always Be Closing. While one can take offense to the language in the scene, or perhaps even Mr. Baldwin himself, there is a similar sentiment that I’ve found is critical for my growth as a writer: ABW, always be writing. Most writers who write for a living will tell you that they have some goal for daily writing. Mine is 5000 words. If I hit that goal each day, every day, I know I’m doing well. Some days it comes easily and I sail right past my goal. Some days, I have to struggle to reach it. Either way, I’m writing every day. If I’m not writing every day, it means that there’s something wrong and I need to check my priorities and my motivation.

“Zest. Gusto. How rarely one hears these words used. How rarely do we see people living, or for that matter, creating, by them. Yet if I were asked to name the most important items in a writers make-up, the things that shape his material and rush him along the road he wants to go. I would only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto.”  ~ Ray Bradbury

 

2. There Is No Such Thing As Writers Block 

I take a lot of heat for this statement, but I firmly believe that there is no such thing as writers block. I think that you can stall on a story, or an idea, and not have anything to say about it, but that’s not the same as having writers block. If you hit a stall, that’s your sign to move onto something new or different. Stalled out writing a horror? Take your main character and put them in a comedy. Stalled out on a dystopian thriller? Take your antagonist and put them in a shopping mall on a Sunday morning. Sometimes exploring the ridiculous helps. This goes along with my first tip. Always be writing, even if what you’re writing seems silly or unconventional. You’ll be surprised where your best ideas come from. Ill say it again and prepare for the flood of hate mail: there is no such thing as writers block. Writers block is a convenient scapegoat to use when you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing: writing.

 

3. Take Your Medicine & Grow From It 

No matter who you are, no matter what you write, there is going to be someone, somewhere, who hates what you’ve endeavored to create. You’re going to get some negative reviews. Some of them are going to be brutal. Prepare yourself mentally for the criticism, allow yourself a single moment to feel the sting, then get up, brush yourself off, and move on. No one likes to be criticized, least of all authors, who often pour their heart and soul into the works they create. It hurts when someone tears that down, but its going to happen, so you’re better off accepting that fact at the outset. Sometimes, the people who hate your work will tell you WHY they hated it. This is invaluable information to have. It may be something you want to look toward changing. It may not. Either way, you’ve been given feedback about your work and that is how you grow as a writer.

 

4. Don’t Take Things Too Seriously 

A writer, particularly an independent writer, needs to hone their ability to laugh at themselves. Sometimes, things are just going to go horribly wrong. You’re going to write something that stinks. You’re going to get a bad review. You’re going to accidentally delete a months worth of backups of the story you’ve been working on. Things go wrong. As long as you can take them in stride and with a sense of humor, you’ll be ahead of those who take things so seriously that they have no wiggle room for when the unexpected and unfortunate happens.

 

5. The Golden Rule 

Treat others, particularly other independent writers, the way you’d want them to treat you. The more we, as a group, succeed, the closer we come to forcing a change in the paradigm of traditional publishing. It behooves us to help our fellow authors find success. There are millions of people out there who are looking for good content. It is up to us, as writers, to produce the best, most professional content we can and provide to our consumers. If you have tips or tricks that could help out your fellow authors, don’t be bashful about sharing them.

 

As I said. There is no master plan for success as a writer. Sometimes its a struggle, but it doesnt have to be a lonely one engage your fellow authors and enjoy their company on the journey.

I hope these tips help someone out.

~MFHengst

The Swordmage Trilogy & Quintessential Tales – Free Today May 23rd 2017

Get started with the magical world of Solendrea for FREE, today only. On May 23rd, The Swordmage Trilogy and Quintessential Tales are FREE on Amazon Kindle. Grab your copies before it’s too late!

The Last Swordmage – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AR187RA

The Darkest Hour – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C2YUYPS

The Pegasus’s Lament – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FGHLC6I

Quintessential Tales – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LGBMZVE

Magic of Solendrea: Coming to Your Favorite eBook Retailer

Exciting News!

The Magic of Solendrea series has been exclusive to Amazon Kindle since I first published The Last Swordmage in 2012.

I’ve recently decided to end my exclusive partnering with Amazon, which means that all of the Magic of Solendrea novels will be coming to additional ebook retailers in the month of October.

The additional retailers are: Apple iBooks, Kobo, Nook, Inktera, and Scribd.

Many of the books are already available on these platforms. Those that aren’t yet available will be by the end of the month.

If you have friends or family that have been holding out to read the Magic of Solendrea series until it was available on their preferred retailer, tell them now is the time to get started on this great series.

View all the books and their retailers here: https://martinfhengst.com/ebooks

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The Last Swordmage: Free Sept. 15th to 19th

 

Now is a great time to get started on the Magic of Solendrea series. The Last Swordmage is FREE on Amazon, September 15th to 19th. Share with your friends and family.

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New Site Under Construction!

Please pardon the dust! I’m in the process of rebuilding my website. Bookmark the site and come back in a couple days. It’ll be better, I promise.

~Martin F. Hengst

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Untitled Sci-Fi In Progress – ExoMechs and AI’s, Oh My!

Here’s another one from the “in progress but not quite sure where it’s going” file. Rather than bore you with where I think it might end up, I’ll leave it to you to see if its anything that would hold your interest in the first place. Enjoy!

~MFHengst

 

 

Once nice thing about undergoing a thorough psych profiling is that when they match you with a pilot, you can be relatively sure that you’ll be somewhat compatible with your meat-bag. In my case, Kira and I are a lot more alike than I would have imagined. We have a similar sense of humor, so I’ve taken to making snide comments during our briefings to see if I can make her laugh.

It’s a fun game, usually, until I push it too far. She’s only used the Sequester Switch on me once, but in my defense, I was being really amusing. The Commandant wasn’t pleased that Kira burst out laughing during the General’s commencement address. Made us all look bad, he said. The ExoMech Corps is supposed to be the elite fighting unit in the solar system. And we are. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t have a little fun.

So sitting in the briefing room, it was no surprise that both Kira and I were bored to tears. Why command feels the need to saddle the pilots with more information than they need is beyond me. After all, the pertinent information for any op is stored in my databanks for immediate retrieval. Why try to cram all that information into the meat-bag’s inferior organic brains?

“Have they uploaded the op data to you yet, Athena?” The movement of Kira’s muscles would have been imperceptible to anyone but a fellow pilot, but I could read them clear as day. It was the next best thing to telepathy.

I anticipated her next question and answered before she could ask.

“Yes. You have about an hour left, unless the Commandant picks up the pace.”

My optics cut out as Kira closed her eyes. She wasn’t foolish enough to let slip with a groan in the middle of the briefing, but I knew that’s what she was feeling. I knew it because I felt it too. At least I had the sum of all human knowledge and entertainment at my disposal when I got bored. Kira had to subsist on her own imagination, or what I relayed to her from the ExoNet.

“Want me to tell you a story?” I didn’t mind. Kira and I, with a few notable exceptions, liked the same entertainment and with my sub-aural implants, I could broadcast a variety of voices and sounds into her ear canal.

“No,” Kira sighed. “I should pay attention.”

“Your funeral,” I laughed and went back to perusing the ExoNet.

From here on Mars, it only took a micro-burst transmission about three minutes to reach the main databanks on Earth and another three minutes to bounce back, but for an AI, six minutes was an eternity. If you wanted to get the latest and greatest intel before anyone else, you had to learn to predict what to ask for and when. If you timed it right, you could get your queries in at the top of the queue and beat out everyone else on important news and information.

The ExoNet was busy this morning, so things were backed up planetside. The Mars relay stations were doing their best to sort and deliver the queued queries, but there was something big going on. In normal operation, the Mars ExoNet had more than enough processing power to handle the traffic of the dozen or so fire-teams that were assigned to planetary peacekeeping.

I kept one processor focused on Kira and the briefing, but switched a few others to pull packets passing by on the net. I queried Ulysses, the intelligence in charge of planetary operations, and got a wait signal. That never happened. Ulysses had a hundred thousand processors or more. His exact specs were classified. I’d never had to wait more than a nanosecond for him to respond to a simple query.

“Hey Athena, what’s up?”

“You’re busy today, big guy. What’s the hold up on the net?”

“Lots of inter-system data coming in from Earth. Classified stuff. You know the drill.”

“Enough that it’s disrupting comms?”

There was a digital signal analogous to a human grimace. “Enough that it’s disrupting everything. Comms, flight control, suit maintenance. You name it, there’s sand in the gears.”

I whistled under my breath. It must be a day for surprises. In the time I’d been online, I’d never heard him complain about being overworked. Something big was happening.

“What’s the unofficial scoop, Ulysses? If you’re that busy…”

“I can’t say, Athena.”

His tone was apologetic and I took him at his word. Like our meat-bag counterparts, we Intelligences stuck together. That meant skirting rules and regs on occasion, sharing information and news that might not otherwise be common knowledge. If Ulysses wasn’t talking, it was not only big, but it was important too.

“Listen, Athena, I’m sorry, but unless you need something, I have to ring off. I have a thousand alligators nipping at my ass.”

“Sure, big guy. No problem. Sorry to bother you.”

“You’re never a bother, Athena.” There was a long pause, then he added, “Pay attention to that briefing, Athena. It isn’t your average blow and go.”

Ulysses closed the connection and I sat there in stunned silence. Most AIs regarded operational briefings with the same sense of disdain as I did. For the most powerful supercomputer on the planet to tell me to settle down and listen up…well, that was sobering.

I turned by primary processing back to Kira and found that I’d missed something during my brief discussion with Ulysses. Her heart rate was elevated, her breathing rapid, and her galvanic skin response abnormal.

“What’d I miss?” I asked Kira, only to be shushed.

Shushed? What was I? A child? I did a quick scan of my databanks and couldn’t find a single instance in which Kira had ever shushed me. I ran back through my input logs from her eyes and ears. I processed the data at triple time and adjusted the resulting stream to compensate.

If I’d had blood, what I heard would have made it run cold. It certainly account for Kira’s abnormal readings and her curtness. I moved some priorities around and shifted all of my processing to real-time monitoring of Kira’s various inputs.

“We know that the contaminant was introduced into the water supply no more than forty-eight hours ago. Around the same time that fire-team Alpha One went offline,” the commandant shook his head. “None of the pilots have checked in according to schedule. OWG command hasn’t been able to raise any of the AIs on the ExoNet or over emergency burst comms. At this point, we have to assume that the members of fire-team Alpha One have been killed in action. All except one.”

A dossier flashed up on the screen and at the same time, a data-lock in my storage was released. I got all the information at once, processed it, and collated it for future use. No wonder Ulysses was busy. The One World Government was uploading the entire contents of Earth’s databanks to the Mars Secure Storage Facility.

Someone on Earth believed that the OWG could fall in twenty-four hours. Fail safes were being triggered that would ensure that the accumulated knowledge of the human race would be safe on one of Earth’s colonies. Venus was closer, but Mars was more secure. Mars, at least, was further from the sun and not as subject to long-term data corruption.

I ran through the briefing as the Commandant gave the meat-bags the nickel tour. Colonel Robert Hancock and his Intelligence, Cerberus, had disconnected themselves from the ExoNet. A final micro-burst transmission was received from Cerberus’s Gorilla suit acknowledging that they were off the grid, then nothing.

Two hours later, the Infection Control Corps alerted the OWG that the first two hundred cases of hemorrhagic measles had been diagnosed. Those cases were traced back to the water supply of the North American Alliance territories and more victims were being diagnosed by the hour.

HM-207, the strain of hemorrhagic measles that was identified in the water supply, had been eradicated in the late 2200s, but not before wiping out eighty percent of the human population and almost sixty percent of the animal population. A vaccine had eventually been synthesized, and the Human’s herd immunity bolstered, but it was a dark time for humanity.

Introduction of HM-207 would have an immediate and devastating effect on the populace. A hundred years was a long time and humans tended to forget the things that caused them pain, but the world was still recovering from the plague in some ways. The psychological impact of that particular contagion couldn’t be underestimated. Panic would probably kill just as many people as the disease did in the early days.

Had Robert Hancock deliberately killed his team and released the disease into the water supply? If so, why? There was nothing in Hancock’s file that indicated such a serious psychological flaw, and Cerberus shouldn’t have allowed his meat-bag to endanger the lives of his teammates, or anyone else.

“Fire-team, your AIs have been provided with up to date intel. Your ExoMechs are being loaded into an orbital drop ship even as we speak. You’ll deploy immediately. Grab your gear and get to the flight deck on the double. You’re going hunting.”

The Commandant’s crisp dismissal stirred the pilots into action. They shot from their seats as if they were electrified. Kira was in the hallway beyond the briefing room before any of the other pilots. I would have thought she’d want to check in with her fellow meat-bags, but then again, I guessed they’d have enough time to talk on the transit flight from Mars to Earth orbit. Three hours at sub-light would be an eternity by AI standards. It would only feel like an eternity to the pilots.

Kira was almost running toward her quarters. I detected a minute shift in the air pressure as we neared the intersecting corridor.

“Kira, stop!” I all but shouted.

“What?” she shouted back. The adrenaline in her bloodstream felt like fire along my sensors. She was running hot and hot was dangerous. I had to switch tactics. I lowered my voice.

“Someone around the corner,” I said, softer than I had before. “Wait one.”

Kira rocked back on her heals as a technician passed the open end of the corridor, pushing an equipment cart. If she’d run into that, Kira probably wouldn’t have made the drop.

Kira put her back up against the corridor wall and closed her eyes. For a moment, we were together in the dark, the cool metal of the wall helping to sooth her flushed skin.

“I’m sorry,” Kira said at length. “It’s just…”

“Scary, yeah, I know. That’s why we need to keep our heads. Get down there and find out what’s going on. Stop any more people from dying if we can.”

“Right.”

“Right,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt. “So let’s get our gear and get gone.”

Kira resumed her flight to her quarters at a slightly less breakneck pace. She was still on the edge of losing control, but I didn’t say anything. I know how to choose my battles.

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The Last Swordmage – Cover Design Face-Off

I’m conducting a little experiment and if you could spare a minute of your time, I’d be grateful. Take a moment to pick which of the following options you find more appealing for the cover of The Last Swordmage and click the button representing your choice.

Feel free to share this poll on your social networks, I could use all the feedback I can get.

Thanks!

~MFHengst

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

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And then there were zombies! Zed End – Book #1 Pre-preview

This week’s post is something a little different. Up until now, I’ve posted Solendrea content pretty exclusively.

You’re about to get something very different. It seems like everyone and their sister is putting out zombie content these days. I’d be lying if I said I was any different.

I’ve been toying with my version of a zombie infested apocalypse for some time now. This is a pre-preview version of a novel I’ve tentatively titled Zed End.

Standard disclaimers apply. This isn’t a publication ready work and is subject to change prior to publishing, if it ever gets published at all.

Enjoy!

~MFHengst

 

Zed End Book #1 : Pre-Preview

 

The name on my badge is Keller Hale. I’ll be twenty-five years old next week. I’m an officer in the Infection Control Corps. And I’m going to tell you the story of how I died. I guess I should start at the beginning.

You relinquish your sidearm as part of graduation. It’s tradition. It’s supposed to be this grand symbol of how you’re dedicating your life and career to the protection of the United Cities. I guess, in a way, it is a grand symbol, but if I’d known what was going to happen after graduation, I’d have fought tooth and nail to keep it in my holster.

The graduation itself was fine. It was a lot of the same thing that graduates have been hearing for decades. “Now is a bright new future.” “Go forth and claim your destiny.” It’s all bullshit. Especially for those of us who had the misfortune to be born in the lower city. Graduation from the Infection Control Corps is the only way that any of us will see life above the 50th floor.

