Preview: Runefall
almost 3 years ago
– Wed, Jun 14, 2023 at 08:06:14 AM
It was my privilege to be the editor on the first two novels in Chris Willrich’s brilliant fantasy trilogy, The Scroll of Years, The Silk Map, and The Chart of Tomorrows. His fantasy fiction, including the short stories and these novels featuring his duo of Guant and Bone, are just top notch literary sword and sorcery, full of action and inventiveness. He’s also written The Dagger of Trust, a Pathfinder Tales novel for Paizo, and many other wonderful things. For Tales from Stolki’s Hall, Chris writes a full-on novella, really a short novel in its own right, which sees a young woman serving aboard a ship in the airborne treasure fleet of the Empire of LongGuo in a danger-fraught encounter with a young man of Norrøngard. Here then is our last preview, an excerpt from Chris Willrich’s brilliant “Runefall.”
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How did I come to tumble out of the sky? De-Zhen thought. For that matter, how did I come to tumble out of the sky over a land of smelly hot-headed barbarians? Yes, good question, Me, well done. Let’s think it over, as if writing for the Government Examination …
Junior Mapmaker Chen De-Zhen had signed onto the Foreign Expeditionary Aerial Armada out of duty, yes, and pride in her cartography, indeed, and to further her career as a sky-sailor, absolutely; but mostly she had come to see the clouds race over unfamiliar lands, like these evergreen-covered surges of craggy hills and plains like pale jade, all framed by the cold blue of rivers and inlets and the vast lake up ahead, looking, viewed from the west, like a huge turquoise tablet.
She had most assuredly not signed on in order to do battle with ghost-pale, black-clad, pointed-eared assailants like the ones who’d screeched aboard the sky-ship Changning riding nightmarish giant bats.
There were at least twenty of the boarders. The ship was in trouble. And hers was no Treasure Ship proper but a scout sent from the main fleet to overfly the less hospitable regions of this continent. They’d only a crew of fifty, and all were needed to repel boarders. De-Zhen, belowdecks in the many-windowed navigation room, had been startled by the alarm. She’d known they were on alert, seeking an auxiliary cloud incubation device stolen when they’d last landed. But the attack had come as a shock. She’d dropped her pen and hastily donned her furred armor, sword-belt, safety-line, land-kit, and parachute, knocking over her porcelain inkwell in the process, blotting out half her carefully-observed map of southwestern Norrøngard.
Senior Mapmaker Kang would have lots of words about that, if they made it out of this alive. So would De-Zhen’s mother, if they ever made it home. You could go far! Mother had shrieked in delight a year ago when De-Zhen had showed her the Government Service Examination score, with the honors for Penmanship. Then when De-Zhen had handed her the certificate for Fleet Training, she’d shrieked in dismay, I didn’t mean like that! You are only seventeen! Do it when you are twenty-seven! Or seventy! You are such a beautiful girl! A bit tall, to be sure, and a bit over-muscled, but such lustrous hair like a moonless night and eyes like autumn. Serve the Emperor at home, where you can find a good husband!
But there was no time to think about anything but battle now. It had raged what seemed like an hour as Changning shot at maximum speed away from the mountains where the bats had ambushed them. And a good thing too, De-Zhen thought as she drove away one of the short humanoids with her double-edged jiang longsword. There had been a whole cloud of the giant bats in the sky, twice again as many as the ones that had gotten close. Luckily Changning had outrun the bulk of the wave and shaken off most of the ones that had alighted. But there were still three of the winged monsters occupying the stern and they’d entered the fight beside their humanoid masters. Worse, many of their fellow bats had deposited riders on deck before falling back. De-Zhen’s group of defenders had needed to retreat once already, reattaching their safety lines at the rearward mast.
A few of the boarders were down, at least. The ship’s resistance was hardening, and standing beside two officers of the line, De-Zhen found her lackluster swordsmanship was less of a problem.
Then she saw something that was much more of a problem. One of the pale attackers had climbed back into the saddle of a bat and was readying to launch.
“Look!” she said between thrusts of her jiang. “We should stop him.”
“Don’t worry,” said the officer behind her, breathing hard and speaking between swipes of his dao saber. “Wind’ll knock them backward — as soon as they’re — airborne.”
But De-Zhen was a good observer. Her Examination scores showed that. Good at painting from life, excellent with cartography, superb with languages. But she didn’t need to know the bat-rider’s language to read the smug sardonic look on his face. He had a plan.
