The road ahead seems long, but with you by my side
I will not feel the miles, I’ll take them in my stride.

And if the path grows steep, I’ll not the low-road seek,
But strengthened by your arm, I will scale the peak.

When night falls into dark and all about is cold,
Your words will keep me warm, your presence make me bold.

And then at journey’s end, whenever that might be
I’ll settle down to sleep and know that you’re with me.

E.M. Swift-hook.

Review by Jane Jago.

Murder in Absentia introduces us to Felix the Fox and his world.

Felix is the son of a bankrupt suicide who makes his living solving mysteries. He lives in Egretia – which is not Rome.

I choose to emphasise not Rome because Egretia is the author’s own creation. It is a world based on ancient Rome but with its own life and its own particular ideas and ideals. This is an interesting and complex notion, that is handled with some skill. The world Felix inhabits quickly takes life, and the sounds, smells and geography are very well portrayed. Felix himself feels as if he is a handsome devil, who could well know he is attractive to women, but is not written as smug or vain. In the end, I liked him even if it took a while. He is well drawn, but I could wish for a little more meat on the bones of the other characters, especially the females. As an aside here, on character development, the person, aside from Felix, we come to know best is dead when we meet him.

Now to the story. In its essence it’s a simple whodunnit. A young man dies and our hero is tasked with finding out how, why, and who is responsible. I don’t think it is in any way a spoiler to say that this is no ordinary death, there is no poison, and no fatal wound. So what killed Caeso?  Finding out is a dangerous and complex business, and one that draws the reader deep into Egretia and the world in which it sits.

This is a cracking story and a guaranteed page turner although I felt it took a few chapters to get properly into its stride. It’s an excellent read, and is twisty enough for the most dedicated of mystery readers, complex enough for lovers of fantasy, and scholarly enough to feed the interest of alternative history buffs.

I shall hope to meet Felix again.

4.5 stars rounded to 5

Review by E.M. Swift-Hook.

Rara avis.

‘Our city may be named after the regal birds that grace our shores, but our people march on squid.’

Egretia is Ancient Rome, but Ancient Rome in a parallel universe where magic is real. This is historical urban fantasy at its best and it will appeal to all who have enjoyed the works of Lindsey Davis, Rosemary Rowe, Steven Saylor, David Wishart, Ruth Downie, Jane Finnis and a handful of other authors who have set their whodunit solving heroes lose in a Roman setting. But Assaph Mehr‘s hero, Felix the Fox, has both the advantage and the disadvantage of living in a world where magic is real. He has some small command over it himself, but he is up against those who know much more powerful spells than he does.

Then story opens with Felix being asked to look into the strange death of a local official’s son. It turns out an ancient and powerful magic had to be involved and Felix has to call on the knowledge, skill and ability of several friends and enemies to try to get some idea of what is going on. Secret cabals and ancient manuscripts, death curses and pretty actresses, sea voyages and gladiatorial games, mysterious prophecies and mythical beasts that are real in his world, all play their part in helping Felix track down the reason the young man died.

‘I am not usually afflicted by bouts of honour and disposing of the bodies in the nearest sewer would have been quicker, but I have seen enough vengeful shades of the dead not to want one associated with my home.’

This is a well-written book with a well developed and believable world. The author has clearly spent a lot of time researching into Ancient Rome and then taking the history and using it as a brilliant raw resource to craft his own landscape of an alternative Ancient Mediterranean world. It is not only Ancient Rome we see on display in Egretia, but Ancient Greece (Hellica) and Egypt (Mitzrana) as well. The characters are very well painted into the background scenery, even those we only meet in passing like Crassitius, the lanista who hires Felix a bodyguard gladiator, have their own personalities well shaped and on show, the result is a very solid and totally credible world.

The pace is well managed, a little slow perhaps at the beginning due to some scene setting, but quickly picking up to a pleasing clip which is then maintained throughout the rest of the book. The story has some extremely intriguing twists and turns and I would be telling fibs if I were to try to claim that I saw the final denouement coming in advance. To make the whole even more of a delight, the book is lightly garnished with touches of humour.