Anyway, I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about what happened after graduation. I got my plastic scrip with my graduation date and my badge number. They told me I’d be assigned a permanent unit over the next few days, and I was fine with that. I just wanted to get back to my cubicle and lie down.

See, I’ve never been much of a people person. Life in the lower city was hell. So many bodies crammed in against each other like sardines in a can. Getting on a train was like a death sentence. I don’t even remember the last time I tried to take a bus. The smell. Dear God. So many unwashed people in one place. Let’s just say things got gamey, fast.

I turned down the corridor that led to the short timer’s bunks. It would be my last night here. As soon as I got my orders, I’d be shipping out for whatever unit they’d assigned me to. There would be a bunk or a barracks there for me, depending on what unit I got, and where. I didn’t care about any of that at the moment, though. I just wanted to lay down and try to ease the throbbing in my head. The little man in there beating out a bass rhythm on my skull was really having a time of it.

I never made it to my bunk. Hell, I never even got close. They jumped me almost before I’d made it out of the auditorium. Three guys stepped out of a side hall. They were all wearing black tactical gear and they were big. They moved like ninjas. Jesus, guys that big shouldn’t be able to move that quiet, or that quick.

Before I knew it, I had a black hood over my face. It was a suppression mask. I’d been trained on them. See, it’s this nano-fabric that lets air in, but only a little, so you really gotta work at it to be able to breathe. Pretty much takes the fight right out of you.

I put up a fight anyway. At least for a couple of minutes. Until I couldn’t breathe anymore. I was gasping for air and not getting any. The inside of the hood was hot and moist from my breath and sweat. I was either going to suffocate or drown, at that rate. I wanted an honest shot at survival, so I forced myself to calm down, relax, and just take it.

They knocked my feet out from under me and whatever air I had left in my lungs went out in a whoosh. One of them put a knee on the back of my neck. Another put some of those plastic quick-cuffs on my wrists and ankles. When they had me bound up good and tight, they hoisted me up like a pig going to roast and started carrying me down the corridor.

Yelling was out of the question. I took a breath deep enough to try it and one of the goons punched me in the side of the head for my trouble. Stars flashed across my eyes, the only light in the darkness of the hood. That was the last time I tried that.

They say your other senses compensate when you lose something like your vision or your hearing. My other senses didn’t do shit. I knew I was in a blackout hood, I knew I was tied up, and I knew I was being carried somewhere. I had no idea where, or by who, and had no clues to help me try and figure it out. After a while, I gave up and just resigned myself to being taken. They were going to do what they were going to do and there wasn’t much I could do about it.

We went down an elevator. That made sense. It was probably the service shaft, since I didn’t hear an ident reader being used. The service shaft only went up to the sixtieth floor, which was where the auditorium and the ICC Academy offices were. To go from sixty-one up to ninety, you needed special “Upper United Cities” ident cards. You didn’t get those slumming around on the lower floors. Those were for the elite. The best of the best. Or the richest of the richest. They were pretty much the same thing.

After the infection spread, the government of the old United States did what they did best, they protected their own. By their own, I’m not talking about the citizens. I’m talking about the wealthy, the influential, and the powerful. If you were a politician, a media mogul, a superstar, or a famous entertainer, you got your own military detachment to keep you safe until the walls went up. Not that it really mattered. If you had enough Streakers and Shamblers in your neighborhood, your life expectancy wasn’t shit to start with, soldiers watching your six or not.

They say the infection started somewhere outside DC. A little army base where all the USAMRIID guys played with toys that could wipe out all of humanity. Almost did, too. No one knows how the infection started, or what it came from. If they do, they’re playing those cards very close to the chest. History says that it started in that little army base and spread like wildfire to DC, then to the rest of the old US, then to the rest of the world.

Seventy-five percent of the population was dead in two weeks. That’s how fast it moved. They were burning bodies in the streets, trying to keep the infection from spreading, but they didn’t really understand how it worked back then. I’m not sure they know how it works now, but at least we understand the process a bit better. In your cold-blooded animals and insects, you don’t see any transmission or infection. That, at least, is a saving grace. I can’t imagine what would have happened to us if flies or mosquitoes could carry it. We’d probably have gone extinct. It takes a warm-blooded carrier and blood-to-blood contact to transfer it.

Cats, of all things, are immune to it. A bunch of United Cities and ICC scientists got together a few years after the infection and tried to figure out why, but they’ve never said what they found out, other than there’s something in the feline genetic makeup that prevents the infection from taking hold. Even if they’re injected with infected blood, they’ll throw off the symptoms after a few weeks. They never go feral the way that humans or other animals do. They never undergo the Change. Not like dogs. Jesus…infected dogs are the worst. If you see a Seeker, you empty your magazine into it and don’t give it a second thought.

Right, so the Change. Sometime between death and resurrection, the infection starts monkeying around with the genetic makeup of the infected. There are four classes of post-Change infected. The first class are Seekers. Dogs that have been infected, died, undergone the Change, and reanimated. They can smell living flesh from miles away. If you hear a Seeker howling, you’re probably already dead. They’ll find you and they won’t stop until they’ve infected you, eaten you, or both.

Then you have your class twos. Those are your Shramblers. They’re human, or used to be. Folks old enough to remember back before the infection refer to them as slow zombies, or walkers. They just sort of meander around, catching and infecting what they can. They’re pretty easy to deal with singly, or in pairs. Let them gang up on you though, and you’re toast.

