{"id":600,"date":"2012-02-01T20:14:50","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T01:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=600"},"modified":"2012-02-03T08:13:52","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T13:13:52","slug":"bloodaxe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=600","title":{"rendered":"Bloodaxe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update:<\/strong><\/em> Bloodaxe<\/a> hit Kindle this morning!<\/em><\/p>\n

I haven’t talked about <\/em>Bloodaxe much on here, but it’s a new short story that will be released to Kindle Select in a week or so. I’m using it as a trial of the platform, and I’m hoping for good things after Breaking an Empire did 2,500 downloads in a single night.<\/p>\n

The prologue of <\/em>Bloodaxe is already posted on the website here<\/a>. You might want to read it before getting to the fun below.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\tBeing born hurts. A lot. <\/p>\n

\tI felt like I was being squeezed through a rawhide bag by a former member of my personal bodyguard. The one who killed people by strangling them with an iron bar. Not wire. Bar. <\/p>\n

\tAfter that, I got smacked around by a particularly ugly old crone, then cleaned up and handed over to a woman with enough gold cloth that she had to be a duchess. Not bad for a second time around. Much better than a peasant, although I had always liked dear old mum and dad. <\/p>\n

\tI was small enough I figured it was better to be polite, so I said \u201cHello\u201d. Turned out some of the connections weren’t working right, since all that came out was a squawk. And so it turned out I was going to have to go through a normal childhood, complete with all the annoying stages of growing up. Lovely.<\/p>\n

\tWhichever god thought this was a good idea is going to wake up one morning with me standing over him with an axe. A bloody great one. And if I don’t find out which one it is, I’m going to start with Frethden, god of trickery, and work my way in from there. <\/p>\n

\tI’ve been through childhood once, and it turns out the only reason I remembered it fondly was because I didn’t remember it at all. Learning not to crap your pants? I’m so very glad I now have complete memories of that. <\/p>\n

\tAnyway, less faeces and deicide, and more storytelling. It turned out I had been born into the duchy of Trond, which was the smallest of the duchies that once made up my kingdom. Bigger than the three earldoms and two baronies that sat around it, but smaller than the other two duchies. Situated nicely in the middle.<\/p>\n

\tOr not so nicely in the middle. The other two duchies didn’t like my new parents very much, and decided to do something about that. Specifically, they sent several assassins in the night, plus a rather large force of regular soldiers. And when you’re four years old, it doesn’t matter how many years of battle-hardened reactions you have, you still need to run and hide. At least being four meant I could hide in a tiny cubbyhole.<\/p>\n

\tIt turned out the gold cloth wearing woman who was my new mother was fairly skilled with a rapier. Significantly more so than my new father, who got himself skewered within moments. I’d have been sad, except I only ever saw him at a distance, or at state affairs. Not exactly a loving father-son relationship. So, new mum dispatches the assassins, including the one who got the duke, finds me, and decides to leg it, since there’s rather more soldiers around who belong to the other duchies than to ours. <\/p>\n

\tShe calls, I come, we’re whisked off through miles of secret passages and tunnels, and end up climbing out a trapdoor hidden in the back of the fertilizer shed of a local farmer. I liked that touch. Sneaky, devious. Gave me more respect for the duchess. What I didn’t like was the damage a shaggy pony can deal to four year old buttocks. I’ve acquired battle scars in less painful ways. <\/p>\n

\tI also didn’t like the irony of the gods. Because my Mum and I ended up living in a peasant village. On a hillside. Farming. Yes, I was once more a peasant farmer. I hadn’t liked it the first time I was growing up and I didn’t like it now. And how the hell was I going to fulfil my destiny of returning to save Rudvic if all I had to work with was some dirt and the clots who ate it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update: Bloodaxe hit Kindle this morning! I haven’t talked about Bloodaxe much on here, but it’s a new short story that will be released to Kindle Select in a week or so. I’m using it as a trial of the platform, and I’m hoping for good things after Breaking an Empire did 2,500 downloads in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sRIK4-bloodaxe","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":618,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=618","url_meta":{"origin":600,"position":0},"title":"Bloodaxe is Free!","date":"April 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Bloodaxe, my Viking-based fantasy short, is free today only through the magic of Kindle Select. It takes place in a northern fantasy kingdom, and the main character is the deposed former ruler of that land. He's a villain with a wicked sense of humour, and a mum who's even more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/BloodaxeCover-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":630,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=630","url_meta":{"origin":600,"position":1},"title":"Deepwood Publishing Launches New Website","date":"October 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, that's right, the people who publish my books have gone and updated their website, and damn if it doesn't look swell. And they're letting people vote on their next three anthologies. To celebrate, and to welcome people to their new website, Deepwood Publishing has made Bloodaxe, my Viking-based fantasy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/BloodaxeCover-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":605,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=605","url_meta":{"origin":600,"position":2},"title":"Unexpected Happiness","date":"February 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to a couple kind readers, I now have a smile stapled to my face for the rest of the day. I was working away at the day job when a G+ notification email popped up. Not something I usually get, so, hey, figured I'd look. This is what I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":596,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=596","url_meta":{"origin":600,"position":3},"title":"Amazon Top Ten!","date":"January 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, Breaking an Empire hit the Amazon Top Ten for Epic Fantasy. Granted, it's in the free section, but not bad for a novella that didn't have all that much marketing behind it. And yes, it's still free, and will be for a little while longer. Until Bloodaxe arrives, probably.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Four Part Land"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":567,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=567","url_meta":{"origin":600,"position":4},"title":"Viking Fantasy","date":"October 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the prologue to a new story that popped into my head. As you can tell from the title, I don't know what to call it yet, but I do love the main character. Came about from a series of audiobooks I was listening to. My coming has long\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":576,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=576","url_meta":{"origin":600,"position":5},"title":"Upon a Brackish Heath","date":"December 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"No, I am not dead, despite all appearances to the contrary. I am, I think, quite alive. However, I have been absent from this blog for almost the entirety of December. Some of that was for good reason, some laziness. However, with the coming of the new year, I'm back.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chloddio"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}