She followed his gaze and guessed his plan at the last moment. At their current speed the sails were bending backward, and maybe the bat could, with a combination of leg- and wing-power, reach a sail before the winds blew the animal clear. From there the bat-rider might claw and leap past the defensive line and wreak havoc, maybe even reaching the pilots at the bow.
There was no time to explain. It was easy to imagine her mother shouting curses at her as she detached her safety line and ran at the bat.
The pale pointed-eared folk seemed so startled by her charge that she made it past them just as the bat took off. She plunged the jian deep into its throat and its leap went wild. Bat, rider, and De-Zhen tumbled out past the stern as the wind caught them.
De-Zhen’s grip on the sword was all that prevented her from plunging into mid-air as the mortally wounded bat flapped futilely to regain the sky-ship and its rider swore venomous gibberish at her. He leaned over with his short sword.
Shoving against the bat with her legs, and tucking her feet into its saddle straps, she wrenched the jiang free and blocked the rider with a beautiful parry she wished her captain had seen.
Then momentum flipped her over and she stared down at the distant ground, suspended only because her feet were lightly twisted into the saddle straps of a wounded bat.
The rider cackled at her, scooted onto the bat’s neck, and loosed the saddle straps. De-Zhen tumbled free. The cackling grew louder as she fell but quickly tapered off as she and the bleeding bat spun away in different directions. Spinning in free-fall she clutched tight on the jiang and saw Changning once more, a distant wedge looking like a toy ship …
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To find out what happens next, you'll have to read it inTales from Stolki’s Hall.
A Glimpse at an Illustrated Page
almost 3 years ago
– Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 08:04:13 AM
So, I’ve been touting the “Deluxe Gamer Edition” of Tales from Stolki’s Hall, which will be sized like the RPG books with matching layout, presented in full color, illustrated, with an appendix of 5e mechanics for the monsters and magic from the stories. But what will that look like? Well, I’ll show you.
Here is the chapter opener of K.V. Johansen’s “Gull Stormbarn: The Thornblade” as it will appear in the Deluxe Gamer Edition. This chapter, like all ten stories, features a half page illustration by the amazing Ksenia Kozhevnikova. There are other wonderful illustrations scattered throughout the book and appendix, but I’m sure you’ll agree that these chapter openers are seriously cool.
Seriously cool, no?
Preview: The Bear Son's Tale
almost 3 years ago
– Mon, Jun 12, 2023 at 08:22:55 AM
Our next preview comes from Jonathan Anders, who, you might guess, is related to me. He is. Jonathan is my nephew. He’s also a linguist by training that I’ve relied on quite a few times over the years. For my first book, Frostborn, Jonathan helped me compose “The Song of Helltoppr,” a Viking-style ballad that related the backstory for a powerful draugr who appears in the novel. Recently, Jonathan wrote “The Wolf of Sindholm,” another saga-style poem that appears in the adventure, Vengeance of the Valravn. Jonathan also composes conlangs, artificially constructed, invented languages. He’s done them for major companies, and has just recently created the “How to Speak Draconic: A Complete Language for Kobold and Dragons” for Kobold Press. Here, he crafts a truly epic saga that I first teased in my campaign setting. In the lore concerning the city of Olsendholm presented in Thrones & Bones: Norrøngard, I talk about a large mead hall known as Þinghöll. As a kind of literary joke, I hid a nod to Beowulf in the hall’s backstory, associating it with an epic poem called “The Bear Son’s Tale.” For Tales from Stolki’s Hall, I thought it would be fantastic to have Jonathan actually compose the full epic, in the style of Beowulf and the Norse sagas. And the results are spectacular. So here is a preview of “The Bear Son’s Tale,” and in-world saga famous across Norrøngard, along with its first annotation. Annotation? Yup, the text is annotated by in-world scholars!
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Hark ye heroes || hale and wise-hearted
I would weave for you || the lay of illustrious Bothvar
And Ingeld Spear-point || Splendid heroes both
They met with a wretched fate. || Their story unveils
The lot of men || who contend with jealous foes.
Ingeld son of Ingweald, || skilled at swords’-dance
Witty-wise at word-play || wanted a mead-hall of his own.
So he departed Harthbor’s hold || left the confinement of stern walls.
The petty lord’s laws || did not restrain his steps
Into the wilderness he went || looking for allies.
