My Next Book

Sorry this is late - I found myself distracted by Facebook yesterday. It happens sometimes. When the TV is on, thinking kind of takes a hiatus and time slips away while my finger surf through my game on Facebook. Bad me, bad me.

Anyway, this week I planned to tell you all about my next book. I won't even mess with it until next fall after I'm done with work. 12-hour day-7-day weeks tend to suck me pretty dry in no time at all.

By popular vote (only 3), my next book will be Lord of the Land. You can read a detailed accounting here. Anyway, a trio of young men, more boys really, passing as soldiers, enter an inn to escape the weather and recover a little from some battle they'd endured a short time before. One of them can't go any farther, and there's a chance that he will never go any farther anywhere, but he's lucky. In the mean time, his two friends hurry on in an effort to warn the king, who is the father of one of them, of an impending coup. They don't make it.

With father and son displayed over the gate, everyone is confident that the tyranny is over, only it isn't really. You see, the son displayed beside his father was the second son born to the king, but no one knew of the first born, he'd been sent away and his existence expunged by the queen.

As the country crumbles under the factions squabbling with each other over the throne, our young prince seeks to earn his keep, but he can't stay at the inn forever. The old innkeeper won't let him. He sends for another old friend who takes the prince under his wing and tries to teach him how to be a knight and a prince, hoping that one day he will take his rightful place on the throne and put order to the chaos.

However, their plan didn't work out quite like they planned. The prince fell in love and settled down to raise cattle and a family. He was quite happy, until his past came knocking on his door when he wasn't home. Not that his past knew whose door they knocked on, but the result was the same. After burying his family, he went after revenge, but the one man wasn't enough. An entire web of revenge surfaced and it needed tending to.

Along the way, he learned a lot about his true roots and the tattoo on his chest. It's quite a journey. Along the way, he discovered a deep attachment to the land, one that superseded his efforts to rule his country and to raise another family, but there was no choice. The magic pulled - He was the first Lord of the Land in generations, and it wasn't just his country he was committed to look after. He was compelled to protect all of the land. That didn't stop him from returning home frequently, and as a result his bloodline was more than certain, and his legacy was too.

~~~~~

There are places in this book that always brings me to tears, no matter how many times I read it. I really tortured this poor guy, but he so blossomed. I'm curious what will happen under a rewrite. You'll know when it gets there. If you'd like to beta-read, let me know. I can send a copy now or later after the rewrite. I really do love the feedback, no matter what it is. Heck, you might even have a good idea for a cover.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Introducing Prince Lua

Chapter 5 - EXILE (in Quest to go Home, book 3 in The Quest Collection)


Lua slipped from rock to rock with an occasional glance back; already he could hear the protests as the guards disturbed the sleeping villagers in their search for him. They would run out of houses soon and their search would widen. Even though it was night, and only the herdsmen and fishermen frequented the beach, likelier locations would run thin and eventually, someone would think to search here too. He had to get beyond the surf before they were anywhere close.

“Lua, where are you, boy?”

It was the unmistakable inner voice of his once dear uncle, the man who had poisoned his mother and father; the man who now held the throne, or at least he would if he could ensure Lua’s death too. With no daughters born to the family, the throne should have rightly fallen to Lua to hold in trust until he married. But now Lua knew the man had only ingratiated himself into the family to this end, and Lua strongly suspected he had no intention to marry.

“Makita Lua, you answer me. I know you can hear me.”

Lua schooled his mind to silence and waded out into the surf until the water was deep enough to dive under. The change flowed over him like the sweet salt sea and he was off swimming quickly. He didn’t dare cast about for predators lest the guards, and most importantly, his uncle, hear as well. Instead, he was forced to rely on his sharp ears and eyes, but the night was very dark away from the street lamps of the city.

The danger of him not seeing the approach of danger was very real. The faint phosphoresce caused by the disturbance wasn’t much warning. With that thought in mind, he tried extra hard to keep the glow his own movements caused to a minimum.

To that end, he swam beneath surface as long as he could hold his breath, coming to a full halt and drifting to the surface carefully and only long enough for a breath or two and a quick glance around.

By dawn, he was exhausted, but he was also out of sight of land. All he could see was the faint whiff of smoke from the volcano that was the center of their islands.

