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Go back to Chapter 1

Uskol & Uskol is a prequel to The Shieldbreaker, the first two books of which can be found here in paperback and here in electronic form.

Rakili sat quietly and pondered the will of the gods, as always.

The din coming from outside, the mingling sounds of laughing and lovemaking and shouting and the singing of the Ulen Havan’r, did not distract her from her task; she let it in, as she must, because the festival was obviously part of the gods’ will and must also be taken into account. The search for meaning and wisdom was not something to be undertaken only in moments of quiet.

Then again, she wasn’t finding much of either.

She closed her eyes and whispered to herself, “Hail to thee, Arinka and Kavi. Hail, Vetta and Vei. Hail, Povod and Likai and Visav. Hail, Kalvuz and Mestei.” She knelt now, looking for any sign of them within her. “Walk among us and we will feel you. Speak to us and we will heed you.”

She waited.

There was still nothing.

Three years ago, in the immediate aftermath of that disastrous night of betrayal and death, it had been Rakili’s task to lead a skeleton delegation to the Tapaa and explain what had happened to her fellow Priestesses and the eight Oproz’r who were expecting their Kogon and his heir apparent (not to mention a large contingent of their tribesmen). And in that first announcement, not once did the words zok n’ved leave her lips, and now she could not help but wonder if the gods were withholding their secrets from her because she kept her own in that horrible moment. The shame of what she had done for (or to?) Kivli was too great for her to process for herself, let alone acknowledge to her colleagues in worship. And since she had not said so at once, there was no utility or honor in correcting the record now. She might as well simply put herself in with the Pehtur in that alley like poor Metan had done.

Or go out there with all those wild young people and see if there was any meaning to be found in being unwise.

“Inspire us to bring forth new life. Inspire us to seek you out in death.”

She had even considered going up the mountain on Koidon Alsan’r and presenting herself to the gods for judgment, but she knew she would fail. And the reverberations for the Etela would be absolutely catastrophic. There could be no worse sign of the gods’ disfavor than a priestess’s body falling back to the ground rejected. Things were bad enough right now without the panic that would cause. At the very least, she could do what she always did in times of crisis, which was try her best to keep everyone calm.

And if that meant suffering in silence, she must accept it as her portion.

So she would abide here among the living and continue to hide her shame until a moment when her death might be of some use to her people.

She opened her eyes. The first red-gold rays of light were beginning to make their way across the ground under the flap of her tent. She nodded. There was work to be done.

“Sinun ulen Ta’a.”

—

“I have instructed the bearer of this message to read it to you aloud, word for word, and I fervently hope you hear these words in my voice, though they come to you through his person…”

Georz grimaced and sucked in a breath through his teeth. It didn’t get better hearing someone else read it.

Mikal stopped and looked up at him. “Word for word, huh?”

“Like I have a choice in the matter?”

Mikal looked back down and kept reading, mercifully deciding not to continue aloud. All Georz could hear now was the party going on outside, the cries and moans and laughter of horny young people enjoying each other’s company, the songs of the zealous, the unending drum beat. At least it was starting to get light outside; most of the revelers would pass out sooner rather than later and give him a moment to collect his thoughts before he had to undertake his impossible mission.

The Kogon’s continued absence from this council was inexcusable. He was the only reason the Oproz’r even showed up at the festival in the first place; over the years of his rule he had gradually, gently made their presence expected, so that the leaders of all nine tribes could hash out whatever issues stood in the way of their continued collective friendship and partnership. There were no decrees: Varyta did not rule the other eight. He would hear everyone’s opinions out, ask questions and make recommendations designed to help any aggrieved parties negotiate more easily, and make a big show of winning their approval on any policies he wanted to implement across the tribes.

And the chieftains almost always walked in lockstep along with him—out of respect (exclusively out of respect at first, but that eventually mutated into affection and loyalty) and with an understanding that he truly wanted them all to prosper and believed his plans would make that come about. It didn’t hurt that he was often correct.

Georz heard a rustling sound. Mikal, wearing a face he usually reserved for meat salted so thoroughly as to be rendered inedible, had finished reading the scroll and was rolling it back up. When he was done he stood, placed it in Georz’s hand, patted him on the shoulder, and left without another word.

Georz looked back down at his feet. He had attended the Kogon as his serving man at a few of these councils in his early manhood, before his father’s death and his subsequent promotion, and he had seen with his own eyes how often Varyta’s very presence was the difference between spirited, respectful disagreement and outright bloodfeud between chieftains in conflict. And no matter what that letter said, Georz was not Varyta. If a few things broke the wrong way, the difference would be fatal.

Even in the face of the enormous new potential threat from north of the mountains, it had taken an enormous amount of effort from Varyta’s oldest, closest allies among the tribes (especially Zimion ul-Zimion of the Khivir) to even get everyone to show up again this year. The new men in the room, the chieftains who’d come up in the past few years and didn’t know their Kogon personally (and, at least in one case, had historical, family-related reasons to dislike him), were all the more likely to cause trouble again this year, citing his repeated absences as a clear show of disrespect—or decline.

By everyone else’s reckoning, the young chieftains of Kasvir, Tvomir and Vaymir had gotten too far ahead of themselves in expanding their territories this past few years since the Imandrir imperial armies dissolved. They were now almost certainly stretched too thin to defend themselves effectively, but they’d gotten too rich in the process to hear anyone tell them they should retreat. And, of course, the Kasvir boy wasn’t going to be predisposed to work with the man who’d personally killed his father and uncle in battle, and the other two would be inclined to go along with him to protect their newfound riches and the influence they bought. Without the Kogon here, this was very likely the year his carefully tended alliance would break apart.

There would be disorder. Everyone would be out for themselves.

Just like at home.

The Kogon hadn’t shown his face to his own people very much in these past three years, either, or bothered to do the small things that kept the tribe’s leaders in line behind him. The senior Ohtar—Mikal, Edren, Uskol ul-Sakara, and Georz himself—were being left to make decisions and give orders and figure shit out for themselves that would have never been their responsibility before. Take Edren with that new man he’d casually announced he was claiming for Kamar a few days ago: since when was that an Ohta’s prerogative? Personnel decisions had always been made by the Kogon.

And Metan.

Georz shuddered again at the thought of the warrior he’d idolized for half his life, the broken man he stumbled upon staring into nothingness on that hideous night, the old fool presently rotting away in self-appointed exile with the surviving rebels in that filthy fucking alley while his responsibilities scattered to the far winds.

He gripped the scroll and hurled it across his body against the taut canvas.

The fucking cowardice of it, to drop everything and walk away. Both of them ought to be ashamed of themselves.

And if the situation got any more dire, then for the sake of those who hadn’t abandoned their posts, perhaps some adjustments would have to be made.

—

The sun’s first rays gently warmed Uskol ul-Aravan’s skin, and when his eyes opened they did not burn or sting. He rolled to the left, towards where the rising sun should be, and found it obstructed from view by a pair of large, lightly tanned, wonderfully perky tits. He heard a light “hmm” from his other side and the sound of a body shifting on grass, and then another pair of tits pressed into his back.

He smiled. The gods were here, all right, and they had been nipple brushes over his open mouth tongue out trace around it engulf it moan into it [thum thum thumthum] as another tongue glides up and down the length of his very good to him.

None of his friends who’d already come of age had told him or any of the other “new men” a damn thing about this festival beforehand, and now he knew why. The Tapaa was not something to have expectations around; it was simply to be experienced taller girl with curly hair and lighter eyes grins wolfishly unties drawstring pulls down his trousers her friend with the bigger tits gasps pleasantly surprised [thum thum thumthum] oh holy fuck this is really happening isn’t it he breathed in deep, letting the cool air and the bonfire smoke and the glorious inescapable smell of sex wash over him and through him.

Uiusma was fucking magic.

It had certainly done a number on—

Really? He bit his tongue to stop himself from swearing out loud. In the middle of all this, you’re really thinking about that fucking knucklehead and his imagined thunderbolt?

None of the others had seen her either. Poor stupid joker. Still didn’t give the man the right to intrude on his [thum thum thumthum] he’s buried to the hilt in the taller one her mouth is open in silent pleasure as the other one sucks on her right nipple and snakes a hand down between her legs incredibly pleasant morning. Obviously he was going to help look for her. It was the least he could do, under the circumstances, kind as the gods had been to give him even half a chance to get into the one with the bigger tits is riding him groaning hips rolling tall one leans over him with a gleam in her eye throws a leg over his shoulder his uncle’s company it is the most beautiful thing he has ever laid eyes on [thum thum thumthum] golden in the firelight glistening with arousal descending towards him he lifts his head hungrily to meet it but either way Uskol the Bastard was the very last person in the world he wanted to be thinking about right now, given that he was hard as a fucking sword again, and he jumped slightly as a hand that was very much not his own closed over it.

He looked over his right shoulder. The tall one with the curly hair and lively green eyes was smiling at him. She took her hand off of his prick and lifted one finger to her lips, gesturing with her eyebrows towards her friend on his other side, still snoring softly.

She pressed on his shoulder to get him to roll back towards her, which he was more than happy to do, and when he was flat on his back again she pressed her lips to his, softly at first, then with a bit more urgency as his tongue slipped into her mouth. After a moment, she pulled away and got up onto her hands and knees. She dipped her head to his chest and began to slowly kiss her way down his front.

