L.G. Surgeson's Blog, page 10

Extremely open-minded Clerics

Jocelyn did the lion’s share of the talking, leaving the others to the odd sentence here or there. She introduced her partner as Brother Bernard. The clearly religious horrific caused the Chaos followers to bristle, although they were too busy being sullenly paranoid to actually say anything rude.

“We’re missionaries from the Temple of Reverential Justice in Port Selliar,” explained Jocelyn when she noted the reaction. Derek was the first to choke out the words

“So you’re Law Clerics?”

This was rarely good news, given how many adventurers were technically some kind of criminal, never mind about those who willingly followed the ways of Chaos.

“Yes,” said Jocelyn enthusiastically, then on seeing the look of poorly concealed horror on Derek’s face she added, “but it’s okay, we’re very open-minded.”

This comment lead to a snort from Morwenna that Iona translated as ‘challenge accepted’. This statement also troubled Derek, who was familiar with many clerical definitions of ‘open-minded’ including ‘we don’t insist on that you remain silent on the high-day’ and ‘we don’t always execute infidels who make fun of our relics.”

You can tell she’s a lady…

A polite cough disturbed Iona’s train of thought and she looked up to see her housekeeper standing in the study door way with a complex expression questioning look on her face and a towering militia officer with his helmet tucked under his arm standing behind her.

“Thank you Leonora,” she said rising carefully from her seat and meeting the woman’s quizzical look with a ‘your guess is as good as mine’ expression. “Do come in officer. Close the door and tell Shayla we’d like some tea, thank you Leonora.” She motioned for the officer to step into the room and gave Leonora another complicated glance that said ‘don’t wander too far when you’ve closed the door’. Then she turned to the officer, who she could tell was a corporal now she could see the rank stripe on his sleeve. Clearly this wasn’t too serious a visit, most of the things she expected the militia to call on her about were matters for more senior officers. Relaxing slightly, although not entirely, she smiled at the corporal. Then she turned to her desk and flicked the folder shut, covering the plan she had just been reviewing. Reminding herself that she was a Lady and therefore gracious under pressure, she indicated that the officer should take a seat by the window, as far from her desk as it was possible to sit. Perching opposite him on the edge of the armchair by the fireplace, she said in a honey-sweet voice,

“I’m sure you are aware that I am Lady Iona, Duchess of Pringle.” It was a small cruelty that brightened her day, watching the officer trying to work out whether he ought to stand up, where to look and whether to offer her a hand or not. “And you are?”

“I’m Corporal Elvin Fisher,” grumbled the militiaman, addressing his naval and keeping his gaze fixed on his boots.

“Very pleased to meet you,” lied Iona charmingly, offering the corporal a hand to shake, which he accepted warily. “Now corporal, how can I help you?” She smiled trying not to bare her teeth.

“Um, it’s like this, your Lady-ship,” he said uncomfortably, staggering over the word lady-ship. “I’m one of the duty officers at the Docklands Militia Base. It’s about two miscreants we’ve got in custody down at the Docklands nick. We’ve had a request from the clink, I mean the gaol house, for you to bail them out, and truth be told we’d be most grateful if you was in the position to oblige. They’re playing merry wossname with the duty officer apparently, saying they was only performing and that as members of the Bard’s Guild they’re entitled to perform anything they liked. We’ve put them in the end cell but they’re still creatin’.” At this point Iona’s face was fighting against a cacophony of expressions. Already she was entirely certain who these two gaol birds were and she was torn between blind fury, side-splitting laughter and polite confusion. It made her look as though she was suppressing a sneeze.

“Really?” she said to the now beleaguered looking corporal, “How dreadful.” As she said dreadful a snort of amusement escaped, which the corporal took for a sneeze and uttered ‘bless you,’ under his breath. “What are the names of these miscreants? It is possible they might be associates or tenants of mine.” The officer dipped into his pocket and pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket.

“The name they originally gave us was ‘The Amazing Bazooka Sisters’, then they claimed to be Sister Daisy and Mori Silerbanis, then one of them claimed she was a personal friend of the Frisian Ambassador and the other one was his mistress.” At this point, the poor man cleared his throat and continued valiantly. “After an hour in the stockade they finally admitted to being called Bread and Butter Pudding and Custard the Goblin of the Aberddu Chaos Temple and Miss Clara Euphemistia Cropper of no fixed abode.” As he read out the names he flushed red with embarrassment. Managing to contain her mirth, Iona nodded with mock solemnity.

“I am aware of both these, what was the word you used? Miscreants, and I am in a position to pay the bonds on both of them. How much is it?”

