Ugh......... That's about all I can say right now, haha. I've been working furiously on the cover art for
Wings of Fate, and I have a backup image to use if this one isn't done in time.......I really hope it doesn't come to that. The good news is that I guestimated the parameters needed for a full cover image quite accurately when I started sketching. This means that the digital painting I'm working on will fit just about where I want it for the front cover, spine, and rear cover images. Needless to say, I'm burning out.
My time and energy have been further drained by the exciting (and nerve-wracking) news from my work that I am being promoted to a lead position. I start next week, so I'll have a slew of new things to learn before January. This will probably mean less time to work on book things, but I'm digging in my heels and pushing to get
Wings of Fate completed before I worry about much else.
No art to show here today, but here, have a little snippet from my side project to read through*:
Her nerves all but tingled with
excitement when she saw the word “library” written in the Nuemonah dialect of
Erhuon. The lock on the door was pitifully easy to break, and Moa stepped
inside with baited breath.
It was better than she could have
imagined. More than ten rows of shelves spanned the room, though from here she
couldn’t see how far back they went. There were at least two other doors
leading out of the room, but Moa didn’t care about those at the moment. She
fumbled in her excitement to grab her journal and started toward the nearest
shelf, eying the script on its stone face with a smile.
It wouldn’t have been difficult to
lose hours or even days of her life down here; unfortunately, that possibility
was taken from Moa after only fifteen minutes of scribbling. The vaults had a
very still, quiet atmosphere to them, as if a spell of silence had been cast
over the entire place. So, when a sound touched Moa’s ears, she paused in
confusion.
It sounded like … footsteps. Footsteps
in the tunnel. And they were coming toward the room she was in.
Alarm spiked through Moa as
effectively as the head of a lance, followed by fear and disbelief. Was someone
living down here? Had the Illismonah somehow managed to follow her, after all?
Or was this place haunted?
The third possibility was no laughing
matter. Moa had tracked across ruins before where angry spirits—and some things
even worse—still lurked around their earthly domain. She had narrowly dodged
being locked into a prison with no key or jailor on one occasion, and the
experience had left a bad taste in her mouth.
Stuffing her journal and writing
instrument into their pouch, Moa’s eyes flashed around the room. She spotted
one of the doorways about thirty feet away, doused her light, and sprinted for
the door. She had no idea what was in the room beyond, but neither did she
care.
Moa blinked furiously and willed her
eyes to adjust to the gloom as she entered the room and began feeling her way
around to find a hiding place. After several seconds the dark shapes of what
might have been crates or barrels became apparent, and she wound her way
through them to the other side of the room. Moa took painstaking measures to
make as little noise as possible as she tucked herself behind a barrel, her
body trembling from adrenaline.
She didn’t like spookies. Her
experience three years before in the abandoned jail had left her with
nightmares, and she hadn’t been able to return to the place since. Moa never
had figured out exactly what it was
that had tried to trap her there, but she suspected that it had been some sort
of demon. Her shaking increased when she thought she heard a growl somewhere in
the darkness.
Out in the tunnel, the footsteps
stopped. A thought tugged on the corner of Moa’s panic-stricken mind: couldn’t
ghosts go through walls?
Despite her best efforts, she
couldn’t stop the tiny squeak that escaped her throat. Moa scrunched her eyes
shut and prayed that whatever was outside the vault hadn’t heard it. She then
forced her eyes open and peered around the barrel toward the room she’d just
left, her curiosity besting her fears.
After a moment, the footsteps
started again, and a figure appeared in the doorway connecting to the tunnel.
Long dark hair, pointed ears … Like a fast-acting tonic, Moa felt her fears
begin to melt away, only to be replaced with concern. Her unknown visitor was
no spookie, but an elf.
Or two elves, she realized when a
second figure appeared. Their heads turned as they surveyed the silent vault,
then edged into the room as softly as a padding cat. With all the dust on the
floor, their steps were so well muffled that Moa could no longer actually hear
them walking.
How had these Illismonah found her?
Either they had come in the way she had, or they knew of another entrance to
the tunnels that wasn’t blocked. Whatever the case, Moa wasn’t about to ask
them. In fact, when a third elf entered behind the other two, she decided that
it might be time to find a better hiding place. The elves were all armed and
held their long knives at the ready, which wasn’t a good sign.
For a split second, Moa considered
climbing into the barrel next to her. Then she noticed the doorway off to her left.
Unfortunately, it was across an open space, and worse than that, it might be locked.
Biting her tongue, Moa left her spot
and darted for the door. To her astonishment, it was unlocked. She slipped
inside and put an ear to it to see if the elves had seen her. She could hear
them talking now, but they didn’t seem to be coming toward her.
Breathing a little sigh of relief,
Moa turned to see where she was. To her surprise, it was another tunnel. Just
like the first she’d entered, she could see what looked like doors and even
stairways set every so often along its length, many of them buried by sand. Her
fleeting hope that she could escape through one of them was dashed by the
sight.