The gods had been very, very good to him, he thought to himself again as her hair brushed over his stomach and hips. She looked up and smirked at him as she took him in her hand again, then pointed it towards her opening mouth.

—

Juices dribbled down Uskol the Bastard’s chin as he bit down into the long, hot, thick link of sausage.

He found himself incredibly impressed with the Sisters of the Lomir: this was the least greasy lamb sausage he’d ever eaten. Mestei the Huntress’s acolytes certainly knew their way around a cooking fire.

He was on his second of the morning already. There was hardly anyone else coming around for food yet; everyone else was still sleeping off last night’s revelry. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Hell, he hadn’t been able to think of sleep. There was nothing in his mind except finding her again, all night, and so he searched for her all around the festival grounds, even as the rest of the group split off in one direction or another, until eventually the sky started getting lighter and he noticed he was hungry.

Was she not real? Had he fucking imagined her? Had the gods decided it would be amusing to—

No, that would be needlessly cruel. He hadn’t done anything worth punishing that harshly.

She had to be out here somewhere.

He scanned the crowd again, shielding his eyes from the rising sun as he looked over the ground at all his fellow revelers, lying scattered in various states of consciousness and undress, almost exclusively in pairs and groups.

Hardly anyone seemed to be alone except for him. If she was real, she had probably…

He stopped himself. That was not a thought worth exploring any further.

He took another bite of the sausage link and looked back towards the Hodrir tents on the western edge of the grounds. Uskol ul-Aravan was surely over there somewhere with the two new friends he’d made at some point during the evening. Lucky bastard. What a week he was having, wasn’t he, with his life opening up in front of him and the rest of them—

“Have you seen him?”

He whirled around at the familiar voice. Ilari, beautiful and tall and dour, stood with his hands on her hips.

Uskol finished chewing and wiped his chin on the front of his tunic, eliciting a disgusted scoff. “Hello to you too!” he finally managed.

“Where’s the other Uskol?”

He grinned. “Can’t tell you how much it means to me that someone called him the other Uskol for once.”

She shook her head. “I don’t have time for your bullshit right now. Where is he?”

His mind raced. If he said he hadn’t seen Uskol she’d assume he was lying. Then again, if he gave her a direction to walk in she’d probably still assume he was lying and walk in the opposite direction...unless that was what she wanted him to think she’d assume…hmm…maybe she’d believe him if he said they got split up and he was just about to start looking for them again after he ate?

She leaned in. “Uskol?”

It was a threat, not a question. He’d waited too long.

He shook his head. “Haven’t seen him,” he muttered, and took another bite.

“Ugh. Liar.” She stormed past him, back towards the Hodrir tents. Right where the knucklehead and those two girls had been rolling around on top of one another when Uskol had passed by on his way to get breakfast. Fuck. If he couldn’t send her in a different direction, maybe he should at least try to delay her. “Wai’, wai’, wai’!” he spluttered towards her retreating figure.

She stopped and turned again, eyes narrowed. “What?”

He proffered the link in her direction. “D’you wan’ shome?”

Her face was a swirling sea of rage and disgust and disbelief. Another “UGH!” exploded from her as she whirled and marched off again in a totally different direction.

He sighed around the bits of lamb in his maw. Hopefully Uskol would have time to separate himself from his new friends before she found him. He’d done his best.

He turned back towards the cooking fires. “‘Scuse me, Sister?” he called out to no one in particular.

The older woman who’d served him his first sausage link approached with a kind smile. “Hungry one, aren’t you, child. You want another?”

He grinned. “Please and thank you. Oh! And maybe a little water?”

—

Mikal had been pacing for a while, at this point, offering as much space as he could while Georz muttered the letter’s contents to himself in their tent, but now the sun was fully up. They couldn’t wait any longer if they wanted to arrive at the appropriate moment.

Edren ul-Edren appeared out of the next tent over, clearly with the same thought in mind, and with a face as grim as Mikal imagined his own must be. “Is he ready?”

Mikal nodded firmly. “Yeah.” I hope. “Absolutely.” He’d never say otherwise to anyone.

“Alright. Let’s go get him.”

The tent flap opened, and Georz strode out holding the scroll in his right hand. “I’m here.” He turned to Edren. “You sleep?”

Edren smirked. “Not at all. You?”

Georz chuckled. “Oh, like a baby. Forgot where we are for a little while.”

“Yeah. These children don’t know how to celebrate Tapaa.”

“Very poor showing.”

Edren let out one more halfhearted chuckle and then sighed. “Shall we?”

Georz nodded. “Yeah. Let’s get it over with,” he said, and walked past them.

Mikal fell into step to the right of Georz and saw Edren catch up and flank him on the left, and the three of them turned towards the large tents at the far end of the grounds where they would spend the morning trying to save their civilization from itself.

—

IN THE NEXT CHAPTER: Things get tense as Ilari finds Uskol ul-Aravan and Georz finds himself in over his head in front of the chieftains of the Etela.

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(Uskol & Uskol is a prequel to THE SHIELDBREAKER SAGA, the first two books of which are available here in paperback or here as e-books.)

“So?”

“So what?”

“So, you know…how likely is it?”

“Don’t know.”

“Guess, then.”

“Have no idea.”

“Fuck off, you have no idea. How likely is it that the man picks you?”

It had been an incredibly long walk. Uskol ul-Aravan had been hearing it for eight days now, since Edren ul-Edren, one of the Ohtar in charge of the Hodrir delegation, had made eye contact with him in passing and nodded.

That was all it took. A nod—a nod within sight of Uskol ul-Nev, of course. His friend didn’t miss much.

That wasn’t true. Uskol the Bastard missed plenty. This might actually have been the first time in their entire friendship that he’d noticed something important without Uskol ul-Aravan having to clue him in on what it meant.

Which was incredibly fucking inconvenient, if only for the timing of it: an eighteen-day march through Vesret and all the way back around the canyon on the north side through the plains on the way to Avlaa, the Seat of the Gods, would have been enough of a pain in the ass without the incessant questions, what the nod meant, what did an Ohta have to nod to the likes of Uskol ul-Aravan about, didn’t he have an uncle in Kamar…

Uskol the Bastard obviously knew more than he was letting on, or he wouldn’t have kept poking. And finally, through his sheer talent for wheedling, he’d gotten Uskol ul-Aravan to admit he was being considered for a place in the veteran company, on account of his uncle Barak being one of Edren-Ohta’s longest-serving fighters.

The way it worked was, Ohtar could choose whomever they liked—based on skill, or connections, or some combination of both—from the boys who just came of age to fill any holes in their ranks. Everyone knew that getting to join a veteran company was more than just an honor: it would be a massive boost to that young warrior’s prospects of earning a good living, not to mention simply surviving his first battle whenever it came.

None of the other boys had gotten offers this year; there hadn’t been any combat since the Rebellion, so all the open spots in veteran companies had already been filled by the past three groups that had come of age. And Sons of Nev generally weren’t invited to join veteran companies unless the captains were desperate, so Uskol the Bastard wouldn’t have been getting an invitation anyway.

He had promised to shut up if Uskol told him.

Fucking liar.

“I mean, if you’re leaving us, just say so,” the Bastard was nattering. “No skin off my ass.”

“I don’t know, you unbearable fucking knucklehead.” He threw a light punch at the Bastard’s near shoulder and ducked under the attempt at a slap to the back of his head that he knew would follow. “And we both know you’d be lost without me.”

Uskol the Bastard sighed. “You’re right.” He sighed again, harder. “Who are we kidding? If you do get the offer I might as well save us all a lot of trouble and go back up the mountain with the gods at the end of the festival.”

Uskol ul-Aravan chuckled and rolled his eyes. “They’d see your sorry ass coming a mile away and dropkick you right back down to the ground on your fucking head.”

“Fuck you!” the Bastard laughed and swung another open hand, which Uskol couldn’t get all the way away from. It stung, and he winced, and threw an elbow back towards the Bastard’s ribs and got the grunt he sought, and then they were both throwing arms around each other’s heads at once and lurching towards the ground to wrestle it out like always before two more pairs of hands grabbed the back of Uskol’s robe and pulled him away.

“Alright, alright, enough. Enough, boys. All those girls from the other tribes have to see us at our best this evening, remember?”

Daraz ul-Maroz was, as ever, the voice of reason. Uskol ul-Aravan nodded gravely. “They do indeed.”

“Oh yes. Do they ever.” Uskol the Bastard grinned from a few feet away, where Tobiaz ul-Isav and Turan ul-Toruk had corralled him. “Not this one, though. He’s spoken for.”

Uskol ul-Aravan slapped a palm to his forehead. “Oh, damn it. Ilari’s here too, isn’t she.”

Uskol the Bastard laughed. “Poor stupid joker. No fun for you while she’s hovering around and giving you the evil eye.”

“It was one time! I didn’t expect her to take it so godsdamned seriously.”

The boys all chuckled. “She’s been staring at you for at least three years now, brother,” Turan piped up. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her so much as look at anyone else. You fucked up there.”

“Like I said!” interjected Uskol the Bastard. “You’re going to end up having to marry her, you know. She’s never going to leave you alone now, especially with your cushy new place in Kamar—have you boys heard about this yet?”

