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Cur Part 2 chapter 6 ‘The living word’

Yo,
Wanna get this out of the way quick because I’ve been currently reserving thursday for escaping my current state of wage slavery for a better state of wage slavery somewhere sunnier haha.
Or I might do some spamming but I’ve been blackpilled on that for a while now since I keep getting banned and spamming on gab or twitter or minds is basically a waste of time. And even spamming on facebook maybe five people see it unless you throw some money behind it and even then it’s just some fucking asshole telling me I need an editor for my raw manuscript, no fucking shit I need an editor. So fucking constructive, it’s why I hate writing groups. Most writers are assholes, myself included, they don’t want to help you, they want to stand on your face and make a slamdunk haha. Those groups are cancerous, full of bullshit political shit and crabs in a bucket that want to get together to justify their own mediocrity.
What I hate more than anything is those posts from like people who have an example of someone who succeeded or got famous in their like fifties or sixties and it’s usually someone you’ve never heard of haha. And they’re like ‘success has no age’ or some bullshit designed to make people who are younger and suck think that one day they’ll make it. It’s there to like ease tensions and make people think they have plenty of time, but in reality all it does is make people complacent. If you make people think they don’t have to chase their dreams right now they’ll put it off and they’ll keep putting off til it’s dead.
Like my brother is always telling me that there are actors who didn’t get famous until they were like forty, but the thing is they were putting in the work in their thirties while he does fuck all haha. It’s just something that he tells himself so he doesn’t need to do anything now but wait til the toothfairy drops it in his lap haha.
I’m not giving up my dream but I guess I’m kicking it down the road because right now seeing my daughter is more important, it’s the only thing. What’s the point of succeeding if I can’t be with her?
So I am going to find a job in barbados and I am going to be with her and I’ll work out the writing part later, because I do have my whole life to do that but every day I lose those precious moments with her and that’s something I can never get back.
Besides my inspiration is in the toilet lately without her and her mother. Everything I write just seems shitty and lifeless lately and it’s because I need to get real and get the fuck out of here. I need stability, I need a real job and I need to be with my daughter and I can work the other stuff out later.
And I know I’m selfish and autistic and I’ll hate working so hard and wish I was at home playing videogames all day but I’ll tell myself that I’m doing it for selfish reason, that being with her and being there brings me more joy… and I can still play videogames occasionally haha.
Ok shit, I need to stop talking about this and actually makes some waves to make it happen. Kinda got all my hopes wrapped up in this perfect hotel job which I’m perfect for, it’s basically the same job I do here but not in hell four thousand miles away from my baby. But I need to find more to apply to, I can’t keep putting all my eggs in one basket.
K gotta jet.
See you…
–
The horses snorted, their breathe heavy and hanging in the cold air near the peak of the devil’s ladder.
Ogma climbed down from the coachman’s seat, he took some time to inspect the horses and tug at their bridles to make sure they were secure.
Once he was satisfied he trod the deep snow and stopped for a moment outside the door of the carriage before calling out. “My lady, we have arrived.”
Ogma then opened the carriage door and stepped back to kneel in the snow holding his hand aloft for princess Ernmas to take.
His hand was large and wrapped in a thick riding glove covered in filth, dried blood and snow. Noticing this he took it off and discarded it in the snow.
His hand was lithe but looked strong and nimble, she filled it with her smooth dainty hand the colour of milk, almost weightless. She made her way down from the carriage, carrying herself with regal nobility but with a slight smile that betrayed her sadness. Her eyes carrying the same wisdom as her fathers but also an innocence that bared hiding from the world.
Standing alone now she walked through the snow coming around the other side of the carriage.
Ogma reached into the carriage where sat a square package wrapped delicately. He retrieved it with the utmost care and lifting it gently with both hands and climbing down from the carriage as slow and gracefully as possible.
“I don’t see it.” She said softly.
Ogma went to her side, the package in his arms “Look closer my lady”
The princess turned and instantly looked at the package, a wave of regret and sadness passing over as she seemed to smile and sigh. “I’d almost forgotten about that” She said wistfully, melancholy hanging heavy on her delicate features. Turning back to the shape unfolding in front of her she narrowed her vision and slowly as the snow thick white wind abated she saw a contrast. A line forming around a white shape.
“I see it, it’s amazing, it must be some sort of sorcery.” She gasped with childlike wonder.
“Perhaps, an illusion, possibly the weather and a trick of the eye.” Ogma said.
Before them stood a castle naturally camoflouged by the weather. It seemed to be designed to do exactly that. The castle itself was low slung and seemed to follow the natural curve of the mountain plateau it rested on. The buildings jutting out unevenly to mimic the shape of a natural rock formation. The light colour of the stone and the snow making it seem almost invisible against the skyline. A narrow path towards the portcullis too was shielded by a thick embankment of trees and it snaked up the sheer face of the cliff at odd angles. A wall surrounding the castle seemed to melt into the snow covered trees. The castle itself rising only slightly higher than the wall but for one white spire which stood at it’s highest point.
“The spire, I bet he can see the whole valley from that point.”
“Most likely.” Ogma agreed.
She turned with a whimsical smile and said “This is the top of the devils ladder.”
“Yes my lady.”
“Well lets see if he’s in” She smiled.
–
Cur’s laughter echoed through the hall. The room was vaste, the ceilings seemed higher than was possible due to the squat nature of the castle. The hall was stark, naked of any furnishing but for one cyclopean door cast in bronze and gold with a carving of a giant evil eye on it. Cur’s laughter abated as he looked around the oversized room. The floors and walls seemed to be slicked with some strange viscous substance and there was an odd smell. The walls and floors bore deep scratches not made by any man. The smell, it was faint but it was familiar, blood and something else much worse.
“Is this Balor shaking, does he fear me?” Cur croaked grinning.
“Balor fears no man” The strange voice under the veil said.
“Then he can show himself to me” Cur laughed staring at the strange gaunt figure in the mask.
“You will see my face, although I have many.” A child’s voice said.
The robed woman and the man in the mask stepped to aside and in their place stood a small redheaded boy wearing a long green tunic made of spun silk. The face of the boy child was pale and freckled but the eyes and the expression were that of a man certainly. The eyes shining an evil purple, their glare seeming to pierce through Cur. The childs smile presented as innocence but betrayed a deep malevolence as he surveyed the barbarian coldly. As if he were a bull being readied for gelding.
“Does this face please you firbolg?” The child smiled but there was something unnatural about it, it was just a little too wide and the way his face moved didn’t move as skin and bone should. The movement was almost akin to how an eel or a snakes flesh moved. His face moved as if it had no bones at all. “Perhaps you’re wondering why I had you brought before me, but I suspect you already know.”
Cur began to laugh morbidly, his eyes wide and mad.
The boy smirked once more with his ghoulish unnatural face, pale and bonny the mask covering ancient horror. “I have heard tale that you are undead and cannot be killed by mortal weapon.” The boy smirked and walked closer to the barbarian. “My eye is no mortal weapon, tomorrow morning at sun rise you will feels its power and be but ash.” The boy smiled.
Cur laughed again.
“I have been tasked as your executioner, a job in which I relish and comes with it a certain poetry” The boy smiled wickedly. “As it was I that dealt the final blow to the clan firbolg.”
–
Princess Ernmas lifted her cloak almost up over her knees and began to trudge eagerly through the snow. Slowly working her way up the snaking path lined by snow covered rowan trees.
“Wait my lady, allow me to lead the way!” Ogma shouted after her trudging the deep snow along the path, his words blown away by the terrible biting mountain wind.
Nevertheless he returned to his charge’s side within the maze. Under the chin of the overgrown rowan trees that loomed over the path, almost blotting out the sky over head. On the other hand they also shielded them from the terrible winds sweeping up the mountain.
–
If you want to read the rest of this chapter head on over to Inkitt
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Cur 2 Chapter 5 ‘The devils ladder’