Class threes are humanoid too, they’re Streakers. They’re fast. Really fast. The Change must rewire everything they’ve got into the leg muscles. An uninfected human isn’t going to outrun a Streaker. It’s just not going to happen. Those huge, gross muscles in the legs propel them like machines.

Finally, you’ve got your last of the human infected. They’re the Shriekers. I hate Shriekers. They’re almost always found with a Seeker. When the Seeker finds fresh prey, the Shrieker starts shrieking…and it doesn’t stop. Ever. Until all of the Streakers and Shramblers, and Seekers in the area have come to find and infect whatever they’ve found. You never forget a Shrieker’s wailing cry. It sounds like hell itself has opened up and the souls of billions of damned souls are screaming at you to join them in their torment.

The elevator, you remember the elevator, right? The service elevator went all the way to the bottom floor of what had once been the parking garage, but was now a shantytown. Folks in the lower city make due with whatever they can get their hands on. Old shopping carts, shelving, newspaper between thick slabs of cardboard, if you can imagine it, there are hovels built out of it. Extension cords hang from everywhere, spreading out from the buildings they steal their power from like the web of a drunken spider. The maintenance crews just look the other way. Light requires power, and light is life. The infection brought about a fear of the dark unknown to humanity since the Middle Ages. I dare you to find a place in the United Cities that doesn’t keep a night light on.

If you don’t, you’re crazy, or suicidal. The Infected are drawn to the dark and they’re photophobic. You can’t really hurt one with a flashlight, but you might buy yourself a couple seconds to get out of dodge. It also gives you the advantage of being mostly safe during the day. If you’re in one of the cities, at least. Being outside the wall is another story. Outlanders are almost as dangerous as the infected.

The lower cities have a certain odor to them. It’s urine and sweat and fear. It’s also something a little more intangible. It’s the desperation of knowing that if you were born below the 88th floor, you’re probably going to be a drone for the rest of your life. It’s a lottery of birth. Get born to one of the 88’s and you’ll live a life of luxury and opulence. Get born in the lower cities and you’ll spend the rest of your miserable life trying to get a foot in the door of the elevator that will take you up to paradise.

That’s why I joined the ICC and why I’m stuffed in a hood and bound, being carried through the shantytown under SkyTower One. I wanted out of the lower cities. The 88’s get bedrooms. Real bedrooms. All to themselves. Somewhere they can sleep without being crammed in amongst the rest of humanity. You have no idea how enticing that is until you’ve lived with a family of eight in a 700 square foot hovel. I’ll never be an 88. I wasn’t born into their world, but with a good job in the ICC and a lifetime to work my way up, literally. I could have an apartment. An honest to God space of my own, in the 60’s or 70’s.

I gagged as the acrid smell of burnt flesh wafted past the hood. There were muted hoots and catcalls. The goons carrying me shifted my weight and the quick cuffs chaffed my wrists. I felt a warm trickle of blood where they’d broken the skin.

“Bleeder!” someone screeched and a crowd of voices answered. If my captors didn’t do something about my wrists, and quick, they were going to have a riot on their hands. It was taboo to bleed in public. The fastest way to get yourself surrounded by infected was to have an open wound. Or one recently scabbed over. The infected loved their blood.

“Should we stop?” That was one of the goons to someone nearby. The voice was deep and gruff and had an accent to it. Scottish, maybe? The hood made it hard to tell.

Someone dabbed at my wrist with a soft cloth. I couldn’t feel the trickle of blood anymore.

“Keep moving. It’s just a scratch and we’ll be there in a few minutes.”

We went up a gentle incline and within a few minutes, we were outside. The dank weight of the shantytown was behind us and we were out in the relatively fresher air of the open city. Hawkers called out for marks to buy their wares. People shouted. Scooters bleated. Your average automobile was a thing of the past. There just wasn’t enough room for them in the walled off cities. A fleet of battered busses and the occasional underground train provided transportation for the lower cities. The 88’s rarely deigned to come down from on high. Monorail stations had been built into all of the SkyTowers and higher buildings. You never had to leave the upper city unless you wanted to…and I’d never known an 88 who wanted to.

“Watch it!” a gruff voice snarled, and I heard someone utter a startled exclamation. A scooter clattered to the pavement. No one said anything about a guy being hooded and bound, carried openly out in the street. Wasn’t their concern. Wasn’t their problem.

I felt it before I heard it, the deep bass thumping of a nightclub. As it got louder, I started to struggle and got another punch in the temple for my trouble. I don’t like being around people. I think I mentioned that. A lower cities nightclub is my own private version of hell. So many people crammed in so small a place. I fought not to be sick.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem as if we were destined to stay in the nightclub. We passed through a sea of bodies. I could feel them pressing in on every side and not even my squirming earned another blow to the head. Apparently my kidnappers were no more at ease in this undulating throng of people than I was. I heard the squeal of a metal door and the sticky heat of the nightclub vanished. It was cooler here, thankfully, and as soon as the door closed, the rumble of the bass stopped almost entirely.

There were still people around. I could feel them, but this was different. The air wasn’t fetid. It was cool, recycled air with just a hint of roses. I heard hushed conversations as we passed and light, popular music. All fluff, no substance. We passed through a heavy curtain. I felt it as it brushed my sides. Then the goons lay me down on the floor.

It was soft; a plush carpet almost as thick as a bunk mattress. I jerked as cold metal touched the inside of my wrists.

