The Savage Lands 1

It’s been a while since I’ve written a collection of short stories. I’ve written five of them so far, with the latest one e-published in November of 2014. My collections usually jump all over the place, with a variety of characters, settings and mini-plots, ranging from stories of a page or two up to full novellas. For this project, I wanted to do things a little different. I wanted a small cast of characters to work with, one stable medieval fantasy / sword and sorcery environment to put them in, and shorter adventures of at least ten pages, all under a single world with a single set of fantasy rules. Why would I do this? Well, I was under a bit of burn-out, as I recently completed not just one, but two full-length novels I was working on simultaneously, one in the morning and the second in the evening. I got 90 - 95% done with both of these projects, but those last ten or fifteen pages of each novel were really kicking my ass and difficult to finish up.

I thought, after all that headache, I should take a break and write something shorter and sweeter. Short stories were the answer! Instead of bursting ahead with a new idea, then plodding along until I run out of gas, then bursting ahead again after catching a second writer’s wind, all I did was burst, burst and burst ahead some more. I wrote out a sequence, reached a natural break in the story, and immediately went to look for inspiration for the next short story. This is why you will see Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3 in some of my entries. I did not break these stories up in any way; that’s the sequence in which they were written. Many of my favorite writers, such as Bradbury, Doyle and Lovecraft, created similar material, and it was with the idea of Howard’s Conan short stories that I went into this project to begin with.

The inspiration for these stories came from many, many places. I already have a decent working knowledge of medieval lore, thanks to having written several novels based on that epoch. Also, I routinely watch documentaries and pop movies to add to that strong foundation. When I come up with new writing concepts, they usually aren’t in the form of one, single book but of a series of them. That’s saying something, isn’t it! In my mind, I’ve laid out the first full book, and as I’m writing it I get ideas for the second, so I plant clues and sub-plots and whatnot that won’t get resolved until the sequel comes around. That’s why this volume already has a ‘1’ at the end of it!

There is a plethora of fiction out there to inspire me for another volume. I have many of these categories already sorted out so I can study them in depth later; hopefully I have enough lifetime left in me to get to most of them. Just look at all these directions I could have gone with: Arthurian legends, fan fiction for Dungeons & Dragons, Forgotten Realms, Warhammer, etc.

For this first volume, I went back to the first hero (really a heroine) I ever created. Her full name is Dobrynia, or Doby for short. She is a proud and strong Valkyrie warrior from Norse mythology, named after the male Dobrynia, a dragon slayer and Amazon lover from Slavic tradition. Doby makes several appearances in this collection, by the way, and is the mainstay for my fantasy novel series named after her, Dobrynia’s Path. My Doby character came about from multiple sources, but the main source was the video game from Blizzard Entertainment, Diablo II. That game features a busty blonde Amazon who can put daylight into her foes with her arrows, chuck javelins over a long distance and poke out with a spear in close combat. After doing research into the Amazons of myth and history, alas, I did not have enough material to fully round out a character. Woe is me! But wait; look there! One of the Amazon’s skills in the video game is to summon the spirit of a Valkyrie to aid her in battle. Researching where Valkyrie came from led me to the Viking gods, and there you have enough background material to fill up an entire library shelf. That is how my character Doby was born!

I did something similar while writing this book. I found sites that post Diablo fan fiction, such as the Blizzard forums and Fan Fiction Dot Net. These fans were moved enough to create stories based on their favorite video games, with individual perspectives and unusual, unexpected storylines. What I did was this: I took a bit out a documentary, out of a pop movie, out of real history, real mythology, and a final bit from these fan fiction stories, and I tossed them into the mechanism that creates fiction inside my head.

Ode Of A Warrior Tribesman was inspired by a Celtic war poem. The Strange Village Of Heathrow, and I’m sure you’ll see the parallels here, was partially based on the Den Of Evil quest in Diablo II. The idea for Lady Martin’s Manor came from a two-page piece of fan fiction, the description of a medieval manor structure from the DK Eyewitness book Knights And Castles, and ended up at over thirty pages when it was all said and done. The dream sequences in The Lion, The Witch And The Brigands were plucked out of Carlos Castaneda’s shamanic fantasies and reworked. The White Crows short story was based on comic books from the acclaimed artist Moebius. I can go on and on here, but you see what I’m getting at. Everything is a puzzle piece for me, and I’m happiest when I put these many puzzle pieces together to create something new.

The only portions of this collection that aren’t new are the Old Hag poems. I wrote those years ago, and have been sitting on them ever since because I didn’t know where to place them. Actually, I’d hoped to write the poem first and create a story based on that poem later, so you might see Endrick the Great walking among and fighting side by side with these characters when I get around to writing Savage Lands 2. (Endrick finally shows up in Savage Lands 5!)

I’ll leave you with this: some of these characters have made appearances in my writing before. Here is a quick rundown of where you might find them:

Roll Call

Novel - Character

Dobrynia’s Path 1 through 5 - Dobrynia, Victor, Tekkin

Inspired By M.C. - Tihmere of the Red Fold

That’s all the jibber-jabber I have for you. I give many thanks to Blizzard Entertainment, for the iconic Diablo II video game. That’s what inspired me to create Dobrynia in the first place, and without her everything medieval that came after would have certainly been quite different.

