THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT HORSE trilogy | Blog
Eclipsed by Shadow • The Golden Spark • Into the Dark
The online site LibraryThing is hosting an Author Chat on Oct. 18-24th for John Allen Royce, author of “Eclipsed by Shadow,” 1st book of “The Legend of the Great Horse” trilogy …
The online site LibraryThing is hosting an Author Chat on Oct. 18-24th for John Allen Royce, author of Eclipsed by Shadow, 1st book of The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy … come by and say hello!
LibraryThing is a social site for storing and sharing personal library catalogs and book lists, with over 1,200,000 users and nearly 56 million books catalogued … membership is free for basic accounts!
Meagan knelt in her tattered nightgown, barefoot on wet, cement-like flooring. This is not happening, she repeated, keeping her eye on the soldiers. The group was forced to its feet and she was shoved forward with the others. Sweat, garlic and leather mingled with the scent of animals and dung. – Eclipsed by Shadow
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“HABES SPEM NATANDI!”
An icy blast of water filled Meagan’s eyes and nose. She tripped among wet bodies as she was drenched by another downpour. A crowd of ragged people crouched around her, soaked and shivering within a circle of steel spears. Men in rags stood close with brimming buckets.
Where am I now?
Another bucket was tossed. Meagan gasped under the spray and stood to escape. Metal-tipped points blocked her way. Bronze-helmeted men came closer, shouting furiously at the people cringing within the circle of spears. The prisoners were men and women both, mostly young, and all were filthy and sodden. A few bled diluted streaks into the rags they wore. Sweat, garlic and leather mingled with the scent of animals and dung.
Meagan knelt in her tattered nightgown, barefoot on wet, cement-like flooring. This is not happening, she repeated, keeping her eye on the soldiers. The group was forced to its feet and she was shoved forward with the others. Incredibly, Meagan heard something she understood just as another bucket drenched her. It was a fragment of a language heard only in a classroom, but the words were well-formed and clear: the words were Latin and they meant, you have hopes of swimming.
Soldiers forced the group against a wooden wall until splinters pressed into Meagan’s forearm. Suddenly the wall gave way, swinging open. She was pushed into open space.
Sound rose and shook the air. Filled bleachers banked a vast four-story amphitheatre. Tall masts soared to spread a high awning over the stadium. A moat circled the inner arena floor, and beyond it smooth marble walls were topped with elephant tusks and netting. Cherub-winged boys suspended by rope swooped over white sand and arced high above the audience. Near the opposite end of the stadium, a team of mules was lashed to something dark and slack. It took a moment for Meagan to recognize the shape of an elephant.
Book II: The Golden Spark will be published Fall 2010.
Read the 1st Chapter online!
Copyright © 2008 John Royce
Meagan froze with her hand on the horse, having a gradual realization she was touching cold flesh. She backed to the wall. – Eclipsed by Shadow excerpt
“Nice horse,” she said, crossing in front of a motionless mount to look for a way out. She patted the horse’s neck gently. It was a piebald, speckled black and white. The animal’s eyes were dull in the torchlight.
Meagan froze with her hand on the horse, having a gradual realization she was touching cold flesh. She backed to the wall. In the dim, red light she could see foreleg-sized posts set into the ground beneath the horses, impaling them, supporting their corpses. Now she saw the horses’ bodies were subtly misshapen, deflated, twisted in grotesque angles by the beams that skewered them into place.
She moved along the wall, her back to it, facing the grisly mannequins. The wall was smooth. She pounded her fist against it. Solid earth. Scraping, letting it tear at her hands, Meagan moved along the wall. Why did Promise bring me here? The stink of the room seemed to rise from the ground and overwhelm her.
She remembered the headdresses of the horses from magazine pictures, excavated from ancient tombs filled with horses ritually massacred for the funeral of their leader. Meagan was surrounded by the gold of a long vanished nomadic people—a dead entourage escorting their passing king to the underworld.
If this was such a place then she was no longer home, but in a long-dead past. The words of the legend swirled in her mind … eclipsed by shadow… She was in the darkness. The room seemed to close in as she sank down, fists clenched against her head.
Book II: The Golden Spark will be published soon.
Read the 1st Chapter online!
Copyright © 2008 John Royce
The author, John Allen Royce, will be in attendance at the annual New England Independent Booksellers Conference (NEIBA) being held this weekend at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence, RI … the 1st industry event to introduce The Golden Spark ~ Book II of The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy…