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Conan the Cimmerian

Cur Part 2 Chapter 12 ‘Unearthed’

Hemlo humans.

Not much to report really just been writing and thinking, more poems and prose from your boy. But yeah been feeling really good, like better than I’ve ever felt.

Not just because I’m in love but I feel like I have some direction, a real sense of purpose. I dunno, it’s hard to process, I think if I tried to to lay it all out and really think about it I’d lose my mind.

I feel a pull from something or someone that I can’t explain and it’s so real and good and wonderful, I just don’t ever want it to end. And part of me doesn’t even want it to start because it’s so big and so powerful I feel like it might swallow me, like I might lose myself but then I think maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe that’s how it was always meant to be, to be one with someone and become something greater isn’t that how it’s supposed to go?

I dunno, I don’t wanna jinx it but I prayed for this, literally. I dreamt about this. I never thought this feeling could be real, maybe I’m still dreaming.

Anyway that aside, we have the time skip here as you can see, so things are about to get real, the birth of the ‘chosen one’. As far as my reading, I finally got around to reading that Parker book they made into a shitty Jason Statham movie and it wasn’t that much better, I mean it was better but not by much. It was both more action packed and cool and also more boring and anti-climactic. The ending was a total wash, I expected a tense tactical fight and it just fizzled out, it was sort of pathetic, totally lost me. But I see why they made a movie out of it, probably the only Parker book where there was a character J-lo could play haha. I mean this is the most lines a woman has ever had in a Parker book, probably why it was so boring and shitty haha.

It was ok, it just wasn’t that special, I didn’t feel a real tension or mystery at all despite Parker being in a weakened state should’ve heightened things and it just didn’t. I dunno, it just wasn’t very gripping, not as engaging as the other books.

But I finished it and I’m back to reading Elric which is always pretty good. I mean it’s better than the witcher haha. Watching paint dry is better than the witcher haha.

It’ll never be as cool or as gripping as the first Conan story, that was bad ass, I wish the witcher books and Elric and even the rest of Conan was as cool as that haha.

Anyway.

See you…

–

Six months later.

“Mother, mother?” A small pale boy called in vain alone on the dingy streets of the once shining city of Murias.

“You are alone child, no one wants you, your own mother died at the sight of you” A fowl hissing voice said.

“Filthy halfbreed”

“Look at his skin, how it shines.”

“Like a fish!”

“Disgusting”

“Fomorian dog!”

“We should cook him up!”

“Your mother was a whore who laid with a fish!” A voice laughed.

“No mother, mother, where are you?” The boy called, his voice ringing through the empty streets of the shining city, the one of four that flew above the heavens in the lap of Dannuu herself.

“She is dead child, you are alone now… and forever”

Suddenly a stirring in the darkness as one falling off a log stirs in terror, the only sound the flicking and cracking of the dim dying fire. A figure stiffly shifting in the darkness groaned. The man rose from his seated position of waking and walked slowly over to a grand fireplace taking up a poker. The lithe man stabbed and prodded at the fire hatefully as if it had wounded him in some way. The pit spitting back at him sparks and flashes of vicious bubbling light. Illuminating the potmarked scarred face of Bres the once beautiful, king of the tuatha. His face at once was talked about throughout Inish Veil. Now cursed by the bard Coirpre, the treacherous half-blood king hides in darkness for fear of losing everything. For only a perfect king can rule the people of Danu.

He stood solemnly over the fire, the light glinting and lighting up his face in a hanging mirror over the pit. He sighed and touched his disfigured face and cursed under his breath. “Coirpre, how I wish I’d seen you die, I wish I had been there when the Fomor stripped the flesh from your bones. For the fomor care not for poetry.” Bres hissed to himself in the dark. The mirror shone strangely for a moment and a ghostly figure appeared there for a passing second.

“My son”

Bres turned in fright but there was nothing in the dark waiting for him.

“Who goes there? Babd? I told you not to disturb me witch!” Bres cursed.

“It is me my boy, my beautiful boy” The soothing ghostly voice said.

“Mother?” Bres gasped “How can this be?”

“I call to you from beyond death to deliver a warning and give new hope”

“A warning?”

“One comes that would take all this that I bequeathed you.”

“Who? Who would dare?”

“Nuada Airgetlám”

“Impossible!”

“It is true, he returns to take your rightful throne. But do not fear, you must away to your father’s kingdom, he will aid you.”

“My-my father?”

“High king of the Fomor, Elatha.” The specter held out it’s hand “Take this ring, so he may know you and go quickly.”

Bres reached out his to the specter and it’s ghostly hand slipped the ring onto his finger and it fit perfectly. But the moment the ring was on his finger there was a loud ruckus from outside of the keep of Dun Bresse. The sound of something akin to a battle but then just silence and then shouting, jubilant shouting.

Bres rushed to his tower so he could see what was going on outside by the stars and fire light of the many sconces and braziers lighting the keep.

Amassed was a great gaggle of peasants. A veritable army carrying farming tools and torches as weapons and shouting foul slogans. Some Bres was sure were reciting the poem of Coirpre himself, loudly and more vulgar than was intended by the dead poet.

Bres tightened his jaw as he watched this procession “Guards!” He shouted from the tower, almost immediately a group of armed guards rushed to meet the horde with spear in hand. But something stopped them. A name and a white horse and the man on that horse slowly trotting into the brazier’s fire light. The torches of the peasants parted to allow this grand figure to pass to the front of their grim procession.

