Ooh, Blogger's posting format's changed

I guess that's a sign that I've been away too long. Also it now apparently defaults to the default font setting for this browser, which I set as a joke as Tengwar about two years ago. And then promptly forgot about. I was a bit surprised when I started typing just now, but it's fixed now.

Well, the time-turner thing didn't work out but I'm managing anyway, slowly and linearly. Only two more final exams to do, one tomorrow and one on Friday, and then I am free! Free to go home and bake cookies with my siblings and read books to my baby sister who's not such a baby any more and watch The Avengers again with my brothers (one of THE best movies ever, by the way) and get back into proper dance training again and prepare to go to Comic-Con! It's my first time going and I'm extremely excited.

My proposal presentation, in what I still consider to be a not-so-small miracle, actually went well. I even won an award for best Arts and Humanities presentation. Hopefully this means the worst of this whole project process is behind me now, because honestly these past few months have been slow, agonizing torture. I've never had a worse academic experience.

In other news I am also going to be posting my creative writing a lot more over the summer, I hope. I've signed up for Camp Nano, no idea what I'm writing yet and maybe I'll just use it to finish The Outlaw's Hand, but I dunno. Also I'm back to practicing my drawing. And there's many, many books I want to read--the rest of the King's Assassin series, the first Gormenghast book, a Kate Elliot novel, the rest of Wives and Daughters, Great Expectations, and much more. In short--bring on summertime, I can't wait!

A Little More NaNoWriMo

I'm currently abed with some kind of sickness, I think it's a cold--basically I cough with every other breath, am extremely dizzy, and overall just don't feel good. Thank goodness for the "Tangled" soundtrack and fuzzy bathrobes.

Anyway, I'm trying to make the most of being ill by writing more of my NaNoWriMo novel. I made the 50,000 word count in November (insert celebratory dance here), but I didn't actually finish the book, so . . . I'm still working on it. My goal is to finish it by the end of December.

I'm not posting the full book on this blog, as I mentioned earlier, but I thought I'd post the occasional chapter or two, so here's another chapter! I posted chapter one earlier; this is chapter five, and it ends part one of the book. Enjoy.

Chapter 5: The Outlaw’s Hand

She understood, by the time they neared the outlaws’ camp enough to see the warm glow of its hidden fires, why they had chosen to make this desolate place their refuge. The treacherous sliding of the stones beneath each step, and their sharpness, meant it would be nigh upon impossible to guide any horses in this direction, severely crippling the king’s military advantage. The tumbled maze of stone was also a perfect place for concealment, filled with shadows and crannies, tall shelfs of rock she had to crane her head back to see the tops of, and so many winding ways around the stones it would be extremely difficult to attempt any organized, concentrated attack, even if the soldiers were afoot. A thousand questions burned upon her tongue, but she knew well enough to keep silent once the two outlaws had agreed to escort her to their hidden encampment. They did not trust her, she knew, and to ask any questions like the ones she really wanted answers to--whether they always lived in this place or moved around, how many men were currently fighting under One-hand’s direction, what their own names were, and whether they had featured in any of the stories she knew--would be the utter height of folly. The very fact that they had not blindfolded her or made any attempt to disguise their passage was ominous. She knew enough from her talks with Kerl to know that they were not merely being polite; if she proved untrustworthy, she would not be leaving their camp alive.

She processed all this without fear, the same dispassionate resolve that she had felt while revealing the scar at her throat still with her, like a glass she was watching the world through, sharpening every crack in the stones, every shadow, every sound, but distancing her too, so that though she was keenly, brilliantly focused and aware of everything around her, none of it felt real enough to touch. Even her peril would have seemed far away if she had not been so acutely aware of how closely her guides were watching her every movement.

The tallest of those guides, the man who had been first to speak to her and who seemed to be the leader of the two, flickered a grin her way as though sensing the direction her thoughts were tending. It was not an invitation to friendship, but it was not an unkind smile, either.

“The sentries on this side have already seen us approaching. They will have signaled the fires; you are expected.”

“I did not see anyone,” she said, startled into replying. His grin became a little less guarded, a little more genuinely amused.

