Brendan Carroll's Blog: Working my way back - Posts Tagged "assassin-chronicles"

The nineteenth book in the Assassin Chronicles series is now available for $2.99 at the Amazon Kindle Store. I will begin working on the paperback version ASAP. I hope that my fans will continue to read about the Knight of Death's misfortunate adventures. Thank you all! Happy Reading!

The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death is being featured today at: http://www.thefrugalereader.com/

A good friend of mine is opening a new website on November 15 and will offer reviews, interviews, blogs and a place to post book trailers for Indie Authors. She will be doing some advertising on Google, Facebook and Yahoo and will sell ads to Indie authors for 'cheap prices'. Ha! She knows a few indie authors.

I have had a sneak preview and it looks pretty good. She will make the ads if you like, help with beta-reading, editing for spelling and grammar and book covers.

Worth checking into in my humble opinion. Indie Authors need all the help they can get to put their names out there.

A new interview is up for me at Laura Vosika's blogsite. Stop by and read. Leave a comment and browse the site for more interesting articles.
http://bluebellstrilogy.blogspot.com/...Laura Vosika

Sometimes when talking about the Assassin Chronicles, I tend to forget that the main character is truly a man with a problem (actually several of them). He drinks too much Scotch. He's grumpy, impatient, intolerant, dangerous, brooding. He not only has one nasty job as Assassin for a clandestine organization known as the Red Cross of Gold Order of the Poor Knights of Solomon's Temple, he also has a long title and an equally long name (that unfolds as the series goes) to bear up under. He doesn't like strawberries or kiwis and he doesn't like to think much if he can help it. Since his reclusive personality keeps him deep in the heart of Scotland and far from the Temple's HQ in sunny, southern Italy, he also has a secondary job in his dungeon-like basement where he makes gold out of base metals for the Order's financial needs. Top it all off with the fact that he is extremely old and doesn't get along very well with women. His weapon of choice is an ancient sword made of braided gold called the Golden Sword of the Cherubim. He likes things simple, but a deep, dark secret he has held for over eight centuries brings him a great deal of grief when it finally comes to light. Yes, there is blood and a bit of guts and glory in the Assassin's Chronicles, so if you see me writing about faeries and knights and mystic horses, don't forget to keep your guard up, your armor on and your helmet within reach.
I don't know if I would call the series a dark fantasy like David Dalglish's Half-Orc series, but they are not exactly light romance. There's plenty of darkness, evil and mayhem for the fans, but maybe not so much graphic blood and sex. Enough for me. I do wish my fans and readers would let me know if they want more blood and guts or sex or what. I guess they are OK with them the way they are.

As soon as the Amazon meatgrinder publishes my latest release, I will be able to offer the first two volumes of the Assassin Chronicles for a discounted price of $3.99. That is two dollars off the price of buying them separately. That would be Book I:. The Knight of Death and Book II:. The King of Terrors.
I'll be back as soon as it clears the chute to let everyone know it is available.

The Red Cross of Gold II:. The King of Terrors

Chapter Ten of Twenty-Five
Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.


“Valentino was right!” Mark Andrew raised his head and coughed out the words before blowing his nose loudly in his handkerchief. “Merry had no interest in me, Brother. She has what she wants…. My son! I was a fool, Lucio. Again.”

“You are taking this too hard, Brother,” Lucio tried to talk to him. It was useless. It sickened him to hear Mark Andrew speak of Merry in such terms. His Brother was in the deepest despair, but he no longer seemed as angry as before. Lucio had never witnessed such depth of feelings for any woman. The Will of God was a comforting thing in deed. The blame for everything good and evil could be attributed to this one thing though he hardly thought the Creator capable of creating evil, he did feel that evil was something that God allowed one to bring upon one’s self in order to teach life’s lessons. It seemed a shame to him that Mark learned his lessons in such a harsh manner. But even the immense emotional suffering of his Brother gave him a twinge of jealousy.

“How could I have been so stupid? So arrogant?” Mark was a bit calmer now, but his voice was still hoarse from crying. “Tell me, Brother. And what did she do to poison the boy against me so that he can’t even speak to me? He was terrified of me. Tell me, Brother!”

“I can’t tell you anything,” Lucio sighed. “I would have had to hear it myself to judge. It is not the end of the world.”

“No? Oh, yes, that’s right,” Mark’s tone changed. He rolled down the window and threw the monogrammed handkerchief into the wind viciously. “What was I thinking? That’s what we’re waiting on. The end of the world so we can go into battle for God. God… who has done this to me. And to you.”

“No,” Lucio looked at him in alarm. “You must not say such things! It is dangerous.”