‘She tried to snatch her hand back, but found it bound to the table with the shimmering tracery holding her wrist tight.’

My main criticism of the book is in the earlier pages when the amount of information delivered almost turns into a lecture. Correction, it does turn into a lecture at a couple of points. A slightly less heavy hand would have created a better impression from the off, but I have to say it is swiftly forgotten once the book gets going. The other issue I feel which was skated close to, but never quite breached, was the limits on the magic Felix could command. On a couple of occasions, it did brush very lightly against being a bit too convenient that he just happened to have a spell that could do what was needed.

Overall, I loved this book. Anyone who, like me, has hunted out just about every author of Roman whodunits or who loves urban fantasy with an alternative historical twist, will want to read this.

5 Stars

You can find out more about Assaph, Felix the Fox and the world of Egretia – including the soon to be released second book in the series ‘In Numina’ on the Egretia Website.

Can science create proper life?
Will Frankenstein make him a wife?
Can a sentient soul
Be grown in a bowl?
Or is mankind just heading for strife?

© jane jago 2017

From Dying as a Druid – the latest Dai and Julia Mystery which is out today.

After a final blessing, the doors of the sanctuary were closed behind the shivering priests, who scuttled inside bearing with them the expensive offerings of a grateful city.

“Thank you so much for doing that, Julia, especially with it being so cold. I do have to think the Divine Diocletian didn’t have in mind that we should stand freezing in his honour when these festivities were first added to Saturnalia,” Caudinus observed as they made their way back across the atrium. “But then I don’t suppose it gets quite so cold in Spalatum in December as it does here in Cornovii so it was prob-”

“Magistratus!”

Their escort had move smartly to come between Caudinus and the two men who suddenly appeared from the dispersing crowd, shepherding a smaller cloak-wrapped figure between them.

Caudinus frowned and made a frustrated tutting sound as they came to a halt in the middle of the atrium.

“I am Mot Fionn, dominus. This is my father Kalgo and my only child Megan.”

Julia realised with a slight shock of surprise that she recognised the name. Dai had told her how this time last year, well before he had even met Julia, Hywel had tried to match-make Megan and Dai on a blind date. The Fionns were neighbours to the Llewellyn lands, such close neighbours that their land wrapped around a strip of Hywel’s. Megan was the heiress to the Fionn lands and it had seemed a good idea to both families if an alliance could be arranged. But, it had not gone well, by Dai’s account and had finished with him returning an unhappy and rather drunk Megan home whilst not being exactly sober himself.

Dai had told her Megan was a young woman but had not said how young. Julia could see she was still really a child, maybe seventeen and beneath the hood of her cloak her face looked pinched and miserable.

“Please, Magistratus, I demand justice for my child,” Mot called out. “She has been treated badly and left in a sorry state.”

Caudinus gestured to his guards to let the trio approach.

“This is not the time or place, Fionn, but tell me the thrust of it quickly and then put the details in an email. When we get back to business after the festival I will see you have your justice.”

The two men were glaring at him with cold antipathy. Julia glanced at Megan, but she had her head lowered as if protecting something she was holding under the cloak.

“So? What is this? Speak up. I am willing to hear you, but not to freeze whilst you take your time thinking of what to say.”

“My apologies, dominus,” Kalgo said, bobbing his head respectfully. “It is just – I – well, we – are afraid to speak.”

Caudinus was frowning now.

“Unless you need to admit to some crime, you have no need to be afraid to speak. Just tell me what this is about.”

“With the greatest respect, dominus,” Mot said, his tone obsequious, “there is always peril is speaking truth to power. You are known to be a just and fair man, but when matters touch one’s own family – justice can be lost.”

“Oh for -” Caudinus snapped his mouth shut and drew a breath. “Part of being ‘just and fair’ is not favouring any. Now, please state your problem so we can all get into the warm.”