In the wilds, where || valor is better than gold
He won many friends || among warriors wandering
Away from deathless lords; || wolf-lipped vagabonds
And spirits with hollow backs: || the hallowed Huldrafolk.
Most famous of his followers || are Brunhilde Dragon-Hide ,
And Alithie1, a seer forsaken || exiles and outcasts all.
From six deep pools || Alithie surveyed the world
Each of her two eyes || was thrice-split. Three pupils
Silently shone, new moons || upon a silver sky.
Brunhilde bore a breast-plate || carved of linnorm-scales
Axes shattered against it || Her battle-song inspired
Beautiful deeds of valor. || Ingeld fought first
In every fray || and first dispensed gifts
They loved him deeply || their wandering jarl,
who risked his life || alongside his fellows.
Alithie saw the place in a dream || where Ingeld’s mead-hall would be
It was fat with foul-spawn: trolls and dire-wolves
Wicked fey and enchantments. || Nothing daunted Ingeld
He led the charge into the forest. || For days they blazed a path
Hungering for victory more than meat. || The slaughter-path had been simple to steer.
At last they discovered the spot || Where Alithie had dreamed Ingeld would build
A mighty mead-hall. || The gift-giver, first in the fray, pierced the earth
Planted his iron-leaf’d tree in that place. || He called to Aurvímnir
Chief of gods, || who delights in deeds of boldness
To bless his endeavor. || The all-father heard him,
Bestowed his boon || upon the spear, it blossomed
taller than any other tree || A shining giant,
bark-boned and brilliant-green || In its shade Spear-Point hall was built.
1 According to Liffir Olandsson, first skald of present-day Spear-Point Hall, the Bearson poem drew from other contemporaneous oral sources. Brunhilde would have been known to audiences from the Drakkwif Saga, in which she wove together her armor from the shed skins of her husband, who was transforming into a linnorm. There are no known surviving poems that mention Alithie explicitly, though tales of wandering vølva were common at the time the Bearson poem was composed.
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To find out what happens next, you'll have to read it inTales from Stolki’s Hall.
Preview: The Tower and the Raven
almost 3 years ago
– Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 11:55:15 AM
J. Dianne Dotson is the author of the The Shadow Galaxy collection, The Inn at Amethyst Lantern, and The Questrison Saga. She’s also the only person to write, not just in my world, but for one of the characters from my novels. In my first book, Frostborn, my co-lead Thianna has a frost giant father named Magnilmir. He’s one of my favorite characters, a rather unassuming craftsman with a rambling way of speaking and a gentle demeanor. Dianne wanted to write for Magnilmir, and I nervously agreed. She handled him beautifully in a story about friendship. Here is a preview of “The Tower and the Raven,” though Magnilmir doesn’t appear in the excerpt below.
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Hrafn Sjósson was a solitary man, known for his careful eyes, slate gray in color like the clouds before a winter storm; the eyes of a watchman, keen and alert at all times. For this, he held the position of sentinel in a watchtower overlooking the town below. It perched upon a high promontory on the far side of a fjord, where nothing could grow but for stubborn outcroppings of lichen. He held the town in his care, for his was the first watch from afar, and on a clear day (rare as they might be north and east of Wendholm), he could even see for miles in all directions. No one had better vision than Hrafn. He assumed his role in the tower as a volunteer. Any town would be so fortunate to have that quiet watch above, ready to light a beacon at a moment’s notice.
But he was lonely. The ravens alone kept him company. He rarely interacted with town folk, only accepting the goods he kept on regular order in return for his silver. His words, to strangers, might come across as brusque. But to those few who knew him well—as well as anyone could, in his solitary existence, that is—his eyes could shift into a crinkled smile, and sometimes the thin mouth hiding in his fading ginger beard might curve upward as well. His laughter was rare but rich, and to bring it out of him brought joy to the few who could.
Friend to people and giants, avoided by trolls and haunts of the wood, he was reliable, loyal, stoic, and all the qualities one would want in a watcher. It might have been enough, the wind whistling about his tower, the ravens wheeling and dipping, sometimes landing, sometimes proffering their strong beaks for him to stroke. But sometimes he wanted more. And sometimes he missed a tale by a crackling fire in a mead hall, where he could lean back and watch the bustle and gaiety of a town, its locals and its wayfarers alike, with little interaction, but always with sharp eyes. He missed one particular brew; Dvergrian ale. Dvergrian ale was made by the dwarves in the Dvergrian Mountains, on the border of the neighboring country of Araland. This ale was highly prized, and the last time he’d had it was at Dragon’s Dance.
