Another sword and sorcery tale finished
Just finished what I hope are the final touches to a new sword and sorcery tale, tentatively titled Lies and Treachery.
It's quite a long story (11,100 words) and is my third involving a northern mercenary called Horbeck. He first appears in an as yet unpublished tale called The Unhappy Inquisitor, in which he is a secondary character. The second is in The Demon from Another World, in which this time he is the main character. This is to be published at the end of October in Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium from Treeshaker Books.
From the opening paragraph of Lies and Treachery:
"It was less than a day since thefour mercenaries on their stolen camels reached the end of the Great Desert.Scorched by the sun, they were a desperate-looking band of men. Horbeck, theirerstwhile leader, was a huge Northerner, fully a head taller than any of theothers, his plaited beard and long hair bleached almost white and filled withdust. The scarred mail beneath his leather jerkin showed through rents in thebadly worn garment. Like all the others he wore a plain, much dented steelhelmet. The other northerner, Brud, was slightly shorter but built to the samehardy proportions, with a notched battle-axe swinging from his saddle. Back inhis homeland he would usually have had the severed heads of those he hadvanquished hung alongside it but in more civilised lands he had been persuadedto forgo this touch of vanity. Asnar, a Josanian archer with a sharply-pointed blue-blackbeard in need of a trim, wore lacquered leather armour, though its colours hadbeen dulled and the bright designs on his broad breastplate were barelydiscernible. A scimitar hung in a gaudy sheath across his back. Completingtheir disreputable quartet, Bolbo, a balding Kossanian with a savage scar onone cheek, was the oldest of their group - and a poor rider of camels. Evenafter weeks of travel across the desert he clung onto his mount with steelydesperation, his teeth gritted. His scarlet tunic had been drained of all butthe faintest hint of colour by the sun while the old steel breastplate beneathwas scored and dented from all the blows inflicted on it over the years."
