Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

FROM JERRY BOYD: Doctor Mark

It turns out that the same skills that let Mark fix machines work on people, too. The mismanagement at the local Association has left quite a backlog of folks who need a little help. Mark’s dad thinks Mark is the man for the job. If that wasn’t enough to keep Mark on his toes, there’s always his love life to worry about.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Bar Tabs: A Modern Gods Story

Brief back stories on the characters from the Modern Gods universe.

FROM ROBERT HANLON AND SCOT MCCREA: Timber: U.S. Marshal: Burn Flint: A Western Adventure (Timber: United States Marshal Western Book 48)

Timber: U.S. Marshal and U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint are working together again in this exciting new adventure sequel from Robert Hanlon and Scott McCrea!

Mad-dog killer Harlon Roache is in custody and on his way to Huntsville Penitentiary when the stagecoach is hijacked by his gang and brought to the small town of Poison Creek.

Roache and his men terrorize the town, killing any who dare fight back, but everything stops when a monumental sandstorm hits the Poison Creek, cutting it off from the rest of the world.

What the badmen do not know is that Marshal Ezra Flint was working undercover on that stage, or that the legendary manhunter Jake Timber is now on their trail…

FROM LIANE ZANE: The Covert Guardian (The Unsanctioned Guardians Book 1)

Prequel to the Elioud Legacy series

Every hero starts somewhere. She’s going to take the fast track from student to trained covert operative.

Six months ago, Olivia Markham testified in the grueling murder trial of her cousin Emily’s killer. When her boyfriend Jamie surprises Olivia with a trip to Ibiza, party island of the world, her family and friends urge her to go. After all, Emily had been her best friend, the one she’d planned to room with at Brown University her freshman year.

Olivia gets her chance to let loose—only not in the way anyone could foresee.

What was supposed to be a vacation dancing and drinking on the beach trying to move on from her cousin’s death turns into a nightmare terrorist attack instead. As men with automatic weapons and knives move through screaming, swimsuit-clad, and drunken tourists, Olivia can’t flee. She has to do something. Even if it kills her. So she stops and confronts a knife-wielding man who’d just slaughtered a young couple.

It was a foolhardy act.

But Olivia’s presence of mind and surprising fighting skills don’t go unnoticed—or in vain. A team from the Special Activities Division, the CIA’s ultra-clandestine paramilitary unit, miraculously intervenes. What happens next changes the course of Olivia’s life forever.

Set six years before THE HARLEQUIN & THE DRANGÙE, THE COVERT GUARDIAN narrates Olivia Markham’s genesis from idealistic college student to trained intelligence operative.

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: Family Law

People love easily. Look at most of your relatives or coworkers. How lovable are they? Really? Yet most have mates and children. The vast majority are still invited to family gatherings and their relatives will speak to them.

Many have pets to which they are devoted. Some even call them their fur-babies. Is your dog or cat or parakeet property or family? Not in law but in your heart? Can a pet really love you back? Or is it a different affection? Are you not kind to those who feed and shelter you? But what if your dog could talk back? Would your cat speak to you kindly?

How much more complicated might it be if we meet really intelligent species not human? How would we treat these ‘people’ in feathers or fur? Perhaps a more difficult question is: How would they treat us? Are we that lovable?

When society and the law decide these sort of questions must be answered it is usually because someone disapproves of your choices. Today it may be a cat named in a will or a contest for custody of a dog. People are usually happy living the way they want until conflict is forced upon them.

What if the furry fellow in question has his own law? And is quite articulate in explaining his choices. Can a Human adopt such an alien? Can such an intelligent alien adopt a human? Should they?

Of course if the furry alien in question is smart enough to fly spaceships, and happens to be similar in size and disposition to a mature Grizzly bear, wisdom calls for a certain delicacy in telling him no…

The “April” series of books works from an earlier time toward merging with the “Family Law” series.

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Martha’s Sons Books One and Two Plus a Novelette: A Science Fiction Lost Colony Adventure (Box Set)

Your parents thought they were emigrating to a terraformed planet. That didn’t happen.

Now you’re second generation on a lost colony world.

You’re one of Martha’s Sons.

Will Peter Dawe’s perilous mission with a brother he despises end in death?

