{"id":646,"date":"2013-02-25T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T14:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=646"},"modified":"2013-02-24T12:33:45","modified_gmt":"2013-02-24T17:33:45","slug":"into-the-swamp-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=646","title":{"rendered":"Into the Swamp"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first installment in a new short story, one of three from the upcoming Splintered Lands: Volume One.<\/em><\/p>\n

With a twang, the rope snapped, and Fryca cursed. \u201cThe bloody thing broke again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellgis patted her on the shoulder. \u201cWe’ll have it mended soon enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve got Knights of the Broken Wheel breathing down our necks. We don’t have time for soon enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ll flee again if we have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t want to flee again. I want this buggered contraption to kill them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellgis glanced over the path, where dead logs, hidden trips, and pressured stones covered the ground. If the devices worked, they were supposed to fire spears, swing logs across the causeway, and drop mud on those knocked into the water. He was sure the Knights of the Broken Wheel had never seen anything like it. And the Knights still wouldn’t if he and Fryca didn’t get the counterweight working. The technologists had attached it three times, but each time the ropes had failed.<\/p>\n

They’d used stronger weaves and more of them, but still the massive basket of stones tore away. If this contraption didn’t work, the technologists would have to flee deeper into the swamp. Which meant losing all of their inventions.<\/p>\n

To Ellgis, the machines were more important than the village where they lived. People could be replaced. Years of experiments could not. Fryca felt the same way, and so the two of them were here, trying to fix that blasted basket. If they saved the villagers as a result, well and good.<\/p>\n

The technologists fumbled in the darkness for some time, resulting in failure after failure, until Fryca threw her lantern into the swamp and stormed off. Ellgis retrieved it before following.<\/p>\n

The next morning they found the basket of stones had sunk into the bog. By the time they were ready to lift it into the air again, the Knights of the Broken Wheel had arrived at the edge of the swamp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first installment in a new short story, one of three from the upcoming Splintered Lands: Volume One. With a twang, the rope snapped, and Fryca cursed. \u201cThe bloody thing broke again.\u201d Ellgis patted her on the shoulder. \u201cWe’ll have it mended soon enough.\u201d \u201cWe’ve got Knights of the Broken Wheel breathing down our necks. […]<\/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":[4,56],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-aq","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":378,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=378","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":0},"title":"Into The Swamp","date":"November 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"NaNo has been going really slowly for me, and I've lost interest in working on it at the moment, hence this story, which is the first in a short series. Hopefully I can pick things up in the next couple days. With a twang, the rope snapped. Fryca cursed. \u201cThe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":647,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=647","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":1},"title":"Wheels of Persecution","date":"March 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The second installment in a new short story, one of three from the upcoming Splintered Lands: Volume One. \u00a0 Ellgis cursed long and loud as the bucket of stones was hoisted into the air, his back bent into a curve from the strain. Fryca watched anxiously, slowly paying out a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":664,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=664","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":2},"title":"Splintered Lands is Here!","date":"March 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Splintered Lands Volume One is here! Telling the story of Ellgis and Fryca, a pair of technologists designing machinery to help their fellow men, and Baron Insw\u00e1n, a noble trying to make his land a paradise in a shattered world, Splintered Lands Volume One opens a new world of post-apocalyptic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"SL WIP4","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/SL-WIP4-700x1024.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":651,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=651","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":3},"title":"Fever Dreams","date":"April 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The sixth installment in a new short story, one of three from the upcoming Splintered Lands: Volume One. Weeks passed as Ellgis and Fryca hid in their hut, nursing their wounds. Ellgis had been struck in the meat of the shoulder as he lay on the skiff, and the impact\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":393,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=393","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":4},"title":"Wheels of Persecution","date":"December 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This story is a continuation of Into The Swamp \u201cBugger! Bugger! Bugger!\u201d Ellgis cursed long and loud as the bucket of stones was hoisted into the air. Even with his inventive pulley system, the strain still showed in his back and face. Fryca watched anxiously, slowly paying out a guide\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":650,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=650","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":5},"title":"Rescuing Friends","date":"March 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The fifth installment in a new short story, one of three from the upcoming Splintered Lands: Volume One. Fryca slipped past the inn, stepping around peasants forced to sleep outside as she made her way to the stable. There, she looked for a Knight's warhorse, for she would rather steal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646"}],"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=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":653,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions\/653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}