“Seventeen florins the pair, and you’ll have to come down to the militia building to sign the papers,” he said with a look of gleeful optimism dawning in his eyes. He had clearly thought this a fool’s errand but now it seemed likely that he might actually return to the base victorious.

“Give me five minutes to collect my things and bring the chaise around,” said Iona with an edge of well-mannered exasperation, “and we’ll go.”

When, twenty minutes later, Iona drew her well known chaise and greys up outside the Docklands militia base, every eye in the street was on her and the embarrassed officer that had just jumped down from the passenger seat. Very few people would be presumptuous enough to leave a vehicle of this quality parked in this neighbourhood but Iona dared. No thief in their right mind, or even a wilful child with a piece of chalk, would lay their hand on Iona Pringle’s chaise. The militia officer opened his mouth to suggest it was unwise but before he could get the words out she turned to him and with a wry smile said,

“I’m sure the illustrious citizens of Aberddu can be trusted not to steal a cart belonging to a widow-woman from outside of a militia building.” Then, she turned smartly on her heels and headed towards the open door of the base before he could object.

In the entrance hall, a cat fight between to dockland streetwalkers was being tentatively managed by a massive sweaty militiaman who had them both by the hair and had pushed them each to arms length. His shiny face was turned to one side to keep it out of scratching and spitting range. Around the edge of the room a gang of their colleagues, each in a set of heavy steel cuffs and still dressed in their working clothes, were participating in some colourful social commentary at the top of their voices.

Beyond the shrieking and cursing prostitutes, Iona could hear the usual after dark remonstrations coming from the ground floor cells. She stopped by the door, removed her gloves and hat and without batting an eye lid turned to Corporal Fisher and said,

“Do lead on,”

“Er, yeah,” he mumbled, now regretting his success in getting Lady Pringle to accompany him down to the base. Between her unguarded chaise and the fact she didn’t seem to have any sense of self-preservation in the face of a bunch of cat fighting hookers, he had a feeling things were going to end badly. “Walk this way your lady-ship”

With some trepidation, he lead her across the crowded hall and down the narrow stairs. He knocked on the door at the bottom and was let through by a squat, disgruntled woman in a green tabard who handed him a large ring of keys without a word. Picking up her skirts so that she had a good three inches of clearance, Iona took a step on to the foul floor of the corridor. She had heard Pudding and Clara the moment she had passed through the doorway. It really was a masterful talent they had between for creating an Indaba even whilst incarcerated. Iona allowed herself a private smirk as she heard Pudding serenading an irate gaoler with the old music hall favourite “I like it like a well boiled ham, firm and pink and juicy.” The atonal section as she escalated to the middle eight was a stroke of genius.

Corporal Fisher turned to Iona and shouted over the cacophony of singing and the shouts of the other prisoners for her to stop,

“As I said, we would be most grateful if you would pay the bonds for them.” Iona nodded, having managed to chorale her face back to polite compliance just in time. “If you come this way, you can have a brief word with them before the private takes you up to the office to fill out the bonds.”

“Thank you,” said Iona graciously as she tiptoed through the effluent on the gaol floor fighting back the urge to ask them when the last time they had hosed it down. She had actually walked through cleaner sewers, no wonder people complained about militia detention. It was a long walk to the end of a long narrow corridor with cells either side, the occupants either hunched in the shadows or catcalling at her and flailing through the bars. Then, faced with a t-junction she followed Fisher to the left passed a cell of arguing pickpockets some of whom she recognised. Neither she nor they acknowledged this acquaintance as she passed, they just came to the grille to watch what was happening.

Clara and Pudding were in the cell at the end just as Fisher had said and when Iona came into view Pudding stopped in the middle of the second verse of “Well Boiled Ham” and they broke into a chorus of the far less subtle “You can tell she’s a Lady by what she charges,” in glorious two part disharmony. They were clearly steaming drunk and judging by the state of them had either fallen into someone’s cesspit or Doc Loladge’s city slurry works. They looked almost exactly the same as they had when Iona had importuned them on Fisherman’s Walk, apart from the fact they were even dirtier, there were no apples, Pudding was actually wearing her hat and Clara had been swamped by a large woollen coat that dragged on the floor as she hopped about in the cells. Iona sighed and immediately regretted taking such a deep breath.