“Dangerous! I’ll tell you what is dangerous, Brother,” Mark Andrew slammed his fist against the dash of the car again. Certainly they would have to buy the whole car if he kept destroying it. “The company of women is dangerous. Just like the damned Rule says.”

Lucio sighed. He could not have imagined this would happen, but it was understandable. Seven years was, after all, a long time in a normal life. Perhaps not to the Council of Twelve, but to the rest of the world, it was a long time. He only wished that he could have spoken with her on his Brother’s behalf. He wondered what Mark Andrew had said to her and could imagine what it might have been. Mark Andrew was good on paper. It was Lucio Dambretti who had the silver tongue. Ramsay should have sent him as an emissary as had been the custom of old. He could have arranged everything, he felt sure. He could have had her primed and ready to say ‘I do’ even as Mark Andrew walked through her door. And he could have drawn up the marriage agreement as well, but the world had changed.

“Perhaps you need a mediator,” he suggested hopefully.

“For what?” Mark looked at him and then put his hand over his mouth. “Pull over.”

Lucio bounced the car off the highway and barely missing a large rural mailbox before he managed to stop. Mark Andrew opened the door and crawled out on the side of the road. Lucio sat under the steering wheel staring at the next mailbox, wondering who else lived out here in this godforsaken country. It was the same stretch of deserted country highway where the cows had attacked the van that he and Simon d’Ornan had been waiting in for Sir Beaujold. He looked around quickly in the moonlight, but saw no cattle in the pastures beyond the fencing. He climbed out of the car and went round to find his Brother heaving up his latest meal. An unnerving sight. The Italian tried to remember the last time he had seen his Brother sick…. A long, long time ago. Roasted rat did not agree with the Scot’s constitution any more than a broken heart it would seem.
When he was done, Lucio helped him up and offered his own monogrammed handkerchief. Mark snatched the cloth, wiped his mouth and threw it in the ditch without hesitation.

“It is the Will of God, Brother,” Lucio told him and received a punch in his ribs from Ramsay’s elbow as the man suddenly turned on him.

“Don’t tell me about the Will of God!” Mark shouted at him and shoved him back against the fender of the car. “If He were here this moment I would show Him the edge of my sword.”

“You are beside yourself, Brother,” Lucio lowered his head and rubbed his tender ribs. He had never heard anyone express a desire to kill God. He knew that Mark Andrew was only taking out his frustration on the nearest object… himself. It had happened many times before, just not quite this bad. He should have seen it coming.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mark continued and pressed his hands to the sides of his head. “I would kill Him and set the world free of his tyranny.”

“I know enough to know that you are out of your mind with grief and you don’t know what you are saying,” Lucio told him and then had to duck as Mark Andrew took a swing at him.

Lucio backed around the front of the car to get away from him. There was no telling what the man would do if the Italian allowed him to knock him out here in the middle of nowhere.
“Don’t do this, Brother,” Lucio warned him.

Mark Andrew was in a fit of rage. Words were useless. The Italian was suddenly very grateful that the golden sword was carefully tucked into the trunk of the car when the Scot swung at him again.
Lucio dodged the heavy-handed shots and waited for the opportune moment to present itself. He let him swing again and then punched him once in his weakest spot, his stomach. Mark doubled over. Lucio grabbed his shoulder, pulled him up and delivered one well placed blow on his jaw. He had done it before. Too simple. All you had to know was where the weak spots. He caught his Brother up under the arms and deposited him back in the car before slamming the door.

“It is the Will of God, whether you agree or not,” he said with finality as he dusted off his hands.

For the first 13 correct answers to the question below, I will give a free coupon for Books 1 & 2, Assassin Chronicles. And for the second 13 correct answers I will give a free coupon for Book 1, Assassin Chronicles, the Knight of Death.

Send your answers today BEFORE 9 PM to the question to BRENDANCARROLL7@GMAIL.COM :

WHY IS FRIDAY 13TH CONSIDERED BAD LUCK?

In the sixth book of the Assassin Chronicles, the Dragonslayer, the Knights of the Temple find themselves pitted against a dragon surrounded by an evil fairie horde. Time seems to be dragging as they wait for the battle to start. $2.99 at Amazon.

Mark Andrew laid back on the grass and wondered how many creatures he was crushing beneath him, but didn’t care. He was tired of waiting. The sun was slowly, inexorably sinking toward the tops of the trees. Lucio sat cross-legged in the grass perusing the edge of his sword.

“This dragon…” the Italian said off-handedly. “Where did it come from?”

