Category Archives: Writing

October 10, 2023 · 1:28 pm

The Murder that… Might Have Happened in the Woods…

When we bought our house over a decade ago, it came with several acres of forest. Unfortunately, hunters stalked the woods in autumn and coyotes prowled at night. So… not entirely safe for a walk with the puppies. But it’s my land, and I’ll be damned if I won’t walk my dogs there.

I don’t object to hunting, especially since our yard is literally overrun by wild turkeys at certain times of year and I see deer everywhere around here. But I still don’t want people walking around my yard with loaded guns, possibly mistaking my foxhound for a deer.

It’s legal to hunt in any forest in NH, no matter who owns it, as long as there aren’t “No Hunting” signs posted. This is what the local police informed me, after I noticed a hunter literally parking on the side of the road and walking directly into my woods with a gun strapped to his shoulder.

I gave in and posted signs. That hunter moved on to a more hunter-friendly forest (I assume). I haven’t noticed any others since then. The dogs and I do wear orange vests in the fall, just in case. (Although you’ll notice I forgot them on the day I took these pictures.)

Orange vests don’t deter coyotes, but they generally won’t bother a human with two large dogs. I haven’t seen any directly, but I’ve seen pieces of dead animals, including the severed head of a deer, so I know they’re there. (I  just bought a couple of game cameras, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to catch some pictures.)

I discovered The Campsite when we first moved in, so it’s not a recent thing. That was thirteen years ago, and it was clearly old then. (These photos were taken last fall, I believe, just before Kumar passed away.) It was probably in use sometime in the mid 2000s, but abandoned before the property was sold to us.

It still creeps me out.

Here’s what I found:

Upon entering the forest from the public dirt road, we’re greeted by a tripod of sticks. This could be caused by branches falling and landing like this—it does happen—but I suspect it was erected as a marker, because just up over that hill is The Campsite.

It looks like an empty patch of woods, at first… except for a ruined gas grill. It’s mostly fallen apart, but that much metal will take decades, if not centuries, to completely rot away. My first thought was to get the damned thing out of there, but it will take some lugging. It’s at least a couple of acres from the house. In the opposite direction, the public road is a a bit closer, but you have to go down a steep hill and cross a shallow ravine filled with a murky pond and poison ivy.

A little searching around, when I first found the site, turned up several beer cans with bullet holes in them. In fact, I find these throughout the forest, which gives me pause. Drinking and shooting practice aren’t a great combo.

Then… I discovered this. It’s the top of a tent. Maybe it was completely buried, at one point, but over time weather eroded the soil and exposed it. Or maybe the tent just collapsed and was covered by debris.  Maybe the campers left the tent set up there for a while, thinking they’d keep using it, but it eventually collapsed. Perhaps over the winter snow crushed it.

But seriously, it’s really dug in there. And I don’t think it’s a simple matter of a collapsed tent. That’s not mere speculation…

I now present Exhibit A:

What are we looking at? It’s the actual nylon body of the tent, which the pups (Kumar was still with us, at the time I took the photos) and I found almost completely buried several feet away. I pulled it up, which is why we can now see so much of it. If the tent had simply collapsed, this wouldn’t be the case, obviously. It would be where the frame is. So why bury the two separately?

Exhibit B is something else I found just poking up out of the ground a bit further into the woods: clothing. A pair of black cargo pants and a black jacket. Both are pretty rotted, but still intact.

I seriously expected a skeleton to come up with these when I pulled them out of the ground. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. But why bury them out there? Did someone change clothes and decide they didn’t need their pants and jacket anymore? Was someone murdered and stripped naked? If so, what happened to the body?

People are weird and do weird things. Especially out in the boonies. But my writer brain can’t help but wonder at all this…

…and plot.

4 Comments

Filed under Contemporary, Halloween, horror, Life, Mystery, Pets, Writing

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July 10, 2020 · 4:57 pm

“Borderland” is out in the world and doing well!

Borderland was a “labor of love,” as they say, from the start. FE Feeley, Jr. (henceforth referred to as “Fred”) proposed we work together on a horror novel over two years ago, and we tossed ideas back and forth until we settled on a ghost story set in a haunted inn in Vermont.

So much time has gone by, it’s now impossible to sort out who thought of what, but I recall Fred being interested in Vermont, because he wanted to visit New England. I’d never officially lived there, but they don’t call Vermont and New Hampshire the “twin states” for nothing. Jump in the car and you can reach anywhere in either state in a few hours. I’ve spent a lot of time there, especially near the border. It’s a gorgeous state: heavily forested, mountainous, and dotted with old farms. It’s about the same size as NH (but “upside-down” ;-p ), and the population is just over 600 thousand—half that of NH, and we’re not exactly struggling for elbow room.

Fred can also be credited with the idea of working the flu epidemic of 1918 into the story. I want to be clear that he thought of this years before the COVID-19 pandemic. Frankly, we might have veered away from the topic, if we’d known about the pandemic, since so many readers have had family affected by the virus. Instead, one might call it a bit of prescience. The story had already been submitted to our publisher by the time the pandemic hit the USA.