A shining tall slim figure in white and gold riding. In his hand he raised the flaming sword of Nuada. The Claíomh Solais, shining brighter than a star, the light from it so bright Bres swore he could feel it’s glow on his marked face.

“Nuada!” Bres whispered to himself. And as he himself acknowledged who it was before the keep at Dun Bresse. So too did the guards, all in turn dropping to their knees at the sight of the once and dead king in his divine perfection.

–

Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt https://www.inkitt.com/stories/action/300249/chapters/12

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Kur 2 Chapter 3 ‘Red fox’

And a good day to you sirs and sirettes,
Kind of in a good mood today for some weird reasons. Could be the green smoothie in my hand but probably not. No I’m trying to get a new job in a new country to be closer to the person who’s most important to me. Moreover I’m trying to make some sense out of my life.
I’m not abandoning writing but it sort of abandoned me, between facebook shutting me out giving me no real place to share my work and literary agents not even replying to the majority of my emails. I feel like my work not only can’t stand out but I myself am not desirable to literary agents not being some kind of persecuted group.
I’m not going to stop writing but I’m going to stop looking at it as my only option and my only chance at fulfilment isolating myself further. It’s just a downward spiral that leads to loneliness and suicide. I’m just
I think if I can get a new job in a new place I can have a fresh start and it wont feel like inane drudgery if I can be with the ones I love in a place I love with the money to enjoy life and I can enjoy writing more as a hobby instead of a job.
And then maybe one day when the world changes or a less left leaning publisher actually emails me the fuck back I can move on with my work. Literally I feel like a leper, no one returns my emails anymore. I feel like I’m living on a space station.
Anyway I have a good feeling about this job, I have loads of experience for it, it’s just the matter of whether they want to support me with work permits and all that stuff. But even if they don’t I can keep looking and maybe get a promotion in my current job and my cv pop a little more, I dunno.
So yeah, I think I’m gonna keep job hunting today, but I’m really hoping I get the one I just applied for, that would be a dream come true, just to get out of this joke of a country. I think that’s a step in the right direction. 
This chapter as you can probably tell is me trying to subtly ease you into a massive exposition dump haha. Something I pride myself on, I am the ultimate luber of exposition dumps haha. I will make you swallow that big pill of information with a spoonful of sugar. No seriously though I think that is one of my strengths, exposition is one of those things you can’t get around sometimes and I see it done so badly in a lot of stuff even in Conan there are big exposition dumps that are really out of place and pointless. I try my best to see them and break them up and deliver them in a way that doesn’t feel like a slog. So I hope you get that and it doesn’t seem to heavy, trying to show not tell but it’s really hard to avoid that sometimes.
I hope you enjoy it and the rest of your day.
See you…
–
The sound of waves crashing, heavy limbs, rain beating, the spray of the sea. Suddenly the room is the deck of a ship and the sea is churning it, tearing it apart like it was made of kindling, the sound it sets teeth to chattering. The terrible sound rivalled only by the sounds of the screams. An unnameable shapeless mass rears up from beneath the black waves. With one stroke of it’s barbed tendril snaps the mast and pulls the ship into black oblivion.
“Wake up Firbolg, you’ve been sleeping too long – Inish Alga needs you.” A honeyed familiar voice said, the smell of blackberries, the touch of soft skin.
“That old name, – no one and nothing needs me for anything but shedding blood”
“Then so be it” The woman said. “Awaken Firbolg, embrace your destiny.”
“Destiny? Tailtui?”
The Firbolg opened in his eyes in who knows how long, his vision was blurred and he saw a blackened shape hovering over him.
A delicate white hand reached out to him and without thought he snatched it and pulled the figure closer.
“Who are you?” Cur snarled putting emphasis on each word.
The woman yanked her hand from his grasp and Cur grinned as she recoiled in shock. Her hood falling back off her head revealing a young elven girl with raven hair and pale skin.
Cur laughed, bearing his teeth and boiling off into a low cackle.
“The spurned druidess” He laughed falling back into the makeshift bed the fisherman had fashioned for him. The bed consisting of furs and old fish nets.
The girl that stood before him twisted her pretty white face and took a deep breath tucking her dark hair behind her pointed ears. She finally spoke. “It is I, the little Druidess, here to save your miserable life yet again” Birog hissed.
“How did you know I was here?” The firbolg asked.
“I saw it in a dream” Birog said.
Cur grinned and laughed that mocking laugh.
The dog bounded towards Cur sticking his snout too close for his liking, the Firbolg pushed the dogs snout away. “Away beast”
The dog whimpered.
Cur stared at the fisherman and asked “Who rules Inish Alga?” in his low croaking voice almost as if it was rhetorical or a threat.
“I haven’t heard that name in a long time” Manannan said puzzled. “Oh, still it is Bres but no one has seen him for a long time, ever since the rituals on samhain began.”
Cur looked at the Druiddess and she sighed deeply.
“Every year” She said. “Every year they take two thirds of the corn and the milk-.”
“And the children” Cur finished her sentence stonily.
“Yes” She seemed to shiver as she said it, clutching her arms around herself. “Ever since Bres went into hiding we have returned to the taxes our ancestors suffered under the Fomorians.”
She continued slowly, breathing deeply as if it pained her to say it. “Every year, the children are lead to the hill of Tara and taken down into the catacombs and never seen again.”
“It is punishment” Cur said.
“There is a new king, same as the old king- a shadow ruler, he rules but nobody knows it, he’s ruled all this time using Bres as his puppet. The power behind the throne, the unseen hand.”
“What is his name?” Cur croaked.
“He is called Balor of the baleful eye, a powerful king of the Fomor.”
“Preposterous, the Fomor are a myth” Manannan who had been leaning quietly with his arms folded against the wall of his shack suddenly chipped in. “A story to keep children from swimming in deep waters, like the kelpie.” He scoffed.
“Is that right?” Birog smirked. “They are here and they have always been here and now finally they dane to show themselves in this new tax.” She hummed to herself for a moment and walked over the silver arm that was resting on Manannan’s table.
Manannan reached for his prize instinctively. “Now wait a minute, I found that, it’s mine!” He protested.
“This doesn’t belong to you” She said then turning to Cur “It doesn’t belong to either of you”
Cur grinned broadly “The previous owner has no further use for it” He chuckled in his deep scarred voice.
“Can you stand?” Birog prodded.
Cur sneered and glanced at the fisherman and his dog before looking back at her. He pressed his one hand against the dirty wooden floor of the fisherman’s shack and rose slowly and stiffly to his feet.
He stood with some difficulty at his full height towering above both elves. He moved as if he’d forgotten how to use his limbs.
Manannan sighed seeing his difficulty “Take this ya bloody fool” He said as he handed him a stick.
Cur glared at the fisherman and reluctantly took the stick and put it under his arm to take his weight.
Birog smiled as she regarded him, running her fingers along the intricate lines of the silver arm with it’s strange magical symbols.
“Walk with me Firbolg” She smiled and walked out the door of the small scruffy fishing shack.
Cur followed his silver appendage, limping like a cripple but still with a vicious quickness to his step. His footfalls hard and angry as if he hated the ground he walked on for betraying him.
He pushed the door open.
“We meet again ‘slayer of Slaghtaverty’” Said a familiar and sickly mocking voice.
The voice came from a strange robed figure. On eitherside of him were similar non-descript and ominous comrades holding long and queer barbed weapons. The smell of seaspray and rotten fish and seaweed rose above them like a dense fog.
“Perhaps you prefer ‘Slaughterer of Slaghtaverty’, I myself think ‘slayer’ rolls off the tongue. You don’t recognize me?” The one in the centre said as he took back his hood revealing a cocky but bonnie young man, grinning with sharp barbed teeth. “Perhaps you recognize this” He said as he held up a weird and familiar sword. He smiled and tapped the edge, the sound it made was painful to the ears a singing in an esoteric and guttural language that Cur had heard before.
“Tethra!” Cur spat as he felt his scar burning with the magic of the sword.
“So your memory didn’t suffer as the crabs fed on you” He laughed.
“Who are you, get off my property!” Manannan followed after shouting at the strange oddly shaped robed figures.
“Silence! Who is this peasant?” Tethra asked turning back beyond the curtain of robed figures.
“He is no one my lord” Birog said as she passed through the crowd, the silver arm resting in the crux of her arm like a lamb being carried to slaughter. “He is of no consequence.”
“Very well” he said turning back, the corners of his mouth turning up like a snake’s to smirk at the firbolg. “You will come with us Firbolg or we will flay your friend where he stands.”
Cur looked at Manannan and grinned broadly. Manannan’s blood froze in his veins as he felt he had just sired a scorpion on his back.
Cur laughed, a wicked cackling laugh and he said. “Do whatever pleases you – ‘my lord’” He said as he dropped the grin from his and stared stonily at the traitor Druiddess.
“He is weak” Birog stated with a cold shrill glee in her voice. “He can barely stand and without this” She said stroking the strange silver arm “He cannot hope to escape.”
“King Balor wishes an audience with you last of the Firbolg, will you deny him?” Tethra said sharply with an indignant tone to his voice.
“If you knew he was here why didn’t you take him while he slept?” Manannan asked.
Birog grinned and said “I wanted to see the look on his face.”
“I will meet your king” The firbolg croaked and grinned wickedly.
–
Read the rest of this chapter on Inkitt.
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Cur Lord of Light Chapter 2 ‘In the pines’