“What’s that? They’re letting this idiot into Kamar?” laughed Daraz.

“Oh, gods protect me,” groaned Uskol. “I don’t know anything! My uncle just said I should expect to have a conversation with the man, is all. Nothing’s set in stone.”

“Ohhhhh, a conversation!” said Tobiaz. “You think maybe he wants Uskol to take over the company when he’s done?”

That broke them all up. “Oh, fuck off!” managed Uskol ul-Aravan before he started laughing, too.

—

“So if I remember correctly, figure it’s about three more hours of walking before we get to the site.” Mikal ul-Zalan called out from a few paces ahead of Georz.

“Good!” Edren ul-Edren called back from a few paces behind him.

Georz looked around at the throng of young men and women they were shepherding towards the foot of the gods’ sacred mountain home. “You boys remember your first Tapaa?”

“Fondly. Vaguely! But fondly.” Edren chuckled. A few of the passersby laughed too. Georz looked up to find Mikal slowing his pace slightly to fall in line with him. He slowed too, so the two of them could walk next to Edren for a spell.

“Gentlemen.” Edren’s voice was significantly lower now.

“Just figured we’d go over the plan one more time,” Georz muttered, matching Edren’s volume.

“Absolutely,” Edren nodded.

“You’re doing the talking for us, Georz.” Mikal was reliable in his loyalty. He turned his head slightly to address Edren. “They’re only going to let one of us speak on behalf of the Kogon, and it’s got to be Georz. The other chiefs know him best.”

Edren smiled through gritted teeth. “I know. It’s been agreed already.” He paused. “It’s really bad that he isn’t coming himself.”

Mikal looked back toward Georz, uncomfortable with the turn the conversation was taking.

Georz simply nodded. “Yeah. Very fucking bad.” He and Edren went back far enough that even if they might end up as rivals to replace Varyta-Kogon as Oproz of the Hodrir one day, there was no reason to have any lies between them.

“It’s been three years of this.”

“I know.”

“The others aren’t going to stand for it again. No matter which of us is doing the talking.”

Now it was Georz’s turn to grit his teeth. “We will simply have to do our best.”

—

Alini noticed the vines first, even before the thousands of people milling around, as the Hodrir’s contingent of Sisters walked the last few hundred paces towards the Seat of the Gods.

The festival grounds were marked off about a mile before the foot of the mountain. Every dozen paces stood a long, tall stake wrapped in thick, dark green kvaz vines; the tiny silver-white flowers that usually dotted the vines were nowhere to be found, obviously, as the Sisters who’d arrived before the Hodrir would have plucked them to start preparing the first batches of uiusma that the celebrants would drink to bring them as close to their patrons as they could get while they walked among the living.

Tapaa was a festival of renewal, of time’s circle closing, of the duality of life and death. Three days and nights the Etela would celebrate among their gods; three days and nights the unmarried men and women of all the tribes would be together and free to do as they liked—and on the third night, Koidon Alsan’r, the Longest of Nights, the gods would come down to meet them, and some would be inspired to return home with them on the fourth morning, departing this life by walking up the enormous mountain and entering the halls of the gods directly.

The Sisters, of course, were not here to celebrate, but to serve. They could do as they liked (short of marriage, of course) on their own time, but at this holiest of times they must be on hand and clearheaded to be of service to their patrons and the people who worshipped them.

Which, of course, brought Alini’s thoughts back to the kvaz flowers she and all the other Sisters would spend the next several hours plucking from wherever they could find them. They would bring them to their colleagues in the service of Kavi, the goddess of the moon, and Likai, the goddess of the earth, who would boil them and mix in a few other herbs to create a tea that would, when cooled, intensify sensations and often offer brief, scattered, shimmering visions of the world beyond this one—starkly different visions from the ones ripped out of the mind by zok n’ved, obviously.

Who the fuck had come up with that nightmare? Alini had tried them both this year, during the trials all prospective Sisters undertook when they came of age, and had not stopped wondering since: after experiencing the gentle ecstasy of uiusma, who in the world could have possibly decided to try for something stronger by drying the flowers out and fermenting them in wine?

She chuckled to herself. Only a servant of Vei could have thought that was a good idea. She’d have to ask Rakili about it later.

—

The sun was almost down, finally. Hopefully everyone had arrived by now; Emrani had seen enough bare feet today to last a fucking lifetime.

The Sutrir venerated the water god Vetta. While Vetta’s twin sister Vei ran amok most of the year, creating chaos and violence and general disorder in the world of the Etela, in this festival, in this holy place, the Etela must know peace and calm and healing.

None of the ugliness of the outside world could be allowed to touch this sacred ground.

Which meant, of course, that every person who would take part in the Tapaa must first have their hands and feet washed. And, hierarchy being present in all things, the honor of washing them fell to the youngest and least experienced Sisters of the tribe of Sutrir.

Hopefully, a few of the novices would make it through their trials next year and relieve her of this particular honor, but none of them had managed it this year, so Emrani and the four girls in the tents at the other entry points were on at least their second festival in a row. Poor Aladi had been at it for four years running now.

She was needed.

There were a lot of feet to wash.

Emrani peeked through the opening of her tent and suppressed an eyeroll at the two figures approaching her. Of course.

She bowed her head as they entered and pointed them to the two seats on the floor where the water bowls and the wine cups were, and they walked past her without so much as a break in their conversation.

“...went really poorly for the westerners. Looks like Toskalne’s wide open for the taking now.”

“Shit.”

“Feels off though, you know? The easterners don’t usually venture that far north when they come in force, and we’ve had no sign of them anywhere else.”

“Not in Ikune?”

“Nope.”

“That is a bit fucked, isn’t it…” the one on the left with the longer hair paused and flinched slightly as Emrani lifted his right foot and placed it into the bowl. “Could it be…you know…someone else?”

Emrani looked up at that, curious. The two men were looking rather meaningfully at each other. Who the hell could they mean by someone else, though? She turned her eyes back down to her task.

“Shit,” said the one on the right. “If they’re coming, we’d better all get ready for them.”

“That’d be for the Kogon to say, wouldn’t it, one way or the other?”

“Yeah.” The one on the left shook his head and lifted his wine cup in a half-hearted toast. “Poor old bastard.”

How dare he? thought Emrani to herself.

“Poor bastard?” The one on the right must agree with her.

The one on the left lifted his wine to his lips carelessly and a few drops fell down the front of his chin as he kept speaking. “Come on, man, imagine having to do your own son for treason? He’s got my sympathy, no question.”

The one on the right drank as well. “He’d have more of mine if he were here.”

The one on the left shook his head. “Anyway. If they were coming in force, I’m sure he’d be here.”

“My Oproz isn’t so sure anymore…”

Emrani wasn’t sure whether she was more offended by the two men’s casual gossiping about their superiors or the fact that they had no compunction about talking so openly in front of her. The part of her that knew her job was to be silent, to serve, to offer peace and purification held the reins tight, and she kept her eyes down and held her tongue as she turned to fill the washing bowl in front of the one on the right.

“So. Unrelated…Anyone out there in particular you’re excited to…spend a bit of extra time with once the uiusma hits?”

Just pour the fucking water, Emrani, she commanded herself, battling an eyeroll so forceful it might end in permanent blindness.

“Not really thinking about that anymore, you know.”

“Oh, shit! That’s right. Silly of me. I forgot some congratulations are in order.”

“Wait to congratulate me until she says yes.”

The two of them chuckled, touched their wine cups together, threw back the rest of the contents in one go, then abruptly stood to go. The bowl Emrani had just filled nearly toppled, and some water sloshed out over the rim and onto the folds of her robes.

“Oop, sorry about that,” said one of them on his way out the door without so much as turning his head in her direction, and then they were gone.

“Assholes,” she muttered under her breath, then gasped. “Vetta, forgive me,” she whispered. She took a deep breath to quell her panic, and blew it out with a sigh. “Avzaka-min, Patron,” she whispered to herself. “May they pass the festival time in joy and harmony, like all the rest of us.”

—

Joy and harmony had most certainly found Uskol the Bastard.

