INCUNABULI

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 […]

Chips of sticky bark scattered on the snow. Hod wrenched his axe from the fir trunk, hoisted it. His shoulders knotted, lifted under furs and wool. Steel bit deep again into white wood. Hod levered the axe away, swung again. He huffed and puffed, breathed deep the winter air. A musk of pine and frozen […]