From A Walking Shadow, the final book in Haruspex Trilogy of Fortune’s Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook. You can listen to this on YouTube.

When the ship finally opened up, Stin stood waiting with Panvia, who still held her tea and was sipping at it. He helped her to kick the blocks to the ramp in an ultra low-tech parody of the way a spaceship dock would normally autosecure.
The first person out seemed more as though he was expecting to meet an armed assault than a middle-aged maintenance technician sipping a cup of tea. He held an energy snub in one hand and looked more than willing to use it. He wore a slightly garish, military cut outfit and his black hair pulled back into a short ponytail, separating on one side around the slight lump of a skull implanted port.
Panvia completely ignored the weaponry and lifted her mug.
“If you want a cuppa, I’ve something warm and spiced on the brew. It’ll help get your innards used to the local micro-flora and fauna. Tastes pretty good too.”
The black haired man didn’t reply, he finished his visual check of the environment and apparently satisfied that there wasn’t a secret ambush waiting in the shadows, moved aside.
“Tea sounds good to me.” The reply came from a second man who emerged from the ship. This one was dressed like he was attending a debut event in Central, but with a shaggy mane of golden blond curly hair tempering the effect. “And your tea always tastes good, Pan.”
Panvia’s normally dour expression lightened to something that nearly approached a smile.
“You look like you could do with it, too. You been living on all that alien muck too long.”
Any reply the blond man might have made was cut short by a shout of unmitigated delight from the entrance to the dock.
“Durban,” Gernie called and strode over to the ship with a huge grin on his round face.” You know until I saw you just now I was only half-convinced it really was you. When you sailed out of here with that cargo I was thinking that was it. That you’d use it to set yourself up – somewhere nice in the Middle Worlds, maybe the ‘City. Or possibly, knowing you, even Central way. Why the hell would you want to come back here, man?”
He finished the speech as he reached the blond man and threw his arms around him in a close embrace which was returned with mutual back slapping. The man with the ponytail moved sharply, clearly worried and only relaxed when Gernie released his victim and stepped back, still smiling. “They still talk about you in Micha’s from when you were first here that winter we met. How long ago was that now?”
“Too many years, maybe even too many decades,” the blond man said, his own smile as warm as Gernie’s. Then he looked directly at Stin. “This a new member of your ground crew?”
Gernie followed his look, turning to see.
“Oh, that’s one of our waifs and strays. Stinian. His girlfriend dumped him and jumped out. He helps out to earn his passage one day.”
“Harmless?”
“Mostly, for sure. Aren’t you Stin?” Now what was he supposed to say to that?
“I guess,” he agreed.
Gernie had already turned away again, his back to Stin.
“This your latest boyfriend?” he was asking, nodding at the man with the black hair and the scalp port. The blond man, Durban, laughed.
“Jaz is a friend – a very good friend.”
The other man, Jaz, seemed unconcerned by Gernie’s assumption. He seemed to still be expecting some kind of trouble. Or maybe that was just his normal way of being.

E.M. Swift-Hook.

Archie just looked at her. His eyes were a peculiarly liquid brown and she could rarely resist their beseeching depths.

But this time she was determined.

“No Archie,” she said firmly, “I’m not listening to him. Araminta saw him with a whore on either arm. Why would she lie to me?”

Archie’s gaze grew even more fixed and she found herself squirming under his regard.

She stamped her foot.

“No Archie. Just no.”

An hour later she picked up the phone and called Paul. Once she heard his voice Araminta’s spite was forgotten.

Archie trotted off with his tail wagging.

©jj 2019

Tempest Blades: The Withered King by Ricardo Victoria, the first book in the Tempest Blades science fantasy series is out tomorrow!

The final minutes of the Battle of the Line.
Life is full of parallels.