Shit, fucking facebook, I’ve literally just been shitposting all day and forgot to even post this haha.

And now I have nothing to talk about.

Welp, enjoy the chapter haha.

This is not true, I was looking for a new job still.

But I hope you enjoyed the poem yesterday, by all the likes I’m guessing people did, I was just listening to that song the other day and it stirred up something inside of me and I had to make it my own, just a little bit.

This chapter is the start of part two and it’s kind of the start of a subnarrative, and sort of the theme for the whole book. If the last book was about death, this book is about rebirth and the pains associated I guess.

Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day.

See you…

–

“I say if you cross the devils ladder you must pay the devil!” A voice carried over the howling of the cold wind coming down the mountain.

 

The carriage halted it’s horses, the carriage driver was a large broad man wrapped up tightly. He got down from coachman’s seat to see what the ruckus was about.

 

The coachman cautiously scanned the snowy trail that passed through the rocky cliffs. The trail lead up the Carrauntoohil mountains known colloquially as ‘the devils ladder’. There was nary a soul to be seen. Only the rocky crags dusted with fine snow and the cold wind blowing in the coachman’s face. He wrapped his face tighter and climbed back up onto into the drivers seat and mushed the horses to continue up the trail. They whined bitterly and the coach creaked as it climbed the steepening trail.

 

“That is I, I am the devil!” A voice called out and then a man appeared as if from nowhere. The snow and the wind made it hard to see but the man had been laying in wait behind a large rocky outcropping. The hiding spot has blended into the rest of the mountain under the snow.

