Chickens you know I aint had any writin time whatsoever, but so anyway Ima give you a little treat and post up an excerpt of the manuscript I be working on. It’s a horror fantasy based on a dream I had and a roleplaying game I did over the course of 5 years involving tarot cards, divine intervention and the powers of imagination, booze and friendship. I hope you like it because I want someone to gimme money for it when I finish. Cheers big ears:
Excerpt from Brambles Chapter Four: Pyres
Camp Valorant was the furthest the army had pushed into hell. The commanders had learned much about moving through the ever-shifting, hostile environment. Cavalry were worse than useless here, groups of them caused the thorny trunks to slam onto whole columns, turning the men to gory mush. Siege engines had to be abandoned as camps were moved, soldiers had to spread out to groups of less than seven, travelling out of earshot of each other. Supplies were spread between the infantry, heavy armour was abandoned in favour of light, breathable clothes to deal with the oppressive humidity. Swords were rusted and spears were broken, sharpened down to little more than pointed sticks.
Still, there was an energy amongst the soldiers, somewhere beneath the fatigue and bitter hearts. Everyone felt they were getting close, closing in on the heart of the Brambles, and the small fragile hope that there could be a victory against this colossal beast. The camp was on the side of a hill, near a great crater. Long it had been said that the Brambles grew from here, though most of those who could remember this place before were chewed and mulched now. A palisade made from scraps of broken siege engines and scavenged trees surrounded it, and the men quarried stone to make a barracks and storehouse.
Nester was the 2IC, next to the last surviving commissioned officer, Captain Shrubs. Shrubs was hairy, wiry and malnourished, his ribs showing beneath scarred flesh when his wounds were dressed. He shared with Nester a terrible dependency on grain alcohol, though years before when the expedition started the man was a teetotaller. Like all of the men, the Brambles had broken much inside of him, leaving only a grim destination. No one believed they would make it out alive, but the survivors managed to hold on to enough spite to want to see the Brambles dead.
Shrubs and Nester planned their last gasp, their final act of spite, in the bottom of the storehouse over one of the few remaining bottles of booze. Shrubs sat scratching his war-hound’s bulking shoulders, both of them balanced on crude wooden crates holding soft apples.
Nester swigged the bitter liquid and passed the bottle. The edges of the room were hazy, but his mind was on fire, as it always was while planning.
“So, we know there has to be a source. A master root. Something like this doesn’t happen naturally. It’s in the realm of the supe… supper… magic.”
Shrubs nodded, his eyes glassy and half closed. The war-hound snorted.
“All the academics say magic needs a master source. Something from the heart of the world.”
“If they’re right,” said Shrubs. “No man has been able to repel… rupplecate… do magic.”
“Don’t stop us from learning about it. Fuckin’… regardless we’re all fucked anyway, hear me out.”
Shrubs waved his hand, gesturing to continue.
“So we cut of the source, the root that taps the well of its power.”
“And how the fuck we do that with pointed sticks and starved men.”
Nester smiled, a rare occurrence.
“With good old fashioned human ingenuity. We take the last of the gunpowder, absolutely all of it. And we make a hole. We’ll have to use everything we have left. We get it to the heart and centre of this crater. We make a mad rush, lives be damned. If someone falls someone else picks it up. We get to the bottom, this master root, then we dig as far as we can and blow everything to shit.”
Shrubs took a swig of the bottle and passed it, frowning. Doing the maths on spending the last of his and his men’s lives. Nester swigged again and studied him, his chin nodding up and down.
Finally Shrubs spoke.
“What’s your numbers on this Cotton?”
Nester smiled again, twice in who knows how many months.
“One in three. If, if we can make it to the bottom.”
Shrubs stroked his wiry beard and adjusted his eyepatch.
“That’s not so bad.”
“I’ve done all the reading, as much as can be done. Enough trauma to the source will turn the tide.”
“What are our chances of getting this close again?”
“Nil, and even if we did we took the last of the powder on this run. No more chances after this, either this works or we’re fucked forever.”
Shrubs took a big swill from the bottle.
“Sold then Cotton. We’ll move first light, not much point in extending our miserable little lives. Get the men up and preparing, we’ll sleep in the cold pits of hell. I’m going for a tactical vomit and then armouring up. I’ll see you in twenty.”
Nester stood, staggered, and then saluted. Shrubs stood, grabbed him by the shoulders and embraced him.
“Die well today, Cotton. Lord let us all die well.”
Nester patted him awkwardly on the back.
“Get sappy with me on the other side, sir.”
Shrubs stepped back, and ruffled Nester’s hair. Nester turned for the exit. Shrubs’ war-hound watched him go with drooping eyes.