The cup of uiusma had settled gently on his soul and set it in motion in perfect rhythm with the pounding of the tumbek’r surrounding the bonfire [thum thum thumthum, thum thum thumthum], accompanied by a smattering of ram’s horns and a few of those pretty little stringed instruments that some of the Gvelir knew how to play and had brought along with them, all but drowned out by the beautiful deep [thum thum thumthum] and the voices of the devout singing ecstatically at the top of their lungs in the old language Kalen ukoza minir ev tunmen’r sinir [thum thum thumthum] as their fellow celebrants danced wildly around them in various stages of undress Khosen av minir ev klezen’r sinir [thum thum thumthum] and in every variety of coupling and grouping Uskol could imagine [thum thum thumthum], hands exploring and lips meeting and tongues darting and breasts heaving and hips thrusting Ungarlen minir, ot veth kerten [thum thum thumthum] and the horns blasted a single glorious call, playing every note and no note, and Uskol felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Uskol ul-Aravan grinning at him Ungarlen minir, ot sinir kaz mavan [thum thum thumthum] and he grinned back and then there was a hand on his other shoulder and he turned to see a girl with a pretty smile and her hair tied up tall step into his personal space and he kept grinning as he lifted his left hand up to cup the back of her head and pull her in for a kiss and Ulen Havan’r screamed the devout ones near the bonfire, You are the Patrons, and a larger portion of the crowd roared Sinun k’vo ulen Hava in response, Your word is law, and Uskol’s hand slipped around the girl’s waist to pull her in closer as her tongue slipped into his mouth and he found himself instantly hard against her thigh and then just as suddenly she was gone, brushing past him, and he turned to see where she’d gone and saw her wrap her arms around Daraz ul-Maroz a few steps behind him and the other Uskol, and his grin returned because there was no room for jealousy in his heart, full to bursting as it was, and the devout called again Ulen Havan’r and the drums pounded [thum thum thumthum] and all the crowd roared Sinun ulen Ta’a to complete the cycle of the chant, Yours is the Way, and Uskol beamed at the beautiful simple truth of it, for what other Way could there be, for where else could they ever think to be but here, all together, in this gorgeous place at the foot of the gods’ majestic home, and he gazed to his right and watched as three men he did not recognize smiled at each other and moved in closer together and as they closed the distance between themselves Uskol saw just beyond them to where two women and one man lay naked on the ground writhing in each other’s arms and he nodded to himself, extending good wishes to them all, and the devout ones had begun their song again Elakon Arinka ev Kavi, Elakon Vetta ev Vei [thum thum thumthum] and he turned his head back to search for his friends but they all seemed to have disappeared from his sight and instead the moon shines blue and violet and silver through the wisps of silken dark hair blowing in the breeze as eyes like emeralds pierce and paralyze him and lips part in a smile that turns him completely inside out he cannot think he cannot see anything but her face and the moonlight in her hair and the long, lithe body beneath it and the moon shines brighter for a moment as she turns her head and her hair flips and

“Uskol!” shouted someone from behind him.

He turned to see Daroz grinning at him. “There you are. Come on, got someone we want to introduce you—”

“Did you see her?” The effects from the uiusma seemed to have vanished without a trace. So had the girl.

“Who?”

He pointed intensely at the spot she’d been standing in just a moment before, as if his finger could bring her back through sheer force of will. “She was right there. Did you see where she went?”

Uskol ul-Aravan was standing next to him. “Sorry brother. I didn’t see her.”

“Fuck. She…she was…” Uskol shook his head. “Fuck.”

—

IN THE NEXT CHAPTER: Georz has serious concerns about his mission, at least one of the Uskols is having a great time, and maybe the author deigns to give us all a fucking hint as to what the that chant translates to.

Want more Shieldbreaker? Every link you need is right here.

Writing deadline for Bridges is Monday 11:59pm Eastern. E-book is for sale ONLY until Friday 9/25. Get in on it here.

PILLARS

Every bridge is a risk. Someone always needs
to go down there, way, way down,
deep in a fucking
riverbed,
and
trust that the
dam will hold long enough for
them to sink a pillar and get back to the surface.
That person is a saint who
puts what might
be
considered
too much faith In the
competence of humans for the
chance to bring us somewhat closer together.

We’re doing something a little different for this one, as a nod to the idea of all of us being part of a larger community of independent artists—and understanding that, things being how they are, we had better all be in this together.

On the weekend of August 16, record-setting flooding put large swathes of Indiana under water, including Broad Ripple, the throbbing heart of Indianapolis’ counter-cultural arts scene. As Haly, the Moonlight Bard ✒️ puts it:

Broad Ripple is where zine culture thrives. It’s where things aren’t just indie, they’re loudly and unashamedly DIY. It is a neighborhood of pop-up performances, of co-creative gatherings where every coffee shop is a writing retreat and every sidewalk a stage.

“Loudly and unashamedly DIY.”

These are our people, just as much as we are our own people.

And given that they’re under water right now, and that that little bit of extra cash flow after a disaster might be the difference between re-opening and not re-opening…well, you know, let’s fucking do something about it, shall we?

As always, we don’t simply ask for money. We’re in the (not-quite-)business of selling our art to raise money for artists. So we’d like to ask as many of you lovely people as are able to shake loose eight dollars and sixteen cents to buy an advanced copy of the upcoming Substack compilation…

BUILDING BRIDGES:

A Flood of Flash Fiction to Fight Flash Floods

Reserve your copy here!

WHAT’S IN THE BOOK? Flash fiction, poetry, and visual art by FIFTY-THREE(!) generous members of this very community. More details in this post right here:

Skyforge News

Table of Contents: Building Bridges

My name is Haly & I am the Moonlight Bard…

Read more

2 months ago · 45 likes · 13 comments · Haly, the Moonlight Bard ✒️

HOW DOES THE MONEY WORK?

Send $8.16 via PayPal with the subject “Building Bridges” to Skyforge, LLC, which will hold funds in trust and serve as a financial administrator while the funds are being collected—after which we will support Broad Ripple artists directly impacted by the flooding by purchasing their work directly from them. From there, we will auction off the works, and all those proceeds (after payment of the required taxes and fees) will be donated to the Indianapolis Marion County Public Library Foundation (UPDATED AS OF 9/20/2026): Based on our conversations with the local arts community, we have decided that all purchased works will be subsequently donated to the Broad Ripple Arts Center for them to auction off and keep 100% of the net proceeds from those auctions.

Pre-order BUILDING BRIDGES for $8.16

(NOTE: Due to international transfer rules-related shenanigans, we’re also offering a $9 direct pre-order on KOFI, proceeds from which Haly will transfer to Skyforge LLC for record-keeping purposes.)

WHAT’S THE TIME FRAME?

The e-book will be for sale until Friday, September 25.

A limited print run will be announced at the end of September, and all net proceeds from print sales will also go directly to purchasing and displaying more artwork from Broad Ripple artists directly impacted by these floods.

Yeah, one more button. Pre-order here!

FICTION IS CULTURE. We get to decide what that means for us, and what it means to us, right here, is that we have our fellow artists’ backs, to the best of our ability, when the floodwaters hit the fan.

Thank you all for everything you do for each other. You make this place better.

Love,

Tom, Haly, Zani, Fitz, Emil, James, Dylan, Vinny, Judith, Nick, Brent, Bobbi Lynn, Andrew, Pablo…and the rest of the usual suspects who will probably co-sign as soon as they check their email.

“He was a killer, your father. Quick as anyone I ever saw with a blade…”

- Metan ul-Aravan, to Kareva

The Vesret Pass looked no more inviting on the fourth day than it had on the first. Most of the Etela tribes lived in the foothills that rose up into the red mountains on the northern wall of this horrible red canyon; that was challenging enough terrain to deal with. For the Hodrir to have somehow made their home within the Pass for hundreds of years…

Lukaz ul-Arsav, Oproz of the Tvomir, was still not convinced he and his men should be here. This really wasn’t their fight. His brother-in-law Azmun was the one with the grievance—and even that grievance felt like a pretty thin pretext for any chieftain to demand his allies join him on an adventure like this. 

But the Oproz of the Kasvir had married his sister, and their sons were his nephews, and bloodfeuds were family affairs, after all, so here he was, marching at the head of seven companies’ worth of men who’d been dressed for battle since they entered the Pass three days ago.

It was more than half of his tribe’s warriors. He’d agonized for days over exactly how many companies to bring along: it had to be enough to reassure his brother-in-law of the strength of their friendship and project his confidence in their mission without risking laying his own territory open in the event of a disastrous defeat. Varyta ul-Ismal was a man of reputation for a reason, after all, no matter what Azmun thought of him. 

Hopefully adding his six or seven hundred men to the might of Kasvir would give them enough of an advantage to ensure victory. 

And if Azmun’s information was actually good enough to get them into the Hodrir fortress? 

Well, shit. The Etela hadn’t had a Kogon in almost a hundred years. Maybe they were due.

—

Azmun ul-Zamal had never been as impressed by Varyta ul-Ismal as Lukaz and the other Etela chieftains were. Where they saw a thoughtful, clever young man, he saw an ambitious, arrogant upstart who talked out of both sides of his mouth. 

Not that any of their praise was worth a damn right now. Would any of them be on hand to fight alongside the Hodrir today? Of course not. None of the chieftains would be foolish enough to pick a fight with the Kasvir and the Tvomir, especially not on behalf of a tribe who were so distrustful they’d never so much as invited a single outsider into their home. 

It was maddening. They’d appear out of their miserable desert whenever they pleased, to fight or trade or do whatever else they might have on their minds, and then they’d be gone again. No one who tried to follow them ever made it back. Even attempting to find them with peaceful intentions was a fool’s errand: Azmun had heard too many stories of men walking straight through the Pass and right up to the edge of the impassable Turma dunes, never once seeing signs of human life, then turning around to start the journey home and finding a dozen warriors at their backs waiting to hear what the visitor wanted. 

The amount of time and treasure it had taken to get even a whiff of where their fortress was had been fucking infuriating, and all anyone could tell him was that the only real path was through one of the mountains, not around them, and to look for scorpions.

It sounded like bullshit, honestly, but Azmun had been waiting three years for an opportunity to put this boy in his place and avenge the insult he’d suffered up north at his hands: a raiding party of his best men and led by his best Ohta cut to pieces the night before battle, and the next morning this smug piece of shit had approached under a parley flag and offered to give back the dead men’s weapons and armor! 