I hate this, Fionn thought. He looked at the battlefield spread across Longhorn Valley and sighed. Two more of the enemy were running towards him, swords aloft. Black Fang, his own sword with its graceful and sharply curved blade, was gripped in his hand, the blade dripping blood from his last kill. Black Fang emitted an otherworldly green glow that contrasted with its silvery surface. Around him lay a dozen bodies, either unconscious or dead. These two approaching enemies were the last of that squad.
Dodging a sword blow aimed at his head, Fionn tackled the soldier, impacting with his left shoulder. He rolled his attacker over his back and threw him onto the ground, then kicked him in the head, while parrying a slicing cut by the second attacker with Black Fang. With his free hand, he punched the second man in the face, breaking his nose, before kicking him away.
The first man had recovered enough to try attacking from behind, but Fionn caught the movement, reversed his hold on the grip of his sword and stabbed back with Black Fang. Spinning to the side so the sword could gain momentum, he sliced the second man, stepping aside as entrails spilled onto the ground. No more of the enemy remained in range so he took a moment to catch his breath and relax his muscles, already tired from the long fight.
When it came to the reputed fighters of the decade long Great War, Fionn was not the kind of warrior that came to mind. Contrary to the archetype of a war hero –musclebound, charismatic, shinning smile, fancy signature moves and strength that can sunder a mountain – Fionn had both human and freefolk ancestry. This made him slender, taller than average and with a preference for speed and precision over brute strength. A white shirt covered a light chainmail beneath, the brown trousers and brown combat boots he wore matched his long brown hair. He was twenty-two, although he managed to look younger, even after six years of fighting. Only the lines around his big and expressive green-grey eyes, showed anybody familiar with him how haggard and tired he was of the war. Even with his reputation.
Reputation is such a weird thing to earn during a war. When it came to fighting in battle, Fionn avoided fancy moves. Experience had taught him that in all-out frays, the most efficient moves are the ones that were straight and clean. No sword twirling, not a free-for-all, and no spectacular flips or somersaults. Those would only get you killed. And he wasn’t planning to die, at least not today. As a result, he had earned a reputation for being an efficient fighter. So efficient that the name of his freefolk clan had become his own nickname: The Greywolf, the famous warrior with the fabled sword that had helped the Free Alliance to stem the tide of the Blood Horde during the Great War.
At first, the Greywolf thing had been a badge of honor for him. The problem was it had led to the associated belief that he was a one-man army. He wasn’t. He wasn’t a weapon that Prince Byron, or any other lord or commander, could point and release at an enemy. Nor were any of the other Twelve Swords for that matter, not at Byron’s whims in any case, even if the Prince was also his friend.
There was another problem with his reputation. It meant that he now had to face wave after wave of enemy warriors, all of them wanting to prove themselves against him. And he had to do it while evading the barrage of energy attacks from the Horde’s giant source of power, currently sitting well protected within the main enemy camp: The Onyx Orb.
It was as if the thought had conjured the reality. Fionn saw the incoming green energy bolt at the last moment and jumped away.
I really, really hate that thing.

Tempest Blades: The Withered King, is Ricado Victoria’s first novel published by Shadow Dragon Press.

A Bite of... Ricardo Victoria

Q1: If you woke up tomorrow as one of the characters in Tempest Blades which would you choose to be and why?

Alex, most probably. In a fit of ego, he is the one that’s more like me or at least is inspired more on my life experiences and tastes. It would be easier to fit right in. And I love his skill set and powers.

Q2: What motivates your antagonist and how does that affect how they work to achieve their ends?

Without being too spoilery, he has a massive chip in his shoulder and is the kind of person that feels like is entitled to things, so when he didn’t get them, it made him make deals with things that prey on human weakness. Now he wants what he thinks is his and will stop at nothing to do it. Only his ego can be an obstacle for him.

Q3: Apart from your own, which three fictional characters would you most like to invite to dinner and why?

Providing I can take my wife with us to share the meal:
Tyrion Lannister (TV show version): good talk, smart guy, lots of things to discuss and share. We have very similar views on how the world actually works.
Duncan McLeod: C’mon! It would be awesome to ask him so many questions about history. Plus the guy is a gourmand, he will know where to get superb food.
Tony Stark: my wife already says that I have a crush on him, so it makes sense. Also, me having a degree in product design, the design interface used in the movies to develop his armors, would be a dream to use.

Born in the frozen landscape of Toluca, Mexico, Ricardo Victoria dreamed of being a writer. But needing a job that could pay the rent while writing, he studied Industrial Design and later obtained a PhD in Sustainable Design, while living in the United Kingdom and working in a comic book store to pay for his board game & toy addiction. He is back now in Toluca, living with his wife and his two dogs where he works as an academic at the local university. He has short stories featured in anthologies by Inklings Press and Rivenstone Press, and he was nominated for a Sidewise Award 2016 for the short story Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon, co-written with his arch-nemesis, Brent A. Harris. He also won a local contest for a fantasy short story during college. But hey! That one doesn’t count, does it?

You can find his rants and other work—both fiction and opinion pieces—on his own website/blog and follow him on Twitter.  

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. If you missed previous episodes you can start reading from the beginning. You can listen to this on YouTube.

As they left their vehicle Julia stopped suddenly.
“You have to understand how I see it, Dai. My thinking is that this is something that could kill more people if we don’t act fast – Britons and Romans both.” Her expression was a taut mix of appeal and demand. “We know that three bodies turned up in the arena and no one saw anything and there was nothing on the external security. The internal surveillance was offline both times and no one seems to know how or why that could come about. The one person who might have had some idea is now dead. To me that says there is something happening here.” She gestured to the Augusta Arena. “That means it would have been a complete waste of time searching that apartment.”
“But what if there is something there that -”
“Then the forensic people will find it. They will be over the place with a pixel by pixel search.”
“But we didn’t even log the murder, that is basic procedure. If my Prefect – “
“I will get Decimus to pull rank and silence her if she gives you any grief. I am sorry if that offends your integrity, but it is the best I can do.”
Dai stared at her, wondering why she couldn’t see how that was so wrong.
“It’s not about that – it’s not even about my integrity. It’s about the fact that all this – this magic, can happen for a Roman. But if it was only those poor bastards from the Game who had been killed, regular Britons, there would be no magic, and odds are it’d be filed as unsolved when my resource allocation and timesheet expired on it.”
She frowned for a moment then seemed to look at him as if she had just seen something there she had missed before.
“Dai, I didn’t make the rules and I don’t like them any more than you do. If you think I’m only in this to find out who killed some Senator’s spoiled brat, then you are missing the point. If I can use my ‘magic’ for your Britons too, then I’m going to do so. It’s called justice and that happens to be something I care about a lot.”
She did not wait to see his reaction and despite her shorter stride he didn’t catch up with her again until they went up the steps to the dramatic portico that fronted the building. Dai scanned the area for the security, both static and mobile, he had seen on the plans.
“I want to talk to their security guy again,” he said as the door slid open and a cool breeze washed over them from the perfectly conditioned air inside. Julia glanced up at him.
“Your report said he had no idea how it had happened,” she said. “And your own IT people reported it had been an internal virus. What more is there to ask? You changed your mind and think he might have done something?”
“I don’t think he had anything to do with it. But I think he might know who did – just not that he knows it. Or at least not yet.”
Julia’s face resolved from a frown into a smile.
“I would like to say that makes sense, but it doesn’t. So maybe we should talk to him after all.”
Torkel Njord was typical of his people. He was big boned, blond and bearded. He also had an attitude problem that Dai had found to be typical of his people too. It was easy enough to understand. The Gens Germanicus had been the last part of the continent to be drawn into the Roman Empire. The original resistance from the early Germanic tribes had coalesced in the far north where they succeeded in maintaining their ferocious independence until a little over a hundred years ago when, the rest of the world comfortably subdued, the then Emperor Aurelius Galerius Valerius Pravus had reneged on a centuries-old treaty and invaded. The northern lands had been created a new diocese, broken up into provinces and placed under the Prefecture of Gaul.
Which was no doubt why Torkel, who had been very willing to co-operate with Dai and Bryn, took one look at Julia and clammed up.
“The domina is welcome to look at my records. She will find they are all in order,” he said when she asked.
“The records are not of so much interest as your thoughts,” Julia told him and was rewarded by a glacial stare.
“I am sure my thoughts could never be anything of value to the most noble domina.”
“You might be surprised, I find most people very interesting and valuable.”
“If the domina says so.”

Part VIII will be here next Sunday. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

It’s not easy being different, and Charlie’s bright red hair and mismatched eyes made him a natural target. He could just about ride the jibes and the pointing fingers, but the regular physical abuse was harder to ignore.

All Charlie could do was endure, until Ed moved in next door. He was about six feet tall with hands like washboards and he appointed himself the little guy’s champion.

On the day Charlie plucked up the courage to ask why, Ed grinned and indicated for Charlie to follow him.

In Ed’s bedroom there was a huge poster.

“Ziggy Stardust”, Ed said.

©jj 2019

A sarcastic person once said,
There are dust bunnies under your bed.
To which I replies,
That them ‘bunnies’
In size
Is more like a kangaroo 
Or two

© jj 2019

A short story from The Dragonheart Stories: Fairytales for Grownups by Jane Jago. You can listen to this on YouTube.

True mating is for life: and beyond

The golden queen dragon stretched her talons and moved sensuously against the green scales of the male who had just pleasured her.
“In certain cultures I would eat you now,” she murmured.
He winced and blew a small gout of flame out of his left nostril. She laughed.
“Trick flaming?”
“No. A nervous tic. It’s the thought of being eaten.”
“Oh you are safe enough. It would be a waste to eat you.”
“A waste?”
“Yes. You are far too pleasurable to kill. But leave me now before I get hungry.”
The male scuttled away leaving the queen somnolent and amused.
She slept, and in her sleep she dreamed.

She was making her first mating flight and the dragon who caught her was an entity she had never encountered outside her dreams, his scales were as golden as her own and his eyes as green as the emeralds in the master dragon’s sword hilt. He was magnificent, and her soul yearned towards him. Even as they mated high in the sky, with the lack of oxygen making their eyesight grow dim, she knew this was about more than fertilising eggs, this dragon was the other side of herself but her fear was that she might never meet him in this life.

As always, she awoke with tears running down her aristocratic snout and she sniffed indelicately.

A quiet tap in the door of her chamber brought her back to herself.
“Who knocks?”
“N’a’mma and mine new friend.”
“Come in my darling,” the golden queen’s love for her only female child was evident in the cadences of her voice.

The door opened to admit the still childlike dragonet who was dragging another hatchling along in her wake.
“Mamma, this is S’a’rthyr and he is my friend.”

The queen made welcoming noises whilst studying the young male.

His scales were a peculiar yellowish colour, but this was balanced by a strong symmetrical body and iridescent green-gold wings. He looked up at her, and she was immediately pulled into the sorrowful depths of his grass green eyes. Those eyes had already seen too much of bullying and belittlement, the queen thought, and the hurt that lurked in their limpid greenness made her want to clasp him to her breast and croon a soothing song.

“See,” N’a’mma crowed. “Mamma don’t think you are wrong because your scales is yellow.”
S’a’rthyr bowed his head.
N’a’mma opened her mouth to say somewhat else, but her mother shushed her gently.
“Quietly now, you must let S’a’rthyr speak for himself.”
The young male found his voice.
“I am of the clan of Queen A’u’nti. Sent with the young males for breeding. Sent as a servant. Because of my colour. The Lady N’a’mma seeks me out, but I will understand if you deem me not suitable as a friend for a young queen.”
“Not unsuitable at all, my son. Not at all.”
She nodded to N’a’mma who raised a chubby claw.
“N’a’mma gives her oath to S’a’rthyr. Friends while there is still blood in my body.”
For a moment the youngling was too stunned to move, but he gathered himself together and placed his own taloned extremity against N’a’mma’s upraised claw.
“S’a’rthyr gives his oath to N’a’mma. Friends while there is still blood in my body.”
The queen placed her huge front paw atop both of theirs.
“Oaths witnessed.’

For a moment, the air itself seemed to be still then a single silver note chimed.