 

The coachman pulled his face covering down to gawp at the strange man.

 

“Be done with this foolishness and get out of my way!” The coachman called out.

 

“I will get out of your way” The man said. He was of average height but had a long bedgraggled beard and wild eyes rubbed red raw. The man just stood there but as he did more of his ilk came out of their hiding place behind the outcropping and joined at his side. They were savage looking carrying scythes and pitch forks and large butcher’s knives and woodcutters axes as weapons. “As soon as you give us all that you carry and then a little more.” The wild man said wide eyed

 

“Highwaymen then?” The coachman shouted over the roar of the wind.

 

“Call us what you like but you will not leave Carrauntoohil alive this day unless you give us whats in that carriage.” The highwayman said gesturing with a large rusty butchers knife.

 

The coach driver looked back thoughtfully at his carriage and then turning back to the highwayman he said. “I’m afraid I cannot do that, this day or any other.”

 

The highwayman laughed and wiped frost from his large unkempt beard. “You speak such honeyed words for a coachman, perhaps we will cut out your silver tongue and fashion a necklace from it.” The wildman chuckled with his shaggy cohorts.

 

The coachman seemed to slump in his seat exhaling deeply. Not from fear or doubt but instead a profound resignation that washed over him. Again the coachman climbed down from the carriage and landed heavy footed in the snow in the shadow of mount Carrauntoohil.

 

“You may take whatever you want after you kill me.” The coach man said as he drew an iron warclub from his belt. “But not before.”

 

The bearded man laughed and nodded “But not before, you are a brave one.” He looked eitherside of himself and said to his cohorts “Kill him!”

 

The bandits were a disorganized rabble and their attack was that of desperate fury. They leapt into battle as if the coachman were the cold and the wind and their empty bellies personified. Their feet crunching the snow as they charged.

 

The coachman did not flee their shouts, he stood his ground and waited his distance. They fought without formation or strategy, relying on numbers, surprise and brute force.

 

But none of these factors phased the coachman. The first bandit came at him with a pitch fork. He expected them to be cowards and encircle him and strike at his back but the hunger in their eyes betrayed their savagery. They were thin and starved and cold, their desperation had turned them into little more than wolves. They struck out as dying men struck out at the living, mindlessly and with unrelenting ferocity.

 

But they were slow and weak and the coachman was neither, he caught the head of the pitchfork and twisted it away from his body. The wooden shaft of it was so damp from the snow and the cold it snapped off in his hand. Not to break off his attack the bandit attempted to skewer the coachman with broken haft.

 

The coachmen’s strike was a perfect measured brutality, in stark contrast to their own. He struck the bandit with military precision to the side of his head to soften his skull. Then he struck it again in the same place to completely obliterate it. The blow sending shards of skull and brain matter at the other bandits.

 

Something that would have deterred other men, but not hungry wolves. They kept coming, spurred on by the steady roar of their bellies.

 

“I have no desire to kill you all, but mark my words, I will do so!” He was tall and stood firm like the mountains and the cold winds rushed through his words but they were too far gone to hear it.

 

They kept coming like an avalanche of pure need striking at him with tattered old scythes covered in rust. Axes with burred handles and knives that were as blunt as spoons. They did not stop, but neither did the coachman. He struck them down one after another with the cool clinical disinterest of a butcher slaughtering lambs until but one remained.

 

A woman with a kitchen knife roaring like an evil spirit leapt at the coachman and for a moment he hesitated and he could not parry the blow. The knife struck home tearing through the layers of raggedy clothing revealing a thick plate and chainmail armor. The tip of the knife shattered on contact. But the woman, undeterred by this and driven by pure madness aimed to cut the coachman’s throat. Something he could not allow.

 

He struck the woman with an upward blow killing her instantly, blood erupting from her mouth as she toppled into the snow.

 

The coachman looked down at her as she seemed to shrink into the snow, pink with her blood.

 

“Forgive me, by my honor I cannot allow you to have what I carry.”

 

The man with the beard was the last one left alive.

 

“What have you devil? Should I spare your life?” The coachman called out as he approached the highwayman.

 

“Nay sir” He highwayman said dropping to his knees in the snow surrounded by the bloodied bodies of his kinfolk. “I will join my village” He smiled, his red eyes seemed almost relieved looking up at the coachman. “And you, I hope to see you one day kind sir, in Mag Mell.”

 

“As you wish” The coachman said his voice ringing with a tone of resignation.

 

He killed the man with one blow to his head. There was very little blood. The man slumped to his side and fell to sleep as the snow started once more, covering him and his comrades in a blanket of fine white sleet.

 

The scene was maudlin and the coachman felt cursed to be standing in this graveyard of his making. He wished bitterly that it could have been different. He cursed himself as he cleaned his iron cudgel with a handkerchief as he made his way back to his coach.

