Spoor Snippets

GODSWAR 1 - The Mask of Ares - Chapter 13 Chapter 13. "Lord Ares!" He turned towards the call, seeing one of the Ekprospos coming towards him. With an annoying effort, he recalled her name. Artemisia Igemon, that was it. "Lady Artemisia," he said, inclining his head. "How can I be of service?" She smiled slightly up at him; General Aloysius, his incarnate form, was a man of heroic stature indeed, so even the fact that the night-haired woman topped six and a half feet left her nearly four inches below his height. "I wanted to say how your...

GODSWAR 1 - The Mask of Ares - Chapter 12 Chapter 12. "This looks like a good spot to camp," Ingram said, studying the small, perfectly circular clearing. "Then Urelle can show us what she's come up with." "Wait a moment, young man," Victoria said, keeping him from entering. Her sharp blue eyes darted about the grassy, flower-strewn meadow with a flat rock outcropping near the center. Ingram could see tension in her pose, her hand held so that she could summon that immense battleaxe in a moment. She muttered something that Ingram thought was...

GODSWAR 1 - The Mask of Ares - Chapter 11 Chapter 11. Urelle studied Ingram out of the corner of her eye as they walked. He was silent when not talking, and his feet would glide over the forest floor, hardly displacing a single leaf, lifting up and over or around even the smallest branches without, as far as she could tell, even looking at them. Even walking next to him she had to strain to hear the faintest whisper of sound from his passage; she sounded like a blundering ralangas by comparison. She tried to imitate the motion, but despite...

GODSWAR 1 - The Mask of Ares - Prologue Thru Chapter 10 GODSWAR 1 - The Mask of Ares By Ryk E. Spoor AUTHOR'S NOTE: My world of Zarathan is something of a potpourri of all fantasy elements, and some SF ones as well, as readers of the Balanced Sword trilogy know. This is intentional. Few of the elements that look familiar are exactly what they appear to be, and even references to real-world people, places, or things are changed to make them work as I want them to in my stories. This is of course the case with the pseudo-Greek elements of the...

Unless the Great And Glorious Writer (Ryk Spoor) changes his mind, this is the last snippet. Castaway Resolution - Chapter 30 Chapter 30. "We're going to start moving out of here now," Campbell said. "Just shot up one of those stinging-worm things, and the air here's gone way beyond foul, it's getting' toxic." "But we can't just stop work on getting Emerald Maui home!" Sakura said sharply. "Calm down, Saki, ain't no one saying anything like that. But we gotta start packin' and get out of here. It's not safe in any way. Move on down the coast,...

Castaway Resolution - Chapter 29 Part 4: RESCUES Chapter 29. Sakura tried to ignore the telltales at the corner of her omni's display. Maybe I shouldn't leave them there at all. But the idea of not having an eye on her best friend ever was intolerable. And really, she just had to remind herself that there wasn't any reason to keep checking every second. Whips was in suspension, his metabolism slowed to something like a hundredth of normal. That didn't entirely apply to other aspects of his injuries, of course -- he wasn't going to live a...

Castaway Resolution - Chapter 28 Chapter 28. "I'm dying, aren't I?" Whips asked over his private channel. He was pretty sure what the answer was going to be. Laura was silent for a moment. Then, very quietly, she said, "Yes. Yes, you are, Harratrer. I'm sorry." "Thought so." He tried to say it casually, but he could hear the pain in his voice too clearly. "We're working on it," she said. "We're not giving up, and you shouldn't either." "Got. . . too many things to do to give up," Whips said, studying the side display in his omni. "Franky and...

Castaway Resolution - Chapter 27 Chapter 27. Relief and fear speared simultaneously through Laura. "Francisco? Thank God! Are all of you all right?" "Hitomi and I are good, yes. Whips. . . Whips is not good. He cannot move much." Then Whips' voice -- weak and with the burring undertone of pain and exhaustion -- came on the comm. "I'm here. . . Mom," he said. She smiled and felt tears start from her eyes at the same time. "Relaying through Francisco's omni -- I can link through the open airlock door." "I'm here, Mommy!" Hitomi said. "Whips is...