The queen smiled at the two hatchlings who stood before her.
“You need to sleep off your emotions,” she said kindly.

N’a’mma led her oathsworn friend to a sleeping platform at the back of the room and they curled around each other before dropping into a deep slumber.

Their mother watched with a single tear running down her snout. She had recognised S’a’rthyr as soon as she looked into his eyes. Her dream lover. Now sworn to her daughter. Why was life never easy?

But she straightened her spine and swiped that tear away with an impatient claw. Her dream of a true mating of mind and heart and soul wasn’t to be for her.

But for her darling N’a’mma there was hope…

© jane jago 

Hell, she thought moodily, had to be people. 

She looked back at the huge marquee and it seemed to her that noises of the crowd had quite the inconsequence of a braying donkey.

It wasn’t possible to take off the dreadful dress, but she abandoned the satin slippers and walked barefoot to the little stream that meandered along the bottom of the meadow.

Careless of her finery she sat in the fragrant grass and cooled her toes. 

A flash of brilliant blue speared her gaze. 

“Anisoptera.”

She turned and smiled into a pair of eyes as blue as the dragonfly…

©jj 2019

Here I set my heart within your hands
Here I swore my soul unto your lands
Here I took my first breath as a fae
Here I lived until your dying day
Here I bore the child you’ll never see
Here I lit the flame to set you free
Here I kneel and weep my final tear
Here I lay a rose for you…
Here…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Artwork by Ian Bristow of Bristow Design

You can listen to this on YouTube.

Mumsie and oneself planned a treat for Adonis. A light supper in a nice restaurant, followed by theatre in the round in the tiltyard of the ancestral home of one of our less distinguished titled families. It sounded so perfect and one’s Hellenic chum was beyond delighted by the prospect. 
We left chez Farquhar in good time, with Adonis expertly piloting Mumsie’s elderly and temperamental Volvo. One sat enthroned at the centre of the rear, buttressed by Macintoshes, Wellington boots, suncream and several bottles of a bright green beverage – consisting one was helpfully informed of White Rum, Green Chartreuse, Fernet Branca, and Dry Vermouth. I eyed the bottles with some suspicion.
It was a drive of some forty minutes, giving one leisure to study Adonis’ glorious profile and to note that not only had Mumsie been over the upper lip with Grandpapa’s cutthroat razor, she had also made a vague effort at throwing some dollops of maquillage at the ridges and craters of her abused physiognomy. Our arrival was unmarred by lateness, unavailability of parking, human tiffs, or inclement weather. Supper being delightful, we were a little late finding our allotted position on the verdant terracing. Fortunately for the health of the gentleman with the northern accent who cast animadversions on the parentage of our party, Mumsie had imbibed sufficient claret to do no more than push her face into his and enquire pleasantly whether or not he would enjoy picking his teeth out of his fecal matter. Adonis dragged her off before worse could befall.
And now. To the play. One was surprisingly carried into the magical world of an enchanted wood where the magnificent horned figure of Oberon sent a thrill through one’s very bones. The other pieces of business interrupting the tale of faerie were an irritant, but one could cope – even chortling a little at the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe. 
But then. Disaster. Of a sudden the sky became black and as it crackled with lightning the power failed and we could no longer see actors, actresses or our own hands before our faces. 
As the rain beat down upon our unprotected heads we ran pellmell for the urine yellow shelter of the Volvo. We may, it is fair to say, have reached that nirvana a little faster had not Mumsie so far succumbed to her potations as to fall into a rapidly accruing puddle and then take physical exception to some persons who were foolish enough to laugh.
As the only non-drinker in the party, the onerous task of wrestling the mechanical Machiavelli homeward fell on one’s slight shoulders. Whilst one drove homeward in the gloom and bouncing rain, one reflected on the play and mentally prepared one’s review of same.

Review.

As much as one saw was enjoyable, and one day one may even make the effort to find out how it ends.

Star rating: Three out of five – mostly awarded for a disturbingly sexy fairy king.

#reviews #parody #humour #humor