Hey, 

Don’t have much to go off today but here’s the latest chapter, it’s slow going honestly, I’m not as focused as I was before. I dunno I think my writing at one point was getting better but now I sort of think it’s getting worse haha. Not worse, just lazier I guess. 

I was reading Conan last night and the story was sort of garbage, Conan goes to steal a thing finds ancient aliens and then the tower falls down the end but it had a lot of flair and it was fun and the description isn’t over the top a lot of it just plot but you get a good feel like you’re really there seeing what he’s seeing and I’m not sure you get that from what I’m writing.

But you know, I hope it’s fun at least, there’s some action in this chapter, after the sort of slow start, this new character who I sort of borrowed from Arthurian legend is a lot of fun, I just had to steal him. He’s one of these characters like Cur that takes on several mantles because in these mythological stories there’s a limit to how much stuff a certain character can do. This wasn’t marvel where you have a billion writers taking one character and stretching them across a million books of total nonsense where they fight alongside the jackson five or whatever. Total bullshit where comics are basically fanfiction where spiderman is a transgender midget polynesian hemophiliac diaper fur with glocoma.

They’re more like real life where a person does one awesome thing their whole life and maybe not even that. So I sort of had to take Cur and make a plot by combining him with a few different characters because otherwise his story would have ended after the first battle. And I sort of created my own meta universe where he was supposed to die but he didn’t creating a new time line.

Anyway, that’s enough nonsense ranting, I promised myself I would try to find a new job today. I keep thinking about starting up a youtube channel but I just couldn’t do that, my autism wouldn’t allow it. I just don’t think it would do well and I want a real job where I can be around people a couple of hours a day. I know I hate people and my autism makes me want to lock myself away infinitely but I think I need to be around people every now and then just so I don’t forget how to talk haha.

