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Cur Chapter 11 ‘Nightcrawlers’

Hey there,

Gonna keep it really short like super short because I feel like total garbage which is why there was no poem yesterday, I was too focused on not throwing up and trying to sleep than being creative.

I guess I ate something that didn’t agree with me because my stomach is in hell and I haven’t slept very good the last two days.

Then I start to try and so some work and the internet doesn’t work for some reason and would you guess I’m banned on facebook again but this time it was literally for nothing. Like I haven’t even been using that account very much since I got the alt account. But I get a message saying I had a picture removed because it goes against our “Community standards” you know that thing we keep specifically vague so we can decide literally anything goes against it. Yeah that thing. But get this, I go to see what it was they removed and it was nothing, like it wasn’t that it was a harmless picture, it was literally nothing. Where the thing they removed usually appeared it was just blank.

I haven’t even uploaded any pictures recently on that account, so not only could I not see what it was to contest it, I sent it for review, still banned, surprise surprise. Facebook is a fucking joke. This is either a fuck up in the algorithm or there’s literally someone just banning me for fun and I wouldn’t be surprised if either one was true. Someone at facebook hates me. It’s fucking ridiculous.

Anyway I managed to get some proofreading done today, thankfully it was a short chapter but it needed a lot of work and I really need another go over this book in depth when I finish the first proofread because I sense some structural and continuity problems I need to rectify.

Ok that’s your lot.

See you…

–

The tavern hummed with activity, drinking, games of darts and singing songs and merriment. The light of the warm fire danced along the dark wooden beams and the cobbled stone floor. On the walls made of stone not daub were exquisite paintings and tapestries depicting maids bathing by a lake like wood nymphs. The room swelled with a carefree indulgence rarely seen in these hard times. Coirpre of course, savoured every moment of it. How lucky he felt to be in the bohemian city of Slaghtaverty, to be in Ulster away from the pig farmers and yocals who couldn’t hope to appreciate his poetry. To smell fine wines and ales in the air instead of pig shit and misery.

 

Here it was different, the people were cultured and open minded and what’s more they knew his name and treated him as his position would dictate. Bard’s were of course revered as much as princes for the power they held could make kings and heroes alike out of common folk and vice versa.

 

They could bring to life ancient battles and mighty sea voyages, they had the power to create and destroy reputations a power few sneered at.

 

“Please sir Coirpre, one more ballad, the lusty maid of Sliabh an Iarainn perhaps?” A women in a fox felt hat said, her comely face slackened by the ale in her cup. Her dress even more so.

 

“No no, I must go to bed” Coipre jested.

 

“But who would you take with you noble Coirpre” The woman cued shamelessly, moistening her eyes and clutching her breast wantonly. The tone of her voice flat and monotone, her eyes doughy and expressionless. A small crowd of similarly inebriated women gathering at her heel.

 

“My lady please, I beg you-.“ Coirpre taken aback by this proposal turned clumsily and bumped face first into the warm stone wall of the tavern. In doing so spilling the remainder of his flagon on his tunic.

 

Looking up from his stupor he regarded that it was not in fact a wall but a man, a man in which he recognized.

 

“Are you all right sir Coipre” The drunken maid asked the downed bard as he picked himself back up.

 

“It’s you!” He sputtered attempting to dust the bear off his jerkin. “The one who saved me from those bloodthirsty peasants in Killaloe?”

 

Cur didn’t even look down as he said in his guttural fashion “Out of my way fool!” pushing the minstrel aside like a common beggar.

 

“Yes well, thank you all the same” He muttered tugging at the bottom of his sodden tunic, his face turning red.

 

“What are we doing here?” Birog whispered as she dusted off a chair to sit at a table near the fire. “Isn’t it dangerous to come here, I think the fewer people we encounter the better, what if a thief were to-“

 

“We have business to conclude here with the Chieftain Abertach.” Tuan said as he sat down looking around at the women who encircled the bard Coirpre like a bird of prey picking a mouse.

 

“What business? We have a mission that will decide the fate of the whole kingdom and you want to run errands?” Birog tittered folding her arms scournfully.

 

Cur eyes scanned the small inn looking at every local in turn. There was Coirpre the bard fending off a coven of flat faced wenches with fat arses. A potbellied bureacrat with a bulbous nose drinking himself red in the face leering at those around him. Some merchants sat at a long table drinking and playing some sort of card game, taking it very seriously as if their lives depended on it.

 

No denizen of the inn stood out but one. A strange cloaked figure whispered in the ear of the barkeep who was not as subtle as the cloaked figure stopping to gawp open mouthed in Cur’s direction.

 

“Good evening gentle folk.” A melodious voice said over his shoulder.

 

Coipre bowed cross legged at the edge of the table smiling tentatively. “I believe we got off on the wrong foot and I’d very much like to apologise.” He said speaking clearly looking at Cur who did not meet his gaze. “And of course buy you all a drink, perhaps perform any ballad or song you’d like.” He smiled looking at Tuan and Birog and then as if about to take to song he lifted his head to look at the wall behind them. “As on the morrow I depart to be received by none other than Bres king of Inish Veil himself at Dun Bresse.” Coipre boasted tossing a glance at the druiddess who seemed to recoil at hearing the name.

 

“Go” Cur groaned.

 

Tuan laughed and said “But haven’t you heard, Bres isn’t home.” He smirked and watched the puzzlement circle the bard’s face before releasing him. Tuan licked his lips and put both his hands on the table. “But a drink and a ditty will do nicely, anyone else?”

 

“Oh yes” Birog said “I’d love to hear a song.” She smiled seeming almost giddy to forget about Dun Bresse.

 

“She doesn’t get out much” Tuan smirked. “Three honey meads I think”

 

“Speak and it is done- oh barkeep!” He snapped his fingers at the barman. The cloaked figure who whispered to him skulked away almost without foot steps. He seemed even to float out of the door and under the crest of Ulster hanging above it.

 

The barkeep was a skinny sweaty looking fellow with a bulging beer gut and a potmarked faced. “Yes of course honorable Coipre sir!” He said bending and scraping like he was paying some sort of debt working here.

 

He returned swiftly with their drinks but under the one meant for the firbolg was a folded note. He he took it and unfolded it regarding it nonchalantly. He looked up at the barkeep who seemed hesitant, waiting for a response, his mouth slightly open as if he forgot to breathe.

 

“He’ll see you now” He said trying to whisper but his throat was too hoarse and it broke almost instantly.

 

Cur said nothing and slowly rose to his feet. Tuan and Birog did the same instinctively feeling as if the mood had changed drastically.

 

“The gentleman must go alone” The barkeep said putting out a pale thin hand to bar them with only the ghost of a threat.

 

“No, they come to” Cur growled.

 

The barkeep let his hand drop to his side as if it were made of wet rags “If you’re certain”. He swallowed painfully, his gaunt throat visibly contorting.

 

The barkeep nodded thoughtlessly, looking off into nothing.

 

Tuan looked at Coipre who held his loot about to play, a bemused expression on his face. “Be a good chap and mind our drinks won’t you” He smirked.

 

They left the table and followed the barkeep up a short set of steps beside the bar and around a corner into the back. There was an ordinary looking door, that seemed like it might lead to a cellar or cold room. The barkeep approached it and rapped on it three times.

 

“He’s here sir, the stranger” The barkeep said his head tilted forward waiting for a response.

 

With that the door opened and the barkeep moved aside and watched them as they went inside as if waiting for a pat on the head.

 

The door closed behind them. Before they knew it, they were boxed in on both sides by a couple of dwarf heavies in thick leather jerkins who padded them down for weapons. Going about it with the cool disinterest of a farmhand patting a sack of grain.

 

Cur grabbed the hand of the first that tried for his blade. A young but strapping dwarf with a pale beard but no moustache. An impish expression on his face as if he was caught stealing a bun from a market stall.

 

“I keep my weapon, you keep your fingers.” Cur hissed.

 

The dwarf froze, sweat dripping from his forehead he looked off at the other end of the smokey dark room. A large desk and the figure sitting behind it, waiting for some sign.

 

The figure at the desk waved some pipe smoke away and in so doing made a gesture. The dwarf heavy with permission retracted his hand scournfully, glaring at the side of Cur’s head.

 

Birog started a slap fight with her molester, ending in a red face for both of them but her attacker looked far more embarrassed. An older dwarf with a cue bald head and small boxed in ears, a long beard plated at the corners of his mouth. His ruddy face and beard made him appear more like a goat herder than a hired thug. Despite Birog’s protestation he succeeded in separating her from her sword belt and spiriting it away with him back into his corner. A dismayed look on his face as if he expected an apology.

 

Tuan rarely carried a weapon and thus did not object to the search. Merely tutting then rearranging his coat.

 

“Sit” The figure behind the desk said. Two more diminutive but stocky bodyguards stood behind him. Their arms crossed in front of them, large crossbows cradled on their tattooed forearms.

 

There was only one seat purposefully dwarfed by the desk, the Firbolg took it. Tuan and Birog were expected to be invisible, standing between the desk and the door.

 

“He might have thought you were jesting.” The dwarf behind the desk said as he stubbed out he rapped his pipe dumping the embers into a wooden tray.

 

“New boy, Abbertach?”

 

Abhertach didn’t take his eyes off Cur as he repacked his ornate hand carved bone pipe. One of the archers lit the pipe with a candle held in a hand missing most of its fingers. Abhertach let out a tight little laugh as he realised his mistake. The bodyguard missing the fingers growled under his breath. His face frozen in a bitter grimace. “Yes, he is.”

 

The dwarf with the missing fingers was completely bald and so clean shaven it looked like he could not grow hair at all. He scowled at the Firbolg as if somehow that would grow his fingers back.

 

“I should have told him not to search you but you see it’s a force of habit, no harm no foul, this time. I didn’t know you were coming.” Abhertach tried to smile warmly but under it was a cold clenching of teeth and sharp inhale of breath.