Out in the camp, in the depths of the night, dim light from torches glinted off sodden earth. The place stank of compost, and from over the edge of the palisade, there was a dull roar like that of the ocean. Nester staggered to the barracks, pushing aside the shoddy scrap wood door. He took a deep breath and mustered his officer voice.
“Wakey wakey, hands off snakey!” He shouted. The men scrambled, sleep was never more than an inch deep in this place. They stood by there beds, night daggers drawn, already sleeping in their uniforms.
“First light we’re heading out. Every second man has a barrel of powder, every third has a shovel. The rest can pick up what the dead men drop. You follow me and keep me alive. It ends today.”
A young man, younger than Nester was when he’d first come to the Brambles, spoke.
“We dying today, lieutenant?”
“You bet your arse, buddy.” Nester smiled. The men smiled back.
Within thirty minutes the men we’re lined up in the yard, even the wounded. A good third of them wore stained bandages or slings. Barrels of powder were strapped to the backs of half of them, and all carried what was left of the weapons, snapped halberds, sharp sticks and notched swords.
Shrubs stepped out of his quarters, wearing an etched breastplate over his dirty uniform and a burgonet with a plume of ragged red feathers. He paced in front of the line, swaggering, spinning his pristinely polished rapier in his hand. He looked over the troops, then stopped in the middle of the line. He breathed deep into his nose and spoke, his gravelly voice carrying clearly through the camp.
“Alright my bastards, today is the last day. I’m giving you your walking papers, after this you are free to die and finally get a good night’s rest. Today is the last chance. There will be no more, and no others will give us reprieve. Today we die, and by slim chance take this steaming cunt of a place with us. Your orders are simple, follow Cotton, faster than you’d run to save your newborn child. Keep him alive no matter what, and keep that powder moving. When he stops you dig, and you don’t stop until your heart stops beating. That’s it. No more can or will be asked of you. Curse me and curse God and curse this place on your last breath, and may whatever hell you end up in have strong booze. No more talk, when the sun rises past the wall, run.”
The men were silent, one spat on the sodden earth. The sky lightened, and the moon fell halfway beneath the writhing canopy. Nester watched the gate in the West, as light sprung through the gaps in the palisade. The air seemed filled to explode, Nester’s heart pounded and his nose was filled with the scent of black powder. Shrubs stepped up beside him and spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“Cotton, six o’clock.”
Nester turned and looked. Pale white hands were hanging over the edge of the palisade behind, gleaming in the last of the moonlight. Slowly and silently a white figure, naked and shining like the moon itself, climbed onto the wall.
“Stick to the plan,” Nester whispered back. “We’re fucked if we don’t run.”
Nester turned back to the gate. The sun peeked above wooden spikes.
Wet slaps landed among the men. Nester felt something hot and slimy crawl across his ankle. He looked down. A black maggot the size of a loaf of bread writhed in the mud at his feet. As he watched, veins of red fire shot through its crusty skin. The thing waggled and hissed, then swelled up. Nester dived, pushing past men instinctively as the hissing sound grew to a chorus.
There was an almighty crack, followed by several concussive booms, and the air filled with smoke in an instant. Nester lay face down in the mud, hearing splashes as objects landed around him. He didn’t look up for a long time. His bones felt fused together and his teeth felt loose in his jaw. He could smell acrid gunpowder, mulch and burned flesh. When he finally felt warm sunlight on the back of his neck, he stood.
Smouldering craters pockmarked the camp grounds. Nester scanned for anyone not in pieces, but all he saw were smoking, blown apart bodies. He suddenly felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. All the air left his lungs and he sat heavily down in the mud. He put his forehead in his hands and cried. Alone, deep in the pits of hell, scarred and burned and beaten, Nester grieved the last of his hope.
He looked up to curse the sun and God, and saw white figures standing on the palisade. Silent and frozen. The stared at him for long seconds, then turned and climbed back over the wall. Nester was too spent to cry out at them. All his rage had turned inward and morphed into impotent grief. He curled up, knees to his chin, and lay in the mud with the remnants of his men.
Late in the afternoon, when the sun had made it’s way past the canopy of the Brambles in the East. Nester picked himself up, not bothering to wipe the ash and mud from himself. He made his way to the storehouse, barely registering that Shrubs’ war-hound was still chained up inside. He hauled out every last jug of lamp oil and brought them into his study in the barracks. Methodically, he coated every surface in his room, the chest of Brambles lore, the desk plastered with designs and plans, the cot made of leaf litter that he hadn’t slept in yet.
He found a match and stood in the middle of the room. He went to strike it and stopped. Some brief spark flared in his chest. Grim faced, he stepped outside the door, struck the match, and tossed it into the room.
Nester walked from the pyre of the barracks, through the blown apart bodies of his last hope, out of the gate of the camp and started the long path to what was left of his home.
Skydekkerix 