A Sense of Destiny

This is a story I have been wanting to write for ages and I really wish that I had started this before Max Damage.  The concept of the swords, the 6 sword names and powers belong to Fred Saberhagan, a great author who captured my love of the swords and their stories from the first chapter of the first of his books I read. Since his death in 2007 and my first forays into writing this was always a story I wanted to put down and I hope that anyone who has read Fred’s books will understand the love I have for them in the stories I will write and anyone who hasn’t read them will go out and find them and enjoy them as well.

The Gods must have some twisted sense of humour he decided.  Sam was clambering across the rocks away from the volcano where he had spent the last 6 weeks, the heat here would have cooked the flesh off a normal human, but to him it felt almost pleasant.  The time spent in the caves had been arduous and only the power of the gods had allowed him to survive in the toxic atmosphere, he had been made to work hard, gathering rocks which the Gods had identified, never questioning why they couldn’t use their own powers to gather them faster than he could.  The effect of the work  had toned his body and now there appeared to be no excess fat on him and he was now a significantly more muscular and chiseled form.  The strength in his frame was clear to any who looked and the way he moved through the boulder field with the burden he carried proved his stamina.

Sam  was dressed in a rough smock, his previous clothes had worn quickly and the Gods had been only willing to provide him rudimentary clothing.  The smock was held in place by the belt at his waist, however the contrast between the belt and smock could not be more marked.  The belt was made of the finest leather and 4 inches wide, 6 scabbards hung from the belt and in each sat a short sword.  The swords swung as he moved, each seemingly attempting to trip him up and send him to the floor however given their length the most that they were able to do was to make him stumble.

He could not understand why the Gods made him leave with the swords, 6 of the Gods, 4 of the Lesser Gods and 2 of the Greater had been with him in the cave for the 6 weeks, each had contributed something to a sword he had seen the glow flash across each blade as the power was transferred he had memorised the words that each God had told him.  Yet at the end of the 6 weeks the Gods presented him with the belt and once it was buckled round his waist had placed each sword in it’s scabbard. He did not understand why they would give him these priceless swords any more so than the fact that each of the 6 swords had quite clearly been a long-sword when forged, yet each slid snugly into a sword sword sized scabbard barely half the length of the sword when drawn.  They had pushed him out of the cave so suddenly, he had felt like a guest who had suddenly over stayed his welcome, he turned around to say something yet where the cave entrance had been there was now a rock face that was as solid as it appeared.  He had no idea exactly where he was, his transport to the cave in the first place had been by magical means and he had no idea which direction to head to find any town or village.  In the end he simply turned his back towards the wall where the cave entrance had been and began to put one foot in front of the other.

That had been an hour ago and he was only now coming to the end of the rock covered crater.  His instincts had apparently been correct as directly in front of him a set of rude steps had been carved into the rock face, as far as he could tell, looking left and right, this was the only route up the short wall of the crater and he suspected they had been created just for him.  His new muscular legs made short work of the steps and he now stood at the top of an incline looking down towards a large wooded area.   He could see no signs of human life, except for a small plume of smoke some miles away, drifting up through the trees and into the sky.  He could tell from the landscape that nothing was familiar and whilst he was relatively untraveled prior to this event, he knew the area surrounding the village and farm he lived in and this meant he would have to travel long distances to get back to the life he had known if he could even complete the task he had been given.

The only son of a farmer his early life had revolved around avoiding his parents and the long list of jobs they always seemed to have for him and playing with the other children in the village.  He was always in the middle of any trouble going on and this eventually led his parents to put many restrictions on his activities and to put more and more jobs on his shoulders.  He spent time apprenticing with many of the workmen in the village as well as working on the farm, he could turn his hand to ploughing, milling and baking as well as a number of other trades, however it was his experiences with the Blacksmith that he was most fond of. Time spent  in the forge beating metal into shapes, for a village Blacksmith this was not the warrior tools of swords, shields and daggers, but scythes, horse shoes and other metal work that the local people required.  When the Blacksmith had an accident and died, Sam was the one person the village as a whole turned to and he went from working on his fathers farm one day to owning a Forge and working for himself.  If was the making of Sam and the responsibility changed his outlook on life, his days of gallivanting around dodging as much work were behind him and the villagers became used to Sam being at the forge before many people were up and about and still working away long after most other workers were retiring for dinner.

He enjoyed life and was not averse to the pleasures of food, drink and young women, as a man of some means, now he owned the forge, a number of fathers were allowing him to court their daughters, something which mere months before would have been the last thing on the fathers mind if Sam had come calling for their daughters.