 

–

Check out the rest of the chapter here.

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Cur 2 Chapter 1 ‘Rise up dirty waters’

So here it is I guess.
As I said before I kinda wanted to go understated because I could, I wanted to play it slow. I went hard in the first chapter of the first book because you really need to do that, and it was sort of to pay homage to berserk and the parts of the witcher I like. Sort of my interpretation of that iconic bar fight scene where Guts cuts a mofo clean in half with one strike. 
You think I feel bad about that? Not really, it was probably ripped off of Conan first, I just haven’t read that far. But I am reading it and it’s way more interesting than the Shadow even though the stories are so much more simple and really the whole thing is plot. You just get a story and it’s like ‘Conan wants to steal thing’ so he does that and even though it’s just that simple it really works because it’s just well written and fun and you want to see what happens and how does it.
I was listening to a podcast comparing Howard to Tolkien, and how they were sort of around the same time but Tolkien was bigger because he had all this lore and he invented his own language and Howard seems to be inventing it on the fly, it only has as much lore as it needs. 
I don’t really know about that because the first chapter of Conan the Cimmerian is literally all lore dating back centuries of all the different peoples leading up to the present with Conan and it was just so long that I was just like ‘fuck this’. I mean do I need to know the entire history of this fictional land to enjoy this? Is there going to be a test on this? I don’t even know most of my own history and I’m fine with that.
And it gave me the natural ‘fuck me’ sweats like ‘what if my story doesn’t have enough lore?’ I mean what more can there be? I’m adapting actual Celtic mythology and this story is sort of the dawn of the lore of their myths. The conflict between the tuatha de and the firbolg and the fomorians is the basis of their folklore and then obviously there’s more to come after.
But there’s literally only a few people that come before them and they’re all wiped out essentially so I’ve set my story at the dawn of their myths, there can be no lore because this is it. There’s nothing before this. I mean there is but it’s not lore, it’s a mystery to be uncovered in the last book.
One question that is never answered in the folklore is the origin of the Fomorians and that is a question I endeavor to answer with these books. That’s sort of the crux of the entire series, giving this mysterious race the fomorians an origin that fits with the christian historicity the stories are rooted in.
If you want a lesson on the folklore, I suggest googling it because I compiled like eighty pages of note on it and I can’t be bothered to pull it up haha.
Ok so I did the glass review and I talked about this. I liked it, building up a new character because Manannan is pretty important in the folklore he’s one of those connecting tissue characters, a little mystery a little reveal and in the next chapter I’ll be bringing back some of that bloody violent action for all that love that, me included haha.
See you and enjoy the chapter.
–
 
A heavy foot fell sploshing a muddy puddle, thick like drying cold blood. The rainfall a monotonous droning metronome to the drumbeat of padding heavy feet. So torrential it was it almost drowned out the sound of the sea crashing and cresting behind the ragged figure. The man wrapped clung tightly to himself and trudged his way through the downpour up the hill.
 
The figure was tall and dressed in a long drab coat a mutt nipping at his sodden heals.
 
“Aye steady on boy” A booming voice said. “We’re almost home now”. The figure said with a covetous smile as he clutched a wrapped item to his breast. The figure’s eyes were furtive for a moment to gaze over the hill and back along the shoreline at his boat resting, slowly filling with rain. When he was sure he was alone he continued up the hill to a small fisherman shack on the edge of the cliff looking out at the sea. It was a lonely shack surrounded by empty hills and valleys and flat lands lain with wet grass. The greenest grass you’ve ever seen and below churned a grey frothy sea that leapt and lapped at the land.
 
The shack was tiny and isolated on the edge Meenlaragh, a small fishing village on the northern coast of Ulster. The shack itself seemed to be constructed from a portion of a large ships keel. The roof of which sloped on either side to make point coming together on top forming a shape almost like a bow. The wood was dark and weathered with barnacles clinging to the sides, all manner of nets and ropes hanging outside. The door was a simple barn door bolted with heavy rusted rivets of iron.
 
There was a warm glow coming from it and a horse whineying.
 
“I’m coming Enbarr, I’m home girl” The figure shouted.
 
The ragged figure opened the door quickly and bundled himself inside, the dog following after shaking off the rain. The man closed and bolted his door and hurriedly threw his coat off one arm at a time so as to not let the package out of his grasp.
 
The man was a large and ruddy common elf with a big bushy beard, red of cheek. He was of a middle age with a barrelled chest and round gut but he held a spryness of step and a child-like twinkle in his eye. His arms were ropey and strong with large gnarled sea beaten hands. His back was broad and sloped and he walked with a creaking sound in his knee and a slight limping hop as if he was accustomed more to swimming than walking.
 