“That is the point,” he said.

They reached the firelit circle of the camp much more abruptly than she had anticipated; one moment she could see nothing but the rumor of light, and the next it was all around her. It was very quiet, but in a hollow, expectant way which betrayed that the men sitting around the fires or lounging idly against the surrounding rocks had only lately fallen silent--in anticipation of her arrival, she realized. They were all looking towards her, most of them quite openly, their faces all slightly blurred and seemingly identical in the weird-patterning play of fire and dark. Her guides led her forward into the midst of the men, who all moved aside and out of her path, the same look of intent interest on each face, of curiosity, but without a word spoken. Then the bearded man held out a hand to prevent her from walking further, and the one who had smiled at her continued to pick his way through the rings of fire alone, moving from one to the other like a cat moving from stone to stone across a running stream. She heard a few of the men murmur questions as he passed them, and one laughed, but he made no reply, and soon he had gone beyond her sight behind a standing stone to where yet more small fires blazed. She took a deep breath and, not knowing where to look, let her eyes wander without paying much heed to where, being more intent upon her right hand which she still held loosely near the pocket where her mother’s ring was sewn and her knife was concealed.

She did not have to wait long. Soon the man returned, and with a strange look at her which she did not know how to read, he spoke. She had expected him to speak softly, and so was startled when he instead used a raised voice, deep but clear and carrying. He was speaking not only to her, but also for the mens’ benefit.

“You will come with me, lady. Cole, you are to return to the outer lines, and if the men have questions, tell them as little as you can but enough to satisfy them. Understood?”

“You are understood, Martin,” the bearded outlaw said, with a curt little nod, and he turned at once back towards the darkness and disappeared into it, almost silently, his feet sure upon the treacherous stones. She turned back to face the man he had called Martin, and the question must have been clear upon her face for he offered her a little smile again as he beckoned her to follow him.

“He is waiting,” he answered.

The many glittering eyes that had watched her so far followed her as she followed Martin, and she knew it was because although she felt as though she was stepping into a story, for all the men here it was as though she had stepped out of one. How many times, she thought, had they whispered amongst themselves about their leader’s capture, and wondered how it was that he had been taken? Had he told them all? How much did they know? All the agonizing days back home in Kope when the stories had been building around her and Gold-Head and what had transpired that night in the tavern, she had never once thought of the kind of stories which would be building just as surely here, in the place where he came from.

In the dimness between the fires she stumbled, bruising her ankles, but she did not accept Martin’s outheld hand. It was a much smaller fire that he led her to, separate from the others by just enough distance to be noticeable, and she saw only a few men sitting around it, black shapes with no faces, or only half-faces, limned and carved with red light, and one held a flute of silver in his hand, and one was leaning with his face in his arms as though asleep, but none were speaking, and she looked from one to the next in a strange almost-frantic anticipation, eager but shrinking, and shy but not abashed--

And then he was there--

Dangerous things are not always beautiful, Kerl had said. Beautiful things are not always dangerous, she had replied. But there were also those rare things which are both dangerous and beautiful, and those were the most deadly of all.

She was surprised to see Tamarin looking so much the same as he had all that time ago--oh, a lifetime, it seemed!-- from the clothes he wore to the color of the firelight upon his face and in his eyes. And here she stood, guarded by a swordsman and in peril of her life, firelight upon her face also and her heart pounding. It was all the same, she realized, and she must look much the same also, despite her unwomanly garb, but she felt different. She had chosen freely, this time, and had won a smile from the man who they had called Martin, and she was not afraid.

One-hand, he had been renamed, and as he stood to greet her she felt her eyes drawn to the empty space where his sword hand had been, shaken to see that emptiness even though she had known she would find it. The actual flesh and bone of his arm was hidden by his long sleeve, so she saw no scarring, but that was almost worse. She looked up and saw that he was watching the direction her eyes had gone with a wry, bitter patience, and bit her lip in anger at herself. He had clearly had to withstand many gawping stares towards his empty wrist before, and her own staring had done nothing to commend her to him. His eyes were shadowed, but there was a hint of sarcasm in his strange voice when he spoke.