“Shut it you two,” she hissed before Corporal Fisher had the chance to bark any recrimination. “You’ve got some explaining to do.” Clara and Pudding shut up immediately and looked at Iona with mock shame. Infuriated that Iona’s hissing had succeeded where his threats and taunts had failed, the gaoler glowered. “And this’ll be coming out of your wages,” Iona added smartly as she turned her back on them and took herself back to the stairs. 

A conspicuous lack of goblins

- free extract ‘The Winter Follows’ book 2 the Aberddu Adventures.

Charlie heaved the barrel up through the trap door and lumped it down beside the other two. It was unusually quiet this morning. The Law Temple nine-hour bell had rung long since, and yet there was no noise in the street. He wiped his forehead and hands with his apron and went to the door of the Tavern.

Charlie was used to goblins, some of his best customers were goblins. In fairness he didn’t have many customers that weren’t goblins – which is what happens if you open a bar called ‘The Startling Toad’. Today, however, was suffering from a conspicuous lack of goblins and the sound of no goblins always made Charlie nervous. It usually meant they were up to something. Mind you, goblins were up to something whether you could hear them or not, but if you couldn’t hear them it meant they were up to something organised.

Charlie was still recovering from the chicken rustling plot of 1099ac, he couldn’t live through that again – green-skins, militia, and chicken feathers everywhere and he was still finding grain in places he could have sworn he had cleaned. He tried to rack his brains, what had he heard? One of them had been muttering about the Temple district he thought, and another couple had been mumbling about the Adventurers Guild. He hoped it was the Temple District. It was already a pile of rubble and therefore there wasn’t much more damage they could really do to it.

If it was the Adventurers Guild things were not likely to go so well. The combination of a bunch of self-obsessed hero types and a load of piss-head goblin dock-hands was not something that Charlie wanted to contemplate at this hour of the day.

[contact-form]

A Quiet Life – from ‘The Winter Follows’ Book 2 of the AA Chronicles

Sylas had possibly lucked out even more than Tollie; he had been assigned to the cook-house. Tollie still couldn’t get used to Sylas with short hair.  It made his ears stick out. He might have to get up before everyone else but he was excused morning drill and he got extra portions at meals. Several of the other cook patrol thought this was more like a punishment than a bonus and complained constantly. Sylas didn’t point out that army food might be bland and homogeneous but at least it was better than quite a lot of the things he had eaten over the years – mainly because he hadn’t had to shoot it, gut it or skin it and it didn’t come with a face. None of the rations came with faces or feet or bones for that matter. This had led to several troubling rumours that the Frisians were breeding demons specifically for the purposes of feeding the army. Again, Sylas wasn’t bothered by this. The chunks of meat that came through were protein-rich, easy to cook and tasted better than badger, hedgehog or squirrel. 

Dawn of Darkness – Free this weekend!

Dawn of Darkness – Free this weekend!

A promotional offer – Dawn of Darkness, free to download this weekend. Just follow the link and tell the world!

Summer of Fire – Coming Soon – Free Extract 3

Summer of Fire has now gone to the editor and cover artist and will hopefully be available soon (unless it needs a massive re-write). 

 

“Oh that poor little mite,” cooed the tailor’s wife. “She must be frozen solid in that thin little dress in this weather.”

“She’s almost as thin as that dress,” fussed the baker’s wife, “I wonder when she’s last had a decent feed.”

“Oh Gods love her,” whispered the preacher’s wife, “it’s no life.”

The three women were clutched together in a huddle in the village square waiting for the carter with lists and baskets of goods to trade. The small girl in the pink shift with the moth-eaten woollen shawl was across the muddy grass, kicking the heels of her holey boots against the wall of the Inn. She looked so forlorn beneath her bush of untidy hair with her pale, bony limbs. She seemed tall for her age they thought and quite unfortunate in the face but that didn’t stop them being compassionate. There was a sharp gust of wind pushing an unpleasant splatter of rain out of the menacing grey clouds. The girl sneezed and clutched her head, the three women let out low sighs of pity and scurried for the shelter of the large sycamore.

Ten minutes later, when the squall had passed and the women had emerged from the protection of the tree shaking water from their cloaks, they hurried over to the poor little mite who was now shivering, her sodden dress clinging to her gaunt frame. The cleric’s wife took off her own cloak and wrapped the child in it. The baker’s wife pressed a plaited bread roll from the trade basket into her ice cold hand. It was still warm from the bake oven, and the Baker’s wife hoped it would warm her before she ate it. The girl smiled wistfully in thanks, her soulful eyes speaking volumes to the kind hearts of the three women.

