Time Off

So pretty much since Kenny was born, I have been neglecting this blog. Well, I have also been neglecting my writing. Honestly, I just haven't had a lot of time. Every spare waking moment has been spent with Kenny (totally by choice, I should add; I love spending time with that boy). I've had an hour here and there, but I've been tired enough that the writing zone has pretty much eluded me, and I have spent it either playing a video game or catching up on reading.

That being said, I seem to once again be in that writing purgatory right on the edge of the zone; this cozy little place where I'm starting to feel this building pressure, this itch that needs to be scratched, and the only way to get at it is to dive feet first in and write something.

So... I'm not sure what I'm working on next, but I'm browsing through some old files trying to decide. I have a bunch of short stories, two or three novels that are NOT the sequel to Savage Queen, and yes, a hundred pages or so of the sequel, the Iron King. Because I never really came close to the numbers I wanted on Savage Queen, I'm a little sour on the series at the moment, so I’m not sure I’m ready to head back there just yet. I’m still hoping I can find an actual publisher, and sell a lot more. That would definitely encourage me to work on Iron King, which by the way, promises to be a much bigger, much more epic (awesome) book.

So... In the spirit of re-entering my little neglected headspace of creation, I present to you a project with a long history of on again/off again. This was my attempt at a post-apocalyptic take, mashed together with another genre I have also loved. So I present to you the opening of World Without Heroes.

*Heads up, this one contains a bit of adult content.


World Without Heroes

The town ahead of him on the dusty road looked from a distance like a hundred other towns he had walked into. The sun to the west was slinking behind the hills, casting the broken town in a reddish light, making him think of blood; broken and bloody, the town of Alma seemed to his tired eyes. The wind had dropped away, leaving behind an eerie quiet, the only sound the crunch of his heavy boots scattering debris on the cracked, desolate highway. Behind him, the road seemingly stretched away forever.


Desmond straddled the road like a cowboy would sit astride his horse, confident and sure. He strode along the broken road as if he has every right in the world to be there, his dark eyes straight ahead, his motion steady, unwavering. He stood six feet tall, though the cocky way he carried himself –head high, shoulders thrown back, thick chest puffed out –made him appear somewhat taller. The pale skin of his face was gritty and spattered with the dirt of the hard road, though he gave no sign that he noticed, or cared. His thin lips, also pale, were drawn tight, not quite a frown, but miles away from anything resembling a smile. On another man, his pronounced jawbone and sharp features could be almost feminine; on Desmond, they were simply fierce. He dressed plainly; heavy leather boots, faded blue jeans, now more grey than blue, a torn yellow t-shirt that may have started out white, and a brown leather coat that hung midway down his thighs. A thick black belt encircled his waist, and a bulky satchel hung from a knotted strap over his left shoulder, next to an empty quiver. He clutched a walking stick, a foot taller than he and nearly two inches in diameter, with his right hand. Encased in a shiny black sheath, the only item he carried that appeared cared for, even polished, hung from his belt on his left.

On the side of the road, on his right, he passed a makeshift sign announcing the name of the small town. Though the name itself was printed on the sheet of plywood with dripping black spray paint, as if done in a hurry or at least with a lack thought to how it appeared, the two rows of hexes underneath were stenciled neatly, drawn in a dark copper he recognized as faded blood. Because the symbols were clearly a warding against daemons, he guessed the blood had belonged to livestock. Or at least he hoped so. Damned superstitions.

He moved into town, taking his surroundings in with barely a glance. Alma was just another small town, perhaps once a farming community, a collection of buildings stuck on the highway like a way station. The buildings were like a thousand others he had seen in his drifting. Run down, washed out. What paint remained was so faded that it might not have existed at all, and only one in ten windows contained glass. On his left, three houses in a row were burned out shells, debris scattered onto the highway. An old television sat at the side of the road, its blank screen staring at him as he passed. He stepped around a pile of horse droppings, and nodded in appreciation. At least it wouldn’t be another ghost town. Maybe there was something to the hexes after all. He grinned at the thought.

From somewhere ahead and to the right, he could now make out the sounds of life. The rumble of a gathered crowd was almost music to his ears. At his brisk pace, he reached a crossroads in only a few minutes. The buildings were a little denser now, packed closer together, and though they appeared just as run down as the ones further out, something gave the impression of recent inhabitation that the previous buildings had lacked. One lonely traffic light still stood on one corner, its lights long since gone dark. Desmond turned right, following the noise, and crossed to the far side of the road, stepping up onto a crumbling cement sidewalk. The noise no longer reminded him of music. There was cheering; but it was drunken, rowdy, angry. Not daemons, then, but man had always been able to create their own trouble long before the daemons ever came. And above the cheers, above the sound of the mob, another voice.