“Then I state here before witnesses that Dai Llewellyn fathered a child on my daughter and abandoned them both to marry another.” As he spoke he pulled open Megan’s cloak to show the dark-haired infant she held. Julia found the air she was breathing had no oxygen. An odd, detached and lightheaded sensation pulsed behind her eyes. For a moment she even thought she might faint.

Caudinus raised a hand to silence the sudden low buzz of speculation.

“You can’t just walk up to someone and make accusations like that, Fionn. This is not the time or the place – this is a temple on a sacred holiday, not a family court session.”

But Mot was pushing Megan forward, so much that she staggered a couple of paces, clutching the infant to her. Julia put out an instinctive hand to stop the girl stumbling and her face looked up in abject misery.

“Tell them, girl,” Mot demanded, “tell them who is the father of your child. Swear it before the gods and the people.”

“Dai Llewellyn is the father of my child,” she said the words in little more than a whisper.

“And?” Kalgo growled as if prompting her in a lesson.

“And I do swear it before the gods and the people.”

That was enough, more than enough, to set flame to the tinder of crowd gossip and Caudinus had to shout this time to get attention. Julia fought down the impulse to scream and run. With her head pounding and her heart lead in her breast, she drew on her years of military training to stand erect and proud.

“That is enough, Fionn!” Caudinus was saying. “Get your daughter and her baby into the warm and make a proper presentation of your claim in due legal manner. And if I find this is an accusation without proof -”

“We have proof, dominus,” Kalgo told him, face twisting in a grimace. “We have DNA test results. And don’t worry we’ll put it all in legal writing and send it to you like you ask.” He jerked his head and Mot almost pulled Megan over, as he seized her arm and strode off. In Megan’s arms, the baby started crying and the wails seemed to transfix the people in the temple precincts until the Fionn family had walked back out through the gate.

Dying as a Druid is the fourth in the Dai and Julia mysteries by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

 

When launching a book don’t get corny
And don’t let your hero be horny
Even if slags
Are your natural bag
You can’t make a whodunnit porny

© jane jago 2017

 

She pushed the buggy briskly, half listening to the twins yakking away about whatever, and half making a shopping list in her head. That double concentration must have been why she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her. She certainly never felt the stunning blow to the back of her head. She dropped like a stone, but it can only have been moments before she found herself looking into a pair of concerned eyes. She tried to sit up, but the world began spinning and she felt very sick.
“The children,” she managed to whisper, “are the twins okay?”
“What children? There are no children here.”
She managed to push the nausea back far enough to scramble into a seated position and grab her saviour by the arm.
“The twins. Eli and Ahab.” She could hear her own voice skirling up towards hysteria. “They are in their buggy. I was taking them to the supermarket. They love the supermarket.”
The man who knelt beside her turned his attention to the rapidly growing crowd.
“Anybody seen any children?”
“The place is lousy with ‘em,” a coarse voice replied. “What children?”
“Twins,” the man said, “twins in a buggy.”
“What. Them weird kids? I seen them just now, with a bloke in running gear pushing the buggy. I just fort they ‘ad a new nanny. They gets a new one about every month.”
The man looked down at the obviously concussed girl and smiled reassuringly.
“The police are on their way. We called them when it became obvious you had been attacked.”
As if the very words had summoned her, a young policewoman pushed through the knot of onlookers to crouch at the injured girl’s side.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“The children. Somebody took the children…”
“Your children?”
“No. I’m their nanny. But what does it matter who… You need to find them.”

On the other side of the park, a Lycra-clad figure pushed a double buggy out through the ornate wrought iron gates onto the street. He turned left and crossed the road via a blinking and bleeping pedestrian crossing. Five minutes later, man and buggy were in a multi-storey car park riding the lift towards the top floor.

When the lift doors opened a man’s body flopped onto the floor, half in and half out of the cabin. The doors attempted to close, but finding an obstruction remained half open. The two women awaiting the lift reacted in very different ways. One screamed and fainted, the other called nine-nine-nine.

