With thanks for your patience in the past week as I worked on the copy edits,\u00a0 here’s a snippet (again, if you don’t want any spoilers at all, don’t read beyond the “read more” link.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is maybe 1\/5 to 1\/4 of the way through the book.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The location is Cortes Vonja; the characters are Stammel and Groj, a blacksmith in Vonja and a member of the grange where Stammel has been staying.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Stammel has been going for walks with Suli, “Stammel’s Eyes,” as his guide, and he’s done indoor drill with the grange.\u00a0 Now he’s marched out to the grange-field with the others…<\/p>\n
“I’m Groj,” a voice said in front of him.\u00a0 “I’m one of the smiths.\u00a0 Marshal says I’m not to kill you.”<\/p>\n
“I’d prefer not,” Stammel said.<\/p>\n
“I’m a head taller,” Groj said.\u00a0 “He said I should tell you that.”<\/p>\n
“I could tell from your voice,” Stammel said.\u00a0 He could feel his body’s adjustments, the same as always.\u00a0 For a taller man, this shift.\u00a0 Around him he heard other pairs moving into position.<\/p>\n
“But I won’t let you win,” Groj said.\u00a0 “I told ‘m I wouldn’t, and he said that was all right.”<\/p>\n
“I won’t let you win, either,” Stammel said.\u00a0 Just as he wondered whether pairs signaled each other some way or the Marshal started it, he heard the command.<\/p>\n
All the pent-up emotion of the past tendays exploded as he charged.\u00a0 He heard the rasp of Groj’s boots on the grass as the man tried to swing aside, but he was faster, and his arms, reaching wide, caught the man’s belt.\u00a0 Pivot, yank–Groj’s big hand on his shoulder, but he already had the leverage, and Groj went down.\u00a0 He rolled up quickly, caught Stammel’s arm, and then they were in grip, hands and elbows and knees, struggling for mastery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With thanks for your patience in the past week as I worked on the copy edits,\u00a0 here’s a snippet (again, if you don’t want any spoilers at all, don’t read beyond the “read more” link.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is maybe 1\/5 to 1\/4 of the way through the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,81,115],"tags":[106,28],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contents","category-kings-of-the-north","category-snippet","tag-contents","tag-snippet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":778,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions\/778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}