An excerpt to give
you a taste of what's in store...
To say Harad was
relentless is to understate the rage that drove him. He had pushed his party
mercilessly until eventually, one of the horses, driven to exhaustion, fell and
refused to rise. When Harad began flogging it, Peniff tore his leash from
Kord’s grasp, strode up to Harad and grabbed him by the wrist, arresting the
whip at the top of its arc. Harad turned to glare.
“You will kill it and still
it will not rise.” In a soft, but deliberate tone, Peniff went on. “In fact, if
you continue to deny the other horses rest or sleep, you will kill them all.
Then what? Do you expect us to walk all the way to danHsar?”
Harad’s face became a mask
of hate, but Peniff persisted.
“Even now, the man and the
woman are entering the prison. Do you expect that somehow they will run away
and evade us? I promise you, they will not escape any time soon. Look at your
men. Even should we stumble on the pair in the next minute, they would be too
exhausted to act.”
Harad was breathing
heavily, but he opened the fist he had formed with his free hand and lowered
it.
“We all want the same
thing,” said Peniff. “Even this poor, dumb creature wishes to rise and avoid
your wrath, but it cannot. Look at its eyes. They are filled with terror, but
the animal is spent. It can do no more and neither can we.”
Harad could not deny the
truth. The horse’s chest heaved, its mouth frothed and the whites of its eyes
showed how deeply it feared the next strike of the lash.
“Very well, Thought Gazer,”
Harad said as he looked from the horse to his men. “We will rest, even sleep if
you like, but not one minute past Jadon’s rising. I intend to arrive at the
city’s gate tomorrow.”
“And this poor beast will
carry you there, if you but allow it to sleep the night, then feed and water it
in the morning.”
As the two stood staring,
it was hard to say who was in charge: the one with the whip, or the one with
the collar around his neck.
“There are some things even
you cannot simply will into being,” said Peniff.
Harad stared a moment
longer, then threw the whip to the ground.
“Alright,” he hissed,
before returning to his normal voice. “The thought gazer has declared a
holiday. Rest, if that’s all you are good for. But I promise, in the morning we
will cover ground as we have not done for days.”
Book I of The Ydron Saga
How does a world equipped with bows, arrows and catapults, where steam power is just beginning to replace horses and sailing ships, avert a conquest from beyond the stars? Prince Regilius has been engineered to combat the Dalthin, a predatory alien species that enslaves worlds telepathically, and to do so he must unite his people. But when his mother murders his father, the land descends into chaos and his task may prove impossible. Faced with slaying the one who gave him life in order to protect his world, he seeks a better way. Set in a vast and varied land where telepaths and those with unusual mental abilities tip the course of events, Awakening goes to the heart of family, friendship and betrayal.
Where Raymond finds his inspiration...
The Highwayman - Grist For
the Pen
From September 1971 through
August 1972, I hitchhiked and backpacked throughout Europe, spending days,
weeks, even months in various locales. My adventures ranged from wondrous to
perilous. Once, I lived with the owner and staff above Kipp’s, London’s sole
vegetarian restaurant, where I mingled with the likes of Warren Beatty, Julie
Christy and Marc Bolan. On another occasion, I milked cows on an Israeli kibbutz
and explored ancient Jerusalem, sleeping in the prison where Christ was held.
Some events, however, still chill me …
… like the time I hitched a
ride into Paris.
I remember little about the
young man who picked me up—longish, medium brown hair and a sparse moustache
and beard that spoke of a youth in his early twenties. It was a gray afternoon
and I was enjoying my first glimpse of the City of Lights when the rundown gray
Volvo braked hard. I tore my gaze from the architecture only to stare down the barrels
of dozens of automatic rifles, at helmeted police clad in body armor and
ballistic face masks.
I was manacled, shoved into
the caged rear seat of a police car and transported to headquarters where I was
relieved of my passport and held. With no idea why they arrested me, what they
thought I had done, who they thought I might be, I tried to explain I had met
the driver only minutes before.
Eventually, they released
me, perhaps because the one they had taken to interrogation confirmed my story.
I have no idea why we were stopped, but a client of mine living in Europe at
the time recalls that the terrorist group, Baader Meinhof, was very active then
and numerous arrests were being made throughout Europe. What else could explain
such an overwhelming show of force?
Then, in February, 1972,
there were the three Portuguese revolutionaries who drove me from Copenhagen to
Hamburg, discussing their plans to overthrow the dictator, Oliveira
Salazar. I still have the business card of the printer who invited me to visit,
should he survive the coup. On April 25, 1973, the authoritarian Estado Novo
regime did fall.
Days later, I had just
climbed from a concert cellist’s car at an autobahn restaurant near Karlsruhe.
I was sitting down to eat when a man asked if I were going to Munich. When I
replied in the affirmative, he said if I wanted a lift, to grab my food and
come with him.
During the drive, he
related how, as a hashish dealer, he gone into hiding after evading arrest two
weeks earlier. Friends had phoned that it was safe to return. At one point, the
conversation turned to black market merchandise. The most valuable thing one
could sell, he said, was an American passport. Conversation halted. We both
knew what I had. After long minutes of silence—now well after dark—he suggested
we stop somewhere—to eat, he explained. The first likely place was brightly
lit. Many parked cars. As I expected, he kept driving. The next autobahn
restaurant, however, was deserted—the perfect place for what he was planning.
Once inside, I headed for the restroom. If matters escalated, I needed to empty
my bladder. Before returning to the common area, I adjusted my sweater to
reveal the Buck knife holstered on my belt. Bigger than he and armed, I went
out to confront him. One glance, and he was once again the genial host.
I made him drop me off at
Munich’s outskirts and walked six hours until I reached the city center. At the
Hauptbahnhof—the main train station—I purchased a ticket.
These days, I write
thrillers, preferring not to live them.
About the Author...
Raymond Bolton divides his time between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon.
Prior to being published, he won several awards for his work. Most recently, under its
working title, Renunciation, Awakening was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers
Association's 2013 literary competition from among hundreds of entries from the
US, the UK, Canada, Europe and Australia. It also won writerstype.com's June
2013 First Chapter competition. From April 2011, until it was disbanded in
December 2012, Raymond was an invited, featured contributor for the writers'
blog, Black Ink, White Paper.
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