He paused, then. It would be better if he just continued on his way. He needed no part of the trouble that took place there. And yet, he made no move to leave.

Desmond stared a particular building, the source of the noise, even though he had it memorized in a glance. The building was a tavern; a faded sign that hung from the gutters read Mary’s. The building was as old as any other in town, but fresh red paint had been applied to the double doors and wood trim around the windows. A long porch ran along the front of the building, stretching out into the unused parking lot, and though it sagged some in the middle, it was clear this building was well maintained. It seemed Mary’s was more successful than the rest of the town.

That other voice cried out again, high pitched and feminine, thick with desperation, humiliation and fear. She shrieked for help, and Desmond turned to leave. He would continue on his way. He needed no part in that kind of trouble.

“Mister!” a new voice called, high and desperate as well, but not quite feminine. “Mister, please! Help!”

He looked back. A sandy haired boy, no more than eleven, ran towards him from the side of the tavern. On of his eyes was swollen shut, a nasty shiner marring most of his young face, but his open eye blazed with rage. Desmond faced the boy, his fingers twitching. It sure looked like a boy, but it wouldn’t be the first time he had been wrong. He waited, silent, as the boy approached.

The child skidded to a stop only feet away, his face wet with tears. The boy’s eyes flickered to the samurai sword hung at his belt, and quickly looked up to meet his eyes. “Mister, you have to help!” he choked out, his high voice, not yet changed by puberty, choked with emotion. “They’re attacking her! Its awful!” His eyes again flickered to the sword, “You can stop them! You can save her.”

Desmond sighed. “Boy, there are no more heroes.”

The boy collapsed, his strings cut. From the ground, he muttered, “I tried to save her, I did. But I’m just a kid. She asked O’Neil to pay his tab, and right away I knew there was trouble. He had some of the other locals with him, and the whore house shut down a couple months back, and they just got this look and… I tried to stop them, I did. I tried. She took care of me. Please help her, mister.”

Desmond frowned. He had figured it would be something of that sort. He had seen it too many times. But for every one that was saved, how many more were not? It was a losing battle. There were no more heroes, not for a long time. He would have ignored it. Forgotten about it. Moved on. But the boy – he could hardly say no now. He pulled off his coat, and handed it down to the weeping boy, along with walking stick, sack and empty quiver. “Hold this,” he muttered. “I expect it all back when I return.”

The boy said something as he walked away, but he wasn’t sure what. His thoughts were focused ahead. The tavern loomed ahead of him ominously. He stepped onto the porch, the wood groaning under him. He hit the latch, and the left door opened with a creak that wasn’t even noticed by the crowd inside. He stepped through, into a scene he had seen too often before.

The interior of Mary’s was like so many others. Along the back an old stained bar ran the length of the room, a collection of mismatched stools placed in front. A door behind that stood ajar, leading to the kitchen and a collection of smells he could have lived without. Desmond noticed a fat man in stained whites, his bald head shiny with grease or sweat, wringing his hands and peering out into the commons room. A makeshift fire pit, formed by a scattering of bricks and chucks of concrete, stood cold in one corner of the room, a battered tin pipe above it to vent out the smoke in the winter months. The rest of the room, atop a rough sawdust covered floor, was filled by any number of tables and chairs, also mismatched and stained. It was mostly clean, which was a surprise, the sawdust fresh, and not quite as run down as the rest of town. Fresh red paint, like the window frames and doors outside, had been used to paint much of the dark interior. The lighting was provided by thick beeswax candles, placed on each table and in sconces along the walls. A cloud of thick smoke, pot and tobacco and who knew what else, hung above them like a brewing storm.

With a quick glance around the room, no more than a pair of seconds, Desmond took everything in. An old couple in one corner crouched low at their table, too afraid to move lest they be noticed. A couple men scattered about, enough humanity left in them to not want to participate, but still unwilling to help; still, he noticed at least two men watching the scene in the middle of the room with too much curiosity, as if they too were thinking about joining in. One of them noticed Desmond’s searching eyes; his own eyes shot down to the table, ashamed, as if he knew that Desmond knew what he had been thinking.

