Category: Writing Fragments

I’m thrilled to announce that the official title of book two in The Word and the Sword series is The Mirror of Life, and will pick up a week or two after the events of The Book of Secrets. It will be fairly different from book one in that the principle plot does not take place at the Paideia, though… Read more →

Mog complained the whole way, muttering about her feet and how slow Gluma and Finian were walking. As they left the village they passed old Edwyn McConnell—the only person not invited to the castle—leaning against his cane and gazing into the sky as he stood watch at the palisade gate. “See you later, Mr. McConnell,” Gluma said as they passed,… Read more →

“What are we out here for?” Finian called out to Gluma, unleashing the yawn he had stifled earlier. She just smiled at him and he knew he would have to wait. He watched as she set off, following the bends of the stream, and trailed her deeper into the wood. She strode to a huge oak tree that sat some… Read more →

Their village was surrounded by a thin palisade wall of sticks, brush and rope, mostly used to keep out the wild dogs and other scavengers. There were so many places where it needed patching that Finian could hardly see the point of it; most nights the dogs got in anyway and carried off a chicken or two. It would never… Read more →

“RAT!” The unpleasant, grating voice of Mog Borgrumble burst into Finian’s sleep. He jumped, lurching from a half-remembered dream into the sudden shock of full waking. “Get up, you useless, filthy, lazy rat!” Scrambling to reassemble his mind out of the confusion of sleep, and feeling as if he had been thrown somehow off-balance, Finian sat up out of the… Read more →