“We’ve been paid handsomely by the Runir, and we have no need of further spoils if they’re from our own people,” he’d said with an earnest expression on his face to hide the thinly-veiled implication that they wouldn’t have a prayer of taking it all back by force. 

Fuck him. The boy had been lucky their tribes didn’t cross paths later that day. He wouldn’t be so lucky this time. The Hodrir would pay for their leader’s insolence with blood.

—

Metan ul-Aravan looked left and right over the Hodrir line again, wedged firmly into a particular bottleneck in the Pass that they’d practiced defending countless times, and waited for the Kasvir and Tvomir to arrive.

This fight had been looming for a while. It was no secret that Azmun-Oproz loathed Varyta-Oproz, and when Metan and Varyta got word that the Kasvir were looking for a way into the Kalaa, it had been easy to feed Azmun just enough ‘information’ to bring him running. 

They hadn’t expected so many extra Tvomir to come along, though. Their Oproz had a reputation for caution—not cowardice, simply a shrewd unwillingness to start a fight he wasn’t very fucking sure he would win. He must have taken a fair bit of convincing. His presence would make the trap Metan and Varyta were setting a little harder to spring, but even in the worst possible scenario, Metan wasn’t worried about the enemy actually breaching the Kalaa’s defenses. They’d wander around the caverns in the dark until their patience or their water ran out, just like every one of the rare few who ever made it that far, and if somehow by sheer blind fucking luck they found the fortress, they’d still be dead of starvation or thirst or arrow wounds long before they figured out how to get through the enormous iron gate. 

It was tempting to not even bother giving battle, let their enemies die the fools’ deaths they deserved, but Varyta’s reputation demanded that they fight. 

So did Metan’s, frankly. So did the whole tribe’s.

“Toruk-Ohta!” Metan shouted down to the right flank of his line towards the leader of Dazvar-Muz, the ‘Black Shields.’

“Here, Ohta!” Toruk ul-Kamran shouted back.

“The fuck do you think is taking them so long?” There were a few chuckles along the line, then a murmur, then silence. Metan didn’t have to look up to know they’d arrived. 

Good timing. “Steady,” he said to no one in particular. He wasn’t really that worried about their morale. They were Hodrir, after all. The acolytes of the fucking blood goddess herself. It would take more than simply being outnumbered to scare any of them.

He wiped the sweat and dust from his brow with the back of his hand to keep his vision clear, then clapped the warrior next to him on the shoulder. “Just like we practiced, Georz ul-Zimion.”

Georz turned to Metan. “Yes, Ohta,” he said with barely suppressed excitement. “An honor, Ohta.” 

Georz’s father, Zimion ul-Daroz, was standing only a few dozen yards away at the head of Kaljur. Zimion-Ohta had asked Metan to take Georz on as his bodyguard in this fight as a personal favor, one that Metan was more than happy to grant: the boy had already proven himself formidable in his first three years of manhood, and would almost certainly take the company over from his father when the time came.

As long as he survived the day, of course, but that was the point. Only the tribe’s very best could hope to stand in the very front of the battle line, where the fighting was fiercest, and live to tell. Today was Georz’s chance to claim the right to lead men of this tribe.

He took a half step in front of Metan and lifted his shield into place to serve as the anchor-point for his neighbors.

“SHIELD WALL!” roared Metan. 

—

The older warriors among the Daughters of Vei had told Kivli the wait was the worst part, but she hadn’t fully believed them until she finally saw the enemy appear from around the bend and all the world’s uncertainty was whisked away on a brisk wind and she remembered what her first kill had felt like, had smelled like, what his screams had sounded like, and she felt a flood of relief amidst the rush of adrenaline. She knew what to do.

—

Lukaz was pleasantly surprised to see the Hodrir—and a bit confused. It seemed like a bit of a tactical error on Varyta’s part to even put an army in the field this early, even on his preferred and clearly well-chosen terrain, when a few more days of waiting would have delivered him a more fatigued and thirstier enemy to deal with.

Maybe the young chieftain wasn’t quite as clever as everyone thought.

Or maybe he was just as arrogant as Azmun swore he was.

Lukaz walked as casually as he could across the halted ranks of his men towards his brother-in-law. 

Azmun was out in front, looking out across the divide, clearly trying to figure out where best to force the issue.

“They’re formed up tight. No way around. And I haven’t found him yet. No matter. We’ll take the right, you take the left.” He turned to his tribesmen and raised his voice. “The Hodrir are here. Let’s go kill them.”

The front ranks of the Kasvir started striking their swords against their shieldbosses, doing their best to strike in unison to better amplify their intentions. 

Soon, all the warriors in both tribes had joined in. Lukaz walked back to where his men were waiting on him, then nodded back to Azmun. Whenever you’re ready.

--

Georz saw one of the enemy leaders raise his sword in the air, and the clashing of metal on metal stopped, and then the sun glinted off the blade as it swung downward. Then there was a roar, and hundreds of men were running full speed towards him. 

I will hold them here. I am the stone upon which our enemies shatter. 

He gritted his teeth against the all-too-familiar sour taste rising in his mouth, shifted his right leg slightly farther back to lower his stance, gripped his shield handle so tightly he thought the wood might splinter in his hands, and then they were on him and he braced and took the crushing impact of the charge on his shield and his sword was thrusting underneath the wall and he heard a scream as someone fell in front of him and he slammed his shield forward into the mass of wood and metal and bodies and stabbed again, above the shield this time, and heard more screaming.

He thrust his blade forward a third time and was rewarded again, and he saw the red on his hand when he pulled the sword back. Then he heard a grunt to his left and felt his shield pulled down and yanked it back up into place as Elvet ul-Edren, the warrior who’d been standing next to him a moment ago, sank to the ground.

“HOLD THE LINE!” roared Metan-Ohta from behind him, with some desperation in his voice, and Georz knew Elvet wasn’t the only man down around him.

He would not break. He was the stone. 

He felt another shield clack against his, and he took a breath and thrust his sword back into the roaring, seething wall of men trying to kill him and his tribesmen. 

—

Gods, they’re heavy. 

Kivli felt the woman standing in front of her in the first rank shift backwards into her, ever so slightly. She stabbed forward past her, into the sweaty, shit-stinking brute doing the shoving, and he screamed and went down, and even as he did the rest of the Daughters’ line shifted backwards a bit more.

Oh, fuck.

—

Onan ul-Azmun, commanding the right wing on behalf of his father, noticed the Hodrir line give ever so slightly on the very end near the rock wall.

He stepped back from the second rank, nodding with approval as a man instantly took his place in the wall, and reached for the nearest runner.

“You.”

“Yes, Ohta!”

“Tell my father to send me all the reserves. The line is weak right at the flank. We can roll them up on each other from this side, but we have to do it right now. Got all that?”

“Yes, Ohta!”

“Good. Go.”

—

Mere feet behind the left flank of the Hodrir line, in an innocuous-looking alcove marked by a scorpion carving at ankle height, the Oproz of the Hodrir stood waiting for his part in the fight to begin.

Behind Varyta and around him stood T’kar-K’veh, the ‘Demon-Blades,’ the company he’d come of age with, men he and Metan had known since they were all boys—including their current Ohta, Kavral ul-Uzan, who’d taken his place when he was acclaimed Oproz and had begged for the honor of following him into the most dangerous part of their fight today.

When the left flank was forced back, Varyta and T’Kar-K’veh would let as many of the enemy as they could charge past them and then hit their rear ranks, fast and hard, and ideally the Daughters would counterattack at the same time and link up with them, rolling the enemy line back in on itself. If that didn’t work, he and his friends would have to try to cut their way through the enemy rear and stir up enough panic to break their shield wall—which, on the off chance they succeeded, would set off a stampede that would be equally difficult to survive.

The strategy would be equally hard on the Daughters: they’d need to make their retreat look believably hasty, and that would likely cost them more lives than he ever liked to lose. But he needed their ferocity for the counterattack to work effectively—and, frankly, he needed their size disadvantage to look like an exploitable weakness. 

Too many of his best warriors would fall today. 

Varyta spat on the red rocks at his feet. If only he had known Azmun would take such mortal offense to the idea of peaceably settling up after his pathetic excuse for a raiding party had splashed around like children in that river ford and then stumbled smack into Metan and his sentries without so much as doing any fucking scouting. He was trying to be generous! It was an attempt to forestall more violence between them for long enough to convince the Kasvir that all the Etela tribes would be more effective and intimidating in combination, instead of splitting up and taking payment from both northern empires every time one of them decided to send a new army towards Ikune.

It was pretty clear to Varyta that the Eternal War was going to end with both Rune and Imandris in tatters. The amount of money and manpower they’d poured into the conflict in just the eight years since he came of age was absolutely staggering. And when those empires did, eventually, collapse on each others’ spears, it was important that the tribes of the Etela were well-positioned to take advantage of whatever opportunities might arise. He’d been saying so, ever since he took the black robes of an Oproz, to anyone who’d put their swords down long enough to listen.

And since he’d started talking, Azmun had been—still was—the biggest obstacle to uniting them all.

So today’s fight was inevitable. The losses were, too.

He’d just have to make sure that the Kasvir felt them just as acutely. Then maybe they could be made to see sense, and all that blood would be worth it.

—

Between sword thrusts, Metan looked to his left and saw the end of the line beginning to waver and so many men, far more than he’d expected, rushing forward to ratchet up the pressure there, and he threw a silent prayer up towards the gods to protect his friends and keep their sword arms strong while they tried to do the impossible.

