Updates

The revisions on If Truth Dies has just passed the 79,000 word mark

Loyalty is still sitting at 55,000, but I’ll get back to that one soon.

Fireborn Law, first chapter

I’m rather fond of this chapter.  More behind the cut

CHAPTER ONE

LAWGIVER

Pandeena Moonbow rode into the quiet village of Running Horse at the southern edge of the mountain fastnesses of Clan Silverpaw. She had not been here in centuries, yet it had changed little. Cubs played along the streets: in human form wearing scruffy traditional robes; rolling, barking, and darting about in wolf form; two who had mastered the hybrid form wrestled near a horse trough. Myn walked the tree-shaded main street, most of them wearing the traditional wraparound robes with loose ties, made of embroidered cloth for the bitches and rope for the dogs. The human clothing styles, prevalent in some of the larger towns, had not yet reached Running Horse. She saw few males in trousers and shirt, and no bitches; which made Pandeena all the more conspicuous in her freeranger-style dark green leathers, trousers and jerkin with a pale brown shirt. She carried a Sharani longsword at her shoulder and a pair of lycan fighting knives at her hips. A two-chambered bow case rode beneath the flap on her heavy lycan saddle.

The Battle of Halidon Hill

I’m doing these in the order that they happened while I’m reading A Brief History of Medieval Warfare: the Rise and Fall of English Supremacy at Arms 1314 – 1485 by Peter Reid.

Edward III was king of England at this point, a twenty year old man heading for his first battle. No doubt, he received a lot of input from his military advisors, but ultimately the final decisions belonged to Edward. He besieged the town of Berwick, forcing the Scots to march to the relief of the town, and then set up to deal with them.

The terrain was two hills, Halidon Hill where the English deployed their forces; and Bothul Hill. Between the two hills was a wide bog. The Scots under Archibald Douglas, concerned about the possibility of being flanked by the English, chose to march the long way around Bothul Hill. Bothul Hill is taller than Halidon, so that might have masked some of the Scottish formation.

The English had learned a lot from the Battle of Bannockburn. Out of 20,000 men, 8,000 were archers.

Armor has gotten heavier and more complex for the mounted knights, and Reid postulates that full armor would have been too heavy for the Scots to make a 1,000 yard dash across the bog on foot. The boggy terrain sitting between the two hills would not work well for bringing the heavy cavalry through.

The Scots dismounted, formed their schiltroms, and came at the English on foot. Reid estimates that the English longbowmen, deployed on the flanks of the army, were able to loose about thirty arrows each in the three to four minute arrow storm that played havoc with the Scottish troops. The schiltroms that had made a mess of the English at Bannockburn were shredded. The Scots retreated and the English infantry and cavalry went after the survivors with orders to take no prisoners.

As 50ftAnt remarked in the comments to the previous military post, choosing your ground is important. At Bannockburn, the Scots had time to choose where to deal with the English. At Halidon Hill, the English had already set up entrenched positions for their archers and such, and they had the high ground.

Here’s a tempting treat for all of you

This is an excerpt from a work in progress by Tim Willard and me.

The Tree of Bellocar (From Mother Damnation)

Great bronze wheels shod in iron bracketed the hard rock maple cart, the exposed surface of the wooden planks stained with the blood of countless offerings. Within the cart, its roots sunk deep into the dirt filling it, a huge and gnarled old oak thrust its skeletal fingers into the sky. Not a single leaf decorated the massive tree, in place of leaves skulls dangled from bronze and copper wires, each skull carved with a miniature version of the skull festooned tree, filled in with rusted iron that left reddish stains on the skull as if the engraving had bled.

Each of the six of the huge carts were pulled forward by six braided copper cables, skulls woven into the cables, dangling free to display the fact that each skull had been dipped in iron and had a copper inlay of The Tree in miniature upon the forehead. Each cable was pulled by twenty-one half-bloods whose eyes were pierced by iron nails, who had bronze rods driven into their skulls through ears. The half-bloods were naked, their flesh, normally lean and emaciated appearing, was ample with rolls and layers of fat covering the muscles that pulled the carts forward. Upon their flesh was carved sigils of loyalty to Bellocar, and of ecstatic agony, the runes filled with an internal sickly green fire. Their feet were pierced by long thorns, plucked from the branches of the very trees they served, each step leaving a footprint of blood from each half-blood, creating a path of bloody footprints for the tree to travel over.