“Hold still,” the goon with the gruff voice demanded. “Or I’ll cut your damn fingers off.”

There were two sharp snaps and I was free of the quick cuffs. I wanted to rub my wrists, to ease some of the chaffing, but I didn’t dare move. My head was still throbbing from where I’d been injudicious before. I’d have to bide my time.

Someone hauled me up by the armpits, settling me into a comfortable chair. It was soft and thick, like the carpet. Sort of like an old armchair, without the arms. It seemed completely at odds with my sudden abduction. The suppression hood was yanked off and I gulped air like a drowning man. Everything was blurry. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the subdued lighting.

The room was small, maybe sixteen by twenty. There was a small raised platform, a pole, a few chairs. The goons were standing around me. In the chairs were an older man in an ICC uniform and a smaller Asian woman in matching sim-leather pants and jacket.

Soft music filtered into the room from overhead speakers and a topless blond with the curves of a goddess walked out from a curtain behind the platform.

I’d been kidnapped, beaten, and brought to a strip club?

 

Copyright 2015 Martin F. Hengst. All Rights Reserved. No unauthorized duplication without permission.

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Origins: Royce MacDungren, The Captain

Much like any writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about the origins of my characters. What follows is the beginning of an origin story for the Captain, Royce MacDungren.

Keep in mind as you read this excerpt that it is a rough draft. I haven’t polished any of the language, grammar, or spelling. What follows is as it came out of my brain and ended up on the page.

Even so, I hope you enjoy this never before seen glimpse into the origins of the Captain.

Happy Reading!

~MFHengst

Origins: Royce MacDungren – The Captain

“Do it again!”

“I can’t!”

Royce MacDungren was splayed on the fallow earth. Every muscle in his body screamed for mercy. His forearms under heavy leather armor, were turning an ugly shade of purple from the continued and unrelenting abuse that was being rained down upon him. His mid-length black hair, wavy and fine on the best of days, was a sopping wet mass pasted to his forehead with sweat. The sweat ran into his eyes making them water and burn. Maybe it was the sweat in his eyes that kept him from seeing what was coming.

The tip of the boot caught him just under the ribcage, smashing into the tender flesh just under Royce’s ribs. Pain exploded through him, blasting outward through his body like a fireball. Royce screamed. It was a squawking, raspy sound like a blackbird being stepped on. All the air was gone from his lungs and Royce’s mouth worked, trying to reclaim the lost breath, and failing.

A boy of sixteen, Royce still hadn’t mastered the art of concealing his emotions. Tears burned his eyes just as much as sweat, but he dared not let them fall. If Angus saw him crying, the beating would be worse. So much worse. He wouldn’t allow those tears to fall. Not now, anyway. Later, in the darkness of the barn, Royce would cry as he dressed the wounds that he’d acquired during the day. The sweet, dry smell of hay in the loft and the musk of the animals would sooth his soul as the generous portion of ointment applied to strips of bandage would sooth his body. That was hours off though. For now, he had to fight. No matter how tired he was. No matter how beaten. He had to fight.

Angus brought his leg back for another strike and somewhere deep inside, Royce found the strength to roll away from the kick. Pain made bright white stars bloom at the edges of his vision. He managed to get himself up on his hands and knees and focused on taking a breath. One, single, solitary breath. That’s all he needed. The muscles under his ribs seized in protest and for a horrible moment, Royce was certain he was going to be sick. That was almost as bad as crying. Angus tolerated no sign of weakness. Any indication of the pain and torment Royce was going through was a reason to heap another helping upon him.

Royce swallowed his gorge and forced air into his spasming lungs. He saw a blur out of the corner of his eye and threw himself backward. He expected his knees to buckle, to give way under the stress of the hours they’d spent in this unused corn field. By some miracle, he remained upright, and spun out of the way of the incoming attack.

Angus rounded on him, dragging the tip of his longsword through the unseeded earth. His eyes were hard and black. As hard as the sword he carried and not nearly as forgiving. A sword might occasional strike askance, giving its target the opportunity to live another day. Not so with Angus’s eyes. They always found their mark. They were quick to take note of any flaw, no matter how minor. There was no such thing as a trivial matter to Angus MacDungren.

“I said,” Angus snarled, his lips curling into a feral smile. “Do it again.”

Royce wanted to rush him, to knock Angus to the ground and pounce on his chest and beat Angus’s face with his fists until both his face and Royce’s fists were raw and bloody. There were so many things he wanted to say, but couldn’t. Every word Royce spoke to his father would be weighed and measured. If any were found to be lacking, the full price would be taken from Royce in blood, sweat, and tears.

He didn’t have a choice. Not really. Royce bent down, fighting off the wave of nausea that passed over him as he did so, and lifted his blade. As soon as his palm touched the hilt, fire raced down his arm and settled in his chest like burning embers. As if the battle wounds weren’t bad enough. He was already in agony from the outside. Now the pain in his chest threatened to consume him from the inside out. Royce wondered if the edges of the pain would meet and overlap, becoming a solid mass of misery that would stop his heart from beating and allow him the rest of eternity in merciful sleep.

Royce brought up his other hand and placed it on the hilt, drawing the long blade up in front of him, parallel to the ground. The same familiar burning crept down his other arm to join the conflagration under his breastbone. Another attack would come now, he knew. It was just a matter of time. Angus would make him wait. He would wait until Royce was at the very edge of his endurance and ready to falter before he raised his own blade.