After drifting for a couple hours to rest, and for no better reason than that it was the direction he was already heading, coupled with the desire to put as much distance as possible between himself and his uncle, Lua headed into the morning sun once again.

When days stretched into weeks, Lua began to despair starting out on this journey, not that he had much choice. He was well known and going to any of the closer islands would only have delayed the inevitable. Not that he was suffering from hunger, but he longed for a stretch of land; he felt so small and vulnerable out in the middle of this vast ocean.

Now that he was so far from home, he was confident any thoughts of his would be obscured by other mental noises and concerns, so, though he kept his search to a minimum range, he was confident he could avoid any predator, but that didn’t help how small he felt. Those he touched were huge, bigger than anything he’d ever heard of even in children’s stories told to encourage good behavior of the rowdiest of boys.

The only thing that interrupted his daily grind of traveling and hunting was the occasional storm, some worse than others. Even surfing the waves soon lost the thrill of fun, though he did it as often as possible in the interest of expediency. Finally, just has he was beginning to wonder if he would ever see land, a storm churned the water into surf and he was washed onto, and nearly completely over, a tiny island.

He clung to the surface through the night. When the rising sun showed him his discovery, he started to laugh. With tears running down his face, he stood turning a full circle. He knew the island was small, but he expected something just a mite bigger. As it was, one or two steps in any given direction and he was in the water once again. He stayed there until the next morning just because if felt good to be on solid ground for a change, but he couldn’t afford to stay any longer.

Over the next blur of days, there was a new interruption to what had become his daily grind of moving east, staying out of the reach of any sharks or whales in the area, and finding enough food to stay alive, now there was the occasional surf-washed island to test his legs on. It felt good to sleep on a solid surface once in a while. He even found a few that required walking some hours in order to reach the eastern-most shore. His choice of direction had long since become routine and he kept moving only because staying put was pointless, they were only smooth spots of beach scrubbed clean by every storm that passes and baked in the sun that followed.

One day it occurred to him that the seasons might be changing. He had long since lost count of how long he’d been traveling; it had all become a blur; if the storms lasted more than a few hours, it was only possible to count the passage of days by whether he could see the next wave coming or not. It seemed that the storms were becoming more frequent and were perhaps more vicious, it was hard to tell being merely a piece of flotsam, and it might be merely that the elements were wearing him down. He did find a real rock protruding up from one of the islands; the scraped bruise all down his side reminded him of that.

After being able to count the waves coming for three days, the sounds changed drastically, but it was now pitch black and there was no way to know which direction was safe, not that he had the strength to fight clear. His only choice was to keep trying, and pray to the Mother that she see fit to preserve his life. She had after all, kept him alive this long. Surely it wasn’t merely to dash him against the rocks of this foreign shore.

He thought of his mother in her last moments as she clawed at her throat, her eyes wide and black, the corners of her mouth turning blue as she struggled to take just one more breath, even as the rest of her body crumbled. Just past her, his father lay sprawled on the floor, already dead, his face horrifyingly dark and something darker drooling from the corner of his mouth. It was in that moment he caught the stray thought of glee coming from his uncle, an unmistakable touch that was felt both ways. In that moment he saw his own, very similar, death. He was supposed to be suffering the same fate only Lua had been out, missing supper in the company of an accommodating girl.

Just as the morning began to make the waves discernible, the cliff loomed out of the last wave. Desperately, Lua dove through the wave he was riding, hoping to put as much distance and water between himself and those unforgiving rocks.

He wasn’t entirely successful. He didn’t fail entirely either; surely this much pain did not exist in the Mother’s comforting arms. Now if only he could keep his face in the air enough to keep from drowning after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This isn't long enough to satisfy me but I can't think of anything to add. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Chapter 1 - KING BY RIGHT OF BLOOD AND MIGHT

SIXTEEN AND BORED

Harris O’Aidyn was the prince of Pennland, his standing handed down from father to son for a thousand years, ever since the sun returned to warm the land and allow the people to begin to prosper again. But Harris didn’t really understand what it meant to be a prince. He was sixteen years old and he didn’t have a clue. His father, the king, disappeared into his office every day to do whatever it was a king did and his mother, the queen, seldom came out of her rooms on the second floor.