Raymond Towers

#####

Ode Of An Unknown Warrior Tribesman

At my sides, my brothers.

At my front, my captains.

Some will stand while others fall.

May the gods watch over us all.

Give us sustenance, o gods.

Let not our bellies crave or thirst.

Give us strength, o gods.

Let not our swords leave our hands.

Of those who stand before our might,

Let our arrow tips fill with daylight.

Of those who stand before our arms,

Let our boots trod upon their heads.

Over mountains, hills, rivers and vales,

Give us persistence to defeat our foes.

Lend us your hands, o gods of ours,

Let us bring our enemies low.

Let it be so, for on we will go.

Let it be so, for on we will go.

#####

A Furry Little Man

According to the ancient legends, the Savage Lands had once been good country for men to live in, for agriculture to grow and for livestock to graze on. To the detriment of that entire region, it was told that an army of mages had invaded that country to corrupt it with the blackest forms of magic, a magic that cannot be duplicated or reversed by the less powerful mages of the present time. That vile sorcery has robbed the land of its well being, draining it of its former life and vibrancy. It was said that no sane man would travel willingly across that dead country.

Timehre, a former Knight of the Red Fold, smirked at the recollection. Many times, it had been said about him that he was not a sane man. On this night, he was not alone in that insanity, however. A merchant of modest means had hired Tim, along with three other young fighting men. Their task was simple; to escort the merchant and his small family across a corner of the Savage Lands. Tim hadn’t been told why the merchant was fleeing through the most inhospitable stretch of territory imaginable, but he was less concerned with that and more worried over getting paid. From all that he’d seen of the merchant, that man carried no great amount of coin on his person, unless he had it hidden away in some magic hole Tim could not readily discern.

They traveled in two small wagons, both of them driven by the mercenaries. Two pairs of cows pulled the wagons along. They were strong and healthy cows, admittedly, but the animals further attested to the merchant’s lowly status. Perhaps the man had cheated a wealthier trader, Tim speculated, or made some mistake in accounting that he could not rectify without losing an arm or a leg. The first wagon bed carried the nervous merchant, his fat wife and their two sons, all of them sitting on blankets or carpets to soften their backsides as the wagon rumbled along the rough road. In the second wagon were found all of the family’s belongings, including a single table, a few chairs, a good supply of food and water, and a number of tapestries of unremarkable value. Family heirlooms, perhaps?

The family hardly left the wagon unless they had to relieve themselves in the woods they traveled through. They were asleep now, while Tim and the hired men had built up a fire and boasted of battles and women. They had a barrel of weak ale sitting in the second wagon, which they took turns drinking from during the day. At night, however, they did not drink in order to keep alert. Because the Savage Lands were full of danger, only one man slept at a time, while the rest kept watch around a small campfire. Even the snakes in those lands, it was rumored, could grow legs and climb up the sides of wagons to sink their venom into unsuspecting travelers.

One of his fellows, a scruffy sort with red hair and a red beard, was teasing the former knight. What will ye do, Tim, if that fat woman ambles over and plops her fat behind on your lap? You’ve seen the lusty way she looks at the lot of us.

He’ll pinch her bottom, that’s what he’ll do. The other man still awake joked. You know how the story goes. If the woman is too skinny or too fat, you shut your eyes and invent a new woman in your head. The next time Tim is drinking with the men, he’ll tell them all how fair her face was and how large her breasts were. Never you mind that she looks like an overfed sow tonight!

Well, she does have very large breasts. The redheaded man intimated.

All three started laughing.

Their good humor stopped, however, when they heard a skitter of noise coming from the nearby trees and bushes. It wasn’t the first time they’d heard those unusual sounds, but they did seem to be getting nearer to the men as the night went on.

Any closer and whoever is making that noise will be sitting next to the fire with us. The redhead commented. One of us should go to investigate the matter.

The other man anxiously suspired, Tim noticed. Apparently, they’d had that talk earlier, over who was going into the woods for a look. Tim had been asleep then. He watched as the man gathered a few stems of broken weeds from a small bunch he had on the ground next to him.

The short stick is the fool. The man shuffled the stems and held them out to the others.

No need. Tim declared. I’m the most rested of us. I’ll go.

Each man kept his armaments close to him. Tim stood, securing his leather belt on his waist and sheathing his short sword into its holder. The sword could be drawn out if need be, but in the dark and surrounded by shrubbery it might even hinder him, so Tim opted for his smaller secondary weapon. This was a dagger, sharp and lethal, which he used less as a weapon and more as a tool to cut things with. His other hand clutched at a small, rounded wooden shield painted in red and yellow, with a polished iron boss embedded in the center.

Godspeed, Tim. The redhead told him.

If that fat woman comes looking for me, you tell her what direction I’m stepping in. Tim kidded. It’s dark enough in those trees that I won’t need to shut my eyes.