 

“The great Abhartach, spy master and thief, didn’t know we were coming” Tuan chimed in.

 

“And who are you sir that you know me enough to call me a thief?” Abhertach’s demeanor was jovial but barbed with a clear threat.

 

“No one” Tuan shrugged.

 

Abhartach was a gristled dwarf with shrewd rodent like eyes. The physique and shoulders of a warrior with a barreled gut of a chieftain. But the cheeks and soft wrinkled face of some sort of blood thirsty merchant who’d sell his grandmother for a higher cushion.

 

Abhartach twirled his enormous moustache which he wore with no beard which was uncommon for dwarfs. They were usually full bearded or clean shaven.

 

“Now that the formalities are out of the way, what is it you want here?” Abhartach said leaning back in his chair looking down his nose at them slowing his breathing.

 

Cur looked about the room which was grand in it’s relative squalor. A small secretive office with extravagant furnishings, a mix between a thieves hideout and a whore’s boudoir. The desk was high and he undoubtedly sat on a raised chair and made sure the guests chairs were shorter so he could look down on them.

 

“I paid you for the last job and I have no further use of you”. He said as he leaned forward clasping his hands dismissively in front of him as if discussing rug sales.

 

“The woman” Cur said.

 

“Ah yes” Abhartach said scratching the side of his nose with his pinky. “Well-“

 

“You set us up, there was a witch in the woods waiting for us” Tuan said merrily, no hint of accusation, he remarked on it as if finding a penny in mincemeat pie.

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, who is this?” He asked the Firbolg.

 

Tuan without reservation jumped across the table transforming in mid air into the from of a wolf taking the dwarf chieftain by the throat.

 

The young dwarf who tried to frisk Cur put his hand on the Firbolg’s shoulder and pressed down trying to stop him from rising. Radiating his will downward.

 

Cur took the lads hand and pulled him down so he could take him by the scruff of the neck. Cur smashed his face smashed with a vicious indifference against Abhatach’s high desk, flailing a few of his teeth across the blotter. The unbridled and unwarranted cold savagery of it froze the room in amber for a few moments.

 

The bodyguards readied their cross bows.

 

“Wait” Abhartach strained lifting a hand.

 

The crossbow men lowered their aim.

 

Tuan took human form again and hopped off the desk smiling as if it was a little show he put on descending the high stage with a click of his heel.

 

“Out with it Abhartach, you work for Bres?” Cur scolded.

 

Abhartach rubbed his neck and smiled trying to laugh but only coughing. “Bres? You could say he works for me”.

 

“What fantasy is this?” Birog said.

 

Abhartach looked at her for a moment puzzled then back to Cur as if she hadn’t said anything at all.

 

“Surely he order you to kill the chieftains of the villages that wouldn’t pay his taxes?” Birog said almost to herself. Now in the dim darkness of this smokey room those words sounded so feeble and childish coming from her.

 

Abhartach became grim and started to breathe heavily. His face draining of colour and his eyes becoming long and hollow staring at nothing as he rubbed his neck. His face locked and expressionless as if he pictured himself somewhere else as he spoke in hollow tones. “If only that were the case” He said hauntingly.

 

“What do you mean” Birog asked.

 

He looked at her and saw nothing and licked his dry lips. He started breathing heavier and his neck became red as he rubbed it. “You don’t understand, the taxes aren’t Bres’ at all” He said almost whispering his eyes looked scared even thinking about it.

 

“Who left here?” Cur said.

 

Abhartach let his mouth hang open.

 

“If it isn’t you then- where are the children?” Birog asked.

 

Abhartach slammed his fist on his desk and screamed “I DON’T KNOW!” He calmed himself and said again “I don’t know, oh goddess save me I don’t know.”

 

He went on shyly “They just wanted me to choose, they knew of me, knew I would know the right villages to- I had no choice. They said they’d, they’d do the same to Slaghtaverty.” He breathed heavier and heavier and seemed to sink into his chair as if he were deflating.

 

“Who?” Cur asked.

 

“They didn’t want to do it like last time, they’re smarter now, they have a new king, they rule from the shadows. They wanted me to choose and cover it all up for them.” He spoke faster seemingly rambling.

 

“You used us” Tuan said.

 

“Yes, I thought if I could spread a rumour of a vampire or some such monster I could distract people from the truth. You just had to go there and cause a ruckus, kill a few elves and then they’d come for the rest but the blame would fall on the mysterious stranger.”

 

“Who are they?”

 

“It didn’t occur to me that I chose villages that refused to pay their tax, its just a coincidence, I had no choice- they wanted the children.” His eyes reddened and he spoke quickly as if it all had to come out at once, as if every word unburdened him somehow.

 

“You sent a messenger to meet us with our bounty, he lured us out to a witch, lured us into the woods.” Tuan mused.

 

“I sent no messenger, I always paid you here, it was them, don’t you understand, they were done with you, you were a loose end they had to tie up. Do you understand?”

 

“WHO?” Cur stood and slammed his massive hand on the desk towering over Abhertach his voice booming over the sounds of merriment below.

 

–

 

The night was darker than pitch, cold and moist. The cloaked figure could still hear the dampened merriments of the folk inside. He looked up at Abhartach’s office window and grinned.

 

He took something from the sleeve of his cloak and started to sprinkle it on the ground muttering some sort of incantation.

 

He then started to walk the street of the town, all in their beds but the tavern folk. Their chimneys slowly dying as the children slept soundly their mother pecking them on the forehead. Their fathers tucking them in.

 

The figure continued to walk, humming to himself as a bluish fog started to cover the town of Slaghtaverty.

–

Read it on inkitt Nightcrawlers

0

Cur Chapter 10 ‘Spirit is willing’