They were still fussing over her when her bearded monstrosity of a father swanned out of the Inn five minutes later, dry as a bone in a heavy canvas coat. With pointed looks, they nodded their greetings to him and departed muttering under their breath, the cleric’s wife taking her cloak as she went. Grabbing the girl savagely by the hand, the bearded man dragged her away around the side of the Inn and out of the women’s sight. They were left, lips pursed, shaking their heads.

“What the hell do you think you were doing?” growled the man, through the rough fur of his beard.

“Nothing,” replied the girl sulkily, through a mouthful of bread. “They felt sorry for me, that’s all. I didn’t do nothing.”

“Bloody marvellous,” grumbled the man, “give us some of that.” He held out a calloused hand expectantly.

“Sod off,” hissed the girl, her voice taking on a strangely masculine tone, “I’m frozen and you promised you were going to delouse this wig and patch this dress and you lied.”

“Oh poor baby,” snarled the man, scratching his chin vigorously. “At least you haven’t got half a badger’s backside glued to your chin.”

“Come on, let’s get back to the wagon,” muttered Sylas, taking another bite out of the bread roll and chewing thoroughly. He probably didn’t have enough spit left to swallow it quickly. “You have no idea how cold this wind is when there’s nothing between you and the air.”

Extract 2 – Summer of Fire.

GerVal was asleep and snoring like sludge descending a downspout when Daisy appeared three hours later looking pale and tense. The orc Danz and Clench the Goblin were wide awake and still on guard the others having sloped off to an alehouse the moment that GerVal had nodded off. They were balancing various different things on their sleeping leader in an effort to cover him in bits and pieces without waking him up. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t fallen asleep with his mouth open Daisy thought as she watched Clench trying to stick a snail on his dagger hilt. Heaven only knew where she had found the snail indoors but Daisy had decided it was best not to inquire.

Daisy never knew how to start talking to the Green skins. She wasn’t particularly good with people in the first place and from what she understood green-skins needed special handling – she wasn’t entirely sure why, it was just the impression she had been given. She cleared her throat and Danz looked up.

“Alrigh’” he said languidly. “Wha’s up?” Daisy shifted her weight from foot to foot, she did really know how to phrase her request, so she went for straight forward.

“We need the stuff, if you could bring it over that would be great.”

Danz nodded to her, winked and said “Right you are boss.” Daisy mumbled

“Thanks” uncomfortably and left as quickly as possible, unsure whether the use of the word boss was facetious or not.

When the green-skins arrived in the main hall laden down with the items they found Elor, sweat beading on his brow, surrounded by a gang of distracted, sombre-looking religious types.

“Excellent,” said Elor as he saw the three green-skins arrive. “If you could bring the items this way.”

Ger-Val, who still had one or two snails crawling up him and a salt spoon hanging out of his hair, was intrigued to note that Elor’s voice was quavering and as he approached he could see that the whole wizard was vibrating. Jarell the chinless seemed to be the only person in the room who wasn’t palpably nervous. Ger-Val thought that this was probably a pretty good indication that the silly sod had no notion what was actually going on because being a green-skin he was naturally suspicious of people who made claims about ridiculous things like destiny and divine provenance and turned down offers of liquor. 

Summer of Fire – taster extract 1

“Look at this,” said Elor and with a theatrical flourish he produced an ancient looking scroll. Mori cleared space on the table and Elor unrolled it. The surface of the cracked parchment was covered almost edge to edge with a tightly-packed florid script that had no visible punctuation. “It’s all in here,” said the wizard gleefully. “I copied this from an archaic text in the vaults of the Knowledge Library. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a hack job when it comes to the translation as I didn’t have my tomes with me, I may have accidentally mis-rotated the participles and I’ve slipped into slang here.” He tapped a section about three lines from the start of the writing and chuckled, then he looked up to find the adventurers looking incredulously back at him. Krieg looked as though Elor had just suggested he go into battle in a lady mage’s silk pyjamas, wearing a bonnet with a ribbon and a bunch of wax cherries on it. Pringle spoke first.

“Elor,” he said calmly, “I hope you’re not suggesting I try to read that. I may have had a wash and a shave but I’m still as drunk as a skunk and if I try to focus on that tiny writing I will most likely vomit. If you wouldn’t mind doing the honours.” Elor nodded and cleared his throat.