The voice again rose above the mob, shrill, “Please god! Someone help me! How can you just sit there and-” the voice broke off with a pain filled shriek. The mob responded with laughter, full of sadism.

The rest of the room, maybe twenty men and a scattering of woman, stood in a circle around one of the bigger tables like the cheering section at a ball game. A man stood there, his tan pants down around his ankles. In front of him, bent over the table, was the source of the shrill voice. A second man knelt on the table before the woman, his member now engorged in her mouth, cutting off her screams. He leered at the room, his face shinning with pride, like a boy that for the first time has ridden his bike without help, beaming at his father as if to say look what I’m doing, daddy!

Desmond drew the sword, and advanced. The crowd parted before him as he went, and some remote part of him was reminded of that ancient story of Moses and the Red Sea. The second man noticed him first, even as the mob fell silent, and fell backwards off the table. The first man, holding the woman down and taking her from the rear, glanced over his shoulder and met Desmond’s gaze. The man even had the audacity to grin.

“What, you can’t wait your turn, fucker?” he joked merrily, withdrawing from the woman. He bent to pull up his pants, and Desmond reached him. The blade flashed. The first man collapsed, muttering something about being unarmed with his last breath. The crowd drew back, afraid for the moment. But Desmond knew mobs; they would be over it soon enough. He would act quickly.

The second man regained his feet, his penis hanging obscenely from the open fly of his jeans. He made no move to cover himself, but instead drew a long knife from his boot, a shining blade nearly a foot long. The man lunged even as Desmond reached the far side of the table, the knife held expertly before him. Desmond stepped aside easily, and the knife slashed at nothing but air. Behind them, the room was starting to mutter angrily. He sensed the woman move as well, but could spare no attention on her. Unlike the first man, so stupid he wasted time and effort on modesty while in a fight, this man had skill. And fast – three fast slashes came within inches of Desmond’s face, and he almost missed a second knife appear from nowhere and slash at his side.

Desmond moved forward faster than the other had expected. His sword slid forward, as he stepped between the others arms. Their faces were only inches apart before the other man realized he was already dead –Desmond’s sword extended a good two feet out the other’s back, cleanly through his guts.

Desmond spun to again face the room, startling two others that had begun to cautiously move forward. They fell back immediately, even as the corpse of the second man fell to the floor.

His eyes flickered to the woman. She would live.

In a rush, the mob fled, a few men pausing only to drag their dead companions out with them. With the instigators dead, the mob mentality fell apart. He guessed many would be returning home to wives, who would wonder at the quiet, ashamed looks on their husbands faces. They would live the rest of their lives with that shame.

Now, he turned to the woman; really more a girl, he judged, no more than seventeen years old. She stood awkwardly, clearly in pain. Her long blonde hair, clean like the tavern, was tangled and hectic. Her face, not quite as pale as his own, was beautiful, despite the bruises and blood that trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her full lips were parted; open as she panted in pain and exhaustion. There were no tears, he noticed. Her top, a simple white blouse, was torn and bloody. She had pulled her jean skirt down, but blood streamed down one leg in an alarming amount.

“Are you ok, Mary?” he asked.

She actually smiled, and then grimaced as the motion strained already bruised and tortured muscles. “Mary was my aunt. She died two years ago, in the big fire. I’m Alice. And yeah, I’ll be fine. Not the first time something like this happened.”

She moved behind the bar, and pulled out two battered tin cups, and a tall bottle of old scotch. She poured two generous helpings, and pushed one cup towards him. “What’s your name, drifter?”

“Desmond,” He answered simply. He took the cup, and sat on one of the stools. The one he took, at random, actually still had some padding atop it.

“Well, Desmond. Thank you. I guess I owe you.”

Behind them, the door opened one more time; Desmond turned and watched the boy enter, struggling to carry his things. A look of relief flashed across the child’s face, and he came forward. “Thank you mister,” the boy said simply, handing over the drifters possessions.

Wordlessly, Desmond took his things back, and set them on the bar. The boy took a stool next to him, and Desmond took a swallow of the scotch. “I am looking for a man,” he announced, looking down at the tin cup between his hands, resting lightly on the counter. A small stain near his hands, the color of old blood, looked slightly like the letter s. “He may have passed through here sometime in the past months.” He looked up then, locking eyes with the girl. “You would remember him. He only has one arm, and a number of scars.”