See you…

 

–

South of Meenlaragh in Corveen bog the ruins of a small castle lay overgrown by the marsh. Creeping vines covered it like a fur coat as it seemed to sink into the murk.

The sun was slowly sinking into the bog, the light bluing with the strange mists that hovered over the peat and muck. The sounds of birds in the trees were thick and deafening in their splendour. But deep in the hold of the castle there was a stolen warmth and a cloaked merriment.

 

In the keep a small group of strangely dressed brigands sat around a broken feast table strewn with unappetizing foreign dishes. Fish heads in sea brine, boiled toad, all manner of eels and snakes from the bog writhed in states of death and half-life, insects too seemed to be on the menu.

 

The feast hall was small and decrepit and dark, only a few sconces were lit, others seemed to be long burnt out or ripped from the walls. All decorations and finery the castle once had were undoubtedly pilfered long ago. All that remained were tattered moth eaten tapestries and a few decorative weapons caked in decades of rust. All but one item seemed unloved and aged. On the wall behind the head of the table hung a decorative harp made of finely hewn wood and encrusted with beautiful shining gems. The carvings on the harp were intricate and spiralled all around the finely crafted instrument. Images engraven were that of various animals and a horned man sitting amongst them.

 

The brigands feasted under black hoods and armoured cloaks. Their hands were more clawlike than human shining dimly with what seemed like scales and other malformed oddities. Their mouths clacking as they ate as some lacked teeth while others had sharp thin shark teeth shining like daggers in the dim fire light.

 

Suddenly an odd noise tickled them as if it had been there all along under the sounds of their merriment but only now had they noticed it. A strange whistling like that of many birds singing together but not coming from outside.

 

The head of the table flipped his cloak and stretched out a scaled humanoid arm. At the end of it were fat toadlike fingers forming something almost like a fin, he held it up to silence the others at the table.

 

They froze and turned to a darkened corner which seemed to be the source of the strange bird noise. Then came the sound of clinking metal and shaking of chain.

 

Out of the darkness emerged a huge humanoid figure dressed in a green armour. He had a distinctive covered helmet of which large antlers that looked like tree branches grew out of the top. On his belt hung an ornate axe. It’s handle appeared to be simply a strong birch branch holding a piece of silvery metal which had raw edges. It shone like that of a stone that fell from the sky glinting like a diamond or a quartz in the sconce light. In his hand the knight carried a bow of holly and he whistled as he walked creating an unnerving sound as if thousands of birds filled the room.

 

“Who goes there?” The head of the table called out. A slender dark figure with a sly hushed voice.

 

“Fear not, child of the dark depths, I mean you no harm”

 

The head of the table was confused but sneered when he heard what the stranger called him. “How do you come to know us?” He questioned.

 

The knight bowed humbly “Forgive me sir, for I have watched you and your countenance speaks to foreign blood, not of this soil.”

 

“Our blood is older than this soil.” The host spat.

 

“That too I am aware of, therefore we are the same sir.” The strange green knight bowed again crossing the holly in front of his plated chest.

 

The head of the table was an alien figure, with bulbous black fishy eyes and glinting scaled skin and a wide mouth full of sharp tiny teeth. “Well then, come sit with us and tell us why you have come visitor.” The man grinned and then scowled at his underling who sat at his side. The underling was a squat creature with huge whiskered lips and wide slanted slits for eyes. He looked up at his master startled and then quickly vacated his seat and pulled it out for the knight.

 

The knight rose from his bow “Most hospitable of you.” The knight said as he slowly walked around the table. Passing the other inhuman malformed creatures that sat staring up at the stranger with their wide fish eyes.

 

The knight sat upon the chair and waited for his host to speak. Closer to the light of the table the knight’s armor was more apparent. An unusual set that shone an emerald green with gold inlays and patterns that seemed to replicate trees and roots forming spiral symbols.

 

“So what is it you seek stranger?”

 

“I would that you would know me that I would not be a considered a stranger. My name Bertilak de Hautdesert but you may know me as ‘Bredbeddle’ if you so wish.”

 

The host breathed heavily and spoke through his teeth “Goodly Bredbeddle, wouldst that you would tell me why you’ve come, that I would know you!”

 

“I find it odd you don’t remember me.” The knight chuckled “For am I not memorable?”

 

“Should I remember you, have we met before?” The strange head of the table asked.

 

“I am certain sir, we have met before, in this very room no less.” The knight gestured as he spoke, his armor clinking but displaying no weight as he moved. “Are you not the one they call Forgal the wily?”

 

“You must be mistaken, I’ve never heard that name before” The host said as he turned to one of his men and signalled for him to bring them more wine.

 

“One year ago today, we met in this room and struck a bargain.”

 

“I recall no such bargain, what does this pertain to?” The host asked.

 

“But you will admit that you are Forgal the wily?” The knight turned his head up and pointed over his hosts head without raising his elbow. “For you have the harp he took from me”.

 

“Are you calling me a thief?”

 

“Nay sir, I am calling you the possessor of my harp and one year ago today we struck a bargain.”

 

“What of this nonsense, what bargain?”

 

“The bargain made here that I would let you strike me and one year after I would return the strike and reclaim the harp.”

 

“I tire of this foolishness” The host waved his hand and instantly out of the dark came a curved long blade and cut the knights head from his shoulders.

 

The helmet with the head fell on the table and knocked over a bowl of live crickets.