“So,” he said, “my hand has returned to me. Somewhat prettier than before, too.”

She had imagined, all the time she had wandered in the wilderness searching for him, what he would say and what she would reply, but she had not imagined this. He was watching her face very closely, and so she found herself speaking the plain truth, instead of any of the pretty or impressive speeches she had composed in her head before.

“I waited all winter,” she said, “and I have been unhappy in knowing the debt I owe, but they said you had died, and so I could do nothing. When I learned the truth, I had to come.“

He made a dismissive gesture with his one remaining hand. The movement was graceful, as all his movements were graceful. But it was the grace of a dragon and a swordsman, not a dancer or an artist.

“You need not have come.” he said. “Know that what I did, I would have done for any innocent person those lakshistha dragged into the matter. It was not your affair, and it was not your blood to spill. That is all.”

And it is still not your affair, he seemed to be warning her, though there was no reproach in his voice, only the laconic, blunt gentility of a man who says plainly what he means to say and no more. And, of course, a swift flash of anger that she recognized in the word lakshistha even if she did not recognize the word itself. Later she would learn it was a curse of a particularly venomous kind, taken from the tongue of the Ali’oi of the eastern kingdom. Tamarin kel-Athor, as he was named in that land, was indeed far-traveled. Lakshistha is translated literally as ‘slow burning’, as in, ‘They Who Burn Slowly In Aara’. Though courteous enough to her, Tamarin held a bounty of gold for his head for good reason, and he did not forget nor forgive an injury.

“I know you would have done the same for any person,” she answered him. “But I happened to be that person. And even though I became involved only by chance, I wanted to apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” he said, not angrily, not gratefully, just spoken words with nothing fathomable behind them.

Even so, she felt the dismissal like a chill, and forgoing all attempts at niceties went directly to the heart of her reason for seeking him out, suddenly not caring that the other men could hear her.

“Let me stay with you,” she said.

To his credit, he did not look surprised. After a short pause, he nodded towards Martin without looking at him.

“Stay here, brother. You,” he said to her, “follow me.”

He led her a short distance away, far enough to speak in relative privacy beyond the circle of light cast by the fire. When they halted, they stood closer to each other than they had before, and she did not know what to say. She waited, sensing that he needed to be the one to speak first. After some seeming hesitation, he did.

“There are women who take the outlaw name,” he said, looking tired. “And of them I even have two under my command. But it is not common. And there are dangers to this life, which you should not accept lightly, no matter what debt you think you owe me.”

“I do not accept lightly,” she said. “I have given up everything I had to find you. And I trust you.”

“You trust me?” This is where, in the stories, he would have laughed at her, but although the slight bitterness had crept back into his voice again, he remained serious. “And yet you stand before me with a knife in your hand. Yes, I know. And Martin knew, and Cole knew. It is part of this life; either we are observant and survive, or we are careless and . . .”

She was careful to not look at his maimed wrist, and he did not finish his sentence. She was a little embarrassed at the transparency of her attempt at self-defense, but she tried not to show it. The little blade glinted as she drew it from her pocket and held it out to him. He did not take it.

“So you knew that I was armed, and yet you left Martin behind.” She said, “And that could mean, as I see it, any one of two things: Either you are confident that, even with one hand, you could easily subdue me if I sought to slay you--which confidence I am fairly sure is well-merited; I am no swordswoman yet--; or you trust me.”

She drew a quick breath.

“They would have killed me. All my life I have lived as one of the small people in the world, and yet I never really realized fully what that meant until the king’s man nearly killed me, and then when he did not, paid me for my time. I was a seamstress before, and after that night I became handmaiden to a fine lady, and she treated me kindly in her own fashion, but it makes no difference no matter how I try. I could never be happy like that again. They did not know me, and would have killed me; you did not know me, and yet you gave your freedom and your hand for me. Do not send me back to their world, with that knowledge still weighing upon me. Let me remain here. I will learn to fight for you, in place of the hand you lost; I will serve you faithfully, and stand against your enemies steadfastly, for it will not be servitude, not when you are the only one who treated me like a creature of worth, and when I owe you my life.”

