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hawkwing_lbI suppose I shouldn't end the year without another project to write. Not that I don't have enough of those already, even after the thesis.
So here's the start of one more.
Prolegomenon 1.
This is the face of a dying woman.
A moment caught out of time. Her grin is a rictus, savage, fierce. Sweat and blood and dirt smear her cheeks. She has lost her helm, but red marks stand out in hollow relief on her forehead, cheeks and the bridge of her twice-broken nose to show where it rested moments before. The blood that spatters her mail and leather armour is only partly hers, and behind her long oval shield her arm is bruised all the way to the shoulder from the tidal crash of battle-line on battle-line. The roar that fills the air, smashes ears and senses with the brute force of a hurricane, is more than tidal. Sword rings off shield, off greave, off bone: shields collide with the crack of breaking bone. Boots thump into dust churned muddy by the blood and guts and vomit of the fallen, by the piss running down men's legs and the sweat that flies from thrown-back hair: everywhere is screaming and shouting and the grunt of effort and the bellows-rasp of five hundred men all gasping for breath.
You can only accept the inevitable so many times before it happens. Your whole life waiting for the axe to fall, when it's not skill that keeps your footing in the hammer-blow of phalanx meeting phalanx at the charge. Luck and discipline keep shield locked with shield, your shield sheltering the soldier to your left, your right shoulder sheltered behind the shield of the soldier beside you, the line closing up with the discipline borne of years in this bloody crucible when men stagger and go down under stamping boots and stabbing swords.
Throw the dice.
This is the face of a dying woman.
But not dying today.
#
Ten days. Ten days, they'd stayed ahead of their pursuers in these god-cursed fens. And now, less than a day from the relative safety of the marches, their luck was going to run out.
Donall of Rathlin splashed across the brackish stream, and reached back a hand to haul Lissa up the bank.
I think it is possible I am far too optimistic, sometimes. Since I've been trying to write the other book for nearly three years now.
*sigh*
One day I'll finish it. Finish them all.
So here's the start of one more.
Prolegomenon 1.
This is the face of a dying woman.
A moment caught out of time. Her grin is a rictus, savage, fierce. Sweat and blood and dirt smear her cheeks. She has lost her helm, but red marks stand out in hollow relief on her forehead, cheeks and the bridge of her twice-broken nose to show where it rested moments before. The blood that spatters her mail and leather armour is only partly hers, and behind her long oval shield her arm is bruised all the way to the shoulder from the tidal crash of battle-line on battle-line. The roar that fills the air, smashes ears and senses with the brute force of a hurricane, is more than tidal. Sword rings off shield, off greave, off bone: shields collide with the crack of breaking bone. Boots thump into dust churned muddy by the blood and guts and vomit of the fallen, by the piss running down men's legs and the sweat that flies from thrown-back hair: everywhere is screaming and shouting and the grunt of effort and the bellows-rasp of five hundred men all gasping for breath.
You can only accept the inevitable so many times before it happens. Your whole life waiting for the axe to fall, when it's not skill that keeps your footing in the hammer-blow of phalanx meeting phalanx at the charge. Luck and discipline keep shield locked with shield, your shield sheltering the soldier to your left, your right shoulder sheltered behind the shield of the soldier beside you, the line closing up with the discipline borne of years in this bloody crucible when men stagger and go down under stamping boots and stabbing swords.
Throw the dice.
This is the face of a dying woman.
But not dying today.
#
Ten days. Ten days, they'd stayed ahead of their pursuers in these god-cursed fens. And now, less than a day from the relative safety of the marches, their luck was going to run out.
Donall of Rathlin splashed across the brackish stream, and reached back a hand to haul Lissa up the bank.
I think it is possible I am far too optimistic, sometimes. Since I've been trying to write the other book for nearly three years now.
*sigh*
One day I'll finish it. Finish them all.