A lost starship’s settlers, isolated on an uncharted alien world, manage to terraform a mountain-ringed valley into a rich replica of Earth. Despite their success reproducing the environment they need to survive and thrive, only tenuous forces hold together the human colony on the world of Not What We Were Looking For. The governor’s appropriation of the western settlers’ weapons for the city strains those bonds to breaking point—and then beyond when Peter Dawe’s father sends him to get the weapons back.Twenty-year-old Peter Dawe’s restless nature easily endures the lost colony world’s rigors. His genetic modifications make it even easier. So when Peter retrieves the family weapon, he also brings back a motorbike, a piece of technology no longer available to everyone.

It would be a fine prize to keep to himself. He won it. He earned it. He quickly learns that his brother Simon lies in wait to take what isn’t his. Simon wants more than just the motorbike. He wants Peter’s glory.

But when Peter’s father forces him to take his hated older brother on Peter’s next mission, the pair must not only navigate the city’s perils and politics but learn to work together—when neither thinks the other should be in charge. Their success—and their very lives—depend on it. Or will Peter be proven right that he should have faced this task alone?

This box set contains the first three titles in the immersive Martha’s Sons science fiction adventure series: Simple Service, Long in the Land, and Relief Afar. If you like gripping action, insurmountable odds, and alien worlds, you’ll love Laura Montgomery’s tale of a man determined not to let family ties sabotage mission success.

Get the box set to start a new adventure today!

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Starlight Running

Eight lives depend on Kyle’s desperate trek across the Moon to get help. But someone — or something — intends for him to fail. Can he defeat it in time?

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: sleet

62 thoughts on “Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike”

  1. My children will never see snow again. Well, maybe they were right about that. All that I have been getting so far this winter is this damned sleet. I hope that I got the potatoes deep enough through the caliche to make it through this miserable Tucson winter. Global warming…

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  3. We were about halfway to our destination when the chilly rain turned to sleet. After so many years living in California, I’d forgotten all my winter driving skills.

    Spartan just told me to pull over and he’d take the wheel. I was a little surprised — and then I considered where he would’ve learned to drive. I only saw Irkutsk once, in the middle of summer, but I could tell it was a city where winters hit hard. He’d been sent there right after he was commissioned, and had spent the next five years earning the equivalent of a BS and MS in mechanical engineering, specializing in aircraft engines. He would’ve learned to drive slick roads in unforgiving military vehicles.

    Half an hour later he proved he hadn’t lost a military helicopter pilot’s situational awareness and reaction times. When he drove us straight into the ditch, I thought he’d gone mad — until a car went spinning right past us. If he hadn’t taken evasive action, we would’ve been part of a massive pile-up. Instead, we just had to wait until everything stopped moving before we could get out and start seeing who needed help.

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  5. The young Apprentice Wizard complained “I hate sleet. Why can’t we do anything about it”?

    His Master Wizard replied “I hate sleet as well but the last time I attempted to stop sleet, I got a massive hail storm.

    “Very few Wizards, Masters or not, can successfully change the weather for the better.”

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  6. “What is the news?” said Otto, his voice commanding, as he came up behind Sylvie and Marlene.

    “The duke,” said a travel-stained woman, “did not wait for the king. He fled up the river with all of his forces. He is searching for the princess.”

    “And,” said the woman who had pointed out Sylvie, “it’s not like it will be dangerous for him. No snow or sleet or hail to trouble his travels. He will be able to hunt the hills through, which is why having her here is such a danger.”

    “To the princess?” said a man with a sneer. “Or to you?”

    To all of us, thought Sylvie, feeling very cold.

    “Doesn’t do any good to drive her off,” said an old man. “The duke’s men would ransack the village for here. If she’s not here, it’s the worse for us. Plans must be made better than that.”

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  7. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I thought I’d let you know that our house burned down on Tuesday. We would like request prayers for knowledge of what we need to do to, as well as not falling into despair. Especially our son. He is prone to taking too much on himself, and melancholy. He cannot see a way out.

    Thank you all.

    Liked by 4 people

    2. Oh, man, Jasini! That’s harsh!!!!

      Do we need to do a Give Send Go?

      Tell your son that you can get another house, but it’s a lot harder to get another human. You’re alive, so you’re good.

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        1. Thank you. Looks like I may be diverting the planned funds destination next month. I’ll see what it looks like first, though.

          House is a thing. Sentimental objects are things, too, but it hurts. But people and/or pets – those are disasters. Thank God it didn’t get there for you.