The rest of the people in the palace went about their duties, just as they had done every day of his life. Fredric, the librarian, virtually lived in the library; from him, Harris learned to read, though that was mostly because the man refused to read to him after he started asking for the books by name. Balion, the arms master, taught him his sword lessons, but he also made it something of a mind game, and succeeded in teaching his young student to go beyond planning each move and fight on instinct - a feat few could master - a challenge Harris couldn’t resist. Duff, the stable master, saw to it that Harris could ride any horse in the stable, but he was an irascible man and Harris never liked him. The cook merely chased him out of the kitchen with threats of hard labor, and when that didn’t work, it was with a heavy wooden spoon.

Aside from that, no one made Harris do anything he didn’t want to do. No one ever told him that whatever he did do was good or bad for himself or anyone else. There were times when his father mentionedthat “he ought to do this” or “he should know that” and for the most part, Harris usually ended up doing whatever his father suggested, if for no other reason than to alleviate the boredom. As a result, he was pretty good with a wide assortment of weapons and had read a good deal of the house library’s collection. But still, if he wanted to spend the whole day staring out the window, no one bothered him.

His efforts to leave the palace grounds and go into the town were a different matter. Every time he tried, no less than four bodyguards would materialize as his shadows. If he told them to go back and leave him alone, they would simply say “Yes, my Lord,” and continue to follow him wherever he went. The king’s word obviously carried more weight than his did with the palace guard. And sneaking away - well, that’s why there were four of them - the war marshal had learned years ago that Harris could lose one or two guards far too easily.

Harris understood the definitions of his father’s title, his mother’s title and his own title, but he couldn’t understand how it applied to his life, so one day, after exhausting every other source of information he could think of, he asked his father. “Father, I needed to learn how to read the books in the library. I needed to learn how to use a sword. And I needed to learn how to ride a horse. What do I need to learn to become a king?”

King Aidyn just laughed and said, “And you’ve learned a lot, I know. But becoming a king is simple. When I die, you will be king. There is nothing to learn.”

Harris was crestfallen, that was even less informative than the library. In an attempt to learn the answer for himself, he decided to get up early and watch his father be king. He went into his father’s office and perched himself on one of the windowsills. It happened to be on the east side of the palace, and the morning sun was warming his bones nicely. He stayed there all day. His father greeted him when he entered the room, but otherwise ignored him. He could have been a house cat for all the stir his presence caused. He totally missed the fact that his father had shuddered when he looked at him perched on the windowsill; it never occurred to him that his father never went near those large windows.

Throughout the day, the secretary came and went at spaced intervals, and the king signed whatever paper the man set in front of him, after hearing a brief explanation as to its significance. Interspersed between these visits, the occasional townsman would appear, escorted by a gate guard. The man would present some grievance like, “My neighbor’s dog killed my wife’s cat,” or “So-and-so started a fight in my inn and won’t pay for the damages.” The king issued some order on the grievance, and that was all that happened, all day long. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, when the secretary stopped bringing in papers and there was no one waiting to see him, the king rose to leave.

Harris was just as confused now as he had been that morning. He jumped down from his perch and intercepted his father. “Father, what were all those papers that you signed today?”

“Oh, nothing of real great concern, Harris. You were there; you heard what my secretary said. They were just the tedious things that happen every day - reports, requests, acquisitions, expenditures and such.”

“But Father,” said Harris, “when will you teach me how to decide these matters? I know you will live for many years yet, but how else will I know what is best if you don’t teach me?”

“You don’t really need to know anything special,” said Aidyn as he draped an arm around Harris’s shoulders. “You know right from wrong. The people who come to you will tell you what is best for their particular problem, and if there happen to be two sides, just do as your advisers suggest or make some decision.”

“But Father,” continued Harris, “you didn’t read a single one of those papers. You could . . . You could be waging a war and not know it until the enemy was pounding on our very gates!”

“My war marshal keeps me informed on such matters. The barbarians to the north - ever quarrelsome among themselves - do not bother us. Our trading vessels on our coast are undisturbed, there is no crossing the mountains to the west and our neighbors to the south have their own problems. As a matter of fact, I received a message from them a few days ago; they are seeking a treaty with us. So you see, all is well.”

“What do our neighbors to the south want?”

“They want aid against the desert nomads to their south, of course. I want nothing to do with it.”

“But Father, shouldn’t we placate them somehow, lest they turn on

us?”