“You need not know how to fight. All you need is a strong enough hatred. Is there anything you hate enough to fight against?” He asked, watching her closely with something almost like a smile tugging at the left corner of his mouth.

“Yes,” she said.

“Look at me,” he said. She obeyed, and he looked long and searchingly into her face, as she thought of William the captain calling She’ll do, from the bright open doorway, and of the weight of a silver penny in her hand. At last he stepped back.

“It may be,” he said quietly, “that when we think of hate we think of the same things, you and I.”

There was a little night wind skittering amongst the stones, and the men at the fire had begun talking amongst themselves again, the low rumbling of their voices indistinct at their distance. The moon had risen above the thick clouds it had been clogged in and in response to both its silvery light and the reminder it gave of how late the hour was getting, the outlying fires were beginning to be stamped out. He looked at her.

“What is your name?” He asked.

“Aude,” she replied, shifting the weight of her rucksack from one shoulder to the other.

“Then I give you welcome, Aude, and--I thank you.”

They made their way back to his fire together, she walking upon his right hand side, and the voices of his captains rose like moths towards a light at Tamarin’s return.

NaNoWriMo Novel, chapter 1!

I will post the entire thing, chapter by chapter as they are completed, on the Radish Room. For those of you who aren't members on that blog, however, I'm going to post excerpts here. Here is the only complete chapter I will be posting, Chapter one.

Working title is "The Outlaw's Hand". I'll try to post a summary later, but I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out exactly how to summarize this story, so we'll just see.

Enjoy, hopefully, and comments are always awesome!

The Outlaw's Hand, Chapter One

The rain fell upon the town in a dogged, dispirited shower too heavy to be properly called a drizzle, but not quite enthusiastic enough to merit the label of torrent. It coursed down roofs of chipped, slanting shingle; soaked thatched roofs until they turned a sodden, dark color promising a healthy growth of mold and mildew in a few weeks; and slipped spitefully down even the flipped-up collars of the few men and women unfortunate enough to be still outdoors, hurrying through the narrow streets from work or to it, without any roof at all. There were not many of them, but such faces that showed were all stamped with an expression remarkably similar to the rain itself: surly and cold.

The largest gathering of people to be seen, numbering maybe fifteen in the darkness, was huddled outside a tavern which gave testament to the sort of clientele it serviced with the absence of any lettering upon the large, crudely painted sign which depicted a green fish stabbed through by a wicked-looking hook, garishly bright blood dripping from its sagging mouth. Some called the place The Bleeding Cod, others The Hooked Fish, but most just called it trouble. Sailors on leave, fishermen newly back in port after days at sea, and other types poor enough to be illiterate and to possess appetite without palate gave the tavern a steady enough stream of business to keep it running comfortably, but it still exuded an air of dilapidation rather than prosperity. Its bulbous and warped glass windows, so old and grimy as to be nearly as opaque as the walls which they were set in, were at the moment filled with a brown-yellow light, like smoke lit underneath by a sullen fire. The puddles in its little courtyard, lit feebly with that light, were iridescent with oily rainbows.

It was not the sort of place which typically drew bystanders, since any men passing were either of the type to go immediately within, or to hasten past before any brawling started. The crowd outside was not dispersing, however, but instead was growing, heedless of the miserable rain. There could have been a few reasons for this phenomenon, the first being the sound of a raised voice inside the building, which instead of being the usual bawdy slurring was sharp, authoritarian, and even through the thick stone walls had a clear accent not commonly heard in seedy port towns. Even more unusual, however, was the large number of horses standing and blowing steam in the slick and oily tavern courtyard. They were sleek, powerful beasts, and obviously well-trained to judge by their remaining in a stolid formation even though only a ragged boy--most likely a street urchin whose services had been bought temporarily with a tossed coin or two--stood guarding them, The rain dripped irreverently from their combed manes and tails, and soaked determinedly into the livery they wore, but even so the richness of the cloth and harness was unmistakable, and gleaming proudly upon each brow, breast, and flank was the winged crest of the king.