 

The group of brigands erupted into triumphant laughter, all conspiring in whispers as to whom would claim his armor and weapon.

 

“Fool!” The host spat. “Forgal the wily recognises no bargains made with the tuatha.”

 

“There is no need for name calling sir” A disembodied voice said.

 

The brigands instantly stopped their cavorting as the voice seemed to come from all around them. It seemed animal in aspect, as if the birds in the trees were forming words of their own.

 

The body of the knight had not fallen, still it sat upright in it’s seat and then without pretence it reached for it’s detached head. “I see that you have no desire to honour our agreement” The knight said as he stood and tucked his own head under his arm. “I bid you good day sir.” He said bowing with his head under the crook of his arm as he left the keep.

 

Forgal looking after him with his wide fishy mouth hanging open.

 

The brigands sat for a moment befuddled as if they’d been visited by a spirit or fallen to some drink that had given them all the same strange dreams.

 

Twilight was upon the bog and the world was still and grey.

 

The knight of green replaced his detached head on his shoulders and sighed.

 

“Come Daurdabla, apple-sweet murmurer!

 

Come, Coir-cethair-chuir, four-angled frame of harmony,

 

Come summer, come winter,

 

Out of the mouths of harps and bags and pipes!”

–

If you want to see what happens next, head on over to inkitt by clicking this link In the pines.

 

0

Cur Chapter 18 ‘Gimme the prize’

Yep this is the final chapter.
I kinda spaced, I forgot this was the final chapter, I thought there was one more and I was like “Oh that’s it” haha.

It’s fine, it’s all fine, this is only the first book, I’ve already got plans on the next, I actually might go straight into the next one because it’s shorter than another Diana book and all these rejections have made me a little gunshy. I’m not sure I could make the next one as good as the first, you know the one that is already getting shat on by every cat lady literary agent and her fucking cats!

I already have the ending of the fifth book in this series planned haha. Is that normal? I hope not. I think I need to set some time aside to plan out the next book and see if I get a jolt on it. I have a rough idea of how I want to start it, the other parts just haven’t fallen into place. The stuff, the rudimentary plot, the journey, the middle bit.

People always the most important parts of anything is the beginning and the end and I think that’s true but I’ve noticed this recent trend in movies and books to just have really middling middle bits. And it really hurts pacing because it makes a film feel shorter than it is. You need that journey to feel substantial and satisfying so if nothing really happens in the middle the whole thing collapses in on itself. it’s why you get that feeling when you watch a movie like you haven’t even really watched a movie, you just looked at some footage rolling over your eyes for a couple of hours. It’s because it’s not paced like the movies you actually like. Which is why Aquaman which I saw the other day did so well because it had unlike most comic book movies a decent middle with an idiana jonesie adventure and romance so the film felt like an adventure. 
I’m not saying it was good, I’m saying the bar has been lowered so far that this crap passes for good, it’s the best most sparkly tinfoil covered turd in the punchbowl. The main villain didn’t appear at the start and disappear through most of the movie but still get praised as the best villain ever just cos like in Black Panther. You follow both villains through the whole movie cutting back and forth between the heroes and villains in a way that felt satisfying and bolstered the movie.

So yeah I enjoyed it like a person enjoying the interior decoration of a sinking ship.

In a good mood today which is weird because I’m actually in shitloads of pain because I pulled a muscle in my back on a chest fly. I had a really nice dream about the only person in the world that really matters. For reasons I can’t disclose, mainly pure evil; I can’t see that person but the dream let me know that one day I would. I really need to be someone they can be proud to know exists. I just need something, a clear path to being a real person.

Fuck me, why is this ‘life’ thing so hard?

Anyway, I promised I would plan something today, my next book possibly or some other hair brained scheme perhaps.

Gonna try and get some feedback on the completed book and maybe make some changes to it, there’s a lot about it that still feels unfinished.

See you…

–

“So you’ve finally arrived” Bres smirked as he bit the head off a pear. “Would you sit? Your ward is readying himself, my men and I rode all night to be here, we’re very tired.” He said staring at her as he chewed. His champion Ogma at his side, face bandaged like a mummified corpse, shrouded in a grim countenance. He looked as stiff as a tailors dummy sitting completely erect in his armor. Dian Cecht sat on the end, silent as the grave with his head hanging low trying not to be seen.

 

“I-I-“ The druiddess stammered.

 

“Sit down” Bres said firmly but softly.

 

Birog sat awkwardly on an ornate oak chair with a floral pattern on the green seat cushion. She almost missed the chair as she couldn’t take her eyes off the man that had been chasing her doggedly. Unable to get anything close to comfortable as her mind reeled and her fingers tightened around the box.

 

“I shouldn’t want to spoil the surprise but I can’t imagine what’s inside that box will save you.” Bres sighed.

 

“He didn’t-?”

 

“No, he told us where you were going but I pressed no further about the contents of that box” Bres smirked wickedly “I do so like surprises.”

 

“But-“

 

“I won’t kill you in his presence out of respect, but mark my words, this doesn’t end well for you little druid”.

 

Ogma narrowed his eyes making a face as if it pained him to do so, looking at his king. His king who’s face was beginning to turn an odd shade of purple with red blotches surfacing. “Look at her, she’s beaten, she knows it, we have no need to kill her my lord” He said. “She can still be of use.” He added looking at her, as if it was a question.

 

“Who is it that tells the king of Inish Veil what he must do?” Bres said without looking at him.

 

“He must kill me, don’t you see, I know too much” Birog said looking down talking into the box clutched to her chest. Then casting an erstwhile glance at Ogma.