Although the police arrived with commendable quickness, a knot of onlookers had gathered by the time two constables jumped out of their car. One went to the side of the woman who had fainted, while the other shouldered his way to the lift doors.
“Oh, shit” he said. “Oh very, very shit.”
His companion looked at his suddenly pale face.
“If you are going to throw up can you move away from the crime scene” she recommended serenely before uncurling from her crouch and going to look for herself. She was made of sterner stuff than her companion, but even so she didn’t look for long.
“Victor, bravo, delta to control. We seem to have an unexplained death here. One body, and a lift awash with blood and various internal organs. Also in the lift one upended buggy fitting the description from the incident in the park.”
She listened for a moment.
“Have I been inside the lift? No. And you couldn’t pay me enough to go in there.”
She listened again.
“Yes. We can secure the area and wait.”

Under the upturned buggy the twins eyed each other in silent congratulation. They could wait for rescue now….

© jane jago 2017

Mnemonics contain all the wisdom of men,
So every good boy deserves favour again.
Without them how could we know it was true
The year when Columbus sailed the ocean blue?
Unravelling the wonders of Taxonomy,
King Philip cut open five green snakes you see.
And the rainbow remembers the war and the pain
When Richard of York, gave battle in vain…

He ended the call and stared reflectively at the phone.

“That wasn’t easy. But I think they understood. It was helped by the fact that Jim’s mother had already said a lot of those things.”

“Oh. She would have. She’s amazing. Looks like she’s made of teak, but nobody understands children better. Now you do look exhausted. Recline your chair a bit and have a nap. I’ll wake you when we’re on the motorway.”

Anna drove for a couple of hours, then handed over to Sam who also managed a couple of hours before pulling off into a service area. Anna woke up.

“We stopping?”

“Yeah. Don’t think anybody is safe to drive much further. This isn’t the quietest place to stop, but…”

Anna knuckled her eyes. She pulled a book from the glove box.

“So. We’re here. There’s a pub about fifteen miles away that lets campervans overnight in its car park. And they do a good breakfast. Do you think we could make that?”

“Yeah. If we keep each other awake.”

“Right. I can book in on the Internet. Then we go.”

Thirty minutes later, Anna was showing Sam how to pull down the overcab bed.

She grinned wickedly at him.

“We’ll have to share. But I promise not to jump your bones.”

“You sure? I mean, we could wake Rod and he could share this one with me.”

“I don’t think we could wake Rod if we tried. But we should get Bill up for a wee, before we doss down. You do that, while I find the sleeping bags for this bed.”

Sam crawled over the comatose form of Rod and picked up the sleepy Bill.

“C’mon Bill. Wee wees.”

Once Bill had been sorted and inserted back into bed, Anna had hunted up two extra-large sleeping bags, and was spreading them out.

“Any preference for sides?” Anna asked.

“No. You?”

“Nah. Just take the nearest. I’m for the loo and a quick tooth scrub, then nobody better get between me and some shuteye.”

When she came out of the bathroom, he was already in bed deeply asleep. She crawled onto the bed next to him, grinning inwardly. At least, she thought, the stranger I’m sharing a bed with is a handsome hunk. With which comforting thought she drifted into sleep herself.

She was the first person to wake, and jumped out of bed to put the kettle on. Bonnie came down from her station on Bill’s feet and indicated a desire to go out, so Anna opened the door for her and stood in the doorway waiting for the dog to do her business. Bonnie was brisk, and returned to wait just inside the door for Anna to wipe her dewy feet and tummy. When she was dry, she leapt neatly back onto the bed where Bill awaited her with open arms.

“You are such a lovely dog, aren’t you?” he said admiringly. “But now I need to go wee too.”

“Crawl over dozy Rod and I’ll lift you down. Do you know how to work the toilet?”

“No.”

“I’ll show you. Then I’ll make a pot of tea.”

When Bill came out of the little bathroom, everyone had woken up and the overcab bed had been pushed back to the ceiling. Rod grinned and ruffled the small head.

“Morning sleepy.”