The merry figure beamed and almost leapt to a small cluttered reading table by his bed. The inside of the shack was simple, a firepit in the centre crackled with a blackened pot over it, bubbling with a foul smelling fishy stew. The furniture appeared to be crafted from similar driftwood as fit the shacks construction. His bed was a large but simple hammock made of nets and furs. The lack of windows and the rain beating on the roof and the sound of the sea churning made it feel like a ship out of port.
 
The large ruddy faced man carelessly swept away the clutter and debris that lay scattered on his table. He then carefully placed the wrapped package on down as if it were a swaddling babe. He took another furtive glance about himself as if the walls of the shack might betray him. Some crack or hollowed knot might hide an eye that spied him.
 
He looked at the dog who panted at his side seeming to share his curiosity and excitement.
 
The man licked his bearded chop and breathed deeply as he began to slowly unwrap the mysterious package. The bearded man sighed after a moment as if forgetting how to breathe. As if he feared his breath might disturb the package somehow or alert some shrouded watcher.
 
Carefully he unwrapped the object, and finally as it lay naked on his work table, the meagre light from the firepit glinting off of it. His eyes widened and appeared to turn bright and silver. His mouth hanging open, almost salivating at the sight of the object as it seemed to glow and hum with potential.
 
“Beautiful” He gasped.
 
–
If you want to read the rest of the chapter head on over to inkitt. Rise up dirty waters
0

Cur Chapter 17 ‘Morning Shadows’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you…

–

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

 

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

 

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

 

“The blood of kings” Cur said.

 

“WHAT??” The footman balked.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“I know you” Cur said.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

The fourth soldier and the commander attacked perfectly in unison.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“WAIT!”

–

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

 

 

0

Cur Chapter 12 ‘The burning of the temple’

–
 
The smell of smoke, darkness, crawling, blackness, air.
 
Dian Cecht coughed and spluttered as he dragged himself crawling and blackened out of his escape tunnel. Gasping at the fresh air.
 
“Well it’s good to see you again, old friend” A mocking voice said above his head.
 
He turned over, scrambling in the ashes, stunned to hear the familiar voice, his face black with soot and his eyes wide and frightened. He waited on his knees in the dark for the shapes to emerge from the smoke laden sky.
 
“Y-you!” Dian Cecht mumbled grasping at a clump of black earth beneath him.
 
“Me” Bres smiled atop his horse, his men behind him, looking down at the great healer.
 
Dian Cecht lowered his head, his hands splayed out in front of him. “You’re too late, she’s already gone from here, a day’s ride ahead of you, you’ll never find her.”
 
“Of course I will, you’re going to help me” Bres laughed and crossed his hands over his saddle.
 
Dian Cecht put his hands on his thighs and looked at the dirt knowing that he was right. “I may be a coward, hiding in that place but you! You are cursed by all the gods for desecrating that holy site!”
 
“Desecrating? Me? The king of Inish Veil?” He laughed looking around at his men. “Surely you are mistaken, it was a mere accident. So many candles in Newgrange, this was bound to happen sooner or later. A little mouse must have knocked one over and set fire to some old dry parchment and woof! The whole temple up in flames” His men who chuckled, all but one. Ogma gritted his teeth holding his hand to his ear wishing that both his ears were cut off and his eyes gouged and his tongue pulled.
 
“You should kill me now” Dian Cecht said almost begging, his hands tightening above his knees.
 
“Why would I do that, we’re in need of a good healer, we have a wounded man after all, Ogma show him your ear” He said turning in his saddle. Waving Ogma to approach.
 
Ogma tried to smooth out his face. Remove any of the disdain he was feeling as he removed his hand from his head showing Dian Cecht the place where his ear ought to have been.
 
“I can’t grow back an ear, not without my lab that you just burnt to the ground” His tone suddenly changed from wounded animal to righteously indignant.
 
“Tsk tsk, these accusations are very dangerous, we all agree it was just a mouse, don’t we” He said to his men who nodded and laughed.
 
“That temple was-“
 
“That temple was here long before us. Some robed fools with long beards decide it has mystical significance, it means nothing to me – or the mice as it seems” He laughed.
 
“So what is to be? Will you come with us or return to your burning temple?” Bres asked, already knowing the answer but enjoying it all the same.
 
Dian Cecht face gave up an elasticity it once had and he slumped visibly. “I will”.
 
“Good, take him” Bres instructed one of his men turning his horse to ride on along the path.
 
“You didn’t have to do that” Ogma said through gritted teeth holding his ear once more, looking past the king.
 
“No maybe not but you’re yet to understand the stakes of this game, allow me your trust in this matter.” Bres said softly.
 
“You could have talked to him.” Ogma said through gritted teeth.
 
“I just did talk to him” Bres smiled “What’s one dusty old tomb?” Bres breathed in heavily looking out at the lush pastures, the sweetness of the dew mixing with the bitter scents of smoke and ash.
 
“It sits in the shade of the stone of destiny itself” He cursed.
 
“And yet the stone is untouched as it rests on the hill of Tarah, do you wish to make a pilgrimage to it brother?” Bres turned his head, his voice full of scourn and accusation and derision. His eyes scanning Ogma up and down as if it was the first time they’d met.
 
Ogma could say nothing, his tongue seized in his mouth. His anger simmering below the surface of his stony grey flesh.
 
“We don’t have time to sit around flapping our gums, the fate of Inish Veil is at stake.” Bres straightened in his saddle, pulling at the reins of his horse, looking over the horizon.
 
“How is that?” Ogma shrank from him, his face twisting.
 
“Your job is to follow my orders, not to question them, now ride on!” Bres said sternly.
 
Ogma grimaced, swallowing his pride. “Yes sire.”
 
–
 
“It was the Fomori.” Abhartach said, his eyes fixed and glassy as if he were manically reciting a nursery rhyme.
 
“That fairytale again” Birog scoffed.
 
“It won’t be like last time” Abhertach scolded, looking at Birog as if she had grown another head. “They have a new king. In the time of Nemed they used force, might was all they knew. They forced the people to submit, enslaved them. They put a tax on them; two thirds of their corn, two thirds of their milk. And two thirds of their-“ Abertach’s jaw grew tight and he swallowed, his throat clacking dry.
 
“-Children” Birog shuddered.
 
“You know the stories then? You know what happened. “His eyes lit up and the dwarf became enervated with wild hand gestures. “The people, our ancestors the children of Nemed rose up and killed one of their kings in his tower, Conand. But their other king Morc retaliated and decimated the people of Nemed with a great wave and a plague that came from the sea. A cataclyism that scattered our people and changed us forever.”
 
“You expect us to believe all this?” Birog tutted.
–
Behold the rest of the chapter over on initt, huzzah! The burning of the temple
0

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 4 ‘Devil Knows’

Hi there, just drinking some green tea struggling to give a fuck.

Gonna keep this short for an intro because I have a headache and I generally feel like shit and I have lots of day job to contend with. Also there isn’t gonna be a huge chunk of witcher bitching because I’ve been finishing up that Parker novel. I think I’m gonna read the next witcher book and if it’s not significantly better I’ll abandon the whole series. None of the characters really grab me, the story is sort of a generic nothing burger, the action is phenomenal but there just isn’t enough of it.

The Parker novel is definitely the worst, it was just kind of small scale in comparison to the others and for me the fun and anticipation comes from them planning and planning around the job. Like my favourite part of I think it was the second book is where they all plan the robbery and then in the next scene Parker is planning how to stop the play of the other two in the job. Because almost every job involves an outsider who is trying to steal the lot and Parker has to plan the job and around them so it’s this really exciting chase between Parker and the money and the other players.
And while this is happening you’re getting to know all the characters and it’s really fun. This one was a bit of a let down because the actual heist part is sort of boring and goes too well and is just shoved off to the start and then on top of that the people who become the antagonists just seem like random guys and they’re not really that interesting, they were just kind of punks. Although I did like how Parker dispatched them both, that was great, grade A Parker.
I still enjoyed the book, it’s just not the top of the series but I’ve already read the first I think this was the thirteenth and I have ten to go so I’m loving that, thirteenth books in and this is the first one to fall a little flat. That is a damn good track record. I’m three books into the witcher and I wanted to quit it a book ago haha.

It goes without saying if you’re into pulp, Raymond Chandler or Dashell Hammett you’ll love these books. It’s like a classic detective novel from the perspective of the bad guy haha.

That’s about all, wanna start going over my agent pitch stuff for Diana again today and maybe do some more Cur proofreading if I feel up to it. Noticed I stop talking about my love life? That’s because it’s far worse haha.

Anyway.

See you…

 

Devil Knows

–

“She marked you.” A voice said above him, the voice was unlike any human voice and resonated as if a combination of bird tweets and bear growls mimicking human tongue. “I guess you think you’re special” The voice mocked.

 

The sound of real birds were happily chirping. He could feel moist and verdant foliage underneath him, a slight breeze and the shadow of a large tree. A break of bright beautiful daylight through a crack in the sky that was just his eyes opening anew.

 

Above him looking down the figure of a man’s head wearing a large ornate headdress with deer antlers protruding out covered in leaves and moss. And although his face could not be seen through the bright sunlight he blocked, he knew the man was smiling.

 

Cur awoke from his trance flailing wildly with a sharp inhale of breath. He grasped greedily and vociferously at the face leaning over him and he squeezed it.

 

“Would you stop that now?” An unfamiliar voice barked. “She saved your life and you’d treat her like?” The dog laughed.

