Stone Serpent Cover Art Complete!

The cover art for Stone Serpent is officially complete! Liam Reynold’s skill in oil painting is truly undeniable in capturing the moment where Ta (the protagonist) opens the forbidden underground chamber to reveal his nemesis.

 

The following excerpt is from Stone Serpent Chapter 17.

“Sarakand looked different from the sky. Its plazas and squares exploded outward in weaves and blossoms of color framed by bustling thoroughfares that faded into dark spiderwebs of side streets and alleyways. The glistening spires of the former Royal Palace and the Academy’s high shimmering dome, soared over the monotonous expanses of mudbrick tenements separated from the manors of the wealthy by walled gardens of glistening green. Then there were the sun-bleached lines of the city walls and the harbor where boats scudded back and forth like little black beetles against a limitless blue horizon.

Hong stood above it all. Surveying viscounts and beggars from his rickety throne of sun washed timbers. Sweat dripped into his squinting eyes, crisscrossing his sunburnt skin in long winding rivers. A king with a crown of matted black hair, with a cheap hammer for a scepter.

“Oi, crawler! Quit your ogling and put your back into it!”

Standing on the slender walkway, arms akimbo and with all the charisma of an undressed block of sandstone, was Atesh the foreman. Wretched was the king to have him in his retinue.

Hong exhaled, averting his gaze from the spreading expanse of rooftops, conscious once more of the hammer in his hand, the chisel in his belt, and the empty gulfs of space behind and beneath him.

It was not his city anyway.

Weariness gripped his aching wrists as he returned to work, the chisel’s impact sending up fine plumes of stone dust.

Behind him, the treadmill crane rumbled as it hauled the latest in an endless succession of loads to the pinnacle of the ascending tower that would one-day crown Sarakand’s Citadel. In the past three months, Hong had seen it rise to a dizzying height that made the men in the courtyard resemble children’s toys.

He did not envy poor old Ying, whose legs drew up every block the masons added to the rising structure. Those legs, born of Kwang’s foothills, carried the whole crew.

Hong’s chisel rang out in unison with Maz’s on his right, joining with the drum of their hammers, though the Sarakand native, twitching from quickleaf withdrawal, would never acknowledge harmony with an outlander. Hong had heard him complain to Atesh more than once. Despite having worked side by side for days, they had yet to exchange a single word.

The discordant melody circled the tower’s half-formed belvedere, quarried stones trimmed and smoothed by a circular chorus of chisels and hammers. It droned for hours, interrupted only by the whistling of the wind that swept the precarious walkways. Aching arms and backs played the same monotonous rhythm over creaking scaffolding until the sun sank low, throwing wine stains over the sandstone.

At last, the hollow trumpet sounded from below, the sound echoing among the city’s domes and spires, to signal that the day was done. Atesh’s masters would not pay for the lamp oil to allow work to continue at night, nor would the pool of workers be so plentiful if they did.

Hong downed tools and rose to his feet, clinging to the stonework as the bones in his legs cracked, cramped muscles straining as he took his first steps. There were no railings up here and the only way to work and survive in the constantly blowing wind was to remain on one’s knees for hours on end. It was a hard lesson that some didn’t live long enough to learn.

Harsh gusts whistled in his ears, making him cling tighter to the stonework as he edged along the walkway. Three months in and he still wasn’t used to it. Never, not in the most backbreaking harvest of his life, had farm labor been this hard. The sights and smells of the rice paddy, thronged with mud-covered friends and neighbors, were more infinitely more wholesome than rickety scaffolding loaded with strangers. Surely the Goddess had never meant for Her children to toil in this dawn to dusk village in a foreign sky, but it was the least of many abominations.

Keeping his eyes on the curving line of masonry, he followed Maz toward the crane. He crept forward, not daring to move any faster as the boards creaked under his hesitant steps.

How could Maz walk so confidently? Like he was strolling down a village lane.

A sudden gust whipped at his tunic and he muttered a hasty prayer to the Lady of the Rice Harvest.

The breeze was interrupted by a loud crack. Before Hong could even think, the scaffolding, worn smooth by days of plodding feet, gave way.

His heart froze, suspended in a gulf of nothingness that clawed greedily at his ankles. The weight of his body rested on whitening knuckles, weakened by hours of toil.

The splintered boards echoed in space as they fell down and down.

Blurred shapes swirled above him. He heard voices shouting, but couldn’t make out the words over the wind whistling in his ears.

His fingers faltered. This was the end.

Hong shut his eyes as his panicked heart thundered, silently begging Yara for forgiveness and praying for the Goddess to keep her and Ming and Chan…

Suddenly there were hands on his straining arms. He could hear cursing over the racing of his own blood as he was pulled upward.