Bill poked him firmly in the kneecap.

“Not so much lip, you. I was asleep after you and awake before you.”

Rod picked him up and gently rubbed noses with him.

“You are feeling cheeky this morning. Shall I rub you with my bristly chin for your impertinence?”

“No thank you,” Bill said with some dignity. “And it wasn’t cheek it was facts. Like it’s a fact that your face needs shaving, but mine don’t – and neither does Sam’s or Anna’s. Why is that?”

Rod laughed and set Bill down on the edge of the bed.

“Your face don’t need shaving because you are only seven years old. Anna’s face don’t need shaving because she’s a girl. And Sam’s face don’t need shaving because he is a lucky bugger. You want a cup of tea?”

“Yes please.”

Anna put a mug of mahogany-coloured tea in Bill’s small hands.

“Careful not to spill.”

Bill nodded and took a deep drink.

‘That’s delicious. It is just how a cup of tea should be, isn’t it Uncle Rod.”

“It is. These here Gadjo have no idea how to enjoy proper tea.”

Anna shuddered visibly.

“Thankfully not. Breakfast is booked in the pub for nine o’clock. We all have time for a shower if we’re quick. I’ll go first while you lot drink your tea.”

She whisked into the bathroom before anyone had a chance to dispute her right to first shower. Rod grinned.

“Bill and Sam. You can be next. Together. I’ll just take my time waking up.”

By a quarter to nine they were all ready to set out across the car park. Sam watched Bill carefully as Anna locked the camper.

The little lad seemed nervous.

“Will Bonnie be all right on her own? Nobody can get her, can they?”

Anna crouched down so they were eye to eye.

“Nobody can get Bonnie. I wouldn’t let that happen. Didn’t I go all the way to Somerset to get the loudest motorhome alarm in the world?”

Bill relaxed visibly.

“You did. I was being a bit silly wasn’t I?”

“Never mind, love. Breakfast.”

The back door of the pub stood open, and Bill tensed again. Rod offered his hand as they went indoors and his nephew gripped on tightly. A young girl greeted them.

“Miss Marshall and party?”

“That’s us.”

“Your table is ready. It’s in the conservatory if you would like to follow me.”

They took their seats and the girl gave them menus.

“Would you like tea or coffee?”

Rod and Bill opted for tea, which they requested extra strong. The other two asked for coffee. When the waitress left, Bill handed his menu to Anna.

“It’s a bit too hard for me to read. I think it’s the wriggly writing.”

“Probably. It’s quite silly. Let’s do our order together shall we? Do you want cereal?”

Bill nodded.

“Do they got crispies?”

“They do. How about a sausage and some scrambled egg to follow your crispies?”

“That sounds most nice. Will there be toast and jam?”

“There will.”

“What you having?”

‘I’ll have crispies too. Then some bacon and mushrooms.’

“Sam?”

“Porridge, then egg, bacon and sausage.”

“Uncle Rod?”

“Porridge. Full English, and maybe a kipper on the side.”

Bill laughed.

“A kipper on his side?”

Jane Jago

You are old, let there be no dubiety
That the aged are a drain on society
You should spend your twilight
Being humbly polite
But you won’t even practice sobriety.

© jane jago 2017

by E.M. Swift-Hook and S Shane Thomas

It always began with an explosion.

Any explosion – any one of the hundred or more he had survived.

The explosion would lock him in, trap him, make him a prisoner of his sleeping mind. In the real world, he was safe in bed with a woman curled close beside him. Vel’s cousin, Lea, her body warm and sated. But it was not enough. The moment sleep claimed him the explosion would still come, shredding his sanity. Then the nightmare would run on, making him relive each episode, as vivid as life. Every thought, sensation, feeling, image, as clear as it had been at the time, pursuing him remorselessly until he could – somehow – scramble back to consciousness from the relentless abuse of sleep….

 An explosion crumpling the building to his right as if it were paper.

“I see them, sir,” a familiar voice reported.