It was late one evening shortly after the mid-summer celebrations and Sam had been just closing up the forge when a stranger approached him and asked if he was available for some work.  Sam looked at the fire in the forge that he had been about to rake out for the night and said “Yes” to the stranger, as he turned back around to question the Stranger about the manner of the work, the world seemed to shimmer around him, his forge had disappeared, yet the smell of fire and heat of the furnace began to overwhelm him.  He fell to his knees struggling to breath as the fumes began to burn his throat.  A hand dropped to his shoulder and suddenly the heat seemed to fade and he was able to catch his breath, his lungs filled with fresh air and he rose from his hands and knees.  He looked around him at the 5 figures before him and the stranger who had spoken to him at his forge now released his shoulder and helped him stand.  “My son” the tallest figure said “we have need of you help and require you as a witness.  The world has fallen and the old ways of peace and unity are lost, a new power for good must be forged and you are the key.” Sam fell back to his knees, the voice echoed through his body and soul and he had no doubts that he was in the presence of a number of the Gods.

In the weeks ahead it became clear that ,Bane and Cabal, the 2 Gods of Chaos, as normal people had termed them had begun taking a direct hand in the affairs of man, causing wars and famine across the land.  The 2 remaining Greater Gods along with the 4 Lesser gods were un-willing to face their brothers directly, but were willing to pass to the humans they deemed worth tools to help them defeat the agents of the Chaos gods.

Sam now carried those tools around his waist, he had some idea of the capabilities of some of the swords from the names and words spoken by the God, Coinspinner, Farslayer, Shieldbreaker, Townsaver, Wayfinder and Woundhealer were the names and as his mind rolled over the names he realised that now was the right time to use one of them.  He reached down and ran his hands over the hilt of the first sword on his right and moved his hand round, he didn’t need Farslayer at this time.  His hand passed over Townsaver and Woundhealer before he reached Wayfinder and drew the sword out into the light.  Like it’s brothers the blade was flawless, even though the gods had tested the blades against other normal weapons, not a mark appeared on their surface. The only distinguishing mark was a small symbol at the hilt which in the case of Farslayer was a white arrow, Sam confirmed this by finally looking down at the sword in his hand, the first time he had even looked at the sword since he had seen the smoke rising.  He still was not sure how he managed it but he could identify any of the swords by touch alone even just a brush of a hand over the hilt would be enough for him.  Sam thought about the task the Gods had given him and slowly swung the sword across in front of him.  Nothing happened until the end of the sword pointed towards the smoke and then the blade began to tremble.  Sam continued to swing the sword past the smoke and the trembling stopped.  He made a complete circle and only when the sword again pointed towards the smoke did the trembling begin again.

“Oh well” though Sam, “that’s pretty conclusive”.  He returned Wayfinder to her scabbard and taking a final look behind him at the volcanic lava field began the walk down the hill and into the forest.

Star Trek – Do prequels ever work?

Ok, so lets face it prequels usually suck, George Lucas finally got it right with Revenge of the Sith, but that was kind of a Prequel but 2nd Sequel as well, which when you balance it out it’s a Sequel.   Wolverine was good, but it’s the exception that proves the rule, other than that every other one I could come up with was rubbish.

Star Trek, why why why did they think a reboot prequel would work, why on earth case an unknown actor as Kirk, this just screamed disaster. However we had all discounted the JJ Abrahms effect, this man can do no wrong.  This movie is awesome, if you don’t know Star Trek, it’s a great film, if you have watched some Star Trek, you’ll get some of the geek references, if you are a Trekkie (like me) it’s about as good as it gets.  Is it better than “Wrath of Khan” probably not, but it’s close, every other movie now shuffles down the order and with a follow up.  With the “All odd Star Trek movies are crap” curse seemingly broken, the fact that a script for Star Trek XII has already been orderes, will show us whether we have simply now skipped to the evens.

Bloggers Block

It’s been a while and yes I am still here, I just haven’t felt the urge to write.  That includes my book, I think I have re-written the same 30 or so words 3 times in the last two months.  Writing was never a passion for me and I still don’t really know while I am writing the book, I do enjoy it but then it was always a level of escapism, a chance to put aside the crap you deal with 5 days a week and find a sense of peace.  The problem was then when the story is going a little darker I just didn’t want to go there.

Anyway in the mean time life has been good, my wife has been given a complete all clear following her Aortic valve replacement last year, she is currently writing her own blog but it’s still in it’s infancy and isn’t public yet.  I will publish the link when she has put up her first couple of posts.

More soon, I promise

Some people have too much time on their hands.

It’s not my birthday quite yet….

