Jonathan Moeller Novel Excerpt Tuesday: SEVENFOLD SWORD: CHAMPION
It’s Jonathan Moeller Novel Excerpt Thursday! Today we have an excerpt from SEVENFOLD SWORD: CHAMPION, which seems appropriate since SEVENFOLD SWORD: SOVEREIGN, the final book in the series, came out last week.
In this excerpt, Ridmark encounters a muridach for the first time in the realm of Owyllain.
The first time, but definitely not the last. 🙂
You can read SEVENFOLD SWORD: CHAMPION at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, and Smashwords, and it’s also available in audiobook at Audible, iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon Australia.
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“Do you speak Latin?” said Ridmark.
The ratman tilted its head to the side and let out a chittering, squeaking laugh.
“Human tongue?” it said, its voice shockingly deep after the chittering laugh. “Few words. Not many. Orc-speak?”
“I do speak orcish,” said Ridmark, switching to the language.
“The Sovereign’s old tongue,” said the muridach. “That is better.” The Sovereign? “Are you a hoplite of King Hektor and the realm of Owyllain, human?”
“I am not,” said Ridmark. “I know neither this King Hektor nor his realm of Owyllain.”
The ratman let out that chittering laugh again. “Then you are indeed a renegade! Owyllain is not King Hektor’s realm, but the realm of his brother. But the Master of the Arcanii murdered and killed the High King, and now the bearers of the Seven wage war against each other.”
“I see,” said Ridmark. He had no idea what the muridach was talking about, but he could guess what it was doing here. “And while the Seven fight each other, the muridachs grow fat upon the carrion of the battlefield?”
The muridach’s whiskers twitched, and it laughed again. “Indeed! Indeed! Perhaps you think the same way, human?” It took a step closer. “That is very fine armor you wear.”
Ridmark smiled and took a step to the right. “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”
“It is fine armor of the dark elves,” said the muridach. Ridmark glanced at the shadows on the road and noticed them shifting. “Very fine. Worthy of the Confessor himself, or one of his knights. Maybe even worthy of the old Sovereign himself! Perhaps you should give me that armor as a gift, yes? Since we are such good friends.”
“I’m merely traveling,” said Ridmark. “I don’t suppose you have seen a woman and two children? The woman would have yellow hair and wear a green garment, and the two children would resemble her a great deal.”
“No,” said the muridach. “We have not seen any human females nor human whelps. Do you seek them? Perhaps you shall be reunited with them in the realm of death!”
The ratman’s voice rose to roar at the final word, but Ridmark was ready.
He whirled, sweeping the strange staff before him, and as he had expected, the rest of the muridach scavengers had crept up behind him. There were three more of the creatures, all lean and gaunt and covered in greasy black fur. Like the first muridach, they all wore leather armor and carried short swords fashioned of bronze. They rushed at Ridmark, swords drawn back to stab. Likely they thought him unarmed. He was only carrying a wooden stick, after all, and a man with a stick was no threat to anyone.
Ridmark had thought the same way once. One of his father’s common-born men-at-arms had taught him otherwise in a lesson that had broken no bones but left a great many bruises. Later, he had wandered the Wilderland as the Gray Knight, seeking atonement through death for his failure at Castra Marcaine. Stripped of the soulblade Heartwarden, he had used a wooden staff with an iron core as his main weapon for years.
In many ways, holding the strange staff felt like reuniting with an old friend.
Ridmark sidestepped, beat aside the stabs of the short bronze swords with a sweep of his staff, and swung again. His blow knocked the muridach on his right from its feet, and the creature went down with a shriek.
-JM