I started this book about a year ago, and truth be told I am waaaaaay behind on my progress. In my defense I have had a pretty busy year, and have made a pretty big move! This book has been both a labor of love and of hate at the same time. When I first started working on it I was going through a pretty rough patch and it can be felt in the words on the page. These days that hurt still exists (has for about 24 years in one way or another actually), and I can use the memory of that to give depth to the main protagonist.
Each of the characters you read about, Bors, Gaise, Tendra, Slayne, Thorgrimm, Samuel, Sonya and the others you will meet in short form as I work on the book are based off of people I know and myself. This book is meant to be Heroic Fiction, but I have been drawing tons of inspiration from George RR Martin and Drew Karpyshyn and the Dark Fantasy Genre.
The setting itself is based in the Lae'noer world, a fantasy world of my own creation and takes place centuries after the events of the Acresian Chronicles (another project of mine). You will see the typical fantasy races of Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs but I hope to put a different twist on the peoples themselves (Good old Drew, I would say you stole some of my ideas, but the framework for our settings were thought of the same time, you just made Dragon Age: Origins with it).
Now these excerpts are short chunks of each chapter, and are very rough. A New York Best Selling time author once told me that, never edit until you are done. Otherwise you will just go to editing hell and never get done. So, they will continue to be rough until they are completed, and then I will do some of my own editing, as well as ask for some friends help as well.
So, without further pause...
Excerpt from Chapter 3
He blew on his soup, cooling the surface, Sonya did the same. After a little while it seemed cool enough to drink, then the warrior tipped the cup to his lips and drank some of the liquid, getting some of the other ingredients as well. The soup warmed his throat and his stomach and helped banish the lingering cold he felt in his bones. He looked up and saw the look of relief on Sonya's face as well as she took the same.
“Soup is good during weather like this, it hydrates as well as warms the body.” He told her.
“Have you done this often?” She asked.
“I am a seasoned campaigner if that is what you mean.” he replied. “I have fought and bled on battlefields from here to Kalachia, from the Wasted Lands to Tauran.”
“That far?” She said amazed, “what army did you serve in to travel to all of those places?”
Gaise shook his head, “I have been a sellsword, a mercenary for the last four years.”
“It must have been an exciting life.”
“Some of it was, the new places.” Gaise replied. “But mostly it was tedious, and often your employers were not men of quality. There were also very lean times.”
“Lean times?”
“There is not always wars to be fought, and during these times sellswords are not in high demand. Not enough coin to pay for a man with a sword.” Gaise stared into the fire, the flames were still high and they shown brightly in his emerald green eyes. “It is not uncommon that mercenaries would turn to banditry to fill their coin purses and their bellies. I have little stomach for bandits though, and would find work hunting those I had served with before.”
“You had to fight allies?” Sonya said, her voice showing confusion.
“A mercenary has little in the way of allies. We have a code, but it is not often followed when ones turns to rape and pillage to fill their bellies. It is bad for business to turn on those who pay your wages.”
Gaise stood and moved to the small stack of wood he had retrieved from the outside pile and threw a couple of more logs on the fire before returning to his seat. They crackled and a small blizzard of embers flared up as the dry wood caught fire. He could feel Sonya watching him, he was a bastion of calm and civility in an otherwise cold and brutal world.
“Most people regard mercenaries and sellswords in a negative light. We are paid to fight and kill, without the honor required to serve in a regular military.” The warrior continued. “This is only partially true. I have met some truly great souls in my time as a sellsword, but I have also served with enough to make the ill favored image ring true.”
“Most of the nobles here in Kantor use them.” Added Sonya, “The Regent uses Durogian Mercenaries almost exclusively.”
“Durogan has a very martial culture, almost every grown man is a soldier. They make coin for the crown by serving in mercenary armies all over the world.” Gaise said. “There is an ulterior motive as well, Durogan is flexing its muscles. I would not be surprised if Kantor was invaded when the spring melt banishes away the last of the winter snows.”
Sonya's head sunk and she stopped speaking. She knows something, thought Gaise. The girl probably knew more about what was happening within the nation of Kantor than a young girl her age had any right to know.
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