Just now he gazed up at the heavy sky, as warm as it ever would be in the summer, but prone to rain showers, and spied Blárvængr, a raven of middle age. Much like me, he thought idly, as the great, sleek, blue-black bird dipped his wings and descended. With tiny, crisp flaps, Blárvængr landed next to him, and promptly lowered his head. Hrafn laughed softly and scratched the bird’s head at the neck. The raven croaked, and extended his wings a bit, lifting his head upward; obligingly, Hrafn bent his head and touched the bird nose to beak. Blárvængr clicked and croaked.
But Blárvængr did not rely upon traditional raven speech alone; he was a remarkable bird that could speak as humans and frost giants could.
“What news of the air, friend Blárvængr?” asked Hrafn.
In his unique, rasping voice, Blárvængr said, “Snow is coming. But you did not need a raven to tell you that.”
“Aye,” said Hrafn.
“So is the anniversary of your hatching day, if the days are correct,” remarked the bird.
Hrafn widened his eyes and exclaimed, “In a fortnight! But how would you know that, my friend?”
The raven ruffled its iridescent feathers, muted only by the dark clouds, yet no less striking. He said, “The shadows are the same, and the weather patterns, and all the things that you know, and some that we ravens understand that your kind cannot.”
“So passes another year, soon, then,” said Hrafn, and he sighed. “My bones tell me thus as well. I do not make the long walks to Dragon’s Dance anymore.
The bird watched him with eyes sharper than those which brought him his renown and his position.
“What do you miss about the place?” Blárvængr asked him suddenly.
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To find out what happens next, you'll have to wait to read it inTales from Stolki’s Hall.
Preview: The Butter Cat
almost 3 years ago
– Fri, Jun 09, 2023 at 09:30:25 AM
Do you know what a butter cat is? In Scandinavian folklore, there was a spell that could bring a spindle of yarn to life in the form of a cat. The cat would sneak into a neighbor’s house and drink a bucket of milk dry, soaking it all up into their wool. Then the cat would return to its creator and disgorge the milk into a new pale. Its work done, the cat would dissolve back into strands of yarn in a day. Unless, of course, it didn’t, and the wool and button cat stuck around…
Rachael Smith is an award-winning writer and comic artist, creators of such titles as Quarantine Comix, Wired Up Wrong, and The Rabbit. She has worked for Titan, Image, Boom, The New Yorker, many more, and I’m thrilled to have her grace Norrøngard with this touching tale.
Be sure to check out the amazing illustration of a butter cat at the end of the post, art by Bryan Syme.
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The stars in the huge night sky were twinkling brighter than ever, as the skald and the butter cat trudged the last few snowy yards to the broadside of Stolki’s Hall. The dimly audible sounds of laughter coming from bellies full of sausage, cheese, sourdough, and mead made the two friends keen to get inside, but they were both aware that tonight’s activity was not something to be rushed.
The skald leant his weary bones against the tavern wall and sunk down dramatically into a seated position in the snow.
“C’mere, old friend. I need to sort those flowers out.”
The butter cat sidled toward him and lay down gratefully against his leg, looking up at its master with dull gray button eyes. The skald began to pluck several, withered brown flowers out of the tangled webs of yarn that made up the cat’s body.
“This’ll be the last tavern tonight, cat, I promise. Provided I can charm the barkeep into letting us kip on the benches, we may even be able to sleep indoors tonight.”
The worn-out flowers were tossed into the frozen winds, and the skald carefully took a folded handkerchief out of his belt pouch.
“Managed to pinch some cornflowers from behind that farm we ‘borrowed’ lunch from yesterday...these should help with the smell for a few more days, eh?”
The skald had no way of knowing this: but the butter cat loved these moments more than anything in the world, and the flowers which the skald wove into its woolly fur were its most treasured of treasures. This changing of the flowers had become their weekly routine, ever since the butter cat had defied all odds and gone on existing past its one-day life expectancy. Out in the cold icy air of Norrøngard, it was fine, but indoors, this six-month old butter cat didn’t tend to smell all that great.
Finishing with the flowers, the skald fished his lyre out of his bag and began polishing it with the now-empty handkerchief. The butter cat sat up straight and strained its neck around to admire its new decorations.