“They’ll never turn on us, son. The nomads are too much of a problem for them to invite trouble on yet another border. Besides, they were offering one of their daughters for you to marry. You’re not looking to get married already, are you?”

“No, Father, I don’t even know any girls. How could I marry one?” Harris’s stunned horror was obvious to his father.

“Yes, well, I think we’ll have to remedy that problem.”

Stunned, Harris had nothing else to say, and the king disappeared up the stairs chuckling to himself.

Harris was still confused, though. By definition, his father was a sovereign over a larger group of people but he had trouble identifying the larger group. There was the cook, who also made sure the three housemaids and four houseboys got their work done; there was the arms master, the librarian and the stable master; and there was the war marshal, who commanded a dozen palace guards, who also oversaw the town’s peace. Then there was the town’s populace of about seventy- some odd people. Harris even climbed up on the roof of the palace to see if there was anything else he had missed, but there was nothing in sight. It didn’t quite fit with the hints he had gleaned from the library, but if this was it, then this was it.

One day, King Aidyn summoned his son to his office. It was an unusual enough occurrence that Harris responded quickly. He found his father and the war marshal entertaining three strangers. Having never met strangers before, Harris was struck by the way his father and these men were so very different. Though two of the strange men appeared to be older than his father, they were quite trim and stood very straight, and the lines on their faces were heavily accented by the sun, whereas his father was overweight, balding and pasty-looking. Even the war marshal looked like he hadn’t sat in a saddle for several years, though he

had at least seen some sun. The thought made Harris realize too that he had never seen the war marshal anywhere near a horse; nor had he ever seen his father step outside of the palace doors, whereas these strange men looked like they seldom stepped down from a saddle, let alone into a building. The youngest of the three looked just as hardened, though all of them were dressed fine.

“Harris, here you are, boy,” greeted his father. “These men are from Carolinas. I told you about them.” He waved his hand toward each man as he named him, starting with the youngest. “This is His Highness, Prince Jonathan, third son of King Carroll, Lord Jasper, the king’s ambassador, and Lord Leonas, high advisor to the king.” He introduced his son in the same manner. “My Lords, this is my son, Prince Harris. Harris,” continued Aidyn, “King Carroll and I have agreed that both you and his young daughter are too young for marriage, and the ties that would accompany such a joining are too all- encompassing at this time. Instead, we have agreed to a mutual fosterage. So Prince Jonathan will stay here, and you will go in his place to Carolinas where you both shall remain until you reach your majority at the age of twenty. Go now, pack your things; you will be leaving the day after tomorrow at dawn.”

Deliberately given no opportunity to speak, Harris knew he could say nothing without sounding like a child, so he bowed a brief greeting to the visitors and left.

After a minute or two, he heard running footsteps behind him and was surprised to see Prince Jonathan running to catch up.

“You didn’t know this was going to happen, did you?” said Jonathan.

“No one tells me anything around here,” said Harris. “I hope you don’t mind being bored; nothing ever happens here.”

Surprised at Harris’s cynicism, Jonathan could only say, “No lessons?”

“You can find any lessons you want, if that’s what you like; just go to the library. Fredric’s always there to teach you whatever you want to learn or answer any question you may have if it comes from a book. If you like weapons practice, go to the armory and Balion, the arms master,

will see to it that you get lessons in whatever weapon you like. Or go to the stables, if you want to go riding. You can do anything you want; no one will bother you with anything else.”

“Why?” Jonathan was incredulous.

“That’s just the way it is. Is it different where you come from?” They arrived at Harris’s room. “This is my room.”

“Nice room. It’s bigger than mine,” said Jonathan as he poked around at the various items in sight and tested the view from the windows.

“Really,” said Harris as he flopped down on his bed. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Restlessly he rolled off his bed and opened his clothes cupboard. “What do you think I should pack?”

Jonathan curled up on the corner of the bed. “Just clothes, I guess, unless you have something especially made for you or something that you are particularly partial to. I have two older brothers and four sisters.” He sighed, “Girls are such a pain. I bet you’re thankful our fathers decided against marriage.”

With surprise, Harris pulled his head out of the cupboard and asked, “Why?”

Equally surprised, Jonathan said, “Oh, you know. All girls ever talk about is dresses, colors, flowers and such. The only girl I really like is Sorsha; she’s my older sister. She’s eighteen and in the military with my brother, Aiken; he’s twenty.”