The girl, when she came hurrying around the corner and within view of the crowd, might have been dimly aware of some kind of disturbance and excitement taking place at the tavern, but the rain had drawn her hood up and her eyes down, and so she saw neither the horses nor the king’s crest they bore. But she did hear the sudden metallic crash which sounded from within the tavern just as she drew abreast of it, and, startled, she both involuntarily slowed her step and raised her head, taking in all at once both crowd and horses, crest and boy. While fights were not exactly uncommon at The Bleeding Cod, the sounds they made were far more likely to be the heavy, meaty cracking of fist against jaw or the crash of a wooden stool being used as a makeshift club, not the clear, cut-glass music of steel against steel. One of the larger of the bystanders, a wide-mouthed hulk of a man whose pierced ears and seamed, leathery skin clearly marked him as one of the tavern’s would-be patrons, took notice of the girl as she stood frozen and staring, and with the leering nonchalance of a man trying to endear himself to a woman, did his best to fill her in on the situation.

“Ye might want to be finding a different way home tonight, miss. That’s the king’s own men in there, and ‘tain’t for drink they’ve come. Came riding up like a storm they did, and burst straight-way through the door, swords out and shouting, though some went round the back and sides of the place too. I’ve some mates inside, meself, and I was to meet them, or I wouldn’t be here, but it’s not them your fine king’s boys are after; word is they have managed to trap--Hold, and where is it you be going?”--For the girl, instead of lingering to be regaled further concerning what was happening within the tavern, had begun to hurry away down the street, slipping a little on the wet track of mud the dirt street had become and clutching the empty basket she carried tighter in her arms. She had not gone more than two paces, however, when the tavern’s sturdy door was thrown open with such abrupt strength it rebounded with a loud crash from the tavern’s slimy wall. There was a sudden spill of yellow light upon the ground--real light, not the oil-slick dribbling from the windows. For a brief split of a moment, she saw the hard black silhouette of a man in the bright doorway. But then she felt a sudden firm grip upon her arm, and she before she could even cry out she was dragged through the crowd, which scuttled to make way, through the hot, steaming mass of horses in the little yard, and up to the man who still stood in the bright doorway. She had barely the time to comprehend that her captor was mailed and helmed, clearly one of the soldiers who had been in the tavern, and she had only just begun to struggle, when they reached the door. Bewildered and angry, and not a little afraid, she tried to speak to the man waiting there, but he scarcely even glanced at her face. His own face was lean but strong-jawed, and it was ridiculously elongated by the tall helm he wore, upon which a captain’s badge gleamed.

“She’ll do,” he said to the man who held her, in a voice both agitated and hard. “Take her in. Quickly, quickly--”

And the door was yanked shut once more, leaving the bystanders out in the rain once more, and hiding light, king’s soldiers, and girl all from view.


Once inside, the smell of rain and mud and wet stone was instantly replaced with that of sweat, sour drink, grease, and, more peculiarly, onions. But stronger than any of those smells was the smell of blood newly-spilled, so strong it stuck to the back of the throat like smoke, and could be tasted upon the tongue. To one side of the dingy common room, that farthest from the roaring fireplace, was a small and ragged group of men. They were mostly patrons, looking somewhat bemused and foolish, though there was also in their midst an immensely fat, immensely distressed-looking man who was probably the owner of the place. Standing before the windows and blocking the door were the king’s men, their swords up and wary but as yet unmoving. Upon the floor, almost tangled among the soldier’s booted feet, there lay in their still hot and stinking blood the bodies of two men, their skewed helms and the badge upon their surcoats flickering redly in the firelight. And backed into the farthest corner of the room, beside the fireplace, blade still red-running in his hand, stood another man.

He was not tall, but he did not stand like a small man. His clothing was very plain and very weathered, and he wore no cloak, though one hung discarded upon the back of a nearby chair that had somehow managed to stay upright during what looked to have been a fierce struggle. He was not breathing hard and did not seem agitated in any way despite the half-ring of king’s steel drawn up about him, but there was a dangerous, eager light in his eyes that was very like to that of a wild beast which has lately killed and which knows it must very soon kill again. His face was darkened by the sun, as were the backs of his hands and what little could be seen of the proud line of his throat, and his hair was long and dark.