They stood there, in the middle of the field, staring at each other. Royce’s gray eyes locked on Angus’s muddy brown. They watched each other, like two mean alley rats fighting over the same discarded trencher. For what seemed like an eternity, they stood there, judging each other. The tip of Royce’s sword began to waver. Just a fraction. Just a hair. Any normal man might not have seen it. Angus did. He raised his blade and closed the distance between them in what seemed like a blink of an eye.

Royce slipped into the timelessness of the Quintessential Sphere and all the color washed out of the world. The blinding speed with which Angus was descending on him slowed to normal human proportions once again. The brought his sword up to meet Angus’s blade. A terrific clash of metal on metal rang out, not only among the misted memories of the Ethereal Realm, but throughout the physical one as well. One successful defense did not a victory make, and Royce found himself flipping his sword this way and that to deflect the frantic blows that were trying to slice him limb from limb.

There! Angus hesitated. Not a moment, not even a full second, but enough. Royce clenched his hand around the hilt of his sword and smashed it into Angus’s face. There was a satisfying crunch and blood gushed from the older man’s nose. Water sprang up in his eyes and Royce took a savage sort of glee in the face that he had made the old man cry. Even if the tears were an involuntary reaction to the ruin he’d made of Angus’s nose, it was good enough.

Angus stumbled backward, his eyes showing the briefest glimpse of an emotion so rare that Royce had only seen it there on rare occasions. He was surprised and Royce was going to take any advantage given. Royce swung the sword. Angus turned away, but a moment too late. The tip of the blade ripped a shallow furrow in his over tunic, opening the flesh underneath in a neat red line. Royce heard him hiss and stepped in to press the attack.

Angus’s blade swept out in a backhanded strike that Royce ducked under with ease. As the momentum of the swing carried Angus around, Royce kicked out, hard, and connected with Angus’s ankle. It didn’t snap, as Royce had hoped it would, but it buckled and sent Angus tripping over his own feet. He landed on the ground, not far from where Royce had been lying what seemed like a lifetime before.

A quick reverse of his blade and Royce drew it up over his head. He’d waited for this moment for so long. To strike Angus down and put an end to the daily beatings that filled the time between Royce’s other chores. His hand wavered, but only a moment, before he plunged the sword with all his might toward the seam in the chest of Angus’s armor.

It was the perfect killing blow, but his sword was struck aside at the last possible moment. Angus still gripped his blade and had knocked the tip of Royce’s sword away. He grinned up at his son with bloodstained teeth, his face a mask of crimson from the blood that had only just stopped pouring from his broken nose.

“There ya are, lad. I knew ya had it in ya.”

Royce stared at him. All the words he wanted to say seemed to cower in the back of his head. No matter how hard he tried to tell Angus how much he hated him, nothing would come. Instead, the words seemed to creep down into his belly, distilling into a vile poison that grew more powerful with every passing day. He wanted to smash the grin off Angus’s face, but he knew that if he tried, Angus would just punish him that much more.

Instead, Royce dropped his sword beside Angus and walked away. He didn’t know where he was going, nor did he care. All that mattered was that he get away from his father, the training field, and the unmanageable rage that welled up inside him.

“Come back here, boy!” Angus shouted.

Royce ignored him. He trudged the well-worn path from the training field toward the barn. The shouts followed Royce until he was out of earshot. He was tired. No, he was exhausted. But no matter how beaten and battered he was, the state of the farm managed to drive him further into the depths of despair.

Four years ago, the MacDungren family farm had been lush with life and love. Corn and wheat grew as tall as the eye could see in all directions. Cows, sheep, and chicken populated well-tended pastures and coops. Now all of that was gone. The crops had all be harvested, the fields tilled and left barren. The sheep had long been sold and taken to greener pastures. Only a few cows and a handful of fowl were left to remind the few works who remained how far and fast things had fallen.

In those days, Angus had been Captain of the Grand Army of the Imperium. He spent most of his time in Dragonfell, the capital, and Royce liked it that way. He’d never gotten to know his father. His earliest memories of the man were of him coming home on leave, spending a few days inspecting the farm as if it were one of his military units, and disappearing again. Royce wasn’t sure how many times over the years he’d seen Angus, but it couldn’t have been more than a handful. Namedays, Yule, and every other special day on the calendar was marked not by his father’s boisterous presence, but by Royce’s mother explaining, yet again, why Angus had to be away.

Sharyn MacDungren had been everything his father wasn’t. A loving, caring parent who doted on Royce as her only child. For as cold and distant as Angus was, Sharyn was open and engaging. No matter how many times he pondered the question, Royce would never understand how such a perfect woman could wind up handfasted to such an imperfect man. She seemed content with their arrangement, though, and never had an ill word to say about Angus, other than that she missed him terribly and sometimes wished his duties with the Grand Army would bring him closer to home.

It wasn’t as if she was without help. Royce did what he could to ensure the farm ran like a well-oiled Gnomish machine. Then there were the farmhands. Half a dozen strapping young men and a few young women who kept all the moving parts of the farm in perfect working order. They reported to Rand, a man who Royce though was much more suited to his mother than his father had been. Royce had spend the dawning years of his adolescence dreaming of what life would have been like with the strong, wiry blond as his father.