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      1. Well, I don’t think she was trying to burn us out, but she certainly was not careful in her aim. Three people (including our son) could easily have been killed if things had happened just a little differently. And not the person she was aiming for.

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    7. Asking for all blessings. Especially since this may not have been a simple “accident of fate”…

      And, it might be useful to know that recovery in similar circumstances is possible and does happen. Tracy “Beanz” Diaz of Uncover DC had a total-loss house fire in the past few years (none of her family hurt), with crowdfunding indispensible to a good outcome — and yet now she has rebuilt (of course a long road), and “all’s well that ends well.”

      It’s not totally inconceivable that she might be willing to offer some support/advice from her own experience. Or even that she might end up mentioning your own efforts to recover on her platform(s). She’s one of the most relentlessly analytic and persistently positive people I know of in the Netsphere.

      uncoverdc dot com and @tracybeanz on X-Twitter

      Even if nothing else, following in her online-visible footsteps might be helpful…

      May God be bountiful, and the Fates be kind(er)!

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    8. Blast it! I will try to give again after pay-day. Prayers for your son, and you. I’ll let my prayer-team know as well. Long distance hugs and a good virtual casserole.

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  8. In another news, Jon del Arroz did a video about Cedar’s de-nomination.
    He has also been covering Glasgow Worldcon banning Ben Yalow (he was also banned from Eastercon this year, of all things), after he was on their Worldcon bid from the beginning. (Ingrates.)

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        2. I’m sorry: now I’m seeing a circle of cat-hair-robed flagellants chanting in Latin as they strike themselves with carp.

          “Feles Mulieres Contra Kamala.” THWAP!

          “Feles Mulieres Contra Kamala.” THWAP!

          “Feles Mulieres Contra Kamala.” THWAP!

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        1. The saying is “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”, right?

          So perhaps not ACOlyte but JasonLight?

          We shall have to be careful to flagellate, not immolate, among ourselves. The Others may take their own care. (First plunder, then burn…)

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    2. “Acolytes”…

      Styphon’s House Upon Earth, Mad Genius Club is not! (Though I guess we could copy their spiffy-ish in-story wardrobe design…)

      Meanwhile, what are the common run of us regulars here at ATH supposed to be, in his Grand Scheme of All Things??

      Hangers-on? Camp Followers?

      Lovecraftian redshirt Cultists??

      There are only a few dissonant notes in his presentation, but that is definitely one of the “wolves.” (See J. S. Bach and the mean tone tuning vs. equal-tempered tuning controversy… and the affair of the snatched wig.)

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    3. Inevitable. The Wokies (HONK!)ed up the Hugos, so now they have to (HONK!) up the others, or they look really bad in contrast.

      No Tyrrany can coexist next to a Free society. They must destroy Freedom or be destroyed themselves.

      Sh(HONK!)heads follow similar mechanism next to decent folk.

      Liked by 1 person

    4. Unfortunately, JDA is a horribly biased reporter who throws in his own assumptions all the time. He assumes everything is political even when it is not. Note that Cedar and Raconteur Press declined comment to him (he asked repeatedly) because they do not trust him. Sarah also has problems with him — he’s accused her of harassment and of getting him blacklisted from Baen, when she didn’t have thay kind of influence anyway. He got removed from her Facebook group for promoting antisemitism.

      I’d consider other sources for better reporting on those issues. Start with the Raconteur Press Substack.

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  9. It was possible, Charles reflected, for him to be cold. Even with all of his equipment.

    He’d never seen sleet come down in sheets before, faintly brine-smelling even in this weather, and cold regardless. It rang off the armor of his Chassis, reducing passive visibility to almost arm’s reach, and there was no way he was going to fire up his active sensors. The two drones he had deployed on fiber-optic cables were giving error messages because of all the conflicting signals, both passive and active. Inside of the control pit, even with a full skinsuit and the life support system cranked up to full, the pit was damp and cold and felt salty. It was like little bits of icy salt had worked themselves between the skinsuit and his skin, feeling worse than sand. And he suspected the only reason why he wasn’t shivering was the mixture of combat amps, stingers, and stims that the Chassis’ medical systems were pushing into his blood and filtering out any waste products it could find.

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  10. Elmer the Aspiring Wizard found his roommate Clyde sulking on his bed. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.