“A girl in the military? I never would have imagined.” Harris tried to imagine one of the maids dressed in armor and holding a sword. He dived back into his cupboard to hide his grin.

“Yeah, well, she ranted about it until Father finally made a deal with her. If she could satisfy the officers that she was good enough to pull her own weight, she could join. Father made sure they didn’t cut her any slack, either.”

“Which one was supposed to be my wife?” Harris asked, half- afraid all the girls in the family were like this Sorsha.

“That would be Kandice, but she’s only twelve, so you don’t have to be worried about her for a little while yet. Mother hit the roof when Father told her about the offer. Father couldn’t offer Sorsha now that

she’s in the military. By our laws, she can’t marry until she is twenty. She can’t even be betrothed without her consent.”

“Um, Kandice doesn’t want to be in the military, does she?”

“No, she’s too shy. Sorsha tries to teach her something about fighting anyway. She says, ‘No sister of mine will be totally defenseless.’ Kandy is so tiny, though, that she may be defenseless, no matter what. I didn’t see any girls around here. Do you have any sisters?”

“No sisters, no brothers,” replied Harris. “The only women around here are the housemaids; you won’t see them much. Mother has a personal maid too, but she’s older. Come on, I’ll show you the way to the stables. We can see the horses I’ll be taking. How many horses will I need, anyway?”

Jonathan was surprised that his new friend would need to ask such a question. “Have you ever gone anywhere at all?”

“No, just into town, or out riding once in a while, but never far,” said Harris.

“Wow! Do you even know where the other lords in your kingdom live or what they do?”

“What other lords?”

“Well, all I can say is, ready yourself; boredom will be the least of your worries. Your saddle sores will keep you too busy.”

“Saddle sores? I don’t understand,” said Harris as he closed his now-empty cupboard. “I know how to ride. I haven’t had saddle sores since I was little.”

“That’s good, because you’ll be covering a lot of miles in the saddle. One of my responsibilities was to visit all the holdings. I keep all our lords loyal by knowing them and knowing what they need. That way, they can’t take advantage of Father too much.”

They both laughed at that. They were well on their way to becoming good friends. Harris was looking forward to stretching his wings and getting involved in what he could not imagine, while Jonathan was already planning to stick his nose where none had been stuck before.

At the entrance to the stables, Harris called out, “Duff! Duff, where are you?”

“Coming, my Lord,” called a scratchy voice from the back. When the wiry old man entered from the back of the barn, he bowed as the rank of his young visitors dictated. “What is your pleasure, my Lord?”

“Duff, my father tells me I’ll be traveling to Carolinas, and Prince Jonathan will be staying here. I would like to see the horses I’ll be taking on the trip, and I would like to show Prince Jonathan the horses he will be riding while he’s here. They must be strong and durable; I think Jonathan will do a good deal more riding than I ever did. He also tells me that I’ll be doing a lot more riding than I ever have before.”

“Your father has already sent word of your coming journey, and I have selected these three chargers for you to ride. Each selected for tractability, endurance and their high-quality bloodline. I also picked out these two sturdy horses for packing,” Duff explained as he indicated the horses in a separate corral. “How much gear will you be taking?”

“Certainly not enough to require two pack horses. Some clothes, my armor, my weapons is all. Now what will Prince Jonathan have to ride?”

“I’m sure Prince Jonathan brought his own horses, but he will be welcome to try out any of Lord Aidyn’s stock that happens to be in the paddock. Will there be anything else, my Lord?”

“No, that’ll be all, thank you, Duff.”

Once out of hearing, Jonathan said, “Those are fine horses. How many does your father have?”

“I never really counted,” said Harris. “I suppose there’s about twenty or twenty-five all together in the paddock out back - minus five now.”

Jonathan was perplexed. Twenty or twenty-five horses? His father had several hundred under his personal brand, and that wasn’t even counting those used by the military. Harris didn’t seem at all concerned about the lack of knowledge about the districts under his father’s crown, or were they under Aidyn’s control anymore? He would have to find out.

Throughout the rest of the day and the next, the two boys cemented their friendship as they explored the different points of interest in the palace. Both of them were hungry, in their own way, for a friend who was more than just a peer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Would you buy this book?