Goals for 2020

This year, I'm going to keep it even simpler than last year. There's only one goal I'm going to acknowledge publicly, which is to finish The Dragons of Asdanund. I'm about 75,000 words into the first draft, so I should be able to finish that fairly soon and start editing it. I have a few other things I want to do and probably will, but I'll announce those as and when they happen.

Since you've been patient, here's the beginning of The Dragons of Asdanund. It follows on from the end of the previous book, The Mirrors of Elangir. Be warned that it has some big spoilers for that book...

A drizzly mist had descended by the time we got close enough to Glorious to hail her. To nobody’s surprise, the lookout’s shouts produced no response. The warship hadn’t moved since we spotted her an hour ago. She seemed to be tilting to one side. Had she struck a rock? I’d thought the sea was quite deep here.

“Raltarn!” My father called to me from the main deck, where he stood by my uncle, Tomaz. I still hadn’t got used to his being alive after a decade of believing he’d been killed in a burglary gone wrong… and I still hadn’t quite forgiven Uncle for not telling me the truth about him.

When I reached them, Father gestured to Uncle and said, “Will you talk some sense into him?”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“The Captain wants to send the boat over to the warship,” said Father.

“I don’t see that’s any concern of ours,” I said. “Besides, if this mist settles, we’re stuck here until the wind gets up enough to clear it.”

“No good will come of this,” Father replied. “There’s nobody above deck. Half her sails are missing, and the rest are frittered. But she couldn’t have been caught in a storm, because she was only half a day ahead of us. And she’s not flying a distress flag, so whatever happened happened quickly.”

“If there’s something around here that’s a danger to a warship,” I said, “we ought to know about it.”

“No,” said Father, “we ought to get away from it.”

“If the Captain wants to investigate,” said Uncle, “we investigate.”

“You’re his employers,” said Father. “Tell him you’re in a hurry to get back to Asdanund.”

“We are,” I replied, “but the Captain of the Glorious said we were obliged to help them under the Emergency Articles or whatever it was. He never rescinded that order, as far as I know.”

“He abandoned you!” Father exclaimed.

“We abandoned him, strictly speaking,” said Uncle. “And even without the Emergency Articles, what about the well-being of your fellow men?”

“I’ve never known you to show much concern for that,” Father muttered.

A splash from the other side of the ship told me that our boat had been launched.

Father watched men climbing over the railing to descend to the boat before saying to Uncle, “Admit it—​you’re hoping the Elangics who Buronoskol put on that ship went mad and killed everyone, so you can help yourself to the artefacts he gave them.”

Uncle snorted. “If that is what I want, what are you so worried about?”

Father’s gaze returned to Glorious. “That not all of them are dead.”