“Do you think it sounds more like a sing-song crowd, or a poetry crowd in there, friend?” asked the skald. The butter cat had no way of answering, but the skald never seemed to mind this. The cat merely looked at him, with what it hoped was an intense and serious expression. The skald laughed, kindly. “I agree! A few boisterous songs would offer some good distraction for you to sneak behind the bar and steal us some milk, yes? I might even get some coins tossed to me in the process.”
The butter cat stood up obediently and lifted up its limp, yarn tail as high as it could manage. It was always happiest when the skald gave it a job to do, and it was always keen to get it done quickly. “Woah there, friend,” chuckled the skald, “let me get this thing tuned first.”
So the butter cat sat back down and patiently listened to each string of the lyre be coaxed into tuneful harmony.
“You go on lasting so long as I still have a quest for you, eh, cat? Hopefully, someday I won’t need to exist on stolen milk anymore and you can retire to the High Father’s dairy parlor.”
The skald laughed softly, and the butter cat put a tiny paw on his knee. The cat wasn’t sure what a High Father’s dairy parlor was, but it was certainly sure that it didn’t ever want to go anywhere without its master.
The skald finished tuning and the two friends brushed themselves down, ready to enter the mead hall. The butter cat clambered up onto the skald’s shoulder, and the skald threw the doors open.
They were greeted with an exuberant and rowdy crowd of farmers, fishers, and hunters, drinking, eating, hollering, but most importantly, betting on a flyting match that was underway in the middle of the hall.
A common farmhand was half-sitting-half-lying on top of a table and a wealthy-looking scholar was pacing drunkenly, yet defiantly, in circles around him. They were throwing rhyming quips at one another which were getting ruder by the minute, much to the crowd’s delight. A rotund merchant wearing a heavy coin bag and obviously taking charge of the bets, was watching the match with calculated disinterest.
The skald turned to the butter cat and whispered, slowly:
“Your plan hasn’t changed – but mine has. If I can win this thing, we’ll be rolling in coin! To the bar with you. I’ll whistle for you when I’m done.”
So the butter cat jumped silently off the skald’s shoulder onto a nearby table, and, as the skald approached the merchant to ask if he could take the winner, it scarpered away.
Meandering quickly around furniture and the legs of drunken patrons, the butter cat soon found the large bar, and crept behind.
The bar concealed a cacophony that was quite different from that of the flyting matches: Stolki’s staff were almost falling over one another piling up dirty drinking horns and searching vainly for clean ones, orders were becoming muddled up and spilled, pieces of fruit, cheese, and bread were falling from huge platters as the folk carrying them struggled to get around each other. The butter cat squeezed into a cubby hole full of old, discarded bottles, and waited until it could see more clearly.
A harried looking woman bustled behind the bar, her arms full of dirty horns.
“That table of Karls are still waiting on their horsemeat!”
“What do you want me to do about that, you old bag?! Talk to the folk working the fire pit!”
“They told me they were waiting on you to give them—“
“A new challenger for the scholar!”
This announcement from the hall caused many of the staff behind the bar to forget themselves and drop whatever jobs they were doing to prop themselves up on the bar counter-top to stand up taller in order to see the newcomer.
“It’s a skald! He’s challenging that clever drunk fella!”
“He’s quite dishy! He’s got a lovely face.”
“A lovely bum too...!”
“You’re terrible!”
Now that the back of the bar area had been cleared of people, the butter cat could see the cold slab in the corner, housing the dairy products and–ja!–five jugs of milk. It made its move. Jumping between hanging metal pans it carefully made its way over to the other side of the bar. Once from atop a frying pan it saw a mouse run across the floor, but immediately turned its head away from it–this was no time to get distracted. It had a quest to complete.
“Ooh I really don’t like that drunk one,” the staff continued.
“I wish he’d stop stopping the match every two seconds.”
“Yes. If you think someone’s stolen a rhyme then wait until the end, surely?”
“Oh, what do you know?”
“I know plenty!”
The butter cat was within reach of the cold slab, but it would have nothing to hide behind once it was there. It would need to be quick. The bickering from the staff gave it courage, and it pounced. Once on the slab the cat sank its head into the jugs of milk, magically emptying them into its yarn body, which bulged slightly and whitened with the creamy liquid. The cat managed to empty three of them before three things happened:
The skald cried out in pain, the kitchen maids screamed all at once, and a scuffle broke out in the main hall as someone was roughly apprehended.
“He’s stabbed him!” shouted one of the staff.
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For the rest of the story, you'll have to wait to read it in Tales from Stolki's Hall.