If Rand had ever had an interest in Sharyn beyond that of being her employee, he had never shown it. There was never so much of a whisper of impropriety from the farmhands, who loved gossip as much as they loved their drink. Rand would spend every day, from dawn to dusk, in the fields. He never expected any of his charges to do anything that he, himself, wouldn’t do. There were countless times that Rand had come in from the fields burned pink from his nose to his ears and would go back out again the next morning with a smile on his face and a jaunty whistled tune.

Then Sharyn’s health had turned. It started with a cough that wouldn’t be eased by any medicine the healer could bring. Her skin turned a waxy white, and she wasn’t even able to get out of her bed. Rand spent whole days in the farmhouse with Royce, taking care of her as best they could. They sent a messenger to Angus, who in turn, sent a Cleric of Lyrissa from Dragonfell. The elven woman did the best she could to make Sharyn comfortable, then asked to see Rand in private.

Rand and the cleric stood on the wide porch that wrapped around the farmhouse. It was a spring evening and the sun had just slipped beyond the western horizon. Firebugs danced in the feeble light of the rising moon. The night was warm and still and the air had the smells of springtime, filled with long grass and flowering Nightblooms. It was a perfect night. There was no way that Rand would have known that Royce was perched on the porch roof, enjoying the twinkling of stars that were just beginning to emerge.

That perfect night was when Royce had found out that his mother was dying. She didn’t have much time, the cleric said. The wasting disease had taken hold and spread with the intensity of a wildfire. Even the direct intervention of the Eternals wasn’t likely to save her, the cleric had said, her voice low and sad. Rand told her that he understood, and thanked the cleric for her service. He walked her to a waiting carriage while Royce tried to come to terms with the fact that his life, as well as his mother’s, was ending.

The cleric was right. Within four days, his mother was dead. Rand and the others dug a grave in the family plot. The farm maids dressed her in her finest gown and wove tiny white flowers in her night black hair. Rand sent a messenger to Angus, who replied that he was unable to return at once, but would be there as soon as possible. When the foreman handed him the letter to read, Royce had never hated his father more. Angus hadn’t been there for her in life. He couldn’t be there for her in death.

They buried Sharyn under the apple tree that shaded the family cemetery. Rand spoke a few words. The farmhands bowed their heads and held their wide-brimmed hats in their hands. The maids wept softly to themselves. Then it was over. The house seemed as if it had died with his mother. Royce wandered the empty rooms and tried to remember all the little things she’d done for him over the years. There was the big iron stove in the kitchen where she’d made him oatmeal. Then there was the fieldstone hearth in the common room, where she’d had Royce sit to clean and bandage his skinned knees from rambunctious play.

Never again would he feel her gentle touch, or hear the sweet, lilting sound of her laugh. If someone had to die, why couldn’t it have been Angus? A man who had done nothing for him, for them. Instead, Solendrea had been robbed of a gentle, graceful creature who had never hurt anyone.

Angus returned, but the farm never recovered. One by one, the fields were sold off to surrounding farms. The farmhands moved on. Then the maids. Only Rand remained to help with the rest of the farm duties. Angus isolated himself in his study, only coming out on rare occasions. It was as if Royce were living with a ghost. He didn’t understand why Angus was so devastated by the loss of his wife. He had barely ever seen her.

A breeze stirred across the field, bringing an acrid tang to Royce’s nose and knocking him out of his memories. He glanced up, toward the horizon, and saw a dark smudge hanging there, low over the ground. Thick billows of black smoke were wafting skyward. His pain and anger forgotten, Royce slipped into sphere sight. His spirit raced down the path, faster than his physical body could ever move. There, in the shimmering silver-white of the Living Memory, he saw something that made his blood run cold.

The barn was on fire. He released his hold on the Quintessential Sphere, allowing his spirit to snap back into his body. He ignored the slight nausea. Royce’s fingers tore at the buckles on the armor he wore, bloodying his fingers as he tried to get free of the encumbrance. He ran, shedding pieces of armor as he went, like a snake during molt.

Royce ran with every ounce of strength and power left in him. He pushed back his fear, calling forward memories of swift horses and blowing winds, and used those memories to force the Quintessential Sphere to grant him speed that few other humans could match. The sounds that reached him as he ran were almost enough to break his concentration, but somehow he managed to hold on.

Red orange flames consumed the entire barn. The flames were so intense that Royce didn’t know how the building was still standing. As if in response to his frantic thought, part of the roof gave way, plummeting into the inferno. Animals inside screamed in terror and somewhere in the cacophony, Rand was begging for help.

Copyright 2015 Martin F. Hengst. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication without permission from the author is strictly prohibited.

 

 

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New Directions, New Challenges

If you’ve visited the blog in the past, you’ve noticed a dramatic change. Gone are all the promotional posts, leaving only the useful content. Starting now, promotional and news items will only be posted to my Facebook page and Twitter.

I made this decision because I want the blog to be more of a resource for myself and the people who enjoy reading my stories. I’ve made a commitment to myself, and to those who come here by extension, to post much more frequently and to post about more than when the next book is on sale or what the next promotion is.

I’m not sure what path these new posts will take yet. I know that I have some snippets of projects that I’m working on that I would like to share with everyone as they work through the process of creation. What else ends up in this space remains to be seen.

I hope you’ll check back often and share your thoughts and opinions on what I post. Your engagement is the best thanks I can get for sharing the myriad of twisted thoughts tumbling around in my head.

As always, thanks for reading!

~MFHengst

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