 

Bres said nothing but tensed his jaw and started to grind his teeth as his face got more colourful.

 

Just as Ogma was about to get curious the page came back with cold meats and wine.

 

“You’re just as handsome as I remember you, Bres the beautiful” an unseen woman said.

 

Bres looked around for the woman.

 

“We hope you haven’t forgotten us.” Another said.

 

“How could he do a thing like that?” A third added.

 

Bres turned his head and appeared a beautiful woman with blonde hair in a white dress. And then one behind him leaning over his shoulder in a black dress with dark hair and then on his lap was a woman in a red dress with red hair.

 

“How could I forget such enchanting enchantresses” Bres smirked.

 

“Oh you are a flirt”

 

“As always”

 

“But how rarely you pay us a visit”

 

Bres smiled “Kings seldom have free time for such things”.

 

“You came to see the old man not us” The girl in white pouted.

 

“That couldn’t be further from the truth, I came to see the lovely three Moriggu, if I were to check up on the old man it would be a matter of course, that’s all. How is he, may I ask?”

 

“Same as usual”

 

“Away with the spirits” They giggled.

 

“Who’s this?” The one in red said sneeringly pointing at Birog.

 

“A pilgrim I met along the road perchance, she’s come a long way to see him”

 

“She has? Whatever for?” The one in black wrinkled her nose.

 

“She has a gift for him” Bres smirked.

 

“A gift?” The one in white said excitedly, her eyes widening like a child’s.

 

“You can see him, if you promise you’ll visit us again soon” The one in red said.

 

Bres took her hand and kissed it “Anything for you Babd”.

 

The other two looked on with cloistered dismay and disdain.

 

In an instant they transfigured themselves into fireflies of their respective colour. They flitted through an opening in the main room of the anti-chamber.

 

Birog entered the main chamber behind Bres who pushed the doors open wide, followed up by Ogma who looked on stonily.

 

The main chamber in contrast to the rest of the fortress was the definition of opulence. Every wall covered in red and purple and white silk. The furnishings were made of the finest materials, gold and silver leaf traced every nook of the room.

 

It wasn’t just a main chamber or a bed chamber. It was an exquisite throne room with extravagant chandeliers. A banquet table sat in the centre piled high with the grandest smelling food one could imagine.

 

At the far end of the room a set of stairs carpeted in a deep red velvet, leading to the throne and on it sat the once and former king Nuada Airgetlám.

 

“I bid you welcome Bres and guests.” He said softly.

 

“Hail ‘king’ Nuada” Bres said with a mocking smirk.

–

Check out the rest of the final chapter of the first book in this hopefully epic saga here on inkitt. Gimme the prize

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Cur Chapter 17 ‘Morning Shadows’

Henlo there,
I have returned once more from the depth of hell to share my misery with you all bwahahaha!

Dramatic entrances over erm yeah more Cur stuff, not a big slashy chapter but there some big slashes coming fo’ sho. The slashiest slashes there ever been coming soon enough.

Updates updates.
Rejections trickling in for Diana as expected, erm one of them told me they didn’t understand the world in the first few pages. And I responded like ”well yeah you’re not supposed to it’s a fucking dream sequence, maybe if you actually read the whol chapter instead of scanning the first couple of pages you’d have got that!”.
Only to be greeted with one of those messages that tells you you just sent an email to a mailbox that no one reads. Imagine putting retarded criticism in an email that can’t be responded to haha. Like why bother?
I really don’t know with these people it seems like it’s total gate keeping bullshit and all the gate keepers are retards who only want something that specifically caters to them. I dunno, I think I might have to redo my query letter and take the identity of a muslim woman poc to actually get a chance of someone reading a chapter of my fucking book haha (I’m not going to do that).

I still have hope for it, all the hope in the world, what else is there? I really have nothing else but chasing this impossible dream until I get old and die alone.
I’d honestly have it no other way because I couldn’t bear to meet the woman who could put up with me haha. I’m doomed to be forever alone with maybe a few stints of being intensely miserable being with someone that hates me for a few months and part of me is totally fine with that.

Ok well that’s enough for today, I was gonna do some spamming on facebook today since I’d been staying out of trouble on there but nope. I got banned again for nothing, literally nothing, that’s not a meme, once you make it on facebook’s shit list they’ll just ban you for no reason. On multiple occasions I’ve been banned and usually if you actually did something it’ll show what you were banned for and you can request a review to appeal it. Because the algorithm doesn’t know what you’ve said and people just report you for whatever reason trying to get you banned so a real person will look at it and take the ban down.
But again I’ve been banned and it won’t show me what I was banned for because it’s nothing, I haven’t been spamming or saying any edgy shit recently. I’ve just been posting tame stuff for laughs mainly. So no only will it not show me what I was banned for because there’s nothing to show but also it didn’t give me the option to request a review, the case was closed as soon as I was banned so I have no way of getting it turned around.
Facebook just bans thought criminals whenever it feels like for whatever reason it likes, literally orwellian bullshit, I can’t stand facebook, I know I’m gonna delete my account eventually and migrate to twitter probably, although I know their free speech policies aren’t much better. But there’s no competition.
Anyway, enough ranting about that. I hope you enjoy the chapter and the conclusion of this part of this epic saga is soon to come.
See you…
–
 
Birog prodded the fire with a blackened birch branch and stared into it trying to think of no one and nothing. The night had fallen and the woods were alive with sounds of predators and prey and she didn’t feel like being either. It was misting with rain slightly and clouds were building overhead. She didn’t feel wet but it was seeping into the horse blanket she was using to keep warm.
 
