The website of Allene R. Lowrey
Some of the ambushers carried torches with them: the light in the square was now enough that Einarr could see just how badly Finn had been beaten. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and the other was crusted with dried blood from a head wound. A rope bound Finn’s wrists too tightly, and he…
Einarr spent the first morning after they sailed restless, worrying simultaneously that he had done too much and too little. But, as the grey skies over the grey lands slipped back over the horizon, he turned his attention to more pressing matters. Namely, arriving home in time for his own wedding. Based on the charts,…
“Nothing?” Eydri repeated, aghast. “Nothing,” Einarr answered. “That gem isn’t magical, and these people aren’t cursed. Now, Hrug, I don’t think the purification circle will need to be very complex. A simple fire rune started the process.” Hrug nodded. Even with the issues they had with magic here on the island, they should be able…
The skeletal draugr milled about outside their door, in numbers like they had seen during their panicked flight the night before – only this time, their interest had been caught by the people in the room. “Do you they want the gem?” “Almost certainly.” Eydri’s voice echoed Troa’s just a heartbeat behind. “They were just…
At first light the next day, Einarr set off for the barrow field with Naudrek and Troa, leaving the others to continue their search for answers in the ruins. As they stepped out of the crumbling stone walls, Einarr saw movement off towards the horizon: one of the draugr, shambling into the forest to rest…
Einarr sat crosslegged on the ground, near enough the fire that the heat pressed uncomfortably against his thigh. The tablet page appeared to give an accounting of gifts presented by Ragnar to men of the town. It seemed utterly ordinary, so he turned back to the previous page. That spoke of a traveler who stopped…
Sinmora slashed down and a draugr collapsed into a pile of bones, only to begin reassembling itself almost immediately. Troa stomped on the pile of bones and moved into the hole it left even as he took out the legs of the one behind it. Then Finn stepped forward as Troa had before. They fought,…
Einarr and Troa were out of the room before they heard Eydri’s footsteps start to catch up. Her complaints registered a moment later. “Warn a girl before you take off like that! Whatever happened to sticking together for everything?” Einarr and Troa muttered apologies but did not slow. The sound of fighting grew closer, but…
Much to Naudrek’s annoyance, Einarr insisted on taking the midnight watch that night. “This is your quest, Einarr. You owe it to yourself to be fresh for it in the morning.” “You’re right. This is my quest. But I deeply mislike the situation I’ve brought you all into, and of all of us there are…
It was nearly impossible to tell the passage of time in the twilight gloom of that forest canopy. Here and there they would pass near a spot where a tree had fallen, but even in those brief clearings the only sky they saw was a dull, dead grey. It was their stomachs told them it…
