Blood Blight

“The Blood Blight is a fearful disease that has taken many a premature life in its wake. It spreads from host to host in the blood, often through open wounds. After one contracts the disease, it is unlikely that they survive for more than two weeks. Symptoms include: bloodshot eyes, fatigue, fever, violent fits and vomiting blood.”

- from ‘Northern Plagues’ by Gauwill Everine

Blood blight is one of the most feared diseases in all the Wester Lands. Despite the rarity of it surfacing, the memory of those taken in its red claws is fresh on many poor soul's mind. Luckily for us, it has been many years since Dunneland has experienced the blood blight. It was many years ago, as far back as 125th year of the Fifth Age that a plague on a mass scale was last recorded, where Fellmoor was struck first, and it soon spread to Tarcott and then the county capital of Caperacre. Those that wrote about it tell of feverish screaming in the night, piles of bodies by the roadside and a fear of going outside held by everyone with any sense about them.

Gauwill Everine, in her book 'Northern Plagues' has documented many of the symptoms in great detail, as well as the causes of the disease. If you fear that your town may be struck, or that you are at risk, I recommend heartily this fine book, available in many libraries and bookshops. 

During my reading up on the blood blight, it got me thinking. Maybe it's time for the blood blight to strike again. Maybe Fester has been summoning all his forces to strike us with all his might. Maybe this time, the county will not recover. That is why it is only a few weeks until I am travelling across the sea to the Eastern States. I wish not to experience it again.

~ 'BEWARE! The Blood Blight!', a pamphlet by Robert Ventril

The Carronoch

What is the Carronoch? I wish I could tell you with a firmness in my mind that I knew the answer, but alas, I cannot. We have all heard the famous poem by Frywold Sede, told to us when we are just children to scare us from going out into the moors alone.

      “Do not speak to me of the Carronoch,

For in Dunneland hill and Dunneland vale

There walks a beast from darkest dream,

With eyes of gold and skin so pale.

Feathered black, his talons crack

He soars above or creeps beneath.

Wings of night with teeth so bright,

He’ll drag you down into his heath.

Traveller beware, for he is there.

Look twice over shoulder and then twice more.

You will not see him, you never will,

Until you hear his deathly caw.

Do not speak to me of the Carronoch, 

A creature born in Dunneland vale

Who one should never hope to meet.

Heed my warning, hear my tale.”

 - ’The Carronoch’  by Frywold Sede

But how much of this is truth and how much is flowery, exaggerated verse? There have been other fragments here and there, across the Wester Lands. Old scrolls and yellowing parchment, sometimes decorated with crude etches of a nightmare creature: tall, feathered and black. There are others that read that it can change from his humanoid form to a crow and then back again at will.

There is no proof that the Carronoch exists, but there is also no proof that it does not, and that scares me more than anything. There have been many sightings over the years, but no one can be sure if it is just the imagination of the drunk or the crazy or something much more. In an old Forktown watchman's log from the early fifth age, there was written a siting, where the man describes it as "storming across the hills like a shadow to feast on an unfortunate traveller". There is little more after this as the pages have been torn out.

However, recently, there has been little written about the Carronoch. Has this creature disappeared forever? Did it even exist in the first place? Will it return to haunt the moors again? We can only wonder.

~ Oskar Arulis, Foreword to his book 'Creatures of the Night'

The Ratters Patrol: A Tale For Young Warreners

A little bit of flowery prose I wrote for fun: an old story from the Warrens, giving reasons why to join The Ratters Patrol.

The Ratters Patrol

A Tale For Young Warreners

Teeth bright like knives, as white as the bone they hunt. Tiny eyes fever through the dark, searching and searching for anything to eat. Claws scrabble at dirt. They stampede through the tunnels, guided only by blind hunger.

The swarm of your childhood nightmares is coming. Long ago, your parents warned you about them in bedtime tales, but they were never just tales. And now they are coming. The rats are coming.

Even Vartos bends her head in shame, unable to look at the ungodly creatures before her. These are no beings of nature, they are spawn from the very bowels of Mordus.

But look, here they are. The Ratters Patrol, huzzah! Their hearts are keen, their blades are sharp, ready to burn this scourge from our underground homes. They will never back down.

Joined together in mind and song, they march, down tunnel after tunnel, slaying each rat with righteous anger. Many will fall, but each will be worth it. They are heroes. The heroes of the Warrens. Stand proud with your brothers and sisters.

Stand proud, oh you Ratters Patrol.

Big Announcement

This is very exciting, so I'll let the article do the talking...

http://www.realmwalkerpublishinggroup.com/realmwalker-publishing-group-signs-mitch-malloy-patch-middleton-and-sean-rodden/

Seasons

August has come and so the end of the summer crawls ever closer. While at work today (I work on a passenger ferry going back and forth in the Lake District), I noticed the differences already being made to the trees and the world around me because of the change in seasons. This, as most things do, then made me think about fantasy writing.

I have not noticed much to do with the change in seasons in the books I have read. The big one off the top of my head is G.R.R. Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire', but again this feels as a cop out because although the season of WINTER is mentioned, it does not pass as normal and the changes are gradual. I look to Lord of the Rings and cannot remember much if any mention of seasons.

I cannot help but feel that using seasons is a great opportunity for both description and allegory, whether you stick to convention seasons or create your own. I sure will!

'The Shadows Dance' Is Finished!

So It Is Finished!

I have finally finished my first fantasy novel, 'The Shadows Dance', set in the world of Aethtea, and I have been given the amazing opportunity to have it published by the 'Realmwalker Publishing Group'. Stay tuned, great things are coming.

More Redrafting

So I am half way through my second draft of 'The Shadows Dance' and, dare I say it, I'm actually enjoying it. It feels very therapeutic and satisfying.
I am sculpting and perfecting my prose so that it flows and reads well. I am also adding a few moments that I feel like the novel benefits from. However, the thing I have been focusing on most has been on descriptions for both character and locations. Forktown, as a town, I have visualised fully and have now drawn a map of all the streets and buildings refer to when writing. The description paragraphs I have added I believe will further bring the town to life for readers. Hopefully, it will become a place that writers keep wanting to come back to. I guess we'll see.