“The dragon was brought here by the magician,” Sam told him from his perch on the white horse. The elf had rearranged himself from time to time, but had never dismounted. He now lay on his stomach across the saddle with his hands and his head hanging down one side of the horse. “There have been no dragons hereabouts in ages. None except for Adar and Marduk, of course.”

Lucio glanced at Mark Andrew. Adar, the dragon. Of course.

“So Marduk brought this dragon. Why? What for? Where did he get a dragon?” Lucio perked up.

“He created the dragon.” Sam raised his head and looked at the Knight of the Golden Eagle. “Dragons do not just… exist. They are made. Created. Conjured. Built. Manufactured. Constructed. Fashioned. Formed. Shaped. Reconstituted. Invented. You have to have a recipe.”

“I see,” Lucio shook his head. The elf was like a dictionary and a thesaurus combined. “And to what purpose has this dragon been… prepared.” The Knight was hard-pressed to find a different word to use.

“That I don’t know,” Sam sighed and pushed himself up and then sat cross-legged on the horse’s back facing its tail. “I’m sure it has a purpose, but I am not privy to it. In fact, I don’t want to know. I just want it gone. I believe that once we have defeated these creatures, the dragon will leave. It will have no other choice.”

“I see,” Lucio nodded. At least the elf had made no mention that they might have to fight this dragon. “What do you say, Brother?” He poked at Mark’s side with the hilt of his sword.

“I say this is the longest day I have ever lived,” Mark muttered and closed his eyes. “Will the sun never set?”

“Oh, it will set,” Sam told him confidently. “It always sets… over there.” He pointed with his arm to the left. “… and it always rises… over there.” He pointed with his other arm straight out in front of him and Lucio was puzzled by the 90 degree angle that should have been 180 degrees. The Knight glanced at Mark, but his eyes were closed. “What it rises upon is the question, not when. If we see it rise tomorrow, then it will be good. If not, well…we’ll never know.”

Lucio sat up taller and looked toward the cottage. Here they were about to die and Mark Andrew was bored! How so very typical of the Scot.

“Look, Brother. Our priest.” He nudged Mark again with the sword, this time with the pointed end and received a disgruntled glare for his intrusion.

Mark Andrew sat up and looked to where Lucio pointed. Simon had emerged from the house again. This time with Merry. They left the yard and set off across the meadow toward the woods. Merry carried one of the willow baskets under her arm.

“Where are they going?” Mark asked the elf.

“To look,” Sam yawned. “They always go out and look. Every day. They are looking for something.”

“A way out no doubt,” Lucio mused. “That’s what I would be doing.”

“Would it?” Mark looked at the Italian doubtfully. Lucio would have been doing much more than looking, Mark thought to himself ruefully. At least Simon had more control than the Knight of the Golden Eagle. Or at least Simon used to have more control. Who could know now?











Merry could not help but shoot curious glances at her companion from time to time. She was proud of her work. It had been a terrible ordeal. Simon would not stand still while she painted him and kept grabbing her arm and then letting go of her and grabbing her again. But she had finally accomplished the task and now he had his symbols on his face. He looked like a barbarian for sure, but no worse than herself with her white markings. He had immediately set about to wash it off once he’d seen it in the mirror, but it wouldn’t come off. Then there had been the terrible argument and then she had relented. She had tried to get the markings off him. It was useless. They were stuck with them now, like it or not.

“Do you think we will ever find the stairs?” she asked as they walked along. She looked for more herbs and grasses and leaves and flowers to put in her kettle and stopped occasionally to pick something from this bush or that plant.

“They must be here somewhere,” he said. “I don’t think we had those visions without purpose.”

“I never saw any of this in my dreams,” she told him as she pulled up a yellow flower by the roots, whispering a quick apology for killing it. “I don’t even know if this is the right place for that vision.”

“I don’t know either,” he said. “But we have to keep looking.”

“I have been wondering about the other powders.” She straightened up. “The red and the black.”

“They are nothing, I tell you. Some trick of the… the…” he grumbled as they started off again. He was still angry about the blue markings on his face and his hands. He was damned for sure now and they were walking very near the cave of the dragon. They needed to move on.

He could hear it singing even here.

“Let’s go to the dragon’s lair,” she suggested.

“What the Jiminy Bejesus…Why?!” he sputtered and turned to gape at her. “We’ve been there before. There are no stairs there.”

“We haven’t been in the cave,” she said. “Surely you don’t think the stairs would be out in the open?”

“No! And no.” He shook his head. “We’re going in the opposite direction.”

“All right,” she sighed. He was already mad at her and was just beginning to get over it. She didn’t want to provoke him again. At least she had gotten her way and tonight they would see if her magick had done any good. The runes and symbols on their faces should provide a measure of protection against the baneful faeries.