Bonjourno, did things a little differently today, did my proofreading and spamming in the morning and I’m doing this now, hence it’s later than usual.
No reason, I just like doing stuff like that haha.
So yeah been proofreading, I did this bad boy right here, and I’m working my way back through Diana After Dark and it’s going pretty well. I feel like I’m being really objective like I can step back and look at it as a whole, because I know how it played out so I can see holes and I smooth out rough areas. I think it’s really helping the flow. And I’m looking forward to fixing a few plot holes I may have left open later in the book, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I think after this segment of 3 ring is done I’ll focus on proofreading it full time until it’s done and then start spamming it to agents when I’m near enough done.
Been an ordinary week, writing stupid clown shit and battling depression and possible retardation, nothing new there haha. Just been feeling shit, like I’m enjoying writing 3 ring but it’s also fucking depressing knowing it’s really a waste of time because no one’s gonna read it haha. I know I’m just writing it to stay sharp but I know my time could be spent better and I really think I need a new job so I can turn some of this excess time into money I can use to hire more editors and see the people that mean the most to me, the few of those I have.
Not been reading as much either which is lame, the latest Parker book just hasn’t hooked me, its kinda just a bunch of stuff happening. This is sorta continuation of that lame themepark book and I thought it would redeem that but so far its a little flat but I really haven’t read that much of it. But there aren’t any characters or plot points that jump out at me. It’s kinda just treading water, which sucks because it’s referencing one of the strongest books in the series at the start. Where to get back at this Mafia organisation he gives the green light on a bunch of the people he’s connected to to do a series of coordinated hits on them, punching them straight in the wallet. Basically trying to show the outfit that he has as much power as they do in regards to control of their money. But that was a great book which set up quite a few characters who appeared later in the series and all the little robberies were great but in this it’s just Parker and Grofield doing some really boring robberies for pennies to piss off this guy who they think stole the take from a botched job but he actually has no idea where it is.
So it just feels like it’s running up a hill, spitting in the wind, pick a saying haha.
I’m just not desperate to rip into it like I usually am, I really need a new book series to read haha. Another Dexter would be great, maybe I could just read Dexter again haha.
Anyway about Cur, going over it still, cleaning up a lot of it, it’s rough but it has potential, I think I was a little overconfident with it, maybe overextended but it has something, I just need to keep chipping away at it. There’s something good there, I just need to clear away the shit and pull it together. Because in some respects it feels a little small because it’s really just a piece of an epic story. There’s no way I could do the whole tale justice in one book without doing just a big birds eye view without getting down to the nitty gritty. It would end up just being the mythology not a story. So I needed to get down in the mud a little bit and get creative to craft an origin to this war. And I think I did an ok job. I really only have one person’s opinion on it but he thinks it’s alright haha.
Anyway, gotta go do something else now, eat maybe? I dunno, what do I even do except write and talk shit?
See you…
–
“Why have we stopped?” Bres called out to the stone coloured sky as he tilted the visor on his helmet back. His armour was gaudy and extravagant, hints of white gold and gold leaf burdened a chestnut mare.
Ogma rode silently at his side aloft his dappled grey, his visor down.
“Sire, a swineherder blocks our path and wishes to speak to our captain.” A young knights errant said, hiking his hauberk up as it seemed a little too big for him.
Bres sighed and made his way to the front of the convoy with Ogmar trailing behind him in a terse canter.
The path they were on was a narrow dipping one lined on both sides with stones separating an embankment of rocky crags. The stones demarked a break in the fields used for grazing from the sacred groves of Newgrange. The village folk liked to have their livestock feast on the grass on those groves. They thought the grasses there imbued with some mystical properties. Producing milk and meat sweeter and heartier and wool hewn softer and stronger.
To turn back they would have to climb the embanked and loop around by crossing open farm land. Adding annoyance and further time to their journey.
Bres beheld the man with raised eyebrow and a sneering condescension as if expecting to witness a pig rolling around in the mud at his feet.
The swindeherder was deshevelled and appeared hobbled with a large white branch cane. Despite his deformities he had the broadback of a farmhand. His dark cloak covering most of his face and body, with one sleeve hanging loose at his side. A placid shaggy dog panting at his feet.
“What is it you want swineherd?” Bres said with the listlessness of a court maid.
The man rolled one stoney eye towards Bres and Bres was taken with a queer feeling as if someone were scything grass to make a grave. He swallowed it down and scoffed as the swineherder took some time to answer.
“Well out with it, I haven’t got all day, you stand before the king of Inish Veil” He said softly, as a light spattering of rain began to fall.
“Is that so?” The swineherder said in an almost mocking colloquial tone, his posture not changing at all.
“What is it you want peasant, speak now or be run down!” Bres said idly, trying not to look at the vagabond.
“I wish to issue a challenge” the old swineherd said his voice low gritted.
Bres sighed “We don’t have time for games or riddles old man and we wouldn’t waste the coin now out of our way!”
“I wish to challenge the strongest amongst ye to single combat” The old man said as if he was asking for a sip of water.
The men all laughed after a moment and Bres too could help but chuckle.
All but Ogma laughed, he instead bristled with a cool anticipation. There was something not quite right. Some drive or pull, some whispering in the back of his head that told him something was padding the earth downwind. Something waiting to see the soft side of a belly to slash. Some great battle lay over the horizon just waiting to cast his legend in bronze, his death in history.
“Do you hear this Ogma?” Bres said still chuckling “This swineherd challenges you to duel, do you accept?” Bres grinned.
Ogma said nothing and dismounted his horse.
He approached the stranger slowly tracing a wide semi-circle. Drawing the steel club from his belt.
“Draw your weapon stranger.” Ogma said cautiously.
“I have no weapon” The old swineheard said.
“A weapon!” Ogma called.
Another steel club was thrown at the swineherd’s feet but he seemed not to notice. Only after a moment stoopping slowly to drag it off the ground leaning over his cane awkwardly to do so. It was revealed he was a cripple. He only had one arm.
“Tis a brave cripple” Bres jested “P’haps he seeks an honourable felling?” Bres laughed, tugging at the reigns of his horse trying to keep her straight.
Ogma gritted his teeth as he felt a low ebb of malice coming from the stranger. An aura of hate kept at bay by a slow flowing of misery and disgrace at his pitiable appearance. His chest nevertheless swelling as he could hear trumpets of battle ringing in his ears but couldn’t explain why. The hair on his arms bristling. He could almost see the blood stained grass swaying as he looked upon the stranger, hear the thunder. He could feel the static air but he dare not make his feelings known.
“Come on Ogma take pity on the poor wretch, his swines have turned fowl!” Bres joked “He wants you to put him out of his misery, but it hardly does your honor any good to thwought such a wretch”. Bres laughed and rested his chin on his gauntlet as if to pounder.
“The knight could tie his good hand” The stranger said at once in a low drawling tone from unseen lips.
“What a good idea!” Bres said, his armor jangling as he slapped his thigh. “Tie your good arm and then fight the swine herd on fair terms and keep your honor, there we’ve settled it.” Bres smiled, pleased with his idea.
Ogma breathed through his teeth as he gripped the haft of his club tightly. Feeling the sweat on his palm then releasing it again, then tightening it again.
One of Ogma’s men tied his arm behind his back and then stood back as Ogma stretched his now only arm with the club extended. He walked slowly crossing one leg over the other circling the swineherd as his men cleared an uneven circle with their bodies and erect pikes.
The stranger did not move or adjust his footing. Only seeming to exhale and rise slightly allowing the bleached branch he was using as a cane to fall on the ground.
Then suddenly a flash and the swineherd threw the club with a ferocious speed and vitriol. It caught the crowd by such surprise they had no reaction whatsoever but stunned silence. Ogma was a skilled warrior and his senses were keen and swift and with his own great strength he met the blow. Ogma deflected it with some difficulty. The force of it lifting him off one of his feet and making his hand ring with energy, sending sharp pains up his arms and down his back.
But he could not rest. The swineherd was relentless and vicious taken by the spirit of a wild boar himself he threw his cloak soon after not stopping for a beat. Never once thinking one attack would fell the champion of the Tuatha de’. The cloak was heavy and sodden with the beast’s sweat hitting heavily and sticking. Ogma tried to bat it away but the cloak wrapped around his head. Without his other arm for support it drove his club back hitting him awkwardly around his shoulder just nicking the bottom of his helmet.
The swineherd was used to having one arm and all his movements compensated for it, never slowing or struggling.
Bres who had been laughing and smiling and geering jovially up to this point had grown silent and constipated. “That face” He whispered to himself as his own face drained of all colour and he took on the appearance of a ghoul. “Not possible” He laughed it off his mind playing tricks.
The man standing before them was not old nor infirmed but a man at his full height erect towered over them all. His face scarred and horrid, head bald, shaven awkwardly with scraps of hair missed dangling like that of a corpses. His skin pale and drawn and wet looking, clothes of mesh and leather, dark and fitted for speed. A sick sadistic smile on his twisted face. Eyes burning like coals with what seemed like a relentless savage rage, a fire that would consume all that touched it.
In an instant he’d picked his club back up and was on Ogma who was still struggling to remove the sodden heavy cloak from him with only one arm.
The swineherd laughed as he hit him in the stomach. Ogma doubling over, another blow sent Ogma’s helmet flying revealing his bonny face as he sprawled on his back like a wingless fly.
The swineherd pinned his other arm with his foot dropping the club carelessly by his head. Cur withdrew his strange blade from his belt, stooped swiftly and stopped to grin at no one. He sliced Ogma’s ear off as if he was cutting himself a piece of cheese. Ogma’s silver tongue wailed out in pain as he writhed under the heavy heel of the stranger.
Cur held the bloody ear in his hand and closed his fingers around it. he stooped again to put back on his cloak as the men around him said nothing. The sounds of their hauberks and plate mail jangling as they stood frozen said it all. Shaking, petrified from fear and shock and rage as they watched their hero, their champion defiled by one so pathetic.
Cur glanced around at them and laughed softly as they encircled him. Their breathing heavy as they tried to muster the courage to draw a blade, even one.
“Let him pass”
They turned to look at Bres as he sat atop his horse tapping nervously on his thigh.
“I said let him pass, would you besmurge your honor to kill a man for winning a duel mutually agreed?” His voice was strained and irritable as if the words tasted foul and burned his tongue. “An ear can mend, honor cannot, I said let him pass damn you!” He spat swatting at the air with his reigns, his mare swaying beneathe him.
Nothing but the sounds of straining jaws and clacking teeth and shaking mail knees and chausses. Fear and rage and a grotesque swallowing of all of it as they cleared a path for the beast before them.
Cur turned to smile at Bres, it could have been an acknowledgement of his nobility, a grateful smile. But it wasn’t, far from it. It was a wicked arrogant grin and it set Bres’s teeth on edge. He clutched angrily at his horse’s mane causing it to whiney and shake it’s head violently as he watched the familiar stranger walk away.
–
Checkout the rest of the chapter right here.
Spirit is willing
0

Cur Chapter 9 ‘Stone letter’

Hello there,
Erm almost didn’t post a poem yesterday and was set to apologise for going out into the real world and interacting with humans sort of. But then I did so…
The poem thing is something I can’t really force, but hopefully it’s something someone might find enlivening, if that’s a word. I know my stuff has dropped off a little because as with the season I’m just being a bit of a miserable cunt haha.
But I got this chapter proofread (but not spellchecked haha) and I’m making strides towards getting the pitch stuff ready for Diana to make her real world debut, fingers crossed. Could be some time yet before it’s all edited but I’m making a concerted effort to make sure it has the strongest foot forward I can give it. Nothing too drastic, I just keep going back with fresh eyes and going over it but I plan on doing an entire new read through just to make sure it flows and just to buff out some of the rough edges. 
Cur certainly needs that, I’m thinking of almost rewriting it entirely before I even hand it over to an editor because I dunno along the way I think I let it wonder off the mark a little bit. And I haven’t too clear headed these last couple of months what with the sleep experiments which are sort of working but also not because I keep fucking them up and on top of that the weighlifting messes with my sleep even more. So a lot of the time it’s like I can’t even think straight or I’m too tired to put it together and make sense of it.

In other news, thinking about the new Diana book has already begun, implying I don’t have a plan/have it half written in my head already. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile waiting for the mood to be right and for lightning to strike.

Gonna have to get back into the Dexter books for inspiration but I’m already deep into the next Parker book which is pretty good so far. It’s sort of trying to redeem the shitty amusement park book and so far it’s delivering quite, it’s definitely better, more open, more mobile, more dynamic with more characters old and new. It’s shaping up to be really good.
Anyway that’s about all I need to go cook for the fam now, making my signature (as of a week ago) spaghetti and meatballs made entirely from scratch. Kind of proud of it because it’s delicious and I do find cooking very fun and relaxing.
See you…
–
 
Birds in the forest tittered and fluttered through the trees. The sound of which made Tuan’s head feel like an hourglass turned on it’s side.
 
The campfire from the night before was dying. Cur put it out of it’s misery stamping down on it with his heavy boots, the warm embers crashing around it.
 
One of which flew close to Birog’s face as she lay sleeping. She opened her eyes cautiously to look at it as it smouldered on the ground in front of her. She turned her eyes up to look at him. Her expression that of a fawn looking up at a great mountain that might fall on her head at any moment.
 
“We ride out” Cur grunted almost as if he was talking to himself.
 
“We?” The girl said coyly.
 
Cur grimaced slightly, hearing her slight.
 
Tuan groaned and held his head and hissed. “He doesn’t like repeating himself” He paused. “Where are we going again?” The shapeshifter said squinting.
 
They set off to Sí an Bhrú, the druidess on her horse, the shape shifter accompanied her in the form of a bird flying over top surveying the roads and fields. The barbarian preferred to walk than to ride.
 