    “Weather magic,” said Clyde. “I just can’t hack it, so I might as well give up. Aw, sleet!”

    Elmer felt the first icy drops stinging his neck. “NO! DON’T SAY THAT IN HERE!”

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Skidoo dodged and wove, hiding under woodland plants when he could, dashing headlong when he couldn’t. No other mouse could handle this kind of mission, when sleet could cause serious injury and hail could kill. The only advantage to the weather was that owls didn’t like to fly in it.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. He wondered how he should send them out. He had never stayed here alone for so much as a week. Well, except when ice, sleet, and snow had made it implausible that he could travel safely without magic.

    He doubted that the youngsters would care to stay here like hermits.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. One of the stewards knocked on my door in the morning, and announced that it was ten o’clock and breakfast was served in the observation lounge, on the ballroom deck. I dressed in the clothes I’d worn last night to the little celebration at No. 16, and headed up. The observation lounge took up the front part of the ballroom deck, and was about the size of the arena down on the sports deck. The wall of curved glass at the far end of the space didn’t offer much to observe, except gray mist and sleet. I found myself glad of the red oak floor and brass trim; it seemed to warm the room a little. A long buffet table down the center of the room offered a selection of cold ham, cheese, bread rolls, hard-boiled eggs, and some very pretty pastries. The only hot selections were tea, coffee, and cocoa.

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  15. Just had to share a priceless bit from Wen Spencer’s new book, ‘Storm Furies’:

    Olivia handed the phone back to Aiofe, unslung the rifle from her shoulder, and shot MacFarland in the leg. She’d aimed for his knee. She was a little high but it still took him down.

    “You shot me!” MacFarland shouted in surprise.

    Why are men always so surprised at being shot after pissing off an armed woman?

    Don’t worry, the bastard deserved it. An enemy spy that murdered two innocent elves and was trying to prevent Olivia from taking a train to evacuate elven troops after they were forced to retreat.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. There came a gust of wind, suddenly and surprisingly, that tested the old iron latch of the worn original front door of the Pig and Poke — and found not the latch itself but the latching of it somewhat wanting.

    Which is to say the door flung itself wide open till it thumped against its stops, in a flurry of plump heavy sleet and a crackling clatter of that on the windowpanes.

    And a flood-tide of freezing-cold air pouring across the polished old plank floor like a full barrel of frankly-spilled ale.

    “Someone shut that devil-cursed door, if you please, it’s long past time someone in here bothered to rig the outerlock,” rumbled one of the patrons at one of the long low trestle tables in the heavy-timbered brightly lamp-lit room.

    “I’ll do it,” said Suzanne Marquardt, getting up from her soup at one of the nearby tables. She knew his complaint was pretty silly — it had only this week finally gotten autumnal-cold enough to freeze the rain all the way to sleet. Fortunate, it was, that the in-between state of freezing-rain was as rare, here on the Old East Coast where the big ships had first landed from orbit after terraforming, as the fall’s sleet was common.

    Summer rain; then a couple months of sleet; then, as winter settled in, the snow.

    It wasn’t for any much reason of public service, or even settling down the feathers of the assembled company. She actually didn’t mind getting up, truly had no compulsion to either keep her seat or pour oil on the local waters. Actually, she revelled in it, as she knew many here by contrast did not. Just as she knew that even more, like her, did.

    For Marquesas, God made a fifth element — sleet. It was an old saying, as always with a tip o’ the hat to old Napoleon First, who’d said almost the same with Poland and mud early one campaign season; but the other was true enough here every single fall.

    And as House Freydisdottir reminded everyone, the old Norse had five elements, the classical four plus a fifth that was indeed Isa, ice.

    She reached the door, grabbed its wrought-iron exterior handle with a bare hand, pulled it almost-to behind her. Because she quite suddenly and hedonistically wanted to spend a moment or two glorying in the new and the turn of the season.

    That single, long gust of wind had come and gone, but the breeze still drove sleet up under the eave of this older, smaller entrance all the way to her; and it bounced off her face, as always, stinging a bit as it did, the breath and the slobber of oncoming winter.

    There were few if any on the street, Suzanne saw in those few moments of automatic situational awareness. None anywhere nearby. And so she indulged herself, in closing her eyes for a few stolen selfish moments, feeling the pouring sleet in the doorway.