—

“FALL BACK!”

Kivli couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Had they taken that many losses? Was Zerini-Ohta really—

“FALL BACK! NOW! NOW!”

All the remaining Daughters began to shuffle backwards as quickly as they could, trying desperately to keep formation as the enemy kept hacking, kept pressing. As more and more of them seemed to appear with every passing second.

This was it? The whole of her opportunity to impress the goddess? Just a few fucking minutes of one battle? It didn’t seem fair.

“BRACE!”

In front of her, Liliti got down on one knee and anchored her shield in front of her. Kivli leaned forward with her knee up against Liliti’s ass and lifted her own shield into place over Liliti’s. If this was it, they’d make it fucking count.

Out of nowhere, the timbre of the enemy’s shouts shifted, as if some of them had started screaming. Their momentum stopped. She peeked over her shield and saw a few of the men in front of her turning their heads to see what was happening at their rear.

“NOW!” Zerini-Ohta roared.

“VEIIIIIIIII!” screamed Kivli, along with the rest of her sisters, and threw herself forward, sword-point first.

—

Varyta had waited as long as he could before he struck. There were so many more enemy warriors here than he’d counted on when he’d made this fucking mad plan. Instead of hitting them directly from behind, he and T’kar-K’veh had hurled themselves into what he had to hope was the last several ranks of the enemy’s right flank.

His black steel sword and golden-handled dagger were already sticky with his victims’ gore. He gripped them tighter. He could not stop. There were precious few moments for them to turn the element of surprise into outright fear before—

“SHRAN!”

Fuck. There it was. Someone in charge of the Kasvir had had the presence of mind to call for star formation. 

The call sounded like it was from close by. Who was it? Where was he?

Through the bloodmist and the tangle of men and shields Varyta spotted an opulent golden helmet just a few bodies’ distance away. 

Onan. 

Azmun’s oldest son and heir. 

Almost as much of an asshole as his father.

The helmet turned. Varyta saw Onan recognize him, saw the resulting sneer, and launched himself into the men between them.

One was still struggling to turn and face the threat; Varyta’s knife opened his throat before he had a chance to do much more than gape at his killer. The next had a similarly shocked look on his face, even as the black sword ripped up through the bottom of his mail and into the groin and belly beneath it. A third cowered, leaning back into his neighbor as far as possible, and Onan’s own sword took that man’s head clean off, and then the two of them were face to face, in close, and Onan snarled and attempted to knock Varyta off-balance with his shield as Varyta spun around it, swinging his sword up to parry the accompanying overhead strike and plunging his dagger deep into the back of Onan’s thigh on the way around. He ripped it out and his enemy screamed and began to sink to the ground, blood spraying from the severed artery in his ruined leg as he struggled to stay upright by balancing on his shield.

A groan went up from the Kasvir warriors on hand as they saw their leader fall, but Varyta was already moving again, blades flashing up and down as he made quick work of the first man who tried to avenge his prince, and the next, and then he was suddenly out of the press of bodies and standing in the rear of the Kasvir lines.

A small group of Kasvir broke and ran. As outnumbered as his men were, the attack was having the intended effect. The enemy were scrambling to rearrange themselves while being hit from two directions at once. This might work after all. 

Then he looked to his right and saw his friend Kavral on the ground near the edge of the press. A few other men he recognized were down as well. 

Too early. It was too soon after their ambush to have taken this many losses. 

He needed to kill Azmun to end this quickly.

He scanned the ranks of the enemy in front of him, looking for an even gaudier helmet than the one Onan had been wearing. There was none.

He spun completely around and saw his enemy standing a couple hundred feet away with only a few men as bodyguards, and instinct propelled him towards his prey before he had a chance to think it through.

 —

Azmun gritted his teeth as his son’s golden helmet disappeared from view.

He couldn’t quite tell what was happening on that right flank from his vantage, or how the fuck that band of Hodrir warriors had materialized behind his reserves, for that matter, but he knew what it meant to not see that helmet anymore.

His eyes narrowed as he saw one of the enemy turn to face him and start running towards him and his guards.

Varyta. The bastard would pay for his son’s life, at the very least. 

“Ovan.”

Azmun’s second son was next to him in a heartbeat. “Father?”

Azmun gestured with his head towards the lone warrior approaching them. “Your brother is dead. You want to rule this tribe one day?”

Ovan nodded and stepped forward to meet the enemy without another word.

—

Lukaz was worried. 

His men were holding up fine, sure, but they’d gained no ground in the ugly, bloody shoving match that the canyon and the enemy had forced them into. It was a stalemate. It could take hours.

Were Azmun’s men doing any better on the right?

He stepped back for a moment, tagging in a man from the third rank to fill his place while he got a better look at the whole field.

He gasped when he saw the shran near the rock wall on the far side. How the fuck had Onan gotten into that much trouble so quickly? And what cruel trickery did Varyta ul-Ismal have in store for his men?

This fight wasn’t worth it. His brother-in-law had dragged him along on a fool’s errand, and his men wouldn’t pay for Azmun’s foolishness.

He spat, wiped the dust and blood and sweat from his mouth, and took a deep breath. 

“FALL BACK!”

The men right behind him turned, uncertain, then patted the men in front of them twice on the shoulder.

The Tvomir shieldwall lurched backwards, then began a well-ordered retreat just like they’d practiced: one pace at a time, calmly and methodically, keeping their eyes forward—

“Oh, what the fuck?” came a shout from a few paces to his right. Someone else had seen what was happening to the Kasvir. Dozens of voices immediately joined the chorus of dismay.

“FORWARD!” came a shout from the other shield wall. 

“Fuck this!” muttered a retreating man as he passed Lukaz and broke into a run.

And then Lukaz was running too. They were following his orders, after all; he might as well do what he could to deflect any possible shame off of them while they did. 

—

Metan couldn’t believe his eyes—or his incredible fucking luck.

He stepped back from the line and motioned to two of the runners waiting for instructions at the rear. 

“Get to Toruk-Ohta and Zimion-Ohta on the end of the line, tell them to go all the way around and link up with whoever’s left of T’Kar-K’veh. Let the Tvomir go. Focus on the Kasvir.”

The runners nodded and sprinted towards the right flank. Metan hurried back into his place in the center and roared, at the top of his voice, “CURL TO THE LEFT!”

He heard a few voices echo his call, nodded with satisfaction, and looked ahead once more to where the Tvomir were rushing back to their camp.

Then he noticed the lone figure near the other wall of the canyon, racing towards a group of Kasvir with a sword in one hand and a knife in the other.

Fuck. 

There was nothing he could do about it. Varyta would have to live or die on his own for now. Metan had a shield wall to command.

He raised his voice again.

“KILL THE BASTARDS!”

—

Varyta heard a roar behind him but all his attention was focused on the man striding towards him, who had to be another of Azmun’s sons, from the fancy fucking helmet and the hateful sneer and the arrogance to meet Varyta alone when he had the luxury of calling forth a half-dozen armed guards if he wanted. 

Varyta maintained his pace as he closed the distance between them. He twirled his sword, brought it down across his body to his left hip and then swung upward with a vicious backhand. The boy tried to parry it with a downward stroke, but Varyta’s momentum pushed both blades up and away, forcing the boy’s sword arm back across his own shield, and it took only another instant for Varyta to get in close on the left, push his knife into his enemy’s throat, and tear it across and out.

The boy dropped to his knees, his sword clattering to the ground next to him, and Varyta looked past him towards Azmun again—but Azmun hadn’t been watching their duel. He was staring to his left, head shaking slowly, mouth ajar, and when Varyta turned to see what he was seeing he understood immediately.

—

Once she was freed from the constraints of the shieldwall, battle was exactly the thing Kivli always thought it would be. 

The clash and whine of steel on steel, the crunch of bodies crashing into each other and hitting the ground, the screaming and shouting and moaning, all of it was one sound, one song. She’d been listening to it her entire life, and she knew the accompanying dance by heart.

She gave herself over to it completely, twirling and weaving as her sword cut a red path in front of her everywhere she turned, and she felt fulfilled. She was right where she was meant to be at this moment—

She saw flash of metal out of the corner of her left eye and raised her shield in time to deflect the full force of the blow to the side of her head but not fast enough to stop it entirely, and the song was still there but it was distorted now, echoing around her throbbing skull, and she sat down hard on the ground and saw the legs of her sisters as they pressed the attack ahead of her.

Was this what dying felt like?

She’d better not be fucking dying. She needed more.

—

Azmun couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He knew his brother-in-law had been skittish about this battle from the beginning, but what the fuck could have happened over there to turn his whole godsdamned tribe into—

He felt a tug on his sleeve and tore his eyes away from the catastrophe unfolding to his left.

“What?”

“Oproz,” Rahav said quietly, and inclined his head in the direction of the front.

Azmun turned slowly to find Varyta ul-Ismal standing over Ovan’s body.

Ovan’s sword was on the ground next to him. 

He’d dropped it. 

Varyta’s eyes were trained on the routing Tvomir companies, but he looked up quickly, sharply, as if he’d felt Azmun’s gaze upon him, and stepped around the body, his two bloody blades held down at his sides. 