“Peace can not last forever, and disarray will fall on the house of the younger Gods. Quarrels and power play will turn to bitter rivalries and war will descend. The Elder One,” he paused cleared his throat uncomfortably and said, “I assume this is an allusion to the All-Father,” before continuing in a more scholarly and slow tone, “will return to the world to confront his offspring and they will rise up and fight. A mortal champion will stand against the Father, again I assume this to mean the All-Father, and will be armed by the Younger Gods.” He paused significantly and slowly the four adventurers nodded in recognition, Krieg and Daisy unconvincingly. “There have been subsequent scrolls and texts that talk about divine items gifted from above that invoke some kind of deific protection beyond the realms of even the most powerful priests. Some of them are obviously different legends about the same artefact, adding further credence to their existence. The temples are in uproar, well some of them at least. You may have noticed,” he looked over at Mori and Daisy and was surprised when Pringle said a very definite ‘yes’. “Anyway, to this end, I have located this.”

Elor showed them another scroll, with a picture of the helm and dutifully read to them the legend explaining it’s supposed location. He told them of the eastern Kingdom of Al’Raeth, where knowledge was power. A beautiful nation built amongst snow-capped mountains, the Al’Raethan people were protective of their wisdom and wary of strangers. Outlanders were permitted access to only a fraction of this knowledge, and were allowed to leave only with what they could commit to memory. It had taken Elor quite some time to track down enough pieces of the jigsaw to locate the Helm of Enigmas. The secretive Al’Raethan had buried it deep within in a cave system fearing its power might bring an uprising to disturb the millenium of peace they had experienced since the last cataclysm. The adventurers would need to be cautious and subtle, as he said this he looked at Krieg who returned an amused ‘what are you trying to say’ face.

Elor was surprised to see Mori scribbling down the information fastidiously in a leather-bound notebook. When Elor commented on this, she fixed him with another cutting glare and said,

“I understand it is illegal to make notes in Al’Raeth, but this being Aberddu I thought I’d take my chances,” and Pringle snorted with laughter. Elor was slowly having to conceded that perhaps he had misjudged these younger adventurers. With that, he handed his cheap copy of the world map and the routes to Krieg who gave them straight to Daisy to put in her bag. Then he put a small pouch of money down on the table and said,

“Right, leave as soon as you’re ready, this should get you supplies and passage. Try the market, they may have some horses.” Krieg lifted the pouch and snorted.

“Not for that they won’t, but I know a man who will,” then with a toothy grin he turned to Daisy and said, “Do dwarves ride horses?” 

The Summer of Fire – Draft 1 complete.

Book 1 (which I suppose is really book 4) is now complete in draft form. Just a gargantuan rewrite to follow before I release. Here’s a snippet from near the beginning (that may or may not make the cut). 

 

And so it began, as troubled times do, not with the dark sense of foreboding that hindsight would suggest but with the gradually building irritation born of knowing that your life will pan out to be less comfortable and easy than those generations before you. The slowly dawning knowledge that the world has laid some unwanted destiny at your door, that the tale of life has somehow scripted you as a hero and not merely a contented extra, is somewhat unpleasant. The poetic vicissitude of such times is lost on those who are unfortunate enough to live through them. Dreams of great deeds of sacrifice and courageousness are not dreamt by those who find themselves having to carry out those deeds when they had been planning a more salubrious and somewhat longer life.

It was not altogether true that those who were to sacrifice themselves in fulfilment of this destiny were planning a quiet life, nor is it true that they found their destiny as wholly unwanted as many. They were, for the most part at least, adventurers. A quiet life to them is like an empty classroom to a schoolmaster, appealing at first glance but soon to become tiresome and pointless.

However, if they were to choose, many would not elect a crusade of such proportion, preferring the relative peace of plunder and pillage. It is not, as has been mooted by some of the more philosophical observers of the adventurers art, their wish to simply travel the world killing people in new and interesting places. Whilst that is undoubtedly part of their remit, it is not their sole purpose. Simply killing people is a military life, not an adventuring one. To an adventurer, murder is merely a necessary side effect not a final goal. The final goal is often dependent on the individual but can usually be summarised as the pursuit of three things in some combination: fame, fortune and of course excitement. Some loftier adventurers have claimed they are interested in acquisition of knowledge, protection of innocents and the betterment of civilisation but they nevertheless expect their share of the more material spoils.

In light of these career goals, it seemed somehow strange that at the turn of the twelfth century, it was a group of adventurers that found themselves standing in the eye of a rapidly growing storm.

Salamander: End game

The final battle of the Summer of Fire was not the epic affair that legend suggested. The whole thing took barely twenty minutes all told, once the second party of Adventures arrived. This was such a disappointment to one particular Bard that he invented a ferocious storm, flaming drakes and a whole extra army. His story is far long, and probably more entertaining than this one, but not a faithful account of events in anyway.