But anyone wanting to buy me a really nice present…. Check these guys out
Dream Authentics

A Time of blood

David raised his right hand in what he hoped they would take as a friendly greeting, whilst his left slipped down to touch the black hilt on his hip. The touch alone and the feeling of power were enough to give him the confidence that he would survive this encounter.  As the three riders pulled up, the leader appeared to raise his hand in a similar greeting, hower the second rider was already drawing a sword and swinging towards his shoulder. He ducked and rolled out of the line of the attack and when he came to his feet he already had his sword drawn.  He wondered if the three attackers knew the danger they were in, understood what sword they faced and how little chance they stood to come away from this encounter un-harmed. The third rider had unslung his bow and was already drawing a bead, but David paid him little attention he knew that any kind of bow offered him no danger, in fact any of the weapons before him were of little concern.  The sword lept to his left, dragging his hand across and swatted away the arrow harmlessy and slid to his right to intersect the attack the second rider was making, David managed to control the sword and the rider was turning his horse away, clutching at his leg which had been nearly severed. The remaing two riders had both dismounted and seperated, attempting to attack from both sides at once, David let the point of the sword dip almost lazily, giving the two men a sense of confidence.  Both now held swords in their hands and they began to stalk towards him.  He kept his eye on the man on his right, obviously the leader whom he had to place as the more dangerous opponent, the man who had fired the bow did not appear to have the same confidence even with the two to one odds. As David quickly glanced to the man on the left the other attacker made his move and lept foward sweeping his sword down towards Davids shoulder, however once again the sword swept up and deflecting the downward swing found the chest of the attacker delivering a fatal blow.  Even as David was registering the blow the sword came up again and down over his left shoulder again preventing a strike to his neck from the final swordsman.  He turned and saw the man stepping back, recognising what David knew, that any attack against him would be fatal.  The man began to turn but the sword swept out cutting across his neck releasing a torrent of blood.  As the man fell to his knees his eyes met Davids and as the light faded from his eye, David  could see the questions being asked. “Why?”.

Chapter 7 – Is it her?

A bit of a wait for this one as my current writing schedule slipped, however I am back on the writing kick and currently pushing through Chapter 12.  For those of you new to the game, check the top right for the link to the Main Page of  “Max Damage” where you will find all of the previously published chapters. Enjoy.

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Max woke to the sound of his Dad knocking on his door and jumped out of bed, well at least that had been the plan, in fact his progress out of bed was somewhat less of a jump and more of a struggle as he suddenly realized that his muscles were still recovering from the try-outs the previous night. Max remembered that he had forgotten to warm down after the exhausting skills and physical trials and was now suffering the consequences. He knew that he needed to perform a basic warm down, his brother had explained it to him not long after he had begun training under Coach Carter. Apparently the Coach’s brother was on the training staff of one of the Football teams up in the Merseyside area and as such he was up-to-speed on all the new fitness regimes that the clubs brought in to get the best out of their players.

“Oh well” thought Max, I’ll have to do some streches to warm myself up today he thought.

As he stood in his room perfoming the warm-up exercises that Chris had shown him, his eyes wandered around his room taking in the familiar surroundings, the posters on the walls, the shelves in the corner where his small collection of books and other oddities were stored and then to the window outside. As his gaze went out his window it inevitably fell onto the house next door and almost instantly on the window that mirrored his own.

“Sarah” his mind thought and he was unsure as to why she stuck in his mind quite as much as she did. From his view point he could clearly see that her curtains were firmly closed and as he moved through the various stretches, his eyes would wander from the window opposite and then suddenly be drawn back as if some movement had caught his attention.

5 minutes later and with muscles no longer complaining quite as much he took one last look out the window and then entered the bathroom for a quick shower before dressing. When he came back into his room he immediately spotted that the curtains opposite now stood open but even though he spent another 5 minutes looking for any sign of movement in the room he saw nothing. Eventually he finished dressing and headed down to breakfast. Breakfast in the house tended to be a do-it-yourself affair with the 4 of them rushing in and out grabbing a bite to eat or a drink and then getting on with their day, however today seemed to be an unusual occurance as the whole family ended up sitting down together. The conversation over breakfast was somewhat rushed as none of them had a great amount of time to spare, but even so the subject of conversation was still Max successfully making the reserves team. Chris updated his parents on the schedule for the reserves training that now affected Max as well as him. Thankfully the training was only one evening a week for the reserves on their own then either a light or full training session with the first team on a Saturday morning depending on whether there was a match that afternoon. Max and Chris eventually left the house a few minutes later than they normally should and started to jog towards the school thankfully by the time that they met up with Adam they were back on time and wandered into the main school building just as the warning bell rang.