He was looking into Maz’s scowling red face and that of a second laborer whose name he couldn’t remember.

They dragged him over the creaking boards, depositing him on the platform.

The next thing he heard was Atesh’s barking voice.

“Watch your bloody footing, idiot!”

Hong was aware of little else until his feet rested firmly upon the Goddess’s earth.”

Release date coming soon! Stay tuned!

Stone Serpent Excerpt and Art Update

The cover art for Stone Serpent is nearly complete, so I want to give you a preview of the amazing work that Liam Reynolds has done. We’re still aiming for an early May release for my third fantasy novel.

 

Chapter 1 of Stone Serpent begins with the following scene.

“Crack!

The sound of the rattan ripped through the spreading cloud of dust kicked up from the tournament ground. Like the shouts and gasps of the crowd, their shadowed faces squinting below the eaves of the surrounding huts, it was drowned out by the roaring of Ta’s own blood; thundering in his ears through a clinging haze of sweat. Only the pain, shooting up his forearm from the shock of impact, cut through his carefully erected wall of concentration.

Wrist loose...like a fisher catches a fish…

His old man’s lessons echoed faintly beneath the booming of his pulse. He only remembered to relax his grip at the last second before his father’s riposte came like a bolt from the blue.

Fighting down the fatal instinct to flinch, he simultaneously lifted the bo and took a defensive half-step back.

His old man wasn’t going easy. Not after seasons’ worth of practice.

No sooner had Ta brought the bo up to parry the incoming stroke, it changed direction; by some inexplicable sleight of hand, the steep angle flattened and whipped toward his ear.

Ta shifted his stance, but the blow caught him before he could move his arms further than the length of a rice grain.

Exploding stars turned the sky yellow as he pitched on his back in the dirt. Only then, ears ringing from the roar of the crowd, feeling like a blacksmith’s hammer to the head, did he realize his mistake.

Hands before feet…always hands before feet.

His throat convulsed as he sucked dusty air into his empty lungs. Voices pounding at his throbbing skull, he fought back tears. He was nearly a grown man. It would not do to weep boyish tears before the whole village.

Even in defeat, he was his father’s son.

Presently, that strong, familiar hand, scarred and smelling of earth, found Ta’s own through the dust and noise. Its grip was gentle, drawing him effortlessly to his feet, the one sure thing as the world spun in a blur of browns and greens.

Rows of faces swam into focus under the blue canopy of sky surmounting the circle of hard-packed dirt before the shrine. Sul, the village priest, was a solitary sentinel of gleaming white, his expression hard as the Goddess’s jade statue, brought from its sanctuary so that the Lady of the Rice Harvest could view those fighting for Her favor. She and Her priest were the only ones not on their feet shouting and cheering.

Given that She was the only woman permitted to watch the bouts, it was strange that She wasn’t more excited.

These idle thoughts were dispelled by more faces. Ta was prepared for the happiness that showed in so many pairs of eyes – happiness at seeing the outcast ‘stick boy’ beaten down, even by his own father whom most of them liked even less.

Lu was among the few who bore expressions of concern. The thick-set, black-haired lad was badly bruised from the earlier contests and dried blood encrusted his broad forehead. But there was awe in his jubilant eyes. Awe that his friend had kept his feet so long, making it to the rounds reserved for men. It was rare for boys to make it so far and still rarer for them to withstand the first blow when they did. It had taken two strokes from a master to bring Ta down. That was more than respectable. Had Ta been anyone but his father’s son, every boy in the village would be cheering him, and not beseeching the ancestors for his injury and humiliation. But Lu’s approval was enough, shining through in one of his typical silly grins.

Ta knew to take the good with the bad; he’d had little choice in the matter.

Shaken, head ringing like a temple bell, his skin covered in a leopard’s patchwork of bruises earned in the course of seven rounds of stick fighting, Ta peered into his father’s dark eyes. The pride in those deep wells flowed into him and his pain fled along with all sense of loss.

In that moment, Ta felt like a man.

He knew his strength. He knew his weakness. He had made a mistake, but he would get better. His hand would strike with the speed of a serpent. Friends and foes alike would respect him.

It was not over. His father had more men to fight before the Day of the Ancestors was done and the lanterns could be lit. Vengeful men who hated him.

Stooping, Ta picked up the fallen rattan and held it high toward the onlooking heavens as the noise of the crowd died away. In that moment, standing by his victorious father’s side, he was a warrior. He was free of the fields and the mud. His every dream had come true.”

More updates soon!