They crouched midst broad tuffets of musty earth. Grassy-topped knolls, like turrets of root and dirt carved by floodwater. No water flowed among them now, however. Only a thick and swirling morass of fog and acrid smoke. Soldiers crouched there, black jackboots and woolen knees sopped through with mud and trampled grubs. Men and women […]
The clock struck midnight. It rang flat in the darkened cottage. Tired, arhythmic. Shockingly loud in the still night. On the fourth strike, something stirred. In a nest of woolens, curled close to the dark and fireless hearth, Leif lurched aright. Eyes yet shut, he listened for the twelfth strike. It came, soft and weak. Barely […]
Vapor curled from the cast iron pot. Thick, yellow-spiced stew rolling slow within. Peppery; laden with rich, scented oils. A ladle plunged through, came up bearing chunks of meat and cheese-laden potatoes. "Came good," sniffed the bristly, thick-necked cook, filling a wooden bowl. He passed it to his right, to a woman clad in Ward […]
A breath went through the pines. Uncounted millions of gold-green needles quavered, heaved; pressed by a mild and resinous sigh. The air thickened, yellowed with cloying dust shed from boughs' young cones. Great beards of hoary moss wavered, licked their trailing ends to the forest floor, stilled. The breath passed. In the ensuing hush, not one beast […]
Three cutters crouched in the underbrush. Three nervous stalkers clad in sweated leathers, eyes wide and shrouded by dripping leaves. They shifted, uneasy, on the damp earth, worried the grips of sabres and armed gunsprings, breathed shallow the thick and mineral air. Down the way, in broad view of the cutters' ambuscade, there stretched a […]
Ice rattled, bounced into the frosted tumbler. A pour of clear liqueur followed, thick and sugary. It rolled, diverted like a waterfall's spill over riverstones, became milky clear where it touched weeping water. A thumb and middle finger, all what remained of the drinker's digits, wrapped round the condensing glass, upended it through whiskery lips. […]
"It is a royal sport, Clemensa," said a dark and sunbaked man. With manicured fingers, he thumbed flechette rounds into a squat magazine. Sweat beaded on his forearms and lined brow. Across the folding table, Clemensa, clutching a thick demitasse of coffee, nodded slackly. He peered under his pith hat out into the jungle, blinked […]
A great map commanded the room. A gridded realm of canvas and ink stretched over continental furniture. Mice in suspenders and shirtsleeves scurried, furry titans, over the landscape, plucking up and setting down pins, miniatures, and labels. They bore inkpots, pens, fine brushes; delicately altered the surface of the painted land. Beady eyes peered through thick spectacles, intent. Ash […]
"Jorge." Jorge shifted in his hammock, exhaled fitfully. He wrapped a hand round his sleeping head, hunched his shoulders, dozed on. Beside, the speaker, a short sailor in cornrows, moaned. "Jorge, get up. There's something wrong." She seized the hand, yanked on it. Jorge sputtered awake. He blinked torpidly, sniffed. "Margot," he mumbled, sniffed again. He shuddered, […]
Brown husks of leaves drifted on the autumn road. Sticky branches shivered above, loosed what cladding they yet possessed to spiral in the bitter wind. Not far over the squat, umber hills, a raven croaked. Down the lane, a clapping of horseshoes swelled. A rider in grey came along. He rode sedate and boredly, tucked […]