The boy looked over at him sharply at the mention of the one-armed man, but remained silent with a dangerous look from Alice. Instead, Alice herself spoke. “I remember him. He was here a few months back. A drifter,” she shot him a meaningful glance, as if to say no different than you. “Came in looking for work. Wanted room and board in exchange,” she shrugged, and winced at the motion. “We needed some repairs; he was the man that touched up the paint around here, and fixed a few window casings. A few other things.” She glanced at Desmond, waiting for him to give something away. He remained expressionless, telling nothing of the reason behind his interest in the man. “He stayed about two weeks. Then his welcome… Wore out, and he moved on.”

Desmond nodded. He glanced back down into the depths of his scotch. The turn the conversation would need to take to give him the information he needed was tricky; depending on if she viewed the one-armed man as friend or foe would heavily influence what she would share.

“This man,” he announced, deciding to take the chance. If she refused to help him, he could always track the man using other methods. “He is a good friend. Would you know where he went?”

“That man,” she replied, gesturing to the blood soaked sawdust on the floor, obviously referring to one of her attackers. “He was a dirty pig. This was not the only time he… attacked me. The first was several months back. Your friend,” she said the word with blatant doubt, “stepped in that time. He saved me.” She shook her head warily, “if I thought there was a safer place, somewhere, I would go.”

Desmond nodded again.

“So. I owe you for saving me, but I also owe him. You tell me he’s your friend. Why should I believe you? You have the look of a bounty hunter –telling you would betray him.”

One more time, Desmond nodded. “He left your attackers alive, though likely just barely. That was always Kyle’s way. Let me see if I can earn your trust. He is a mutant. And I can guess the rest of your story. He saved you, using his abilities. And the town ran him off to repay his kindness.” Alice made as if to say something, but he cut her of and continued. “Now. If I were one of His agents, would I bother asking you? They have other ways to gain answers.”

She was silent for a moment, and then answered barely above a whisper. “He did things I have never seen before. But yes, he left them alive. Fear kept them away the last few months; fear that he would come back. Today was the first time I have seen them back in town. His... whatever it was… It scared the shit out of me. What do you want with him?”

“He is a very old friend,” he answered, a faint smile touching his lips. “One that I have not seen in a very long time. In fact, I thought he died years ago. He and I share a kinship, a bond. We also share a quest, though I am not sure if he still fights for that particular cause. I wish to reunite with him; perhaps the two of us can continue something we started long ago.”

Now Alice nodded, and it was clear she had made a decision. “West. When he first arrived, he called himself a historian. Said he was trying to regain the knowledge we have lost, and that there was something he needed to check out in some small town called Cargill, in the north-west, almost to the Huron.”

“Thank you,” he responded simply, bobbing his head in thanks.

She smiled, and Desmond decided he saw nowhere near enough smiles these days. “When will you leave?”

“Right after I tend to your wounds.”

The Savage Queen - Now In Store

The Savage Queen is now available in store at KW Bookstore in Kitchener.

Review Here!

The review at the Record is online, and you can check it out here.

http://www.therecord.com/whatson/books/article/549653--books-the-savage-queen-by-joshua-dunkley

Good time to remind everyone they can purchase the book at any of the following:

Amazon.ca
Amazon.com
Createspace

Or you can find the eBook here:

Amazon.com
Smashwords

Huge thanks to Jon Fear for taking the time to read and review my work, and to the Record for publishing my first review.

Reviewed

The Savage Queen will be reviewed this weekend in the KW Record, by Mr. Jon Fear.

I'm a little bit excited ;)

You can find The Savage Queen at Amazon.ca

The Savage Queen

The Savage Queen is now available for purchase in print. Purchase it here:

https://www.createspace.com/3528075

The Savage Queen

Tired of hearing how publishers are not looking for new talent in "this difficult economy", I have decided to try another approach. I am now a self-published author. So help me celebrate; buy a copy of The Savage Queen.

Currently, eBook versions are available. Print should follow shortly.

Amazon -- For the Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Queen-Slaveborn-Saga-ebook/dp/B004FN2D6M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AZC9TZ4UC9CFC&s=books&qid=1291984869&sr=8-1

Smashwords -- With eBook versions for Kindle, Stanza, Sony Reader, Palm, PC or MAC (iPhone version should be coming soon)
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32689

The Savage Queen

Well, I don't really have anything interesting to say today, so I thought I would throw this out there for your consideration. This is the prolouge to my novel The Savage Queen, for which I am currently seeking a publisher. Enjoy, and feel free to let me know what you think in the comments.