A small, continual breeze was moving
under the door and into the tunnel, most likely fed by some other point that
opened to the surface. For Moa, it also meant that there was a way in this
tunnel for the air to get out, but
she didn’t know if she had the time to find it. She strained her eyes to find a
point of light that she could exploit as an exit, then noticed that the scent
of the Illismonah was getting stronger. The elves were coming toward her door.
Glancing down, Moa saw the dust on
her feet. The elves were probably following her tracks right to her position.
She began to groan, then stifled the noise and looked for a defensible
position.
She saw what she thought was a
doorway with the door hanging ajar. Sprinting, Moa all but dove into the room
and tripped over something in the near pitch black. Stumbling, she blinked and
opened her eyes wide, willing them to see something
so that she could navigate in here. Memories of what the Illismonah did to
their prisoners floated into her head like a fog, and in a spurt of pure panic,
Moa sent a mental prayer to the goddess Hanedoe.
She finally found her way to a wall
opposite of the door and turned. Moa pressed her hands and rump to the bricks
as she felt along for a place to hide, praying against all odds that the elves
wouldn’t be able to see her in here.
Hanedoe,
please, she thought. What do I do?!
Her hand touched something on the
wall. Recoiling in start, Moa wondered what else was in here. Whatever it had
been wasn’t moving, and she finally made out some kind of long shape resting
against the bricks. There were several of them.
At once, Moa felt the fog in her
brain lift. She felt a peculiar sense of calm seep through her and allow her to
think. Moa put her hand back on the object she’d touched and felt along its
length, working out its shape in her mind. There were two points, a pair of
long, thin pieces of metal attached to a handle, a cluster of jagged metal and
what felt like a sharp edge …
Was this a sword?
Confused, Moa grasped the handle and
took the object from the wall. Yes, it felt like a sword, and it looked like
one when she held it against the faint light of the doorway. It was a very
strange-looking sword, at that, but it was a sword. Had this been an answer
from her goddess? Moa’s bow would be at a serious advantage in the close
confines of this room and the tunnel, but with a sword, she might be able to
drive off the elves.
Gulping, Moa gripped her new find
with both hands and waited. The smell of the elves was still coming nearer, and
she was a far cry from a warrior. She didn’t want to fight. She just wanted to
go about her work and be left alone.
A few seconds later, she saw them.
The elves had entered the hall and were standing outside her room, their faces
aimed toward her hiding place. Two of them had bows strung and arrows nocked,
but they held them with the heads pointed toward the floor. Moa wondered if
they could see her.
“We know you’re there,” one of the
Illismonah called. He was speaking in Latis, a trade tongue that most
understood. There was no threat or ire in his voice, which surprised Moa.
Still, she hesitated. Why did they
have their bows strung? Then again, wouldn’t she take precautions if she were
facing an unknown party down here?
“Come out, please,” the Illismonah
continued. He had sheathed his knife, but was keeping his fingers on the
handle. It was entirely possible that they were from a tribe who didn’t mind
lore drakes and just wanted to keep tabs on whoever was moving through the
area. Moa had run across people like these before.
Feeling cautious optimism starting
to grow, Moa carefully stowed the sword under her quiver. She moved away from
the wall and picked her way over to the door, watching for any signs of
aggression from the elves. When she stepped into their sight with her hands
raised in a display of peace, they still hadn’t moved.
“Hail,” she offered, also speaking
Latis. The elf who’d spoken tilted his head as he looked her over. He gestured
for her to step away from the room and out into the hall.
“Hail,” he returned, then grunted.
“Laiuna.”
“My name is Moa,” she said, keeping
her hands up. “I am a Taloner scout and mean you no harm—”
The elves’ bows came up so fast that
Moa didn’t even have time to protest. Her reflexes were all that saved her from
getting skewered as two arrows hissed through the air and into the room behind
her, one of them grazing her shoulder on its way. Her adrenaline level surging,
Moa rolled and ran for cover, the elves hot on her tail.
Moa reached for her magic and grabbed
at a pile of sand even as she leapt over it, flinging it back into the faces of
the elves. Shouts and curses erupted from several throats as they were
temporarily blinded, leaving Moa to beat a hasty retreat down the tunnel.
Something bright blue hit the
ceiling overhead, and she’d just glimpsed the magic when the beams and
stonework imploded. Sand and chunks of stone cascaded into the tunnel with a
loud rumble.
Heart hammering, Moa dove
ahead and barely escaped being drown in the torrent. She coughed as she rolled,
her eyes stinging from the sudden dust storm. A large chunk of debris crashed
to the floor beside her. Moa tried to regain her feet and run, but something
else hit her in the head. Stars exploded in her eyes and a tear-jerking pain
cut through her thoughts. A split second later, everything went black.
Yes, if you were paying close attention, you probably caught a couple of details in there about this book. The title is, indeed, Taloner: Moa. Good night, my dears.
*All content (c) 2016 W. A. Johnson