Around each tree, holding hands, stood priests in black and red robes. A stylized fireball, resembling a fist, done in orange and crimson and black upon their back completing the symbol of the Jihad of Fire. The symbol repeated on the ribbons hanging from the tree that were fluttering in an unfelt breeze. At the rear of the large carts were gongs, carved with the symbol of Bellocar, the same disease and skull decorated tree hammered into the bronze, surrounded by twisted runes glowing with a lurid purple light. A lesser blood was chained to each gong by heavy iron chains that were sunk into the blood’s chest. The gongman, clad only in a bronze mask of Bellocar and an iron skull with jaws wrapped around the blood’s genatilia, beat the gong slowly with a massive ebony rod with a striker cast in the shape of an iron skull whose eyes glowed a baleful red.. One on each side of the gong was a hornblower; the horn easily a dozen feet long and two feet wide at the end. Twisted runes that glowed with a ruddy orange light covering the horn’s surface. The horn blowers were female, masked with the visage of Bellocar, the end of the horn melded with the surface of the mask, and their flesh carved with symbols to the Lord of the HellGods that dripped blood down their skin and onto the skulls whose jaws were clamped to their breasts and their groin. On the outside of the rear rank stood drummers, who beat vast drums with sticks capped with bronze skulls. The drummer’s faces and chests were hidden behind bronze masks of Bellocar’s face, their genitalia gripped by the jaws of bronze skulls, and their legs were wrapped in strips of cloth died orange and black, lined with prayer runes that glowed with a purple light. They were beating the drums with fists covered by iron skulls adorned with the Tree of Bellocar wrought in polished brass. With each impact of the skulls upon the stretched skin, the beaten brass of the sides of the drum flared with different sigils, runes, mantras, and prayers, the light flaring with the impact, and fading to nothingness a heartbeat before the drum sounded again, and the runes flared again to life.

“THE TREE! THE TREE!” someone screamed, and Private Lwenious pulled his rifle off the sandbags, put the muzzle under his chin, and blew his own head off as he screamed, wild-eyed with terror. Jennings noted that the shot had sounded in time with the great bass booming of the drum. Several other shots sounded, and someone began screaming, a high animal noise of agony.
_______________________________________________________________

Hey Mikakke, this is real writing.

Grievence Committee

I’m hunting around for everything that the Committee needs to make Jean take down all of my books at various places. I need to spent a day digging through my filing cabinets for the contracts I signed. That and various emails I sent to her and her replies are also part of it. This might get sticky, but I’m working on it. I want to have everything tidied up when I send this next book to the agent who is interested. He informed me that the best thing I could do was to get all of my rights back so that some of them could become part of a package offering if he likes the new book.

At this point, it looks like the one I am going to send is Loyalty. It’s standing at just over 53k this morning. I ripped out a couple of scenes I thought no longer worked in light of the direction some earlier, newer scenes took. Once I start fleshing out a rough, it just grows and grows.

50ftAnt is an incredible writer and extremely knowledgeable. If Mother Damnation gets finished ahead of Loyalty (these things do happen), then it will go to the agent instead.

However, I am beginning to find myself drawn back toward working a bit more on Sins of Innocence. I love the pack of nasty sa’necari mercenaries I created for that one.

I have gone through a lot of agents over the years, including non-fiction agents. I need to empty all the trash containers and place one next to the filing cabinets (or maybe a dozen. ) It’s incredible how much shite I have stuffed into the cabinets that does not belong there or should have been tossed a long time ago. Such as ten year old and long ago paid off bills.

Mother Damnation

I have taken on a new collaborator on the Mother Damnation series. We are completely revising and pretty much gutting portions of the earlier book. 50ftAnt and I have a fabulous collaboration going.

I am extremely happy with it.

Mixed Bag

First the Nitwit news:

Dagstine is getting ready to announce his plans to take over the Genre.

Loyalty news:

I was told that the word count meter I was using is very inaccurate on percentages so I’m going to just put down the word count according to Word. 49,973 words. I threw out a few more bits, but I’m writing new ones and I may have just created a demon that is too tough for Jordan Sinclair to whomp single-handed. I am having to think heavily about it to come up with some logical ways for Jordy to defeat it. I may just have Neacal arrive and shoot it in the head with a crossbow. But that would be kind of cheating. So I might not.

I’m playing catch up today on things that I promised Susie Hawes.

Loyalty

Loyalty

48,963 / 100,000 (48.0%)

I am spending the weekend writing because I got a reminder from that agent who wanted to see the first book in a new series. I guess the one I send him will be Loyalty since that is what my muse wants to work on.

Then back to work on the rest of what I need to get done on Monday.