    Not Rain In The Doorway, she thought at old Thorne Smith. But still yet magic.

    And those several seconds, as often before, were both pleasant and plenty enough.

    She opened the door, dashed nimbly through it (with her other hand on the hilt of her sword, a sgian geal much like a curved version of a Patton saber, so it’d not be in the way as she did), and closed it, properly with practiced thumb on the latch-lever.

    And found herself smiling wide. Indulging in what she’d never do in the newer and more modern (and especially more tourist-travelled) precincts of the old pub and bar.

    “Di’n’t you think we could tell

    Heaven from Hell,

    Blue skies from gray?

    “And di’n’t you think we’d exchange

    All your green spring fields,

    For our cold, steel rain?

    (Sly smiles all in vain.)”

    Suzanne knew better than to think she had a remarkably good singing voice; but in this society, sound-reproduction technology had not robbed people of their own ability to use what talents they had, in pure self-expression. And the old song (pre-millennial) with its newer, Marquesas-adapted words was common enough in repertoire, here.

    No applause, of course. But more’n a few raised pewter tankards and old heavy-cast glass mugs and simple mass-fac glasses, likely far more in tribute to the fall or the song than to her (but egotism had never, of course, been any part of the point).

    She walked back to her table and her seat and to her soup, which had by now cooled just enough you could start in on the broth without blowing or caution.

    And she did, with the radiance of the slow-simmering peat fire warm on her back.

    “Excuse me, ma’am? Might I sit with you and ask a few questions?”

    The man was somewhat diffident, with the odd constellation of manners that tended to mark someone an offworlder. As if he was hypervigilant against giving offense–

    Oh. “Yes, you may. I’m not waiting on anyone, so you might keep me company for a while if you’d rather. My name is Suzanne, Suzanne Marquardt, of House Ceoghan.

    “And if you’re a mite nervous, at everyone carrying a sword, don’t be. We’re all used to it, we begin to learn our basic sword-work in gym class in elementary school.”

    If not sooner, she did not say, as she extended her hand in the offworlders’ way.

    “Franklin Bosch, from Carver’s Corners. You’ve probably never heard of it.”

    Suzanne smiled. “Farming and fishing world. Exports half-a-dozen local fish that do not taste the same as anything else. And your beef and mutton are not to be missed.”

    His eyebrows rose. “You know, that, here? I’d have thought…”

    “Turns out I’m involved in import/export a bit. I’m basically a ‘fixer’ for our House, so I know a little about a lot of things. And, get to know a lot about a few of ’em.” She kept the wince and the thunderous scowl quite firmly inside. Way too much, in a few sad and lamentable cases. Her hand, carefully, did not seek the hilt of her sword…

    (Once again, she marvelled at how cheap the Westenra Drive made things. Trading between the stars, of things as ordinary and inexotic as meat and fish.)

    “So, you have questions about things here? You did say that.” Bent to her soup.

    “Well, first, that song. I know it but I don’t. And it seemed to be well known, here.”

    She smiled and put down her spoon. Grabbed her glass, took a sip of wine. “You need to understand that here, like the snow and the rain, the autumn sleet’s a bit of an institution in itself. What other places have with the turning or the falling of their not-evergreen leaves, as the marker of fall, we have with the sleet on this coast.

    “Our variform trees needed to hang on to their leaves a bit longer, otherwise they’d lose too much growing season at the cold end. So the gene-mix and the varietal picks were aimed that way. Falling leaves is the end of fall, and not the start of it. So, sleet.”

    She busied herself with her soup a few more moments. “And it’s also something we tend to — appreciate. To so many offworlders, it’s a bloody nuisance, an offense to the senses and an affront to their comfort. To their… entitlement, to an eternal spring.

    “As the song says, we don’t think that way. Here, out on the Rim, it’s almost as if we find the cold a sort of tonic or vitamin; and studies do say that being exposed to cold is good for humans, in moderate doses of course. That we do better with, than without.”

    And she smiled at him again, as she lowered her spoon.

    “That’s what we’d say, back home. As they do on New Canaan, where my wife’s from; that it’s not good for standard-issue humans, at any rate, to have it too good or too very comfortable for too long. That, truly underneath, we’re not made for it, no matter how we think we’d dearly like to choose it if we could.”

