Flash Fiction: Unworthy
Flash Fiction: Unworthy
“Why does the Goddess of the Wood consider me unworthy?” the leather clad warrior asked, handing the old gray-haired wood-priest the leaves he’d been crushing in his bare hand. “I have always held to the code of honor.” “I do not doubt you, or your honor,” the old man said, stroking his dirty gray-streaked beard, then taking the leaves from him. “You can be completely honorable and still not…
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Donald of Mars, Chapter 77, Ducklings is now live on Patron, Reamstories and Substack. If you’ve missed some episodes, all of them are available in each place.
Donald putting duckling into his ecology is going to take time and money to fix.
Can We Break the Universe? What does that imply?
The assumption that with enough that with high enough technology, it is possible to break the universe leads to many interesting conclusions. It almost eliminates the possibility of an older, more powerful race, except under certain circumstances. Quite simply if you can break the universe, there is no way to prevent people who would do so from figuring out how to. It will take time, but it will…
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All 14 chapter now up for free
Kindle Vella is Going Away!
If you read serials or subscriptions, then you have most likely heard about Amazon closing Kindle Vella. Vella is where most of the people have read my work. It has been a fun ride, and I got a lot of good experiences out of it, but that ride is coming to an end. Almost everything I have on Vella is available on Reamstories. Currently, I am continuing to add to the content there and will…
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In the Service of Evil 2: Wind Blown Ashes now live.
The last of A Fall of Ashes goes live today but the saga continues with Wind Blown Ashes and her struggle to leave her past behind her. https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0C1XJSXK1
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About Living on Mars
More than a year ago, after reading yet one more unrealistic description concerning what living on a Mars colony would be like, I began a serial on Kindle Vella I called Donald of Mars. The reason, to show just what living there might realistically be like.
There is no super technology providing quick fixes. You have to bury everything under the sand after building it for structural and…
Kerric the Mercenary: Episode 7, Run to DeSon
Kerric and his Warcat took the lead. At the edge of DarkGate, he turned Akrus off the road and headed due west. The moment they made it to those dark woods, he said, “Run,” and all Akrus’s anger vanished. He was off as if shot from an arrow.
At home, north of the Black Sand, running was dangerous. There, except for hunting sprints, if he ran, it was in fear, and he was running for his life. It wasn’t until Kerric brought him south of the Black Sand that his war cat had a chance to run full out without fear. Now, only mating and hunting brought his Warcat more pleasure. It was a pleasure Akrus rarely got to indulge in and the perfect reward for being dragged out of his rest.
Like the larger breed of Warcats in the north, the ones his men rode were built for running for days despite that not being a good idea in the north. Except the Tolar, nothing in the south could escape them over the long run, and very few on the short. Only experts here would pick up that this wasn’t the breed you found in the far south in the forest bordering the frozen waste. Those were a patchwork brown, instead of dark brown with black stripes on their hind quarter, and only three-quarters the size of the Warcats Kerric’s men rode. Nor were they as fast or have the endurance of this northern breed.
Yet those southern beasts stilled killed more of their own riders than the northern ones did, making seeing a rider a very rare occurrence in the far south, and nearly legendary this far away from that icy waste. That was, until Kerric, and his band arrived.
Kerric shifted his weight. With a snort, Akrus stopped trying to outrun the others, but kept his pace high enough to make them work at keeping up. They might have longer legs, but Akrus had more muscle. That meant more speed in a run among Warcats.
They hit the edge of the gorge and Akrus leaped from the side to the branches of those massive trees. The others followed. Riding the treetops might be common in the jungles north of the Black Sand but was unheard of here. That shortcut across the gorge instead of around it, as all others had to travel, was why his men would get there before the sun came up, despite having to saddle them before riding out.
Akrus leaped to the next tree, and then the next. Even in the dark, Warcats never jumped to a branch that can’t whole their weight, though sometimes, they bend more than their riders anticipate. That bending and springing back is what the Warcats used to move forward with such speed. It took all the rider’s concentration to stay in those saddles and not one of them could have done so the way Kerric did, without the thigh straps. That springing motion was why in the trees, Warcats move only a little slower than their ground eating normal pace.
Kerric spared enough attention from his own ride to see all of his men having a harder time of it than they should. It was one more sign that they had lost too much of their edge. The gorge was deep and wide, but not so much so that those Warcats could not cross it in half the night.
With well over a candle mark before even the false dawn, his men were on the road to the main keep of DeSon, something that would have been a four-day trip by the road using caravan wagons.
Tantos came out of the woods as they moved closer to the keep. “I found Corman camped on a woodcutter’s track nearing the Aring-DarkGate Road. He’s taking his time and will hit that road early morning tomorrow. If he pushes it, he could make Aring by late night, but more likely is planning another night on the road.”
Kerric nodded and looked over the lands of his prospective employer.
Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
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james-steinhaus reblogged this · 2 months ago