Within a few hours of travelling they were in eye shot of the temple mound known as Sí an Bhrú. The mound and cairns of inish vale were so old that not even the Firbolg knew their true origin or original purpose.
 
The mound was located on the north side of the river Boyne. It lay in an open field surrounded only by hedgerows and a series of standing stone circles moving out. The mound itself was an enormous structure, round and grassy like a manmade hillock. A retaining wall at the front, made of white quartz cobblestones at its entrance. Forty foot high at its tallest point and two hundred and fifty wide and there was no telling how deep it went into the earth if it stopped at all.
 
The Tuatha de, recognizing it as a holy site of some power made use of it as a temple to Danu. Honoring it by placing the stone of destiny on the nearby hill of Tara where Bres himself was crowned king of Inish veil.
 
They approached the enormous retaining wall and as they got closer they could now see all the engravings in the stone. Deeply set swirls and circular patterns swirling outward around the entrance. The entrance itself was a very small rectangular slot walled in by large megalithic stones with similar carvings. The temple had no door and there was no activity or guards posted anywhere around the outside.
 
Standing at the entrance looking in they could see it was lit. What little sunlight got in from the outside was accompanied by braziers on the ground every ten or twenty feet. as well as hundreds of candles affixed directly to the stone. Years of wax drippings coating them making them slick and appear almost like the inside of a throat. The flames of the candles lapped at the irregular stone that made up the inner construction. It resembled that of a manmade cave formed from rocks no tuatha de could hope to move.
 
The stones inside and the clay roof gave off a strange resonance the druidess could feel in her torque. Cur too could feel it buzzing at his scars like a mosquito.
 
Cur swept past her squeezing into the cramped entrance and listening for footsteps or any sign of occupance. He traversed a very narrow hallway with entrances onto a pair of small altar rooms on each side, little more than caves and holes in the ground. Some of which could have been a very meager sleeping quarters or an anti-room.
 
He heard then the sound of whispering carried on a draft and he followed it to another identical room. The entrance made of two bowing stones making a triangular shape.
 
Inside it seemed much larger with a high ceiling that echoed with his heavy footfalls. The whispering carried by the strange acoustics of the structure. Something about it bothered him, as if every breath gave him away. It felt as if someone at the heart was listening or even watching him indifferently, waiting.
 
The room was a hollow and the floor sloped into the centre where a basin lay. The basin formed of descending slates of stone circling each other making a shallow pit which appeared to have water in it.
 
Kneeling at the pit was a skinny welp wearing a moth eaten grey cloak.
 
Without saying anything Cur crossed the room and picked the old man up by the collar of his cloak and stood him up on his two feet.
 
“Dian Cecht?” He growled low.
 
“Wwwhat?” The man said, his breath stinking of mouldy bread and cheese. His balding head and shining flat face angered Cur with it’s oblivious sincerity. Cur spat on the floor.
 
“Firbolg?” The druidess said behind him “What are you doing?”
 
–
Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt Stone letter.
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Cur Chapter 8 ‘Thick as thieves’

Bit of a chill one today, its raining outside and I’m feeling gently melancholic – but in a good way haha.

I really do love the rain, sometimes I can’t sleep without hearing it. Don’t know what I’d do if I left the country to some hotter climb. I think I’ll only truly be happy when I move somewhere where it rains all the time haha.

It really doesn’t rain in England as much as people think.

I dunno, I don’t like going out in it but I could spend hours just watching it. Something about knowing that someone else is doing the exact same thing somewhere. Or that outside the world is bare of people, just all huddled around inside watching as it comes down. The steady rhythmic metronome of the rain hitting the ground and trees. Something about that really gets me.

I don’t have much to say other than that, not been up to much except proofreading. I think I really need to go over Cur a couple of times because it’s just too big of a project not to. It only worked out around 50k words but when I say big I’, referring to the scope. I tried to make a little fantasy story but the source material is unrestrainably epic.

I did borrow my brothers ps4 to try out the new spiderman game, I think the last spiderman game I played might have been spiderman 2 haha. It’s pretty good but it has some serious flaws, I might write a review when I finish it.

Down to this latest chapter of Cur, probably the most pivotal chapter up to now in terms of the lore and the backstory for the characters as well as the main themes for the story overall. No action unfortunately but *in Bain voice* ‘That comes later’.

This is sort of where the main story really takes off in terms of an actual quest and some epic duels will follow on from this. This is basically the end of this part and the next will all be about the actual task that Birog is to be given. The main story is of course about Cur but Birog is the character that carries the driving force of the plot.

Ok so enough rambling about that haha. I’ve been too knackered to finish Plunder Squad recently, that’s the name of the Parker book I’m reading, please don’t judge them by the titles haha. Thankfully kept away from the witcher. Not sure I’ll return to that honestly, just a chore to read.

That’s all for now, hope you like this excerpt and if you do, head on over to inkitt to read the rest and my other stories.

See you…

–

Hear- could hear nothing but the sound of the lapping sea and the gulls circling overhead with their monotonous chatter. The sea roared at his feet, the sky swirling with black and grey clouds. His mouth was open and dry and he could feel the sand under him but nothing else and he couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

 

He stared up at the clouds unable to move his head or close his eyes or feel any of his extremities whatsoever. Not the cold of the wind, nor the spray of the sea, only the sand below him shifting and the little things crawling beneath it.

 

There was no pain, or pleasure, or sense at all, just the sea’s endless roar.

 

Underneath him and he could feel his hair knotting in the sand, damp and being pulled by something. His feet too were being tugged by something out of his line of sight.

 

“We want the dead one’s boots” A little guttural voice said.

 

“We wants his eyes” The harsh voice tugging at his hair said. “Whats you need boots for under the waters anyways?”

 

“To trade” The affronted one said.

 

“You already have your trophy for the king of the deep, begone with you!”

 

“No you!”

 

The two figures continued to bicker and pull at the dead man lying on the beach.

 

“What’s that?” One of them said.

 

“Leg it!” The other said accompanied by the sound of skittering little feet.

 

And then by his feet a splashing sploshing noise as the waves swallowed one of the little things pulling at him and the other darted into a bush.

 

“What do we have here?” A new voice said, one that sounded like a bear and a bird talking at once. “There is life left in this one yet”

 

Time passed as the dead man watched the sky roll over him without care. The sun seen through the clouds turning orange as he felt himself being dragged on what sounded like wooden plank along the ground.

 

The sounds of the waves then replaced with the sound of a campfire and the blanket of clouds replaced by the blanket of night. The stars like pin pricks in the roof of the sky beaming down on his lifeless inert form. Only remnants of his consciousness left to stare out of a blank face for eternity as the rest fell away.

 

Cur awoke from his dream, his neck feeling stiff after being trampled by the black mare. He hushed himself as he heard quiet conversation and the melodious playing of a harp and the light of another fire.

 

“It’s quite alright, I’d probably rob me too if I met me” The druidess laughed.

 

“Our time on the road has hardened us, I beg forgiveness my lady” Tuan tittered like a bard.

 

“And the other one?”

 

“He fell out of his mother hard as a rock” Tuan chuckled.

 

The druidess giggled “However did you meet him?”

 

“It’s a long and very embarrassing story.” Tuan said.

 

“Well? Do tell shapeshifter” She fawned

 

“You see I was caught short, let’s say, a mating ritual -interrupted.” He smiled and waited for a response.

 

“I see”

 

“I was, how do you say, conducting myself in an indecent manor when some loutish fishermen caught me with my trousers around my ankles should we say. They bound me before I could change into something more formidable. There was nothing I could do, I was at a loss” Tuan said with a waiffish arrogance.

 

“Fisherman, in their nets, I’m sorry I’m not following.” The druidess balked as she talked into her cup.

 “Forgive me, I forgot to mention I was transformed into a salmon at the time.” Tuan said absentmindedly staring off into space.

 

“Oh I see, Oh I see” She giggled.

 

“Yes, so these idiots were planning on cooking and eating me, I tried to talk to them but they wouldn’t have any of it. I tried to tell them I wasn’t a fish but that just made it worse. You see they were convinced for some damned reason that eating me would give them all the knowledge in the world. I have no idea why.” He said as he took a sip from his cup.

 

“Why didn’t you change into a Wyvern or a crocodile?” Birog said wide eyed, listening intently.

 

“I was already confined in the pot, and I couldn’t think of anything, I get terrible stage fright, all animals fall out of my head when pressed.”

 

“So what happened then?” She said shaking her as if the drink was getting to her a little bit.

 

“Well all the noise of me shouting and arguing with the fishermen drew out the ogre. Who I suspect was trying to take a shit in the woods at the time and he came out and scared them off.”

 

The druidess burst into laughter spilling her wine over her shoulder.

 

“I only suggest that as his trousers were around his ankles as he chased them.”

 

She tried to catch her breath and sputtered “What happened after that?”

 “Well I pledged my life to him as he inadvertently saved it. But of course sour one as he is, he didn’t take kindly to it at first but I was sure to follow him to one day return the favor. But as you might have guessed saving the life of a dead man is quite impossible.”

 

“What an interesting story, I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it in all my life.” Birog gaped. “But can I ask- why is he so-?”

 

“Cruel?”

 

“I’m not sure that’s the right word for it, I’m not sure a word exists to describe what he is. He’s cold but inside burns something truly- monstrous, something I couldn’t envision even in my dreams”.

 

“I know little of him but of his people, I have seen much.”

“What have you seen?” She said intently as bit from a leg of succulent roast pork which turned on a spit over the fire.

 

“I have seen Connacht in ruins as a crow sees it.”

–

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkitt.