He tilted his head a bit and raised his eyebrows. Are we doing this or not?

Azmun looked down at his son, the second son he’d lost in the past few minutes, and sighed. He turned to Rahav. 

“Blow the horn,” he said quietly.

Rahav opened his mouth as if to ask if Azmun was sure, but stopped himself. He reached down and pulled the long, hollow funeral horn from a loop on his belt, took a deep breath, and blew.

—

Metan had just pulled his sword from the chest of a Kasvir warrior when he heard the sound. He waved his blade in the air. “HOLD! HOLD!”

All around the encirclement he heard his Ohtar echoing his order—and from within it as well, from however many Kasvir captains were still alive. 

They all knew the gods would curse anyone who kept fighting after they heard the horn.

It was over.

—

Varyta nodded and turned to walk back to his own lines.

Azmun now owed him hundreds of life debts. The Kasvir would be no further trouble, at least while he ruled them.

No foreign leader would ever hear that horn on a battlefield, the acknowledgment of loss, the acknowledgment of the defeated leader’s regret for engaging in the conflict—and, of course, the implicit request to withdraw peacefully and mourn the dead. No foreign leader would even believe the Etela had such a custom (and that, Varyta mused, was the way the Etela liked it). But every Oproz, even the ones that hated each other’s fucking guts, knew that the Etela could not survive if whole tribes’ armies were destroyed every time they quarreled. 

Varyta was happy enough to let Azmun and the Kasvir walk away, happier still to have the implied promise of peace and maybe even a bit of deference going forward, instead of the eternal resentment of whatever survivors might have made it out of the Pass if they’d continued to fight.

There would still be some resentment to deal with. He’d feel some himself, to be sure: for Kavral, for all the other friends he would discover he had lost once got back to his line.

He slowed his pace a little at the thought as the first of the men he’d spared trudged past him.

—

“Get up, girl.”

Kivli saw a shadow loom over the patch of bloody rock she’d been staring at and looked up into the face of her Ohta.

“I—I hit my head, I think?” She brought her hand up to it and winced, but there was no blood on her fingers when she looked at them.

Zerini nodded. “Probably on the rim of a shield. Happens a lot. They’re all fucking taller than us, you know, hold their shields higher. Can you walk?”

“I think.”

“Do you know who you are?”

Kivli stood, and within the dizziness she felt the death song come back into her head, crashing and twisting and writhing, and she knew that Vei had sung it just for her. 

She smiled.

“Yes.”

—

Metan watched the last ranks of the Kasvir part for his best friend, his chieftain, now unquestionably the most powerful man in all the tribes of the Etela.

Varyta looked tired. That made sense. They all were. Running around in a mail coat in this fucking heat would do that to anyone. 

Metan grinned as Varyta’s gaze found him. He stepped forward out of the reassembled ranks, put his right fist over his left breast, then knelt.

Varyta lifted him up and embraced him, and the surviving warriors of the Hodrir clashed their swords and shields together and cheered.

“OPROZ! OPROZ! OPROZ!” 

Metan pulled back and looked at his friend’s face. He lowered his voice. “Maybe it’s time we start calling you ‘Kogon.’”

Varyta’s face darkened. “No. Not like this. It’s not worth what it would cost.” He looked down for a moment, then looked back at Metan. “We’ll let the tribes come to me and suggest it, and I’ll…you know…reluctantly accept.”

Metan rolled his eyes. “It’ll take longer that way, you know. Maybe even a few years.”

Varyta nodded. “That’s fine,” he said. “We have time.”

Read the rest of the saga here.

First things first: if you’re reading this? Thank you. Whether you’ve been reading my work since I joined this platform in September 2024 or you just showed up this week for whatever reason. I appreciate you. You’re fucking great.

Boston wasn’t ready…wait what’s Burlington?

Last weekend, I dragged my wife and toddler to a hotel half an hour north of Boston for my first ever convention. Readercon35 was a fucking blast. Getting to spend actual time in the same room as and and and and and —not to mention the incomparable , who organized the whole adventure—was…know what? restorative, is what it was. There is a community here, built around us, across two or three generations of writers and a belief in building each other up to build ourselves up, and we got the chance to put that philosophy into action for a couple days, and it was goddamn magical. We’re gonna have to do it again some time. Especially now that I know there’s karaoke at these things!

Now, a little business…

When I first released The Last of the Etela, I promised everyone who made a purchase and showed me the receipt a comped year on this publication. Last year, it was because I figured it was a good deal for everyone—and I still think that, so I’m going to do it again, but now it’s a little bit more because I’d rather have less of your money go to me and nothing go our dear, dear friends Chris and Hamish. Such lovely human beings. They deserve so much less of your money, and I’m here to do my part. Buy a paperback copy of either Book One ($13.49 plus $5 worldwide shipping) or Book Two ($14.99 plus $5 worldwide shipping), or buy e-books of both of them for $4.99 each, and DM me a receipt, and I will gift you a year’s subscription (worth $45).

Which is going to count for something, frankly, because some more stuff is going behind the paywall this weekend.

All of Book Two, for starters.

And all of the Live chapter readings I’ll be doing starting (check’s calendar) this week! Wednesdays at 1pm Eastern after the kid passes out, I will be reading a chapter a week of Book Two for your viewing pleasure (and, more importantly, to give you a demo of the proper pronunciations of all the character names).

And I want you all to be able to see this stuff! I want you to get the satisfaction of seeing me stumble over my own sentences forty minutes into a fifty-seven-minute-long chapter and wonder out loud why I didn’t make them all shorter.

I want you to see my wife’s exquisite taste in floating bookshelves.

I want you to be able to access things like my recounting of the time I fell in the East River and my eventual (hopefully) live performance of the most ridiculous song I’ve ever ‘written,’ a spoof mashup of the Flintstones and Fiddler on the Roof that involves maybe a few too many instances of the phrase “yabba dabba do.”

And I want you to be able to access these things without giving Chris Best any of your hard earned money. I want that for all of us.

Book One in paperback

Book Two in paperback

e-books on Gimmebook!

What’s next in the Shieldbreaker Saga?

A year ago, I promised a few people an Uskol and Uskol spinoff. , among other people, has been very patient with me, and this month I finally figured out how to really make it work. Think Superbad but set in, you know, my universe. With desert Vikings or whatever we’ve decided these people are.

So…the next project, before I get deep into Book Three, is going to be another prequel novella called Uskol & Uskol to pair with Daughters of Vei and possibly fill out with a few more short stories for release…soonish. I need to write the thing first.

And when have done that, and it’s time for me to drop the chapters, those of you who have already bought your books and have your comped years will get to see them up close and personal ahead of time.

You heard me. Secret novella. I just decided on this in the heat of the moment (and lack of air conditioning) as I write this post.

Beyond that, some time in 2027, Kareva and company will return with a (very, very literal) vengeance. A down payment has been made, after all. The Blood Goddess will have her blood. And so will you.

See you Wednesday. TS

You’ll note this one is not from the Undersigned. I wanted to take a moment and make this one personal, because some of us are headed to Boston soon, and some of your books or promotional material may be headed there or (hopefully) have landed already, and a big goddamn thank you is in order.

is a force of nature.

I don’t throw that one around lightly. I reserve it for people who go above and beyond for their community, and even then only when I know it to be true firsthand.

The effort that this woman has put into making our books accessible to people outside of our little circle-jerky corner of this platform, while parenting two children and battling poverty and bureaucratic nonsense on every single front imaginable—and a terminal illness to boot—is herculean. She has put in more wheeling and dealing on our behalf than most of us will ever be aware of to give us this opportunity to expand our collective audience.

In Fiction Is Culture’s original post about Readercon, we asked for help making sure she at least had her hotel room at the convention covered for the weekend. I am doubling down on that request now.

We are only a couple hundred short of having that room fully covered so she doesn’t also have to drag herself back and forth from Boston to Nashua four days in a row while providing us this opportunity.

Any help you can throw her way this week, via Venmo to @zanidarp or via PayPal to @stauffholt, will be greatly appreciated and will go towards the larger goal of all of us having a larger say in what fiction and culture looks like going forward.

Because there’s no fucking doubt in my mind that our best shot of making some noise comes from working together.

Yours, Tom

UPDATE: NEED MET! Thank you all so much. You make this place better.

“Nearly five thousand years since its foundation—and just over 2,300 years after its final abandonment—the remains of the ancient city of Makan Alabar remain one of the premier archaeological attractions in the region. The city’s enormous walls are plainly visible from four of The Record’s twenty-five most opulent beach resorts in the world, and with the appropriate permission documentation from the Kasmariq government, visitors can explore dozens of miles of impeccably laid out streets, get within touching distance of the crumbling yet magnificent architecture of ageless palaces and temples, and walk down several reasonably-safe flights of stairs into what is left of the fabled Market, in its time the center of economic and cultural exchange for three different continents—and see what is currently the oldest surviving example of the written word in our planet’s fascinating history: the “Eliaz ul-Turan” graffito carved into an archway that leads to one of the famous tunnels that historians and archaeologists presume would have been completely full of vendors every Market Day for centuries during the city’s heyday…”

They don't all have to be good

The Thousand Faces of Elias Thorne

Listening to Print Run last night, I learned that LLMs are hallucinating a character named Elias Thorne across platforms. I’ve since learned some other Substackers have written about this phenomenon (Linda Carol, Daniel May) and it’s even bee…

Read more

4 months ago · 84 likes · 93 comments · Ian Patterson

(…what? He said they didn’t all have to be good!)

