Sunday Sneak Peek 9/8

Sneak Peek Sunday is a weekly blog hop in which writers are challenged to post six paragraphs, no more and no less, from a published work or work in progress and then invite other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love! Today’s Sneak Peek, like all my snippet-producing posts for the immediate future, is from The Last Hour of Gann, picking up where yesterday’s WeWriWa left off and continuing with Wednesday’s Hump Day Hook. So read, enjoy, and don’t forget to let me know if you want to enter my Gann Giveaway!

Meoraq tightened his bootstraps and loin-plate and finally glared at the table where his weapons awaited him. The abbot had requested, as all of them did, that he not go armed within Sheul’s House. Meoraq’s usual reply to this was that all the world was Sheul’s House and he went where directed ever-ready to do Sheul’s work, but having the right to be an arrogant ass whenever the whim took him did not make it an obligation and this abbot was a better man than most.

He put his travel-harness on over his wet tunic and clipped the great hook of his beast-killing kzung at his hip. Its weight was an immediate comfort to him. Next came the long, wide samr, sheathed and slung across his back to be drawn against those whose crimes either did not merit or could not wait for trial. Last of all, his honor-knives, the slender sabks, buckled high on his arms. They were meant only for the arena in the sight of Sheul and frequently used in the wildlands for all manner of menial work. If his years of service had taught Meoraq nothing else, it had taught him that one could not skin a saoq with a blade as long as one’s arm. If Sheul saw it as disgrace, He had never let Meoraq know.

A soft knock upon his door. A familiar sound these past many nights. Not a priest.

“Enter,” Meoraq called without turning. “And stand.”

She had already taken her first steps toward him. Now they faltered to a stop. Her voice was as hesitant as her footsteps. “Sir?”

“Sheul calls and I go to answer. You have done well in your service to me,” he added, damned generously. “Go in my favor.”