The fire she made was strong enough but nomatter how close she got to it she still felt a chill. The darkness clung to the trees and surrounded her and she felt alone, truly alone.
 
She didn’t know why the Firbolg chose to come with her anymore than she knew why he chose to stay behind now. Surely she hadn’t fooled herself into thinking he was in love with her. Was there a chance that there was valor in him afterall? Did she bring it out in him? Was he the hero she needed all along, a hero in waiting, waiting for her to come along and give his death meaning, had he sacrificed himself for her?
 
She felt silly for thinking such thoughts, she wanted to laugh but the thought of laughter let cold and melancholia slip in. The more she thought about it, the colder she got. Nomatter how hard she clung to herself that chill would not out and the loneliness and fear would not abate
 
The night was calm and the steady metronome of light rain made her head bob in and out of sleep but something kept her awake, her thoughts wandering. Where was he now? What of the shapeshifter Tuan? he said he would watch over her but she’d seen hide nor hair of him, telling herself that he was in every owl hoot and wolf howl. She knew she was alone and although her mission was almost to an end and in the morning she would walk among gilded halls. Sleep in beds of the finest linen and eat of foods fit for a king and would be greeted as a hero, she could not sleep.
 
Just gazing endlessly into the fire, listening to the stillness of the night.
 
Then suddenly, a chime of thunder rumbling overhead. Then a horse’s nay cut over the steady beat of the night. At first she thought it a waking dream but then again, the thunder rolling overhead, the horse naying.
 
She shook herself from her dozing and as she became more conscious, the hairs on her arms stood and the blood in her veins froze.
 
A horse.
 
Can’t be. It can’t be him. Not here, not now. That black night is surely dead.
 
She stood shaking off the horse blanket and quickly stamped out the fire.
 
He’s found me.
 
She waited still in the dark, waiting for her eyes to adjust, holding herself, not breathing, just listening to the night and the horse, trying to follow it.
 
Slowly she could see the outlines of the trees by moonlight. She crouched to tip toe gingerly towards the sound of the horse naying between bouts of thunder.
 
As the sound got closer she could hear a stream. Then see the shimmering moonlight hitting the water and reflecting back against the treeline.
 
She followed along the stream staying shrouded by the night but with the stream as a glittering path to guide her.
 
Then the thunder stopped and the horse stopped naying. She stopped then, listening to her own breathing. Listening for the breath of another but hearing but a rustling in front of her and the clopping of hooves.
 
She halted her breathe once more and cautiously followed the noise further downstream and then by the light of the of the water she saw it’s dipped head.
 
Her heart became lighter as she saw it was just one of the horses from her cart that had gotten loose somehow.
 
She breathed a sigh of relief as she watched it drinking from the stream.
 
The druidess approached it and gently stroked it’s main as he it drank.
 
“You must have been startled by the thunder.” She said smiling. “How did you get free I wonder?”
 
The horse nayed in response and forced it’s head harder under her hand. “You are a friendly one, perhaps I should give you a name, how does “Ronal” sound?”
 
The horse nayed and continued enjoying the druidess’s fingers through his maine, pushing for her to scratch harder.
 
“Come on” She said as she lead him back to the camp. The weather had improved slightly, it was still fairly cold but the thunder and the misting rain had stopped. She wrapped Ronal in the horse blanket and patted him on the head “Maybe now we’ll both get some sleep” She sighed.
 
–
Liked this excerpt? Read the rest over on inkitt Morning shadows.
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Cur Chapter 16 ‘The big wheel’

Yeah I didn’t get a poem in last night because I didn’t really feel up to it, I skipped my workout and felt the big sad coming on and you’d think that would be the perfect time to write poetry but it just slipped my mind and I spent the time just staring at facebook like a zombie.

So yeah finally got some more Cur out and I sort of hate it honestly. I dunno it just seems so action focused and kind of messy and self indulgent, I like it, it was fun to write but I’m not sure about it and this chapter in particular I think fails to really get across what this is supposed to be about and I hope reading some more Conan will help me.

Because I was reading that and honestly I was blown away, it’s tone, the writing, the story, it’s everything I wanted for this and more. I saw so much in it, like where the influences for Berserk and others must have come from. It’s just so rich and interesting and fucking savage. 

It’s one thing that I was thinking about with the Shadow, how some of it is so boring and sanitised and Conan just isn’t. It’s raw and cool and brutal without being over indulgent or gratuitous. It isn’t gross or vulgar like modern interpretations of this kind of stuff. It’s focused in the right way.

It’s fantasy but it feels so tense and real and grounded. I just started reading it and I couldn’t put this story down and I realised I had to stop because I need to save this for when I’m writing Cur 2.

Which is on the books, right after this screenplay and then Diana 2 and then more clown shit haha.

So awhile yet. Probably towards the end of the year.

That’s all, don’t want to go over my boredness and unwillingness to read more shadow pulps, like they’re ok I just feel no drive to read them and if I want to dream about making it a tv show I need to extract and refine the elements that work.

See you…

–

“Ask him what he wants” Bres instructed one of his foot men.

 

The footman nodded and clasping his helmet to his head ran in shouting range of the strange man who exited the woods.

 

“MY LORD KING BRES OF OF INISH VEIL WISHES TO KNOW WHAT IT IS YOU WANT!” The footman shouted across the field, his voice straining against the wind blowing the grass and reeds.

 

“The blood of kings” Cur said.

 

“WHAT??” The footman balked.