Prologue

The wind sliced through the narrow pass like a blade, stirring the thin blanket of snow and shaking the tall evergreens that stood atop the steep cliffs like a row of sentries. The rocky peaks of the Great Divide towered in the distance, casting the winding gash into darkness, the sun a dull smudge of light on the horizon, struggling to break through the overcast sky. Bannah’s Pass cut through the mighty mountains that divided the land in two, a deep winding crevice just wide enough for several wagons to travel abreast. The vicars would claim that mighty Bannah, the god of thunder, had cracked the earth itself with his legendary war hammer, throwing the god Tempal back to the underworld he ruled. That mighty blow had opened the east to the west, smashing down the jagged peaks, reducing them to rubble that clogged the twisting path.


A road had been built, blacker than night and as strong as granite, following the way of the pass, a road so ancient that no human remembered who built it. Despite the ages, the road ran unblemished and perfect, a tattoo upon the land that would forever tell of humanity’s passing. The Highway went on for miles, from coast to coast, east to west and north to south, connecting a once proud kingdom of man. The road burrowed its way through the mountains, and emerged on the wide Coorin Plains.

Stone assembled with skill formed a wall spanning the mouth of the pass, standing nearly forty feet tall and twenty thick, broken by a heavy gate mounting the old road. Atop the battlements one young boy strolled carelessly, his wide mouth set in a frown of boredom. Tobey Shuffle, of the clan Gidran, was young; too young, in fact, to hold the position he held with the garrison at the Watch. He strolled along the top of the wall, occasionally glancing out into the snow swept bareness of the pass, moving already with a touch of the wide legged gait of a man that spent more time on the back of a horse than on his own two legs. His reddish hair was an unkempt mess, tossed about in the strong mountain winds; he had been away from the courts of Lyre –and his ever watchful mother – for nearly a month, and the mop was considerably longer than when last she had seen him. Why, he laughed suddenly, he doubted she would even recognize him!

Tobey approached a guard standing watch over the lands below, decked out in heavy leathers, bearing a crude looking axe at his side. The guard glanced at him with a grin, and playfully rattled the weapon against the small buckler he held. The boy laughed, and continued on; the guard was his second cousin Ham, and had always treated him well, even if the grizzled old guard sometimes acted a little funny.

Of course, he admitted to himself, every single man stationed at the small castle was family; that was the way of the Watch. Each clan sent a force to man the walls for one month, thereby splitting the cost between the entire kingdom, instead of just one clan or another. The Gidran clan’s rotation was nearly finished; only a few days remained before they could return to their farms and steads, or quarters among the palace at Lyre, where Tobey called home. He smiled; though he would miss the Watch and even his duties there, he was looking forward to seeing his friends again. And besides, the Watch was kind of boring. Nothing ever actually happened in the lands beyond the towering wall.

He again glanced over the parapet with disinterest; his eyes narrowed suddenly. He was sure he had seen something move in the pass. As he leaned forward trying in vain to get a better view, the bell atop the watch tower began to toll, and he jumped back startled. Tobey glanced back towards his cousin; the guard stood still as stone, his mouth open in shock as he stared down at the ancient road.

Tobey frowned, and stomped down a sudden burst of excitement; well, this was new! Never in the whole month had the bell sounded, and he struggled to recall what his father had taught him.

Below, the winds seemed to stop, and the snow settled. Suddenly the road was visible, stretching off into the distance, winding its way deeper into the mountains. As the snow settled, a small host of creatures seemed to emerge from nothingness. Tobey felt one starring right at him, right into his very soul, and shivered. He fought back tears that suddenly wanted to form in his dark eyes.

They stood tall, those creatures that emerged from the west, atop two legs and swinging two arms, manlike in appearance, humanlike but inhuman nonetheless. They were pale, each and every one, untouchable by the fury of the sun. Pale eyes watched the watchers, and thin bloodless lips turned upwards in grim smiles. The inhumans moved with cat like grace, yet carried themselves with the strength of bulls, their thin bodies deceivingly frail looking. They emerged, marching right from legend and history and the nightmares of humans. The alfin had come again at last.