One of the soldiers, the most senior under the captain, had been speaking to him in a low, wheedlingly reasonable tone of voice when the captain returned with the girl. His jaw was grey and stubbled, but his voice did not sound old.

“Give yourself up, man. The place is surrounded. You will not win out alive.”

“I have done so before,” the man replied cooly.

“Ah, but that was in Altressor, was it not? To each land its own, but here we do not allow men who are enemies of our laws and our king to escape. It was over for you the moment our man recognized you in the street.”

“So you told me once before,” the man answered, “and yet there lie two of your men dead. If you are so sure I am taken, why do you hang back as though afraid? I shall tell you: It is because you are afraid. But of the stories, I wonder, or of the man?”

The soldier was saved answering by the captain unceremoniously thrusting the girl forward, his left arm wrapped around her so that her arms were pinioned tightly to her sides, and a thin knife glinting where he held it poised against the quick-beating hollow of her throat.

“Not as afraid as she is, eh, Gold-Head?” He said, coldly. “Drop the sword, or she dies.”


“Sir! Please, sir, I was only passing, I was not looking, I swear I was not--”

“Silence,” he growled, tightening his grip on her arms. But she still struggled, furious at how pitiful and scared she must look to this roomful of armed men, and terrified all the same. She did not want to die.

“Please, sir, I have to be home, my mother--” She felt the sudden tang of king-forged steel at her throat, and a red wire of pain burning there. With a hideous sound, partway sob and partway gasp, she froze.

The man beside the fireplace had also gone very still, his sword held half-up in guard, but his eyes fixed upon the thread of blood trickling down into the girl’s collar.

“Ah,” he said. He had a peculiar voice. “So not even you can quite entirely believe your own propaganda, Matthew? That’s good.”

He did not wait for a reply. Quite calmly, he let fall the blade, and it rang upon the stones of the hearth. He raised his hands carefully into the air. Before the echo of metal had quite faded, they were upon him. He was slammed down across one of the few tables still standing and whole, and she saw a few quick flashes of silver as various knives and other weaponry were retrieved from his person. His hands they bound with a leather belt.

When, after a surprisingly short time, they dragged him upright again, he was pinioned, weaponless, and breathing a little erratically. There was blood upon his mouth from where his face had struck the tabletop, but his voice and carriage was just as courteous and bitter-calm as they had been before. He nodded to where the girl still stood, rigid in the hands of the man who held her, her eyes as round as coins.

“Go on, Matthew. Let the child go. She has served your purpose.”

Instantly she felt the vice-like grip upon her arms slacken, and the cold touch of metal against her throat was gone. The captain shoved her from him, impatiently rather than contemptuously, and replaced his knife in the leather sheath at his hip. His long face was alight with satisfaction, but his entire attention was now bent upon the captive swordsman, and as quickly as she had been dragged into the whole wretched business, she was now dismissed. Forgotten for the moment, she stood in the firelight, pressing trembling hands to her throat and then staring blindly at the red upon them when she drew them away, as the dead men upon the floor were dragged away and the tavern-keeper, plucking up some feeble semblance of courage at last, began to attempt to needle the captain about paying compensation for the broken furniture and the bloodstains upon his already filthy floor.

They gave her a silver penny for her trouble. Numbly, she took it, and when the youngest of the guardsmen lingered to offer to walk her home, she accepted the offer with the same wordless numbness. Several times on the way he attempted to engage her in conversation, bubbling and ebullient with the triumph at the tavern, but she replied not a word.

A lamp still burned in her mother’s window, when at last she stood upon the threshold of her own house, in her own quiet street. The young guardsman there took his leave of her. He was a handsome lad, with thick auburn hair and green eyes, and even though garbed in the leather and heavy steel of the citadel and king’s service, he walked with a spring in his step.

She stood watching him, dreamlike, until he had quite gone into the darkness, and then, shifting her empty basket upon her arm and smoothing her skirts, she tried to open the front door. More than a half-score times did her shaking fingers slip useless upon the latch. Suddenly, she wished she had cast the silver back in the courteous face of the man who had given it to her, and that she had walked the dark road home on her own.