Here is a link, and an excerpt from chapter 4 of my newest book on Amazon,
The horn blasts startled Jack. It did
occur to him that the series of notes would make a nice ringtone, or maybe an
alarm. He thought it worked better as an alarm. That’s when he understood that it was an alarm. The centaur was
sounding an alarm.
Jack looked around to see two more
centaurs galloping toward him, and he heard another horn signaling farther along
the road. He knew that running down the roadway between the trees would only
allow the centaurs to catch him quickly. He spun and ran to the east. He hoped
to find bushes or trees or some other obstacles that would allow him to elude a
pursuer.
“I think we’ve got us a necromancer.”
The centaur shouted. “I’m lucky to be alive. He made a light in his hand and
his face went to glowing like some demon after blood. Shoot first and don’t let
him throw magic, I say.”
At that point Jack’s knee crashed into
something solid. He fell over a stone wall about three feet in height. His knee
hurt so badly that he couldn’t imagine trying to get up and run. He began
crawling along the base of the wall, out of the centaurs’ sight.
If the centaurs crossed the wall they probably
still wouldn’t see him in the shadow of the wall, away from the light of the
moon.
“He’s disappeared,” said the centaur he
had been dealing with.
“I’m not going across the wall for him.
Not on a night with a full moon. There’s no telling what manner of witchery or
beast might be waiting out there, besides the slavering glorvogs.” The voice
was from one of the other centaurs.
“You should’ve shot him when you had
the chance, instead of blowing your horn,” another voice said.
“When he was all fixed to hurl a magic
on me? Like as not that arrow would’ve come flying right back at me. No. I’ll
not be taking chances with such sorcery. He’s off the King’s Way and that’s all
my job requires. I’ve done my duty. Maybe we should stay close together for a
while…in case he returns. Did you notice the strange raiment that he had? I should’ve
known right off that he was no normal trespasser.”
Jack crawled a few feet along the base
of the wall until he came to a large ditch. He appreciated the fact that the
ditch was dry. The ditch appeared to go under the King’s Way through a sort of
stone culvert or small bridge. He started his flashlight app and directed the
light into the culvert. He couldn’t see anything. He didn’t hear anything
either. He liked that.
Jack extinguished the flashlight and
looked at the screen of his phone. It showed that he had two unread text
messages. It also showed a single, small bar of service. He opened the text
messages. Jennifer’s text said, “Jack r u ok?” Mizu’s message read, “Jack, say
something.”
Jack remembered his anger at the girls
over the text messages and that anger returned. He typed a reply to Mizu’s
message and tapped “send.”
As he watched his phone to see if the
message would send, he thought he detected a low rumbling sound. Maybe it was a
growl.
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