 

“I’m already dead” Cur growled as he continued to squeeze the neck of the pretty young woman standing over him.

 

“You’re gonna break yer stitches and your head is just gonna roll off!” The old man said still with the needle in his hand.

 

“Who are you?” Cur asked the woman turning blue in his hand.

 

“She needs air to talk Firbolg” The dog said.

 

Cur took a moment and sneered into the face of the Tuatha woman and tossed her aside like a used rag.

 

Birog coughed and spluttered hungrily trying to force air into her lungs.

 

Cur felt at his neck and tugged at a loose piece of twine hanging from the stitching and ripped it off. His neck slowly healed over. He stood and went over to the young woman as she doubled over gasping for air.

 

He picked her up like a cruel toddler with a ragdoll, by the hair so he could get a good look at her face. Barely conscious the look in her eye was far away and glassy.

 

“Answer me” He growled.

 

“Birog, I’m just a druid.”

 

“Just a druid” Cur laughed low and menacing. “Then you can die”

 

“Now what cause do you have to do that?” The dog asked. “She dug you out herself.”

 

“She did your job for you mutt” Cur bellowed.

 

In an instant the dog took the form of a man of average height with light red hair and a dull pale complexion.

 

“Sure she has other assets you could get more than just the pleasure of killing her from” The man smirked.

 

Cur laughed. “I think she liked you more as a stinking dog, Tuan.”

 

Cur looked her up and down and found no fault. “So be it, she will be mine tonight and tomorrow, she may live.” He laughed and let her head loll back down on the ground.

 

“Wait” The girl strained to talk the dirt shifting under her. “I’ll give myself willingly if you’ll listen to my plea”

 

Cur took her by the nape of the neck, his hand large enough to wrap all the way around it. He picked her off the ground and looked into her eyes. “Talk if it amuses you.”

 

Her own feet under her now she shrugged off Cur’s hand defiantly and dusted herself off. “I helped you bec-“

 

“-You didn’t help me”

 

“Then you planned on being decapitated and buried upside down?” She sneered.

 

“No one looks for a dead man.” He croaked, a wicked smile crossing his cracked lips.

 

Tuan smiled as he span the chieftain’s gold torque on his finger. “You throw in a flashy execution and no one notices a little mouse or a cat scurrying into their houses and robbing them blind.” He laughed.

 

“You only saved this lazy dog a time digging and carrying.” Cur jabbed, a large wicked grin on his face.

 

She looked over at former dog Tuan who smiled shyly tipping his head. “I see, so you’re a shape shifter and a thief” She said scornfully.

 

“Something like that.” Tuan shrugged. “Tuan mac Cairill.” He said as he nodded “You’ve already met ‘Fintan the wise’” He said with a smirk bobbing his head towards the old man who sat silently. The old man was back to silently prodding the fire with the blackened branch and paying no mind to goings on.

 

“And you?” She said looking at Cur.

 

“I have no name” He growled as if that was somehow directly her fault.

 

 

 

 

 

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Cur Chapter 3 ‘A kind of magic’

Hello there dudes and dudettes,

Ok sliding in another Cur chapter because I realised I wanted to release a chapter a week and I kind of fucked that up so I’m gonna release two chapters this week to get back on track haha.

Pretty decent week of writing, I’m cutting out filler left and right which is great, really getting into the meat of the story and riding that wave, some things I need to change but I’m really liking where it was taking me. I kind of felt for a little bit that I was going with the motions and not feeling too inspired or if I was tired or fucked, my new sleep routine puts a lot of strain on my eyes because I’m just literally using them more.
My general philosophy when I feel kind of uninspired is just to keep going and go over it later, which I find works for me because I always write detailed synopsises of my work so I never get stuck looking at a blank page, I always have the next thing to go to. I always have something I can refer to if I get stuck.
I know there are lots of writers who don’t use plans and just go at with a blank page and their balls in their hands haha. I have no idea how they do it, to me that’s like fighting a fucking dragon with a toothbrush haha.
I always like to have a plan and a detailed structure at my back so I’m not stuck looking at a blank page with just my dick in my hand. I can always keep my flow going and if I hit a bump I can just take a break and sip some tea and come back to it.

But I was looking back at it and I was pleasantly surprised, it needs work but there’s something there, I won’t be polishing a turd just clearing away the crap on an unfettered gem.