Tobey stifled a scream. With sudden clarity he knew what the bell meant. He turned, and ran as fast as he could. He passed his cousin Ham, who seemed frozen as he watched the alfin form up below, beyond the range of their defenses. Shouts filled the air, and the courtyard was filled as the clan sprang into action. He barely noticed his father and Clan Lord Danerick enter the watch tower from the ground almost directly below him.

The watch tower stood in the center of the wall, granting an almost unobstructed view of the Pass, when the weather was clear. Tobey reached the tower quickly, and slammed open the door, entering the tower from the wall. He sped through the small war room within, ignoring the shocked looks from clansmen, and crashed back out the other side onto the wall; He thought he heard his fathers voice from the stairwell leading down as he passed by. The boy sped along, eventually reaching a smaller tower on the northeast end of the wall, which he entered in a rush.

The middle floor of the tower was packed with stores, which he ignored; sacks of seeds, bundles of dried jerky, heavy jugs of the dark nectar the carrier shriekers enjoyed. He snatched a big piece of the meat, and mounted the stairs at a sprint, his lungs burning. Above, he could already hear the screams of the shriekers– the sound of the watch towers bell had upset them, or maybe they sensed something unusual was going on.

Tobey ran into the kennel, and moved immediately to the small desk near the stairs. He produced a small slip of paper, and found pen and ink. Carefully, he etched out the message. He bounced impatiently from foot to foot as he waited for the ink to dry.

He had learned to care for the shriekers in the church at Lyre; the kennel master there had exclaimed he had a natural talent with the creatures, and his father claimed that skill was a good part of why he had been allowed to join the clan when they garrisoned the Watch, several years too young. He glanced at the note, which was nearly dry; his only duty here was to care for the creatures, and, in the unlucky event of an invasion, send a warning to Dimir. That’s what the bell meant, at least for him.

Carefully, he rolled the thin paper into a small leather tube, and turned toward the cages. Each enclosure was walled in with heavy steel bars. The shriekers could easily tear through the strongest wood if they chose, and the creatures could be somewhat moody; the steel bars made sure they stayed put. He reached one cage, and the monster within. Barnacle, the shrieker was named; it was Tobey’s personal favorite.

He crouched in front of the cage, and tossed the jerky. Barnacle caught the meat easily in his long beak, and swallowed it without pause. Satisfied for the moment, the carrier shrieker screeched in greeting; the time was not long past when Tobey would have covered his ears at the piercing sound that had given the creatures their name, and he grinned despite the situation.

Barnacle waited as Tobey swung open the heavy door, and then shuffled forward awkwardly. Carefully, avoiding sudden movements that might startle the shrieker, Tobey reached forward with the leather tube, as he concentrated on sending calming thoughts to the creature. Quickly, with an experienced motion he was proud of, he fastened the message to the shriekers leg, and stepped back slowly.

Barnacle emerged from the cage, shaking its head like a dog shedding water, and then spread its wings in a stretch. The shrieker was larger than any other bird Tobey had ever heard of, weighing sometimes half as much as a full grown man. It bore no feathers, but was covered in leathery skin, much more alike the lizards he used to catch as a boy. Its small head stretched out to a point, a beak a foot and a half long, and lined with hundreds of tiny razor sharp teeth; there were stories of wild shriekers that had taken the arm off a full grown man. Its wings stretched out like bat wings, a thin leathery membrane stretched tight over a deceivingly gentle appearing framework of bones and cartilage, its wingspan often ten or twelve feet wide. Some used the creatures as hunters, or even trackers, but the uncanny speed and distance the shriekers could cover made them ideal as carrier birds, carrying message from one city to another far faster than any horse could hope to travel.

Follow me, Tobey thought at the shrieker, and once again wondered just how much the creature understood. Surely, it was his imagination that Barnacle seemed to nod before waddling after him. Tobey turned, and made his way to the large barn doors in the south side of the tower. He removed the crossbeam, and pulled the heavy doors open; his view of the plains to the south was unobstructed, and he would swear he could almost make out the towers of Dimir somewhere in the distance. He grinned; his imagination was working overtime.

He knelt before the bird, feeding it another large piece of jerky; “Dimir,” he said, concentrating on the capital city of the kingdom. “The message is for Dimir.” The shrieker shuffled to the edge, and threw itself out; its wings filled like sails, and the creature sped off into the distance.

Tobey turned, and went to a north facing window, not even bothering to shut the doors. He glanced out again, and shuddered. Already, hundreds of the inhumans had gathered in Bannah’s Pass.