Thick as thieves

 

 

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Cur chapter 7 ‘Sore eyes’

Hello there,

Back again with some special content, now I’m finished writing it I’m barrelling away with the proofreading and hope to get it edited soon. I like how it turned out. It’s small but it’s like a stepping stone to how epic the plan is for it going forward. I want people to read the last book and see how it compares to this one in terms of how the scope gets grander and grander as there was no way in hell this can’t turn into epic fantasy based on the source material. 
The mythology I’m working with is probably the basis for a lot of Tolkien, hopefully that gives you some window into what I’m processing in terms of the actual lore.

Didn’t do much yesterday, spent a nice chunk of time with the most special people on the earth to me in digital form then I ate a lot of meat and pasta and fought to stay awake while proofreading this chapter. Quick tip, don’t eat pasta in the middle of the day haha.

Still really digging the latest Parker book, still in austistic planning phases and I’m loving it. No news on the witcher front except about the TV show casting Henry Caville to be Geralt which is a weird choice. I guess its just because he wanted it haha. Honestly I don’t hold out much hope for the show because netflix is garbage, and the writing team they have seem like millenial douchnozzles and it’s supposedly going to be based on the books and I think I’ve made my opinions on the books apparent. I think the books are a dumpster fire and the games are only good because they use the characters and build an interesting world to interact with. CD projekt red did the impossible and polished a turd and made it sparkle. Now do I think netfux can do that? Nah.

The witcher is only popular because of the games, no one ever heard of it before that and for good reason, the books are objectively bad/boring/derivative only a bunch of sycophantic hipsters pretend to like it for whatever reason. So if you’re basing it off the books in which Geralt slays like three monsters, we’ve got problems. Whereas if they make it like a freak of the week show akin to supernatural where’s there’s a new monster every episode and a vein of story running through it, it could work. But do I think they’ll do that or go with game of thrones shit?

I don’t think Caville will do a bad job and I’m glad it’s an english guy, although I would have preferred Mads Mikkelson, that dude was born to be Geralt. But maybe now he can be Cur haha.

Actually thinking about it who would I cast as Cur if I had the choice of anyone, Tom Hardy pops out for Bane. I could see that, use camera trickery to make everyone shorter than him and hey presto got a giant.
Of course if I could choose anyone and age didn’t matter it would definitely hands down be Mr Krabs himself, Clancy Brown, the basis for the character of Cur from the Kurgan in highlander. I just saw him in Detroit become human and he doesn’t look too old but I don’t know if he’s in shape but if I could choose anyone it would be him. Tom Hardy would be a bigger draw and he’s a better actor. And he’s yet to have like a solid action type movie where he’s the center.

Like he stars in all these thrillery actiony movies but is never ‘that guy’ like bond or Ethan Hunt. I think maybe that’s why he wanted to do venom so he could do that. But I hear it’s gonna suck because they pussed out and made it a 12a when originally they were gonna go the deadpool route and push for an adult rating. Which would have been awesome because the first trailer was dumb but the second trailer looked pretty good and that plus venom biting people’s heads off with maximum gore seemed like a winner but neutered 12a venom makes me think of ghost rider and I get a full body cringe.

I think certainly after seeing him as Bane and Bronson, he has the screen presence to pull that off.

But young Clancy Brown is who’s in my head when I write Cur, he’s the guy. I sometimes have to watch the ‘Gimme the prize’ music video from the highlander movie and see the Kurgan in action to really get into the mood of the character and put them into my story. To get that raw visceral ambivalence and chaotic evil nature and put it up on the page.

Talking about Detroit become human actually, makes me think about gaming before youtube. Because Detroit is one of those games I would have played and written an angry review about which is what I desperately want to do with a game that just came out that’s called ‘We happy few’. But I haven’t actually played either I just watched a full playthrough on youtube while doing something else haha.

So I don’t feel good about reviewing something I haven’t spent any money on (apart from movies haha),like I don’t feel that mad or invested. I just feel relieved that I saved forty quid haha. Because those games were interesting to watch on a stream but if I paid for them I would be spitting mad with those two garbage fires haha.

Detroit is basically the least subtle movie about social justice race/gender politics I’ve ever seen. It’s so on the nose with the holocaust stuff it’s was almost unbearable to watch it’s complete lack of subtlety and nuance. It just made me wonder if David Cage needs someone to chew his food for him. I half expected Trump to be in it and personally throw a black jewish drag queen into an oven while reciting passages of mein kampf.

And we happy few is basically a game made by someone in canada who liked bioshock and overheard someone talking about 1984 and brave new world and thought that would be good as a game. Because the only real parallel between 1984 is the fact the first character you play edits newspapers, once at the beginning of the game and never does it again, wow, much reference such inspired. I haven’t actually read brave new world but I’m assuming it’s not about hiding in bushes and engaging in really shitty combat with an umbrella.

It started life as just a survival game then some bright spot thought it would be good to have a story and then just made a series of fetch quests and called it a story. Its basically a glorified hidden item/phone game like granny but on a larger scale with less good stealth mechanics and much more filler. The difference is granny is free and this is basically an indie kickstarter game asking AAA prices. Kill yourself haha. Mainly what I hate about it is it’s essentially bioshock but instead of playing someone coming from outside discovering the world for the first time, you’re just a splicer with no powers who whines constantly about everything in the most annoying voice ever haha.

 My one line review would be “It’s bioshock but you can’t shoot bees from your fist” End. That’s all you need to know, it’s totally derivative and seems to take the wackiness of bioshock to a point where you can’t take it seriously. But it also fails to juxtapose that with the oppressive atmosphere to create any tension. It’s like it takes the wackiness to a point of idiocy but also deals with the serious stuff in a way that is just boring and depressing. It’s the worst of two worlds, it’s not serious enough to be ground but too depressing and boring to be fun.

Ok enough rambling, actually I have nothing better to do today haha. I spent too much time setting things up now I have 14 minutes to do some more proofreading, well whatever. I guess I’ll just do some spamming and take a nap, fuck me haha.

I think I’m gonna make a start on the next three ring instalment, just take a poke at it. I started doing the real shit workout again and I feel so sluggish, feels like I’ve been sleeping covered in sandbags. So until I get used to that again I’m gonna be basically useless at everything except holding up mugs full of green tea and yawning and it’s about to get crazy at work next week, somebody kill me.

This is a pretty fun chapter, not as fun as the last one but close.

See you…

–

The crow watched dispassionately from it’s perch in high Tallaght. It cawed loudly and ruffled it’s feathers and took off in the direction of the woods.

Down below the girl ran desperately through the streets, her lungs burning. All thoughts of using her magic chased out of her brain by a shrieking fear of the eternal. And what could she do without her torque or the sword? All she could do was run and hide and prey to the goddess that birthed her. The sounds of the black hooves and the devil whinney of that black mare grew faster and closer and louder and shook the earth with terrible fury.

–

“Wake up you big bastard” A strange small voice said. “You’ve got no time to be laying about”

Cur’s eyes fluttered and then opened wide. His eyes bulging as he stared at the sky seeing nothing but a blinding bright light and then closing them again tightly.

He rose and hunched forward in a sitting position and rubbed them with the large palm of his hand.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know” The little bird said. “It’d didn’t take me long to find you, a naked giant lying in the forest is hard to miss from above.”

“You were supposed to be watching” Cur groaned and looked at bird in the form of the bird bobbing around on the ground.

“I was watching but something more interesting caught my eye.” The bird seemed to cock a cheeky grin and wink.

“A wench is it?” Cur growled scanning the grove which was now empty and placid and looked like it had never been home to a cottage of any kind.

“Aye, a cumbly wench, a familiar one at that.”

Cur spat on the ground “The fool.”

“Quite right, she must really want her sword back, good thing you didn’t take anything else” The bird laughed.

“Should have let me kill her” He said as he found his clothes lying in a heap in the grass under a birch. He dressed as quickly as one can with a single arm.

“Ah but if you’d killed her you’d have lost your chance at reprisal”

“What talk is this?”

“It seems our little lark has earned the ayer of none other than the black knight of Dun Bresse.”

“Dullahan is here? Why?”

“For the girl I can only assume.”

“What could he want with that scrawny wench?” Cur scoffed.

“Her head perhaps”

Cur seethed angrily rubbing his neck as if there was a faint scar there.

The crow laughed “He took your head once before and you still bear a grudge.”

“What of it?”

“A man took your head only a few nights since”

Cur grimaced growing silent and solemn, He tightened his jaws until his face looked hard and skeletal white.

“He was the first.”

–

The girl, frantic, tossed her light body about the streets, like a leaf in an errant and erratic wind looking for any nook to hide herself in. She fought not to stumble over herself as she heard the horse’s whine and the hooves resonating through the tight streets.

She stopped dead, her breath burning in her throat almost drooling with fear, mad with it. Her eyes wide and shaking and leaking. She looked up and saw the high stone wall of the guardhouse, one of the only two story buildings in the village. Penned in on all sides but one by the little round house huts and their thatched rooves.

She rattled for the handle and it opened easily with a yawing creak and she fumbled into a large square eating hall. Looking around goggle eyed she spotted a stair case and fell up it as she heard the horse’s cry all around her now.

Hiding in here was her best course of action. He’d have to get off the horse if he would pursue her any further and then she’d at least have some chance at escape. Or enough where with all to use some sort of spell on him.

She waited holding her breath perched on the edge of the wood and stone staircase. Looking down at the only entrance of which she didn’t take the time to barricade. Now regretting it, looking around at all the heavy wooden chairs and tables in the canteen. She cursed herself and thought to go down and hurriedly construct some edifice to slow his pace. But then what? Wait to die?

It was too late, a dull slow almost disinterested pounding on the door shook the whole building. Within no more than three strikes the door gave up the ghost and fell open like a whore’s legs.

–

Read the rest of this chapter on inkitt Sore eyes

0

GS2 Chapter 23 ‘A tooth for an eye’

Yo yo yo fine folks of the interwebs!