Now for some witcher hate haha. I just don’t care about any of the characters honestly, not one of them, I just can’t care about them, I dunno, I just don’t think I’d get on with any of them and I don’t know what this author’s life is like but he must have some really complicated relationships with women. Every female character he writes is more obnoxious than the last.
Not saying women can’t be obnoxious but it’s every one of them, there’s maybe one woman in any of his stories that isn’t Ciri that has any redeeming qualities at all and even then it’s kind of only in comparison to the others who are awful.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not some rabid feminist by any means haha, I get that women can be assholes but when it’s literally every one of them it just gets tedious and loses all it’s power.
I mean the queen of brokilon was just an endless stream of unfettered cuntiness that I could barely stand. You could replace her dialogue with just farting noises and it would have been less obnoxious and tedious haha. It just reaches a point of parody and I can’t take it seriously and I never thought I’d actually be clambering for a likeable/identifiable female character.
Even in my work I don’t want to put women on a pedestal but represent them as they are warts and all but I also want them to be likeable enough to care about even a little bit and honestly when you find yourself rooting for the people that might rape and murder a character in a book you’ve done something wrong haha.

The Parker novel is pretty good, definitely one of Stark’s weaker ones, but the whole series is the perfect example of unsubverted expectations still being excellent. The witcher is so preoccupied with subverting expectations it forgets to be entertaining. Whereas in the Parker novels you know exactly whats going to happen and you can’t wait to read it haha.
Someone fucks over Parker and you know he’s going to track them down and curb stomp them and you’re tearing through chapters to get to it haha. The mystery comes into play when the why and who and the how are revealed. You what’s going to happen because you know Parker and what happens to people that cross him but you don’t know how he’s going to do it and who he’s going to do it to and that’s why you keep reading for that glorious catharsis that is nowhere to be found in the witcher books, the stories generally go nowhere or full circle, just generally unsatisfying.

Anyway enough of that I need to get proofreading the next chapter of Cur or I won’t have anything to post on thursday haha.

See you…

Ooh almost forgot, The One That Came Back for whatever reason has become super popular on inkitt so I thought fuck it, I uploaded the full edited version to inkitt so if you don’t want to download it you can just read it there.

A kind of magic

–

That night a dense bluish fog came low over the village. The calls of hounds barking filled the silence as the moon rode high on the crest and half full overhead as the village slept all, all but one.

 

Some form of morbid curiosity and fascination drew her to the empty mucky bog that would be the stranger’s grave. As proclaimed, no markings but a heavy stone pressed down on the grave. The grave that lay far from the town.

 

What she was going to do not even she knew herself but the druiddess felt some unearthly pull to the spot. Maybe a morbid trophy would belay her curiosity maybe not.

 

She approached the grave with trepidation, as if it were the steps to a grand and foreboding house. With no torch whatsoever and the necessity arising. The young girl tutting pulled her sleeve back revealing a gold half torgue around her wrist, with which she gave three quick taps.

 

On the third tap the torque began to give off an errie glow almost like a will-o-the-whisp. A slightly greenish hue that gave her all the light she needed to see the grave clearly.

 

“I have to know” She told herself “I just need to see the body for a moment, I can’t let this opportunity pass me by.”

 

Her curiosity had betrayed her as she was not alone. Too late she noticed the noise, a slight drawn out scratching noise and veiled breathing sniffing sounds and a low growl or whine or whistle.

 

“Who is that?” She called out but no one answered.

 

The scratching sounds got louder and the breathing deeper and faster as she approached the grave. Her footfalls sinking into the loose wet earth of the bog.

 

“I warn you, I have a weapon!” The druiddess swallowed her fear as she approached fumbling her small hands over the clasps. Moving her robes awkwardly to reach the handle of the strange sword she had found herself the owner of.

 

The druiddess drew closer to the noise. Her and on the hilt of the sword and her other on the oddly designed scabbard but she did not draw the blade as she feared to do so. The blade it seemed to her analysis had some magical properties but to the nature of which she had hitherto not discerned. Drawing it in anger could have unforseen consequences.

 

“I have use of magic” She croaked, her voice breaking as she said it, casting the light from her torque over the grave. A dark small dark figure hunched over the grave was digging in the loose earth around the stone.

 

The druiddess forgot to breath, she tensed her cheeks as she tried to swallow the lump of fear in her throat. Having no choice but to pass the light of her torque over the squat stygian figure scrabbling in the muck.

 

To her relief, the light revealed little more than a shaggy mutt. A dog of an indetterminent breed was digging and scratching at the freshly laid grave of the stranger from a by gone age.

 

“Shoo!” she cried. Feelings of anger and relief washing over her. Anger more at herself for being scared of something so pathetic looking.

 

She assumed the beast was just after the freshly planted dead flesh as a not so easy meal beneath the heavy stone.

 

“Away with you!” She swiped her hand in the air but the dog took no notice, continuing to paw and scratch at the soft earth.

 

Birog looked around her feet and found a small piece of sandstone and hucked it at the beast landing a few feet away from it. The creature lifted it’s head to growl and bear it’s teeth briefly before skulking away into the mist again.

 

 

 

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