Aengus does not allow himself to repine

Published March 11, 2010 08:17 PM

“Finger puppets?”

“Finger puppets!” Ete echoed, trembling with her own portent. “Puppets you wear on your fingers!”

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Hetty's hope fades into the gloom

Published March 10, 2010 08:46 PM

Hetty awoke choking and rolled over just in time to vomit over the side of the bed. For a moment longer she hung her head and waited, her mouth open, for a second flood that did not come. Finally she flopped shivering back onto the mattress.

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Hetty gets off her feet

Published March 7, 2010 11:13 AM

“Ach! Alred! We were just about to go down!”

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Conrad goes too far

Published March 3, 2010 06:34 PM

“Shh! He’s coming!”

If anyone needed shushing it was Lord Cynewulf’s squirmy, self-​​important, ten-​​year-​​old self, but Conrad was too tense to say something ironic. Cynan was coming.

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Cynan presses his point home

Published February 26, 2010 06:33 PM

Alred swiped a little doll off the table and stuffed it into his armpit.

“What? Business, I assure you.”

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Lasrua gives a pretty piece of advice

Published February 20, 2010 06:34 PM

“Vash!” Lasrua mumbled. “You smell like…”

Her first dim memories of comfort and warmth crystallized into more troubling recollections. Stale smoke, muzzy with damp. Lor’s shoulder beneath her face – Lor’s coat, which she would feign a chill to borrow so she could strut about wrapped in its baggy folds. The smell of smoke had made her feel dangerous and wicked. But now she knew that Lor had been dangerous and wicked all along.

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Leofric awaits his turn

Published February 9, 2010 09:12 PM

Eadwyn dropped his crust onto the dirt and let his head fall back against the wall. “He’ll be asking for me next.”

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Colban says goodbye

Published February 6, 2010 06:27 PM

The sun had risen on Colban’s last morning in Dunfermline. Colban had seen it come up. He had hardly slept in days.

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Harald's blood is put to the test

Published February 1, 2010 10:08 PM

“Oh, lovely,” Kormak grumbled. “Leki’s here. At last we can get started.”

Lagman leaned forward in his chair and smirked up at him. “Now, now, I’m certain he came as soon as he could put his pants back on.”

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Colban makes a harmless-crazy friend

Published January 26, 2010 06:40 PM

The King of Scotland proved to be a very big man. A Highland bull brought to graze on lush pastures, his whopping frame was packed with muscle and sleeked over with fat. He looked the part of a legend – of a man whose name, like the secret names of fairies, was rarely pronounced above a whisper in Colban’s clan.

This was the man who had whacked off King Macbeth’s head with a single stroke of his sword and strangled King Lulach in the crook of his beefy arm. And worse: this was the man who had ordered Old Aed’s father beheaded before the eyes of his son, the lords of Scotland, and the clergy; and walked out spinning the bloody crown of Strathclyde around his hand like a toy.

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