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ATTENTION SUBSTACK NOVELISTS!

We want to help you promote yourselves at a big fucking convention in a few weeks…

Our sister , FIC’s co-founding Machiavellian altruist, the Godmother of questa cosa nostra, working with our dear friends and indie publishers of Drek Death n Doom and of Tiny Worlds, has booked a table at Readercon 35, July 9-12 in Boston, and wants to send out an open call for writers in our circle to send her promotional material to lay out real pretty and hopefully attract us all some new readers.

Boz and Curtis are going to be sponsoring specific books for a vendor through their shops (and you can ask them directly about that), but if you want to provide free promotional materials, you can reach out to Z and her assistants through this handy Google form:

TAKE ME TO READERCON!

Once we confirm who you are, etc., we’ll email you mailing instructions privately.

(And IF you want to donate to help us make this successful, we want to put Z up in the hotel at the convention for that weekend to stop her from having to drive her sick ass back and forth from Nashua four times to run our table. You can do that via PayPal to @stauffholt or via Venmo to @ZaniDarp, and those of you who do, we will find a special TBD way to thank you for your kindness and consideration.)

Fiction is still culture. We look forward to hearing from all of you.

Love,

Tom, Zani, Fitz, Haly, Nick, Andrew, Dylan, Slater, Brent, Pablo, James, Judith, Vinny, Luke, and Bobbi.

THE SHIELDBREAKER, Book Two: Holiest of Cities available now!

PAPERBACK | E-BOOK

And again, let me remind you all that 150 sales gets you, my dear readers, a live performance of the silliest song I have ever ‘written.’

See you all soon. T

NINE MORE DAYS TIL THE RELEASE.

There are people who want to help, and there are people who ask how they can help, and then there are (a precious few) people who figure out for themselves how they can help, throw themselves into helping, become experts at helping, and start teaching other people how to help as well as they do.

That’s my wife. Once she cares, she cares harder than should be possible, and she goes all in to help. It is inspiring and exhausting and a bit intimidating to watch up close.

Her childhood experience of watching her family lose her great-grandfather to Alzheimer’s stuck with her for decades and pointed her towards becoming a speech pathologist specializing in working with adults recovering from strokes and traumatic brain injuries, battling cancer in the mouth or throat or brain, and, of course, living with dementia.

And her caring goes beyond the patient: her great professional passion is helping the caregivers struggling under the weight of their person’s diagnosis, the brain changes that come from it, the social stigma that goes along with the “tragedy narrative” and the inevitable isolation when other people can’t handle “seeing them like this.”

Rebecca does not accept the idea that people living with dementia and their caregivers are going through their journey alone. That doesn’t work for her. And it’s led to the thing I really want to tell you about today, and the favor I’d like to ask you, my dear internet friends:

Rebecca started a non-profit organization called A Sweeter Course a couple years ago to provide opportunities for people living with dementia and their caregivers to interact with their community.

Today, in honor of her birthday, I’d like to ask you to take a look at that site and donate if you feel inspired to donate.

In fact, DM me a receipt of any donation more than $10, and I’ll comp you on this publication for a year AND send you e-pubs of both Shieldbreaker novels (yes, the new one too!) as a thank you gift.

I appreciate you. I appreciate her more. You get it.

Talk soon. TS

(You think I’m kidding, don’t you? Why would you think that?)

I got assigned Robert Bruce and the late-Medieval wars for Scottish independence as a research topic, and between reading about the heinous shit the English did to William Wallace during his execution (Braveheart got maybe halfway there. MAYBE.) and the similarly heinous shit the English did to their own deposed King Edward II after he massively bungled a Scottish invasion and/or pissed his wife’s family off by giving his boyfriend too much public political influence (I think I’m remembering this correctly? It was legit thirty years ago and I don’t have the bandwidth to fact-check myself), I read a story about the man who would eventually win Scottish independence…watching a spider trying to climb a cave wall.

The story goes, Robert Bruce and his rebels have been beaten to shit by the English, and he and the twelve guys in his army who are still alive are in hiding in these caves, and he’s feeling rightfully down on himself, and suddenly he sees this spider trying to climb up a cave wall. It falls the first six times it tries, but on the seventh attempt it succeeds, and Robert gets inspired to fight on, and the rest is history.

Can you imagine reading that story as an eleven-year-old who loathes practically everything about yourself?

The sheer fucking hideous, obnoxious, Tony-Robbins-on-cassette corniness of it. My word.

Anyway, it stuck with me. It provided a perfect example of how not to write a believable dark-night-of-the-soul final scene.

Anyway, there’s a spider trying to climb a wall next to me right now as I write this, and he’s doing a pretty mediocre job, so let’s see if I learn any important lessons tonight.

(Holiest of Cities paperback and e-book for sale on Monday, June 8. Preorder it here, or wait three weeks and get it indie.)

It’s a big step forward, my friend. I’m proud of you.

I’m proud of you for a lot of things, frankly. You’re talking in complete sentences and singing the ABCs front to back without missing any letters and working crowds in elevators (your inflection on “Have good dayyyyyy!” is absolutely magical). You’re doing puzzles by yourself. Your music taste is fantastic. I’m half-convinced you have actually developed comedic timing already.

You’re pretty damn good at kicking a soccer ball. You climb fearlessly. You bounce back equally fearlessly when you fall down.

You’ve got a good face, and a good smile, and you smile at practically everyone, and I don’t think it’s coincidental that people tend to smile back at you.

You pronounce “Fuck” perfectly. Perfectly.

(I take exactly 50% of the credit for that, by the way. Thank your mother, too.)

You’re beginning to understand and remember when things are important. You’re good about holding hands when we’re out for walks. You’re way better at talking about your feelings than a lot of adult men I know.

Speaking of adults, a few things I intend to make sure you know before you become one of those:

- When you ask someone for something, there is no guarantee they give it to you. Learn to accept ‘no’ gracefully and not take it personally. That will be incredibly useful to you, basically forever, no matter what you’re asking for.

- Nurture genuine, mutually-supportive platonic friendships with people of every gender—including people of whatever gender you end up attracted to. This is especially important and relevant if you’re straight: anyone who tells you ‘straight guys can’t be friends with women’ doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, and I guaran-damn-tee you their lives are emptier as a result of that belief.

- Stay curious. Your mom and I will always answer any question you have, or point you in the direction of the correct answer if we don’t know it.

- Related, don’t trust anyone who thinks they know everything already, and don’t pretend to know things you don’t. (Trust me, I still need to work on this one myself.)

- Even if it turns out you love sports as much as I do, you don’t have to live and die with your team’s successes and failures. You can be a fan without being miserable. I will do my best to keep you on that path, even as we sing ‘Allez allez, Leverkusen allez’ on Saturday mornings and drive your mother crazy.

- Be generous wherever and whenever you can (without giving more than you are able to part with and still feel secure).

- Timing is usually a more important element of being funny than the content of the joke itself. (That being said, don’t punch down.)

- Being kind is more important than being nice, and being honest is kinder than being polite. (That doesn’t mean you have license to be rude all the time, but if you have to choose between honesty and politeness…be brave and be honest.)

- Be honest with yourself about your feelings. Get good at that now, and never stop practicing. That is the bravest thing you can do.

We’ll talk more about all this later. We have some time.

For now, just know that I will never love anything more than I love you, kid. As your great-grandfather (and namesake) told your grandfather, “When you were born, it was like the sun came out.”

Du hast mein ganzes verdammtes Herz.

Happy birthday.

Give me a phone and put a guitar in the room with me and I start playing the weirdest, silliest thing I have ever written in my life when I MEANT for this to just be about the fact that Holiest of Cities is coming out in paperback on Monday, June 8, and I have my first hard copy.

Oh yeah. That’ll do.

Thanks to , , and for the blurb love. Thanks to the rest of you for hanging out with me here.

Yabba Dabba Do,

TS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Dead and the Dying: Uskol says farewell to an old friend, and Regez creates a serious problem for himself.

—

Chapter 11: Kareva has pledged his loyalty to an outsider. Will the Hodrir go along with it?

—

Chapter 12: Ikune’s citizens throw a parade for its triumphant conquering hero. (Well, some of them do, anyway.)

—

Chapter 13: Kareva and Alakuz discover a betrayal. Ersev throws a party. Miruz sees trouble coming.

—

Chapter 14: In Ikune, the Hodrir get settled in and Alakuz and Turan make new friends. In the desert, Attala gets closer to discovering the fate of the Etela’s civilians.

—

Chapter 15: Several important conversations go very, very poorly.

—

Chapter 16: Kareva makes a lot of noise in his sleep. Miruz makes a big target. Alakuz makes a horrifying discovery. Nobody is having a good time.

—

Chapter 17: Miruz makes a dangerous play to try to make all his problems disappear at once.

—

Chapter 18: Miruz doubles down. Regez comes clean. The Hodrir wait for answers from their chieftain.

—

Chapter 19: The truth finally comes out. (And then, in Ikune, it goes right back in.)

—

Chapter 20: Kareva answers to everyone.

—

(ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and RELEASE DATE COMING SOON!)