Been a fairly interesting week, namely because I completed the first and pivotal stage in my epic fantasy saga. That’s right book one is done and with some fanfare. Just going over it now with a fine tooth comb, proofreading, making some changes as I usually do. Came in just over 50k. It would have been longer but I took out some filler I thought just slowed down the narrative. I mean it was just filler, you don’t need filler haha.

It turned out pretty interesting, solved some of the problems I had in my head, I think I wrapped things up in a nice way that makes the ending seem final but also have a lot of things left up in the air. It has a satisfying conclusion but not satisfying enough to feel like it’s all over. Because it’s sure as shit not, I have four more books already planned out haha.

So starting friday I guess it’s back to clownworld for me haha. Gonna start up where I left off of three ring until I work up the nerve to start Diana two, so that should be a lot of fun. Be a nice break from all the gore and seriousness, actually probably not from the gore haha. What am I saying? Definitely not from the gore haha.

On an even better note the new Parker book seems to be a total return to form tossing out the quick easy action and small frame of the last two books and returning to the autistic planning and arguing I love haha. Almost to a level that seemed impossible haha. I love the scope of this book because he already turns down like two jobs and he’s working on the third now and it’s great. On top of that there’s his fight with this elusive enemy who he let go before so it’s got some nice layers and all the planning and build up and characters are really satisfying. We just have to see if the action and heist side can live up to that now and seal the whole thing. Because you can’t have all this build up without some pay off and I’m really looking forward to see how it develops along both lines.

I just love how grounded this one is with how he’s hopping from job to job, like some kind of criminal goldie locks; “Oops some asshole from my past loused this one up and shot someone, oh now this job is full of unreliable emotionally unstable people, ah this one seems just right, now down to haggling” I really like it so far.

Also in recent news I watch oceans 8 that sequel to a movie franchise no one asked for and surprisingly enough I thought it was ok. I think it’s just because I thought it was going to be as terrible as the ghostbusters remake but with loads more identity politics as I’m well aware of the politics of the people involved. But it was actually fairly competent at sticking to the style and structure of the previous films so it was alright. Not amazing, but I was never a fan of the George Clooney ones really. They’re sort of just popcorn movies on you put on in the background, they’re like the type of movies that make dumb people feel smart.

And this movie doesn’t really bring anything new to the table or elevate the others really so no wonder it did so poorly but I thought it was watchable. No review necessary as I had no strong feelings for it either way really.

As far as the witcher books are concerned they’ve sort of just become background noise to me, I just cant be bothered with them.

Well that’s that, more zombie nonsense for you haha. I can’t believe how long this book is haha. When I’m using actual mythology I can only do around 50k but when I’m pulling zombie nonsense out of my ass and anime it just never ends haha.

Anyway gotta do something more constructive today. Gotta proofread Cur so I can send it off to my editor when she finishes up Diana, which she very nearly is.

Cheery bye.

See you…

–

A deathly silence filled the mall. Drowning out even the din of the hordes of furries banging sofly on the glass of the icerink. The sporadic bursts of gunfire from the mercs.

Carpenter and the French assassin hired to kill him locked swords again but stopped for a moment. Frozen like the skeleton crew on whose ship they were stowaways. It was as if they’d both realised they were interrupting some pantomime on a stage. An audience of people watching them in stunned silence.

They both felt naked and out of place for a second.

Carpenter looked over at the icerink. The Frenchman who’s eyes were still sealed blood opened one corner of an eye to look over to see what he was looking at.

Carpenter let out a sad laugh and a sadder smirk and said “I guess there goes the star of the show”.

–

Evergreen watched in silence, his face wooden but lined like an armrest on an old bench.

“Sir, we need to go”

“Wait.”

“The shows over” Rigby said.

He sighed in agreement and squeezed the hand rail on the second floor balcony. Then released it and turned to walk over to Rigby. “You’re right”.

“YOU WILL DIE BY THE TIP OF MY SWORD THIS DAY!!!!”

“What the fuck?” Evergreen mouthed.

–

TJ drew his sword slow, the cold made it stick but it didn’t matter. Soon it would be warm with blood and it would rust and then it would never go back in the sheathe ever again.

His face was a mask of cold angry tears. A well of loss and desolation poured from the deepest pit of his self loathing. Filling every inch of his body with tremulous rage.

He felt light but strong, like he was vibrating, like every cell was awake and a sleep at the same time. Existing in the spaces between this world and the next. Ready for death and for life and for everything in between.

The sword glistened over his head, his eyes closed, his feet rooted in the ice. He looked like a statue. Like a weathervain, like the world would freeze over and he’d still be standing there just like that. Waiting for lightning to strike him and the ragnarok to begin.

“I’m gonna cut off your arm.” He said calmly like he wasn’t even in the room like he was talking to someone on the phone. He readied his sword in front of him and took a mountainlike stance. Were those his words, or someone else’s, did it matter?

The eviscergrator shrieked like a ghoul and started it’s blades whirring again. Those pumps and shafts and pistons firing building up heat. He was drenched in her, there was nothing left, nothing recognisable. She was in a thousand pieces, never to be put back together again.

He sniffed and closed his eyes and listened, darkness, whirring. The smell of coppery blood on steel.

“Are you ready?”

–

Read the rest of the chapter by clicking on this link and heading over to inkitt. A tooth for an eye

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Cur Chapter 6 ‘Hammer to fall’

Good morrow gentle folk,
Gonna keep this super short and sweet because I sort of lost yesterday in the best way possible so had to cram everything I had to do then into today so lots of editing spamming, procrastinating, all packed into today haha.
So yeah that’s it, see really short right haha? But that haiku yesterday was cool right? Right?

See you…
*spoilers*
This chapter is really spicy haha.
–
 
A crow perched atop the highest stone structure of Tallaght. It watched as Birog of the Tuatha De’ descended her horse and cautiously entered the walls of the cursed city.
 
She stopped in the entryway and seemed to sniff the air taken by a familiar scent. She dropped to one knee taking off one of her gloves and touched the ground with her bare hands.
 
She rubbed some sort of substance between her fingers before cautiously putting it in her mouth to taste it. She instantly spat it out and said “Sea salt, how odd.”
 
She rose from the ground and put her glove back and mused to herself “All their salt is surely mined, why would sea water be here, inland of all places? When a fresh water river runs but a stones throw.”
 
She stopped and straightened rigidly as she craned her neck trying to listen for people or animals but not even the crow cawed. Just dead silence and the calm creaking of the empty houses echoing the empty streets.
 
“The village is abandoned, but I was sure they were here, perhaps they camped here and then moved on, maybe I can find something in one of these houses”
 
She tied her horse up at the gates. Briefly she glanced at the standing stone with alien symbols not of her people, she assumed it must have been left from the Firbolg.
 
She entered the small round house tucked closely by the outer fence which was a stone layered daub and thatch wall. Similar to most perimeter construction in villages at the time.
 
On the surface the house was fairly unremarkable. A simple stone and clay hut with the standard spiral thicket inlays and a thatched conical roof. The village had seemed strange to her but she had assumed the village had been abandoned but the inside of the hut seemed to tell a different story.
 
One where food was left to spoil in the pot and a table was lain ready for it to be served. A number of sets of simple hide and leather shoes left untouched and clothes slowly being devoured by all manner of insects.
 
Conclusion could only be that they fled in a hurry or they hadn’t fled at all.
 
The same strange smell of sea spray and the salt hanging in the air, so odd for it to be here as well. The building was a very simple dwelling with the fire pit in the centre and the beds on one side and a simple table for eating on the other. The beds looked slept in but untouched, a thick layer of dust covering them. One adult sized and two small wooden frame bed with hide and fur bedding drawn up.
 
A strange feeling gripped her and she took to looking at the ceiling and the inner thatch working. Staring at the elaborate patterns of cobwebs that had collected there.
 
She paused breathing in through her nostrils and closing her eyes. Then swallowing her fear and trepidation she marched over to the adult bed and drew back the covers swiftly.
 
As she feared underneath the remains of a couple clinging to each other, their expressions of horrifying finality. They had no eyes or tongues or lips but there was something there, something that struck a terrible enervation in them. Skin, what little was left was drawn and yellow and putrified. The smell of the sea salt must have masked it or else there was nothing left to rot. The beetles taking all the flesh for their own and leaving naught but cold off white bone.
 
“They must have been preparing food and then hid here” She remarked to herself. “What could have scared them so?”
 
She shuddered and covered them up again and looked over at the children’s beds.
 
“Oh goddess no”
 
She slowly walked around the adult bed and approached the children’s small simple beds. She took another deep inhale of salty air and turned over their covers.
 
She sighed in relief to see them empty.
 
“Empty?” she ground her teeth “Where are the children?”
 
A noise outside, the clopping of an unfamiliar horse on hard stone, a heavy harsh whinnying that sounded like a howl of a man pained.
 
She took to the small shuttered windows. She got low and peeped out at the cluttered claustrophobic streets seeing nothing. Only hearing the distant closing sound of devil hooves.
 
Then suddenly a black horse’s head appeared close to the window too close, the sound of the hooves completely divorced from its distance. She shrunk back into the hut stupidly trying to avoid the gaze of a dumb horse and reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. Terrifying as it was looming over her.
 
The horse passed by the window and she caught a glimpse of the rider. He was enormous, much larger than any tuatha she’d ever seen. Black armor that looked like bones and a skull death mask with gleaming red jeweled eyes. The black rider silently seemed to throb with breath. His armor rising and falling heavily, making a terrible noise like ribs being scraped with a knife. The plates rattling and shifting as the horse jossled.
 
The mysterious knight scanned the area, what was he looking for? Why here? Why now?
 
After a moment, he whipped the reigns as if angry at the air, spurred the horse and disappeared from the frame of the window.
 
She left it a moment, holding her breathe as she listened to the horses hooves get further away and it’s terrible cries cease.
 
Cautiously she approached the entrance to the round house, taking careful quiet steps on the earthen floor covered in loose straw.
 