It's obvious that Meredith and Simon, the Healer, should not be mucking about in Mark's alchemy lab with Paddy Puffingtowne. And it probably is illegal!!

“That’s preposterous!” Merry leaned back and crossed her arms over her stomach. “I don’t care who he’s sleeping with, Paddy, pardon my French. I still love him as a Brother, just I still love Simon and Lucio. After everything I have brought upon his head, surely he doesn’t expect me to hold him at fault for having sought someone else’s attentions. Even if it is Elizabeth. I am not as petty as he might think. I am a Poor Knight of Solomon’s Temple just as much as any of my Brothers and I don’t think he can afford to turn down my help. Not if the picture you paint is accurate.”
“Now, now, lassie, ye dunna understand,” Paddy tried to calm her down a bit. “It’s not wot ye think atoll. ’e ’as ’is reasons fur not wantin’ ye thair and they air not somethin’ thot Paddy is at liberty t’ divulge. Trust me, lassie. Ye’d best respect ’is wishes in this matter. If ye truly love th’ king as ye say ye do, then ye’ll ’ave t’ trust ’im.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, Paddy Puffingtowne,” Merry said stubbornly. “I’ll not be left out of the Order’s business and I have a mind of my own.”
“Aye, thot ye do,” Paddy agreed whole-heartedly. “Ye’ve ’ardly troied th’ leaf. ’ave a smoke and tell me wot ye think.”
Merry stuck the pipe between her lips and took a deep draw on the stem. The ember glowed in the bowl and blue smoke went up to the ceiling. She coughed once and then took another puff. Simon reached past her and took the pipe Paddy had made for him. He turned up the wine, finishing off the last of the bottle before taking a draw off the pipe. His eyes widened and then he coughed worse than Merry.
Merry stopped coughing long enough to sputter “This is bound to be illegal, Paddy.” She looked at the clurichaun in consternation, took a long draw and then giggled.
“It takes yer moind off yer tribbles fur a whoile and a bit as Sam wud say, but it’s ’armless. I told ye thot ye wud loike it.”
Simon puffed on the pipe in fascination. Everything in the room seemed to turn blue in front of his eyes and some of the equipment on the table began to move about, dancing it seemed on long, gangly legs. He blinked rapidly and then drank the down the last of the wine in the glass.
“Dragon’s Blood,” he said again softly. “Dragon’s Blood.”
“What about Dragon’s Blood?” Merry turned to look at him with her pipe still clutched between her perfect teeth.
“Brother Ramsay told me that the Mad Arab was trying to make Dragon’s Blood,” Simon told her and continued to watch as the tripod danced across the counter with a brass bowl following after it. The Erlenmeyer flask began to melt into a puddle. He reached out one finger cautiously to touch the glass. It appeared to cling to his finger in a long stringer of melted glass, but did not burn him. He held his finger up and looked at the crystal filament hanging from it.
“Stop thot!” Paddy laughed and admonished the Healer. He scooted across the counter and took the glass filament from Simon’s finger and laid it on the counter. “Ye’ve ruined th’ gloss now and Andy will be mad as an auld wet hen when ’e comes ’ome and foinds ’is equipment in a shambles.”
Merry turned to look at the melted flask and the dancing tripod.
“How did you do that, Brother?” she asked and took some of the glass up on her own finger.
“Ye’re goin’ t’ cut yerself,” Paddy warned her a bit too late as the thin glass snapped and poked her finger at the same time. A drop of blood emerged, bright red. “I shudna give ye th’ blue,” he said and slapped one hand against his forehead. “I didna realoize thot twud be so powerful in th’ overwarld.”
Merry watched the single drop of blood on her finger as it grew and then dripped slowly onto the table.
Simon focused on it and the blood expanded, forming itself into the shape of a tiny red dragon with black wings. It reared its head and spouted a tiny flash of fire before taking flight about the room.
“Stop it. Stop it.” Paddy reached to take the pipes from them. “Holy mackerel!” he said as he slid from the counter and went chasing after the miniature beast.
Merry giggled and laughed and pressed her hands over her mouth like a little girl.
Simon tried to suppress a laugh, wheezed and coughed and burst out laughing. A bright blue butterfly emerged from his mouth and fluttered about the room.
“Oll right. Thot does it!” Paddy came to take the Healer’s arm. “I’m takin’ ye up t’ yer woife.”
“Oh, noooo.” Simon shook his head. “Thot wudna do atoll.”

I have been included on Marsha Canham's blogsite today with a guest blog and a sample of my work. Please take a look at:

http://marshacanham.wordpress.com/201...
3/sample-sunday-all-about-fantasy-knights-or-nights-or-both-s/