Check It Out

Again promoting my short story on here.

Synopsis:  CHILDREN ABDUCTED IN THE NIGHT.

A lone friar journeys into the demon infested North Woods to find these missing children.

You can get it on the Nook:

Wolves of North Wood

And you can also get it on the Kindle:

Wolves of the North Wood


The cost is only a mere $1.25 USD

A Little Sampling of the Wolves of North Wood:

    The tendrils of smoke caressed her time worn face, and stung her grayish blue eyes. Eyes that sought form in the smoke and flames.   Aldrah, one of the less harmful Witches of the North Woods, remained crouched before her hearth as her withered, bony hands snatched up one of the herbs laid out before her.   She tossed it into the fire; eagerly watching as the small blaze licked and snapped and devoured the bit of herb.

    A rap at her door sounded; but she did not hear it; lost in her flame scrying.  Again the rap sounded only louder and more insistent and still Aldrah's mind refused to give heed to her visitor in the night.  After all none were foolish enough to brave the night of the North Woods.  And one who would live in the North Woods would be even more a fool to open the door on such a wintry night; fore demons often came for the souls of humans during such times.

    The knock came more urgent now; almost breaking her concentration.  Unconsciously she hissed at the door, “Go away wretch!” as she redoubled her effort to ignore the knocking and focus upon the images within the hearth.  Her hand unconsciously threw another handful of herbs into the flames, the vision in her mind’s eyes growing clearer.  The door slammed inward as a figure wrapped in a dark blue traveling cloak and body glove armor of midnight black stood framed in the door of Aldrah’s home.   Within the stranger’s hands was a creature neither wholly human nor fully wolf.

    The monotone typical of his kind sprang from the shadowed figure's lips, "You are Aldrah the Harridan of the North Woods?"

    His voice had yanked her out of the trance, the flames in the hearth leaped up high and then smothered themselves.   Aldrah coughed and gagged as nothing but smoke erupted around her at the spell's breaking.

    She snarled upset at her spell weaving's distruption, "Yes!  I am Aldrah!  What business do you have with me?!"

    Aldrah looked to her visitor and recognized what this figure was at once.  The old witch easily knew him for what he was by those golden eyes hidden within the shadows of his cloak's hood.  She knew a Hultan when her old eyes beheld one, and after all only a Hultan would be brave or foolish enough to dare the dangers of the North Woods at night.

    He had thrown the wolf fiend towards her as he informed her, "I seek someone."

    Aldrah rasped as her hand immediately thrusted out palm up towards the stranger as she understood what he had no doubt come for, "Ah!"

    The figure in dark shades of blue withdrew a pouch from his cloak and emptied a few silver coins into that waiting palm.  Aldrah knew these coins to be mostly pure silver from their weight.   She had an eye or rather a good hand for the purity of coinage, it was one of the many unnatural talents she possessed as a witch.  The old harridan knew the worth of silver, both it’s financial and magical value.

    Her yellow toothed face grinned up at the stranger, "So Hultan, this fiend?  It is no doubt related to who you seek."   Aldrah hobbled over to the fiend's corpse that had been tossed towards her.  She grunted a little as she pulled the dagger from the cord about her waist.  "Usually an augury cost much more, but since we are something close to brethren, you and I, this shall be sufficient."

    He merely nodded his head in silent agreement with her as she knelt over it.  She began anointing special oils onto the blade and chanting in the ancient tongues of man.  The wickedly pointed dagger gleamed with another worldly magic as she turned her haggard face back to the Hultan, "Tell me who is it you seek?"

    "I have been hired to slay the Wolf Witch of the North Woods."  he told her.

    She gleefully cackled as her dagger bit deeply into the fiend's flesh, cold blood splattered onto her face. Her hand ever so careful and meticulous as it cut away the furry flesh.   Once the cut had been made her wrinkled hands plunged into the animal’s stomach and began gently pulling out the vital ingredient to any augury, the intestine, and handling it with the care a mother shows to her favored child.

******

    "Damn it,' Friar Abe Fisher cursed under his breath as he tried to remain calm.   His hands shook violently as he reloaded Gabriel.   This .62 caliber belt pistol had been passed down in the Fisher Family for so many generations that not even Abe's great grandfather knew when this silver trimmed firearm had come into the family's ownership.   His left hand braced the white stock of Gabriel as his right hand's index finger rested uneasily upon the trigger.   The name Gabriel glistened in the silver along the gun's twelve barrel reflecting the light of a setting red sun; spilling out across the horizon like a wound.

    Abe's heart raced as he stood alone; trying to hold the belt pistol steady.  His hide boots gripped firmly onto the snow crested hill top as the distance between him and the encroaching shadowy form shrank.  He easily heard the snapping of old oak branches and gnarled pines as the foul creature approached.  The beast's ravenous howls did nothing to ease the Friar Fisher's mind.

    The friar attempted careful aim with his shaking hands as the white furred dire wolf burst from the forest's cover.  The massive she-wolf, nearly as large as the friar himself, savagely bounded over the snow banks with a solitary purpose in mind: feasting on the friar.

    An almost blinding flash of brilliance filled Abe's vision for a second as the bullet roared forth from the barrel, and slammed into the dire wolf's chest.  The piercing ring of the shot sounded only for the briefest of seconds in the friar's ears.   The white beast haltered only for a minute as it absorbed the shallow wound's damage.   A raging bellow passed those snarling lips just before the she-wolf charged the friar, a sparse trail of blood staining the snow behind her.