She swallowed and listened and when she was satisfied stepped out of the small building and looked around. Without warning a tight gripping sensation around her heart told there was strong magic trained on her. She froze looking at the ground and a huge shadow growing at her feet.
 
She turned and saw the black knight on horseback standing on the thatched roof of the hut looking down at her. The horse scrapping at the straw and snorting breathing heavily.
 
“Hello girl, I’ve been looking for you!”
 
–
 
Head on over to inkitt to get the rest of the chapter right here.
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Gage Chapter 12 ‘Passover’

Hello hello again,

Greetings on this fine tuesday coming from my shack in the middle of murky nowhere to bring you more weird stories and general musings on life (or the lack thereof).

Been getting on with some decent writing and a lot of slacking off, still trying to get back into the swing of things with the 2k a day word count, not quite managing it but saying that the stuff I’ve been putting out imo isn’t too bad. It’s taking shape, it’s getting there.
Is it as good as the start, I don’t but I’m reaching the tipping point now, the story is peaking and I like the way it’s shaping up.

And tbh I’m looking forward to doing something more silly and fun again, so as soon as I’m done here gonna get straight back into 3 ring for the next instalment of that and then maybe start thinking about a sequel to Diana after dark if the time is ready for that. Been wanting to write that one for a while.

But the moon and the stars have to be aligned for that, it has to be perfect and if you’ve read the book you’d know that is pretty topical haha.

Not that I don’t love writing serious stuff and intense stuff, it’s just a little draining being in that head space constantly, you have no idea how worked up I have to get to write stuff like this. It’s like I meditate but not to get calm and serene but to get the complete opposite. I get so worked up it’s like I’m trying to rip the keys out of my laptop haha.

It just takes up a lot of energy to run that hot, I’m literally trying to make myself feel like I’m in battle flinging a battleaxe into someone’s face haha.

Talking about battleaxes in the faces I haven’t been reading or listening to the witcher much, I just don’t care enough to follow the story honestly, the characters are boring and unlikable and I feel like I was cheated out of the witcher series I should’ve have gotten. I keep lamenting to my polish buddy at work that if the series had been like the first story it would have been perfect. If Sapkowksi had kept it a tight almost pulpy action packed terse tense fantasy thriller it would have been my favourite fantasy series hands down.

But it just gets lost in the weeds with this generic crap and shitty characters I just lost interest. I mean most of the books are just about Ciri and completely unrelated stuff honestly. For a series about a monster slayer it just uses his monster slaying as like a character trait, it’s not what the story is about at all and plays no part in the narrative whatsoever.

Geralt being a witcher is just something he likes to tell people like he’s on a speed date but he never actually does any ‘witching’. It’s just astounding that CD projekt red can get it so right with the games but the creator of the character can get it so wrong. It’s weird because it’s usually the opposite for adaptations like it’s the total reverse with Dexter. Sure they hired a great actor to play Dexter but they completely fluffed the story and the character after season one. If the show had followed the books religiously it would have been amazing.

But it’s equally amazing that CD projekt red (jesus I sound like I’m doing marketing for these guys haha) could turn a cool shorty story (which could be a rip off of elric, I need to read elric) and turn it into one of the biggest game franchises in history.

I also finished that Parker book it was taking me ages to get through and yeah it kinda goes nowhere like I thought it might. They kill the only interesting villain off halfway through and replace him with an old guy on a golf cart who doesn’t do anything except shout at people. And the whole book is about Parker trying to escape this amusement park while getting besieged by this criminal organisation and spoilers yeah at the end he escapes and then goes home and makes himself a sandwich. That’s literally the end, I’m not making that up. The last line is him eating the sandwich and then thinking about getting the money he left there.

He doesn’t even get the money, or even try for it there’s no tension at all. He just escapes and thats it, no epic show down because the person he would have had the showdown with he already killed, he was literally the first guy he killed, it was pathetic. I mean why the fuck couldn’t you just have killed off the guys buddy and continued the story with the interesting villain instead?

That tiny change would have changed the entire plot and made it ten times more interesting and it would have been so easy to do. You just have the other guy walk into the hall of mirrors. Why would this smart villain be the first to walk into a trap like that? It made no sense and basically destroyed all the tension in the book.

I complained that the last book was kind of small and uninteresting and the heist was a little boring because everything went right. But that still had tension and interesting characters and a more dynamic story, it had legs. This book is just lazy and hacky honestly.

But still this is like I dunno the 14th book in the series and it’s the first real stinker, so that’s amazing. I’ve been burning through these books and loving each one more than the last. I just hope the next one returns to form a little.
Oh and I’m really excited because I just found out that someone turned all Stark’s books into graphic novels so that’ll give me a reason to read them all again which is great. I can’t wait for that.

I didn’t think the book was shit, I think if it had a few tweaks it would have been decent. Just have that interesting villain you spent all that time building up live til the end and have this awesome battle of wits of which I expected. And maybe have a little more set up to the actual job and the park itself. Just to give the story a little more breathing room and not be this claustrophobic almost like stage play set in one room.

Yeah so that’s my rant for the day probably be back for a poem tomorrow, I don’t know yet, been feeling a little up and down about that. I definitely have material let’s leave it at that.

Oh that reminds me I finally got to the part of the story where my bardic poem is used in Cur, so that’s cool. It is kind of a pivotal point in the story and the lore, the celtic mythology. Bards are held in high regard in that culture, their power to influence people is quite literally seen as a form of powerful magic and curses.

Anyway gotta go and do some proof reading as usual, finished the Diana pitch chapters but I’m gonna start working on the whole book soon enough. But I will put out another Cur chapter soon enough.

See you…

–

They came for us at night.

Me and my friends watched from our rooftops as they snaked through the back alleys. That bookish one with the moustache behind them fiddling with a tiny pencil and paper trying to write in some kind of journal.

They crept quickly and quietly to the centre of town. The town was so quiet you could hear the sand moving in their boots. A ghost town silently watching as they worked their way closer to the saloon they hoped Gage was sleeping in.

I could see on the hill where they set up camp, those weird pods were still there closed up and not moving, just sitting there like warts on a frogs ass.

They had strange weaponry and stalked the alleys ways watching every corner as they went. Feeling the eyes on them, slits of boarded windows following them as they passed holding their breath.

They must have felt us watching, the big one with the beard looked up at us but we ducked too quickly for him to see. They hurried along passing us off as curious birds.

He was waiting for them.

Just standing so tall, alone in the centre of main street, a cold wind blowing. His shotgun hanging loose at his side.

The men fanned out in formation and surrounded Gage in a semi circle in front of the saloon.

The man with the moustache shouted and tried to push past the men.

“Ryan, we have to take him alive.” He shouted as he approached the man with the white hair.

The man at the front said nothing, he just spun around and hit the pudgy moustache guy in the guts dropping him flat to his knees. Then he turned back to Gage and shrugged his shoulders.

The man on his knees tried to get up as the other men attempted to keep him down.

“If you kill him and others hear about it, he’ll become a martyr”

The man with the white hair, he must have been the leader turned to each of his men and he pointed, first at the woman. He said “Are you gonna tell anyone about this?”

She shook her head.

Then to the large man with the beard “You?”

“Not a soul.”

Then to the mexican.

“De nada”

“You?” He said to the younger man.

“No sir” he grinned.

“Well that’s everyone.” He said looking at the man with the mustache and quickly shooting him in the head with his strange alien weapon. There was just a quick flash of light and a strange noise and the man’s head was gone and his body became dead weight in the arms of the men carrying. Stained as they were with a light dusting of pink mist.

Disgusted, they threw his body down like a sack of potatoes in the dry loose top soil.

Gage watched the dust settle around it as it stopped being a person and just became scenery.

Ryan stopped and looked Gage up and down and scoffed. “We travelled all this way for this” He sniffed and spat on the dirt next to the mustache man’s body and said “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting to do that.” He smirked and put his e-cigar in his mouth and sucked on it looking at Gage. “I know you” He said.

Gage tossed his gun out in front of him on the ground. It landed with a heavy thudding noise.

Ryan let out a laugh and said “Well that was easy.”

Gage didn’t move or say a word, his one eye burning staring through Ryan who tried too hard to hide a boiling fear in his gut. Destiny staring him right in the face, looking at the bare pit where his soul was supposed to reside.

Gage took his duster off of his shoulders revealing a mountain of man in a stained grey longsleeved under shirt that was once white. Ripped and torn and bitten and stretched with the sinewy muscles underneath forged through nothing but hard work and sweat and toil. The work horse bitten and turned sour and vicious and lame biting back at the hand of his master and running madly and wild and free to it’s own doom.

He took his suspenders off his shoulders and clenched his fists.

Ryan scoffed again “Oh so you wanna do it the old fashioned way.” He took another suck on his e-cigar and put it back in his pocket. He took his gun out of it’s holster and lifted it over his shoulder at which point the younger guy with the shaved head took it off of him.

He was wearing some kind of weird skeleton suit over his body that went over his arms and legs and connected at the hips. Under it he was just wearing a fitted shirt and a pair of pants.

Ryan didn’t take a stance he just smiled with his cocky smile and said “Well what are you waiting for?”

He let out a mocking breathy laughter and said “Ok, I guess I’ll be the one to lead”

He moved so fast I thought I was dreaming at first. I’d never seen a human move like that, it was like he was there one minute and then there was just dust and dirt and he was barrelling at Gage. He didn’t throw a punch he just launched himself right into him like a cannonball and swept him off his feet with enough force to kill a horse.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. He couldn’t have been more than six foot nothing this guy but one minute he was standing there the next he was on top of Gage. He toppled the gigantic man in two seconds flat, felled him like a great oak tree in a single strike.

–

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkitt.