Adam and Chris walked into the classroom and took their seats and waited for Mrs Hawkins to arrive for registration as his classmates wandered into the room, many of them asked about the tryouts from the previous day and all were happy to hear that Max had made it into the reserves. The discussion moved onto football in general and given the diverse team support among the group, it inevitably became rather heated and in the end somewhat loud, so much so that when Mrs Hawkins walked in, she slammed the classroom door to get their attention.

“That is enough, I could hear you from down the corridor. This is not the kind of behaviour I expect when I arrive at my class and you know it. I don’t mind you talking but shouting is not acceptable, I’m not going to say anything more about this, however if there is a repeat incident then I may have to take steps.”

She looked round the room, her eyes alighting on various faces who’s voices she had picked up from the din and made sure that they knew that she knew.

“Ok, now we only have one announcement today, there is a new student joining the school today in Mrs Dawsons class, Sarah Hardcastle is her name and she will obviously be in some of the classes you are in. I trust you will make her welcome.”

Max sat at his desk, his mouth dry, “Sarah Hardcastle” he thought, “It has to be her”, he couldn’t remember if her mother had mentioned her surname but surely it was too much of a coincidence if another Sarah happened to join the school. He wondered whether they would have any classes together or if he would see her in the halls.

As the bell rang to send them to first period, Max stood up and turned to Adam, “I think the new girl lives next door to me.”

“Huh”, said Adam, “what new girl?”

“The one Mrs Hawkins told us about in the announcements”

“Oh” he answered, obviously dis-interested and Max let the subject drop as they joined the throng in the corridors.

Max was constantly looking around to try and see if he could see Sarah, and it seemed that everywhere he looked he could see flashes of blonde hair and yet when he was able to get a clear look, each and every time, it was not her. When the two boys finally made it to the English class, Adam had picked up on Max’s mood and was just about to question him, but as they walked in the door, Mr Bransbury was already quietening the class down so he didn’t have a chance to ask him and the two of them reached their seats and sat down.

Max spent most of the class thinking about Sarah and as such missed much of the work covered, thankfully for him Mr Bransbury did not pick on him when it came time to ask questions, although it did drag Max back to reality and he managed to pay attention and at least managed a basic understanding of what they were being taught. By the time the class had ended Max had managed to put Sarah out of his mind and was no longer quite so distracted, Adam had forgotten about his earlier distracted behaviour and the inevitbable questioning never occured. They walked out of the classroom and headed down the hallway chatting away normally, but as they rounded the corner and headed towards their Maths classroom Max stopped suddenly as he caught sight of a flash of blonde hair disappearing into the classroom ahead of them. Adam didn’t notice the blonde hair, in fact it was a couple of seconds before he even realised that Max had stopped, the 2 boys behind Max also did not notice him stop and by the time Adam turned round all three were on the floor in a heap of tangled arms and legs. Adam rushed back and helped all 3 boys up, Max apologising for stopping and thankfully the two younger boys, not wanting to make trouble with senior students begrudingly accepted the apology and went on their way, muttering under their breath.

As the bell rang to indicate the start of the next class the two of them rushed the last few meters and in the door and went to take their seats, Max was already scanning the room as he went in, looking for that blonde hair he had seen, hoping it was Sarah. It seemed to him that he had been scanning the room for hours looking at every person maybe hundreds of times and then as if he had missed her on every one of those passes across the room, his eyes finally found her. Sat at the back of the room she was just pulling books out of her bag, the blonde hair that had caused him to stop in the corridor was cascading down over her shoulders covering the majority of her face, however as she finished delving into her bag her familiar face came up and those blue eyes met his and she smiled in recognition. Max, caught staring at her, felt himself blush and he quickly made his way to his seat a couple of rows in front of her, where a questioning look from Adam went un-answered, in fact completely unnoticed by Max.

He sat there, breath held, eyes glued to the board, unable to look behind him to see what Sarah was doing, he actually though he could feel her eyes on him, probably wondering why he had been staring at her. Eventually he let loose a breath and slowly focused back on the subject whilst trying to put the thought that Sarah was in the same room to the back of his mind. He was distracted through the whole of the class, thankfully though he did manage to answer the problem when Mrs Trehearn picked on him to come up to the board. When he walked back to his seat, he received another smile from Sarah and this time he did manage not to blush although his feet seemed to have a mind of their own and he struggled to avoid tripping over before he made it to the safety of his seat.