 

Cur lifted his hand and squeezed his fist bulging all the veins in his muscular arm. “THE BLOOD OF KINGS RUNS THROUGH MY VEINS!” He bellowed and tossed his cloak aside and stood shirtless in the cool afternoon, the smell of dying fires on the wind. “WHAT BLOOD RUNS THROUGH YOUR VEINS, BRES?”

 

Bres began to laugh almost out of a nervous response of disbelief, but he laughed alone. His men stood frozen looking at eachother as each in turn felt as if their graves were being trampled, seeing a ghost in the flesh. His body huge and monstrous in proportion, twisted by pain and suffering they could not hope to comprehend. They could barely look away for the unnameable horror it filled them with.

 

The knot in Bres’s stomach that wasn’t there this morning tightened and he sneered at his men. Looking about themselves like frightened little babes for a wet nurses tit.

 

“I DON’T KNOW YOU!” Bres shouted from atop his mare.

 

“I know you” Cur said.

 

He leaned forward, resting his hands on his horse’s mane “STEP ASIDE PEASANT!”

 

Cur began to laugh, a terrible haunting laugh from a flat gaunt face. As if a skeleton’s smiling jaw fell open and a horrifying mirthless pitiless noise came rattling out.

 

“I’ve had enough of this” Bres waved his hand at a band of his men on the edge of the procession. The five of them paused for a moment and then nodded before rattling into something of a formation. The sounds of their armor clanking like nervous teeth.

 

Cur watched them and they watched his chest rise and fall steadily. His vicious body looking like a piece of petrified wood, hard and gnarled and scarred.

 

But these weren’t peasants or bandits, these were trained fighting men of the Tuatha de’. They swallowed their fears and thoughts of his skin being as tough as bark, notions of whether or not a sword would even penetrate. Falling back into routine and order, their training carrying them forward without thought or fear. Just muscle memory pulling them forward as if on strings.

 

The elven soldiers spread out a long a wide arch in between Cur and the Bres, all carrying long pikes and short swords.

 

The one on the farthest of Cur missing arm’s side would attack first, they always did. Seeking a weakness and finding only death.

 

It was as so; the one soldier farthest on his stump side rushed forward with a quick light rhythmic tapping of his feet against the grass. His sword held low for an arching upwards strike from groin to neck. He rushed forward and made a loud noise in his throat expecting his target to baulk at being caught off guard stepping back into the arc of the strike.

 

With an unmeasured viciousness, Cur turned into the strikes arch. He chopped horizontally across the soldier’s collar bone. The blunt chopper he used could no more cut and certainly not through mail. But the force and severity in which he wielded it shattered the soldiers collarbone. Causing him to collapse to the ground almost instantly. Crumpling under the weight of the strike. A few more successive chops on the ground pulverised his head and helmet in a blink of an eye. His white elf blood caking the grass,

 

In the same breath the next soldier came in succession from the otherside. This one learnt from the first and did not try to force the Firbolg back. He very quickly ran with his pike aimed at the small of the Barbarians back.

 

Cur span around catching the neck of the spear with the crook of his blade, letting the point pass him by. The soldier froze at the sight of such speed from someone almost twice his size. Allowing Cur all the time in the world to snap the spear with his knee and elbow. He struck the soldier with one quick dull angled downward slash from sternum to gut. Moreover ripping his mail but for cutting it. It made a ghastly noise, metal straining and ribs scraping and then a splosh of hot entrails bursting onto the ground.

 

The third was on him in the same rhythm. None of them stopping or fighting one at time. Just one attack flowing into the next like a move in a dance or successive strikes from the same blade, wearing him down. His blade getting heavier and his lungs burning with each strike.

 

The third was much quicker and feinted his first strike with his light short sword aiming to come low. Then at the last second changing direction and slashing Cur across his hand causing him to drop his blade in the long grass. But failing to follow up his strike with a successive blow. The Firbolg obliged by impaling him on the broken end of the lance that had fallen at his feet.

 

The broken lance end was frayed and only sharp enough to splinter through his mail hauberk. The weight of his armor did the rest as Cur erected him on the long broken pike and let him slide down it using his body as a counter weight. His entrails twisting around the pike coming out the other end and splintering more.

 

The fourth soldier and the commander attacked perfectly in unison.

 

The Firbolg leapt for his blade but was stopped by an arrow at his feet. The captain was much quicker and unleashed a torrent of strikes unending and savage. The Firbolg with his quickness was only cutting his losses as each strike made contact but had no purchase but to draw a small amount of blood.

 

His strikes were quick but there was a pattern. They were not random nor unpredictable but a practised combination of slashes and thrusts kept almost in time to the beat of a drum. He need only slip inside that rhythm and make it his own but for the sound of another arrow knocked behind his ear.

 

Next there was a thrust. The Firbolg twisted his huge body with the thrust and took the captain by the wrist and headbutted him hard across the bridge of the nose. He drove the tip of his sword into the ground and snapped off the blade with his foot.

 

Moving the dazed captain like a puppet now. He forced the broken sword and hilt still in his hand up under his chin and the jagged blade through the top of his skull.

 

Seeing the captain was dead the archer let loose without fear of injuring his comrade. Cur caught the tip in his open hand, the arrow piercing him right through his palm.

 

He closed his fist to snap the shaft and with his teeth tore out the arrow head.

 

Cur croaked a wicked vindictive smile crossing his bone white face. “Now you die”

 

“WAIT!”

–

This is just a little teaser of the full chapter. Read the rest of the chapter over on inkitt by following this link. The big wheel

 

 

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