“Everyone converge on Vekim’s location.” Jaz ran, crouched low, finger just off the trigger in its safety position. The Lattice guided his movements. It displayed his four soldiers closing in around Vekim and what appeared to be a full battalion of enemies. He strained past the reverberation of the explosion ringing his ears.

“Acknowledged.” Four voices clipped into the ringing. Just four.

“Pault?” Jaz swore under his breath, the Lattice knew the remark was private. It confirmed what any man who ran a squad in the Legion already knew. His new recruit was freezing up. He changed directions and bolted toward Pault. It was pointless to try keeping anyone alive, much less a rich man’s son whose fear could turn them from hunters to hunted.  

Jaz rounded a heap of rubble, then pressed his back against a crumpling wall to get a visual. Pault was backing away from something big. Flashes of sun bleached bone and a deep muddy red moved like a predator. Pault fired his weapon, but even the Lattice’s targeting assistance couldn’t make the mark. “Pault, drop now!”

The recruit turn and locked eyes with Jaz for an instant. Jaz read the expression of terror, a look that went beyond first mission jitters. Then he tumbled to one side and Jaz made his target with Lattice enhanced guidance. Two shots to the chest and a third grazed the head as the bone clad thing fell back. Its weapon clattered among the debris on the street.

Jaz was over Pault. The man was trembling, but looked otherwise unscathed. “Finish pissing your pants, kid, we’ve got work to do.”

Pault pulled in a few deep breaths, and shook his head. “Yes, sir.” His weapon was held at the ready, though his hands trembled.

Jaz gave the recruit a nod and used his connection with the Lattice to dose Pault with a drug cocktail. The weapon steadied. Jaz walked over to the dead thing.

It was wearing an armor of sorts. White bone protected the chest and limbs, save for the smoldering hole. Its skin was painted a dark red making the dead man’s face look inhuman.

“Two and a half meters,” Pault said.

Jaz pried the giant’s weapon from a hand that made his own hand feel child-sized. He grunted and heaved a massive wooden club upright. Bits of blood, bone, and hair clung to it. The weight of the weapon was nearly too much to bear. “This isn’t tech, it’s a bloody tree.”

“He said he was going to eat me.”

“All part of the game, Pault.” Jaz dropped the club and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Let’s take care of his friends.”

Jaz followed the sound of weapon blasts. He took a quick peek around a building and had to pause and process what he saw. His unit, side by side with their target, firing wildly into a horde of those bone clad giants.

“Too many…” Pault said while taking aim.

“Fire at will, Pault. Leave the gang alone for now and focus on…”

A sick squelching sound interrupted him. Blood spattered Jaz’s face. It tasted metallic as he spat. Pault’s surprised expression went slack. A crude spearpoint retracted through his chest.

Jaz fired his weapon though Pault’s remains and screamed. Another of the bone clad giants fell dead.  He scrambled through the chaos and rejoined his unit.  Two of the gang members they had come to hunt lay dead next to his four surviving Legion soldiers.

“Leader Four-Delta from Prime. Withdraw immediately.”

The voice in his ears at last.

“Acknowledged.”

Relaying the order to his team members, Jaz put down covering fire as they retreated. The Lattice was pounding him with information through his scalp implanted data-port, faster than he could absorb it:  numbers and location of the enemy, their armaments, expected movements, ground plans, suggested paths he could take. More.

“The gang called these guys Ghostkin.” Avilon said. Jaz’s friend and best soldier was covered in someone else’s blood. “They’ve been raiding this smuggling outpost.”

“So these giants are stealing the smuggler’s goods?”

“They are after the smugglers for food.”

Jaz opened his mouth, but paused before he could speak. Electricity crackled in a small circle, then widened until it offered an expanding view of bone clad men, lined up in what looked like a tree village in the jungle. Jaz turned his head to warn Avilon and his other two soldiers, but caught sight of another portal opening.

“Fall back! We need to get to the rendezvous point, now!”  