Passover

–

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Cur Chapter 5 ‘Storm King’

Hey again humanoid creatures,

Back again and this time significantly less lazy, I actually have a chapter of Cur, one I’ve been promising for ages and it’s probably one of my least favourite chapters so far. I mean it’s not bad it’s just not as good as either the chapter before it or after it. It’s sort of a connective tissue chapter, a set up to something else. Just like this spiel is just a set up to an inevitable rant about the witcher haha.
I feel like there’s more I can do with this chapter and I most certainly will in the near future when it comes time to revisit it for editing and what not.

I was thinking of going in to a doctor to get a referral to see if I have aspergers but I’ve been putting it off because I just hate the idea of being a victim or being probed in any way just to have someone write it on a piece of paper. I want to know but I just don’t want to go outside haha. If only it could be done indoors and I could just print my “I’m a retard” certificate and hang it on my wall.

I dunno it’s kind of depessing, feels like I’ve been lying to myself this whole time, promising myself a normal happy life I was never equipped to have. Living like a character from a Lovecraft story (or even Lovecraft himself) and telling myself “One day” maybe eventually I’ll have the things these normal happy people have. I watched a documentary on the plane on the way back about it and it just made me miserable knowing that was out of reach for me.

But in a way it made me feel thankful that I have some good things in my life, even if it’s just the tiny spec of happiness and a future, it’s better than nothing and I can keep living another day.

Well that got heavy fast, quick pivot to the witcher.

The thing I hate most about the witcher is that I love the witcher.

I love the premise of the witcher that was sold to me in the game and also in the very first short story in the book.

It was basically a pulp detective story but fantasy, a little like Solomon Kane. There was very little dialogue, it was stark, gritty, great action. All about a monster hunter tracking down and killing monsters and all the story surrounding it. This is what I thought the books were going to be like.

As a premise that really worked but as a premise it was dropped like a ten tonne weight in the subsequent books. In four books he might have killed maybe three monsters. A book series about a monster slayer who seems completely disinterested in hunting monsters.

The books basically toss the fact he’s a witcher around as a backstory fill like you would if someone was a vietnam vet, simply to signify he’s tough and can handle himself. But he never engages in slaying monsters.

Instead the books are mostly about really boring politics of a really boring war and how disinterested Geralt is about getting involved in said war.

And then it pivots again into being a story about Ciri having prepubescent lesbian sex with an elf. The story just has no grounding, it’s boring and wordy and convoluted and just seems to be going nowhere.

It astonishes me how well CD projekt red took the mantle of the premise and really ran with it. They relegated the boring war into the background where it belongs just to focus on Geralt hunting monsters and then interlaced a plot around it. And also they made the characters more likeable and relate-able on the whole. I can’t say I like or care about any of the characters in the book. Even so Geralt even in the game is sort of a generic bad ass, he’s more fun than he is in the books.
In the books he’s supposed to be like this brooding serous guy but it makes him come off as a weird whiner.
I just think it’s amazing that they took such a dull uninspired series which I’ve come to believe is actually a rip off of the elric series because apparently the guy who wrote the witcher series worked on the marketing for the polish translation of Elric. They took this sort of go nowhere series and they turned it into this conqueror of the games industry.

And I’m just really hoping they can do the same magic with Cyberpunk when they finally release it. I’m hearing really good things about it.

That’s about all.

If you’re on my mailing list the free copies of my stuff went out today so you should have them already, if not, let me know.

See you…

–

The dying embers of the fire fizzled and cracked and resonated through the cave. The sounds of birds chirping arrogantly outside petered in and rang in the druidess’ pained ears as she lay flat on the cave floor.

 

She forced one eye open and moved her face off the ground, rocks and debris sticking to it. Her face covered in red indentations from the rubble she lay prone on all night. The light that came through the tunnel was unwelcome and unkind and drove sharp slivers of pain to her head and neck.

 

Something dawned on her suddenly; she clutched at her side and felt it wanting. The sword was gone, what little money she had, her wrist too was bare, her magical torque swindled by that damn shape shifter and the ogreous dead man.

 

She rose to a sitting position and thanked the goddess that she was at least still dressed and felt undisturbed. Having thankfully not been violated in her sleep by those vile miscreants she had the bad luck to encounter.

 

The druidess sitting rubbed all the parts of her head that pained her which seemed like all of them. Her head feeling like a pig’s stomach full of broken clay pot that someone had violently shaken.

 

Her senses returned and she could smell the fire and hear a distant soft humming, her feet scraping on the cave floor as she labored to her feet.

 

The old man was still there pottering about, he blinked as he saw the young girl and smiled, she couldn’t tell if that meant he remembered her or not.

 

“Those men that were here?”

 

“Men?” He aped absentmindedly as if the word were foreign to him and lacked all meaning.

 

“The shape shifter and the dead man.”

 

“Dead man?”

 

“The Firbolg” She felt silly even saying it, as if she was playing in to some sort of delusion, the firbolg didn’t exist anymore.

 

“Oh yes” The old man nodded “I remember them; things were peaceful for a time after they were done killing each other.” He laughed. “But that was a long time ago, I’m three thousand years old, did I mention that?” He said ditheringly.

 

She brushed it off again having no time for his fantasy “Do you remember the sword I had?”

 

“Yes, the singing sword of the lesser demon”

 

“Lesser demon what are you talking about?”

 

“Tethra, I think his name was” The old man mused.

 

The girl shook her head sick of playing the old man’s silly games. “Do you know where they went?” She motioned with her hands as she described them. “The tall man and the man with the red hair”

 

He squinted.

 

“The man who can turn into a dog”

 

“Oh the young lad, he came later, his people didn’t last long but they were before even the Firbolg. I was the first on this island though, me and my wife, until I turned into a fish” He waffled on.

 

“Do you know where they went?” She said through tight lips.

 

“Aren’t you some kind of a witch or something? You don’t have a magic potion you can use to find him” The old man laughed.

 

“Hmm I could try scrying for them if I had something of theirs and I knew where I was on a map.” She pinched her chin.

 

“That can be arranged” The old man laughed.

 

–

 

“I greet you noble assassin, you may know me. Gwenton assistant of Abartach of Slaverghty, Abertach is very sorry he couldn’t meet you in person, but I have been sent in his stead.

 

Cur and the messenger met at a traveller’s camp off the road to Banagher near Lough Derg. A heavily wooded area that sung with the sickly sweet sound of birds chirping and woodpeckers pecking. They sat across from each other, an unkindled fire pit black with the warm ashes of the previous night and stinking with the smell of rotten game.

 

The messenger was a young looking half-blood elf with a ridiculous haircut. The sides of his head shaved but for a floppy quaff of hair that fell in front of his face. His features more rounded than an elf’s but he was taller than that of a dwarf. Thin but trying to compensate by wearing the thick leather armor of a thief weighed down with pockets. He carried the vomitus arrogance of a noble dabbling at thuggery.

 

“I’m no assassin” Cur spat “Assassins kill for pay, I would kill an elf for a hot meal” He grinned wickedly staring at the half elf hungrily.

 

The elf gulped loudly and shrunk behind his leather armor. “Quite” He said trying to laugh it off. “I bring you your reward in silver” He said hoping it would cool tensions that suddenly flared. He reached out his hand with which a large hide pouch dangling from it. The dog at Cur’s side barked at him and Cur ground his teeth.

 

“The woman” Cur growled not looking at the purse.

 

“Ah yes well, Abartach needs you to do one last jo-!” Cur caught him by the wrist and yanked him off his feet and through the fire pit, the bag of silver split and poured out all over the ground. Cur stepped on his chest and pulled his arm up uncomfortably as if he might rip it out of its socket. The last embers of the night before felt through his leathers.

 

The elf completely overpowered groaned vacantly as he lay dazed his head swimming. Silver coins marked with the ulster symbol of the hand on the shield as his pillow, the dog by his ear growling a steady heat rising at his back.

 

“The one before and the one before that were also ‘the last’.” Cur applied more pressure with his foot and the half elf groaned. “I played your games because they amused me, I grow weary of them.”

 

“Abartach!” The half elf gasped as he tried to get more air in his lungs than Cur’s heavy foot would allow “He lied- to you!”

 

“I know” Cur laughed. “What do dwarves do but lie and count coin? And now he sends a boy to meet me.” He held the young man’s hand to his face. “But there’s more?”

 

“Yes, there’s someone who might know!”

 

“Speak!”

 

“There’s a woman who lives in the woods of Tallaght, it might be her.” Cur pressed harder on his chest, the heat at his back now slowly searing and a smell like overcooked beef filled his nostrils. “-Or else she might know where your woman is”

 

“Tallaght?” Cur said it as if he’d said it before.

 

The dog barked and growled at hearing the name.

 

“It’s not far from here, a half a day’s walk no further. You don’t remember it, Abertach sent you there before now. Damn near slaughtered half the village, a plague gripped it after you left and narry a soul remains. As if overnight, only bones now. Some say it’s some bloodsucker’s curse but its utter nonsense. A single monster couldn’t devour a whole village, with no one to tell the tale, it’s not possible. Maybe you did it” The elf spat defiantly.

 

Cur grinned.

 

Cur pressed his back harder into the hot ash and he cried out like a branded calf and foamed at the mouth.

 

“Is that all? Cur asked, the dog teeth flashed in his vision

 

“Yes I swear it!”

 

Cur pulled him still clutching jealously at the envoys hand pulling him closer and breathing heavily into his face. Smiling that malevolent smile.

 

“You are a messenger yes?”

 

“Yes” the messenger replied reticent.

 

“You will take a message back to your master.” Cur grinned wide.

 

“What message?”

 

Cur opened his mouth wide and with a vicious speed he bit off all the messengers’ fingers on one hand.

 

He screamed as jets of white blood sprayed out of the sides of Curs grinning devil mouth.

 

–

Read the full chapter on Inkiit

Storm King

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