Monday, May 21, 2018

High Forest Confrontation: Reindeer King snippet




  Since I referenced it in my post for Indie E-Con, I thought I'd share this snippet from my upcoming novel, Thaw: Reindeer King.

"A bellow erupted from the forest ahead. The sturdy forest horses froze in their tracks, and Hess took a firmer hold on the reins, expecting anything.
But Kai knew what was happening. He flapped his legs against his mount’s sides with no effect, so immediately afterward he bailed off and hit the ground running, every leap emanating fierce protectiveness.
Snapp and Snurr burst from the curve ahead at a dead gallop, and then Hess heard the snarl as a furry gray beast took the curve right on their tails. The canine’s body leaned nearly sideways for the turn, the flying paws digging deep in the snow and litter of the past year.
The reindeer bellowed half in anger, half in fear, and Kai let loose with a bellow of his own to warn any and all predators… that these two herbivores belonged strictly to him.
The reindeer bolted past Kai, then swung their heavy antlers in a sharp turn to circle up at their master’s back.
The pursuing pack let loose a cacophony of yips and swarmed down upon the beleaguered woodsman and his team. [...]
Kai swung his staff and connected solidly with a head, then reversed the blow to thump another set of ribs. [...]
The pack retreated, slinking backwards into a sullen ring of watchers, cautiously circling the travelers. They definitely wanted those reindeer.

Several leaned back on their haunches and howled, a long chilling wail that wavered and ached across the mountains. [...] 

The creatures went into another round of howling, and then one of the big ones tried to rush in and sink its teeth into a reindeer flank.
Kai was faster, and the opportunist met the flat power of the oak staff, chock against the base of the neck, breaking the spine.
The hunter didn’t even yelp. It just crumpled forward into a pile, plowing up the skiff of snow with its remaining momentum.
“NO!!!” the shout reverberated off the mountainsides and shook the snow out from the pines.
Hess and Tompte raised their heads to see a figure cloaked in hides barreling down the slope. The newcomer was clearly bipedal, but that was about all that could be told at first glance, with the very furry outerwear, it could have easily passed for a forest animal.
With an unnerving yell the apparition charged at them, straight through the pack of dogs, and lit into Kai with its own stout quarter staff, which had clearly come from these same, rough, mountains."


 I think we can all agree there's going to need to be lots of conflict resolution before these two are friends again!!! 


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