He focused on keeping up covering fire. It crossed his mind to wonder who he had pissed off enough so they chose him for this suicide run. If – when – he got out of this he would find out and make them pay. Then the thought occurred that it was probably nothing personal at all. When you were living out a death sentence, you shouldn’t be too surprised to be treated as completely expendable.

For every one of the bone armored giants that advanced toward his retreating band, another collected a corpse from amid rubble and disappeared through the portal. Jaz fired at the giant who dragged Pault’s corpse, but not even the Lattice’s targeting assistance could hit the mark at this range.

Screams over the com caught his attention.

“Jaz, it’s just you and me now.” Avilon shouted through the com.

He started running again.

Watching the environment.

Watching the screens.

Checking the Lattice data overlays.

A movement on the screen broke the profile of the low rise building beside him, some kind of accommodation block. Appearing on screen: ground-plans, elevations, positions of people, their predicted paths. The data projected into his visual field, augmenting his reality. He turned, raking fire across the facade. One of the massive figures dropped. Something heavy glinted as it arced through the air toward him and clanged on a wall nearby. Lattice visual was showing him six men in there. He knew he could take one or two, but their crude clubs and hand axes would overcome technology eventually. The energy threshold of his kinetic shield would be zero defence against that kind of power. Lattice data flashed up a helpful message warning him of the over-ride risk. Better late than never. He cancelled it and pumped more of the adrenalin based cocktail of drugs through the intravenous clip fixed into his torso. Speed was his only defence now and not much of one.

He ran.

Using cover.

Changing course.

His whole focus on making that speed.

The buildings ended in a high wall and as he made the final sprint towards it, he tried to decide between tracking along it for a break or scaling it and risking exposure. Checking Lattice screens for the information he needed to inform the decision.

Huge hands grabbed at him and Jaz slipped to one side, discharging his weapon as he passed. To have to grapple with one was a death sentence. The sheer strength of someone that could swing a club that weighed nearly as much as a man would crush him. Even if he got lucky and beat one, the delay would be enough for the rest to dogpile him.

Jaz ran until blood thundered in his ears. The Lattice showed Avilon as a dot holding their rendezvous point. He was getting close, but the labored breathing grew even closer. One of those giants was right behind him.

Then he heard it.

Distant sounds of a fire-fight.

All he needed was to cover some more ground. He saw Avilon and their reinforcements. Avilon’s eyes went wide. Then spots burst in Jaz’s vision and everything went black.

He hit the ground and stayed down, unable to rise, unable to think, his consciousness hollowed out by the pain.

Time fragmented.

 Awareness shrank.

The smell of the dark ground beneath his face, tasting musty and sweet – an alien soil. The beat of his heart timing the steady flick of numbers that counted down to the moment these giants would devour him.

“This food belongs to the Ghostkin! Your flesh will sustain us through the ash winter.”

“Not this flesh,” Avilon replied. Weapon fire drowned out the sounds of bodies in motion.

Something moving, lifting him, an arm under his shoulder. A voice – his brother’s voice – Avilon Revid.

“Let’s get you out of here.”

….. waking was always sudden and never easy.

Like ripping away flesh.

Then came the disorientation as the two worlds of the past and present battled for supremacy.

Which was real?

His mind was still caught in the snare of memory, vividly relived.  He could feel the cold sweat on his body and the hammering of his heart.  A face, vague in the darkness, then another voice, familiar and feminine, full of concern and compassion:

“You got it bad tonight?”

Lea was there for him as she had been the last time and the time before that. And he knew then, with a sudden certainty, she would be there for him every night he needed her. He reached out and her arms slipped around him drawing him close, holding him as he sobbed in relief, like a frightened child.

This 'Writer Battle' is based on the Fortune's Fools story Doubled Spirit and the Ghostkin from A Paleolithic Fable (An Anki Legacies Adventure)  and first appeared on S Shane Thomas's Website. Keep up with S Shane Thomas, the Anki Legacies, and all his Writer Battles by signing up for his newsletter. Sign up now and get his novelette, Rakshasa for free.