    She smiled, as she slurped her soup just a little. “And then, some of us like the cold. What the song says, our ‘cold steel rain’ in the first chilly breath of fall. Of course we’ll only like it as long as the warmth is also ready to hand; but… still.

    “Something made you choose this drafty old room, here — so now, was that it?”

    He smiled, in turn, almost as she had. “It just seemed right, Madame Marquardt.”

    And she laughed, as she had sung, warmly. “Welcome to our world, Master Bosch.”

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  17. Continuing the bad news — I’ve been laid off. Prayers welcome. Anyone who can buy one of my books, or review a book of mine, will have my gratitude.

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    2. Oh, come on, that’s unpossible. We’ve got the strongest economy in history, right? Bidenomics Iz Working Great For Everybody! Wages are up, and inflation is temporary! Teh Authoriteez tell us so every day; it must be true!

      Seriously, getting laid off sucks. Looking for a job is harder than doing one, these days. Apply everywhere, and hope one of them comes through.

      Liked by 1 person

  18. Of all the aliens entering Earth’s interstellar customs ports, Inspector Hodges couldn’t stand the avian species. Hard beaks made pronunciation of Galactic almost impossible, and a double shift listening to their slow, sibilant speech got on his last nerve.

    It was standard practice to exaggerate any paperwork issues, watching carefully for the minute reactions that would betray a smuggler.He addressed the Zzadou at his entry station. “Your visa has expired, sir.”

    “Sleet!” exclaimed the Zzadou. It puffed out its feathers in dominance.

    “No swearing in line!” Hodges shot back.

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  19. Set well into the past in Max’s setting:

    “Well, here we are, Boss,” a large man grumbled as the ship sailed towards the harbor. “Cold and rainy already. Have I mentioned how much I hate jobs in Lazurnyj?”

    “You and half the other boys, Harry.” a grizzled man replied with a smirk, trying to hide the fact that he was fidgeting.

    Harry resisted the urge to smirk back. He could tell that the Boss was itching to light up a cigar but couldn’t thanks to the weather. Instead he asked “So who are we getting paid to take out? More importantly, is it worth all this?”

    “Anti-Royal terrorists again,” the Boss replied, glancing out over the deathly cold sea. “It’s the Tsar himself footing the bill and it’s enough to make a trip all the way out to Vasiligrad itself worth it.”

    “Damn!” Harry exclaimed, emphasizing his surprise with a whistle.

    “Yeah, they’re not your typical jackasses, that’s for sure,” the Boss muttered before he fumbled his lighter. He swore, grabbed it before it could slide on the deck’s surface, and pocketed it. “Apparently they’ve got some serious black magic on their side, possibly even a necromancer or two.”

    “That’s serious, all right,” Harry said with a nod. “Normally they stick to the south where they can call up their demons easier.”

    “Which shows just how serious they are about burying the Tsar and his family,” the commander observed, taking his hand out of his jacket pocket. “Still, they die of lead poisoning as easy as anyone else.”

    “And if they do summon a demon?” the younger mercenary asked. “We’re not exactly overflowing with Order types here in the corps.”

    “Hell, neither is the Order anymore!” the Boss guffawed before his expression turned serious. “I figure we can rope a local priest in, one way or another. Anyway, Harry, go see if Lefteris and Vissarion have their crap in order. In the meantime, I’ll go check with the captain and see if he can’t get us in before the sleet starts coming down good and hard.”

    “Right away, Boss!” the younger mercenary replied with a salute, leaving to carry out his orders.

    Satisfied that he’d done all he could for the moment, Richard Aerssens, Commander of the Iapyx mercenary corps, looked around for some place he could get out of the wind and rain and light up. He hadn’t told Harry, or for that matter Lefteris and Vissarion, just how much they’d be earning their pay on this job. Still, if they took these guys out and the Tsar came through with the cash? They’d have it made for a good, long while. And maybe he’d even be able to find a place for Mariele away from this lifestyle. It suited men like him, Harry, Lefteris, and Vissarion fine, and he knew given time she’d become at least as tough as Delia, but she deserved a better life than this.

    “Excuse me, Commander Aerssens?” a man asked. Good, the captain had saved him the trouble. “We’ll be arriving in 20 minutes. Please make sure your men are ready to depart.”

    “I’ve got my guys on it now, Captain,” Richard replied with a cordial smile. “Trust me, we’re ready to get this show on the road!”

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