When the bell finally rang to end the class, Max was not really sure whether to be relieved or fearful about the fact that he might have another chance to talk to Sarah, he did know that he had no idea how to open the conversation, after all two nights ago he couldn’t even get his name out without a superhuman effort. In the end a chance to worry about that awkward moment never came up as Sarah appeared beside him and thankfully began the conversation.

“Hi Max” she began brightly.

This guy has way too much time and little respect for Creme Eggs

Buried Treasure

As she drew her trowel across the soil at the bottom of the trench she had no idea exactly how the next few seconds would change her life.  Her eyes were drawn to a sliver of metal appearing out of the dust and mud at the bottom of the trench.  She had spent the last 3 days on her hands and knees in this and other trenches across the lawn, she was one of the group of 3 amateur archeologists working a private dig.  The phrase it’s not what you know but who, 100% true in this case, the team leader of this dig Jane was the daughter of the family who lived here and they were the first team to dig this site.  This was hardly a site of any national importance and there was little other interest, however Jane had a number of small items that had come out of the various flower beds over the years and did suggest that there may be something under the grass that would be worth spending this time.

Jane was her professor at University and for some reason had picked her to be part of this team, what she didn’t realise was that Jane had spoken to many other people at the University and in the end only two of her students were interested enough in her personal investigation to come and spend time helping her.  Debbie was in the 2nd year of her studies at university and her interest in archaeology that began whilst watching TV programs on a Saturday afternoon had grown into an academic focus.  She had been out scouring fields with metal detectors at 14 and had managed to join a local amateur archaeological group at 16 and had been on a number of digs.  However in all of these she was just a single member of a large team with little importance upon her shoulders.  Now with Jane her professor, Liz another student and her they were trying to cover all aspects of an investigation with three people.  They were taking turns digging, making details notes of any finds and then cleaning, identifying and cataloging them with the same level of professionalism that any larger dig would have achieved.

In general the finds were nothing spectacular and she was slowly giving up hope of finding anything to make these three days worthwhile.  Sure they had discovered a small wall , but after some further investigation they had decided that it was a small outhouse less than 200 years old.  There had been a few bits of pottery that had been discovered and a couple of rather nice broaches that had come out of Liz’s trench, but Debbie felt as though her trench was really giving up nothing. She had been taking back the surface an inch at a time for the last hour and had found little, as she drew back her trowel one more time something caught her eye.

It was a glint of metal that drew her eye to the find, she immediately reached to her kit and drew out a brush to allow her to clear the surrounding dirt without risking damage to the find.  As the dirt cleared she could now see that it was a ring with a gold band it appeared to have some kind of decoration on it, but at this point she could not make it out.  She managed to lift the ring without damaging it and with it now clear of the surrounding sould she could make out some kind of inscription around the outer edge in a language she did not recognise.  She continued to brush off the dirt and it was clear that the ring was in very good condition, which was unusual when compared to the other finds they had made.  She went to place the ring in one of the plastic holding boxes, however at the last moment she paused and drew the ring back towards her in her right hand.  As she held the ring up  it caught the sun and she almost felt a warmth pass through her body and her left hand seemed to move up towards her right without consious thought.  She sat there for seemingly hours fixated on the ring as her right hand moved closer, however it can only have been a second when Jane sat down beside her and started gushing over the ring she had found.  She managed to pass the ring over to Jane for her to look at it, however Jane had it in her hand for only a brief second before she handed it back complaining about how cold and evil it felt.  Jane beckoned Liz over to look at the ring and she also took it off Debbie but again she handed it back complaining that she didn’t like how if felt.  Debbie held the ring in her hand and again the warmth began to flow through her, she managed to place the ring in one of the holding boxes, but it took her some effort to break contact with the ring.

That was the weekend that was….

Valentines weekend, nothing else can surely send as much fear into the male mind.  Thankfully I think I managed to survive this one intact, I did some good things, some really good things and probably one stupid thing.  But all in all a very good weekend.

The Valentines stuff all came off great, the perfect card that I spotted out of the corner of my eye 2 weeks ago, went down a storm, we hadn’t actually bought each other presents prior to the day, but a pair of ruby earrings for her and a set of Bose Headphones for me were just about spot on from either point of view.  A great meal in the evening and then watching Slumdog Millionaire yesterday rounded off the good parts to the weekend.

Ok so what was the stupid thing you ask, I came across an old link to oGame!!  Now this is an online space game which I played obsessively a couple of years ago,  for at least a year.  I got good at the game and tottally loved it, however in the end it came time to give it up and I did.  Yesterday I signed up for Universe 43 and began playing again, I know this is not going to end well, the worse thing is that I can get to it on my iPhone which means I can monitor it during the day at work.  Its going to dominate my life again I am sure, this was not a smart move.