Writing with another author was a new experience for me, and it didn’t always go smoothly. We wrote scenes and showed them to each other, usually liking what we were piecing together, but as the order of the story was rearranged, some scenes had to be tossed and others extensively rewritten. One scene was simultaneously written by both of us, leaving us with the decision of which to keep. In final edits, we noticed that the music box was somehow upstairs in a bedroom and on the fireplace mantel in the living room at the same time. And who the heck was Meghan? Oh, that’s right. We changed her name to Grace…

But under the guidance of our wonderful editor, Debbie McGowan, at Beaten Track Publishing, we hammered the novel into something we’re all very proud of. And the reception has been wonderful. Here are some quotes from our favorite review sites:

“I very highly recommend this ghost story. It is one of my favorite reads in a long time. If you have Amazon, one-click it now. You won’t be sorry.” — Dan at Love Bytes Reviews

“If this is what a story becomes when FE Feeley and Jamie Fessenden collaborate, then sign me up for more. These two have put together an amazing combination of mystery, thriller, and horror, and then intertwined within all of that darkness, is a sweet, poignant romance that will stick with you long after “the end”.” —Melissa Brus at the Paranormal Romance Guild

“It was with great expectation I awaited this book…..I am a longtime follower of these two authors and expected nothing less than perfection….I received it hands down!!” — Gloria Lakritz at the Paranormal Romance Guild

“Yes, there is a sad element to this book. But there’s also hope, as well, and that’s deftly written by FE Feeley and by Jamie Fessenden, as well. I really enjoyed this book. It was an emotional roller coaster for me. It won’t necessarily be that way for everyone, although I would imagine that most people that read this book will have a definite visceral reaction to it. So, for me, Borderland is a lovely piece of writing. I thoroughly… I’m just really glad that I got to read it, and I’m giving it five stars.” — Kazza at On Top Down Under Reviews

I’m very proud of the work Fred and I did on the novel. Perhaps in the future we’ll collaborate on another one, and hopefully our process will go a bit smoother from our experience with Borderland.  In the meantime, I hope readers enjoy their visit with the hotel and it’s residents… both benign and evil.

They were young.
In the prime of life and recently married.
And then the diagnosis came.
Cancer.

George and Jason make arrangements to travel back to George’s home state of Vermont so he may pass away in the town where he grew up, but a terrible storm diverts the couple into the gates of an out-of-the-way hotel called Borderland.

Sure, the employees are well dressed and polite. Sure, the food and entertainment are old-time fare. But it’s all a schtick, right?

Or is there something far more sinister at work here?

Welcome to the Borderland Hotel, where you may check in, but you’ll never, ever leave.

Buy Links:

Beaten Track Publishing

Amazon

 

3 Comments

Filed under Contemporary, Feeley, Historical, horror, Jamie Fessenden, New Release, occult, Occult/Paranormal, Victorian, Writing

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February 1, 2019 · 4:53 pm

Writing advice, because that’s what we writers like to do

So my latest novel, Small Town Sonata, was contracted for publication by Dreamspinner Press, and I’m very happy. Hopefully, it signals the revving up of my writing career again.

So, in the spirit of that, and because someone asked about it in a Facebook group, I’ve decided to offer some Writing Advice (capitalized, to show how pompous… I mean “important” it is). Seriously, this is just some stuff I learned over the years. Take it or leave it, as you like. It’s less about writing than about some practical concerns.

I started writing in Middle School, reading articles in The Writer (which was a much better magazine then) and locking myself in my room after school to type. My mother bought me my first typewriter (personal computers were like $5,000 then), but with the door closed, the heat from the wood stove couldn’t reach me, so I had to bundle up in a blanket. Abe Lincoln would have been proud.

I still have all of that writing in a briefcase. Most of it is pretty bad. Writers often tend to start out thinking their prose needs to be Serious and Important (translation: flowery). That’s actually the worst thing for modern writers, unless you’re doing historical or literary fiction. (And even then, it’s probably not great.) So there are some story ideas I like in that pile, but I’d have to rewrite them all from scratch. But, hey, that period taught me a lot about how to write.

I wrote on and off over the years after that, but had difficulty finishing things. Eventually, I tried NaNoWriMo, and that allowed me to finish my first novel (Seidman), then another, and so on. Everything I wrote through NaNo was eventually published. (Finish what you write. An unfinished story is no good to anybody, and even one that isn’t 100% perfect has a better chance of being published than an brilliant, unfinished one.)

I write in Word and use Scrivener to keep my notes. (Tip: You can relocate the Scrivener directory to a folder in your Dropbox folder, so they’ll be backed up.) I tried writing in Scrivener a few times, but so far I’ve found it difficult. The problem I’ve had with Word is that it wants me to buy it on iPad, even though I own (=lease) it on my laptop. This has made it nearly impossible to use my iPad for writing, as I used to do.

In college, I composed electronic music, using a program called Personal Composer, which had a problem with frequent crashes (at that time). One night, after working on a piece for something like 5 or 6 hours (it was around 3am), I saved and it crashed. Because I’d only used ONE file the entire time, it got corrupted, and all my work was lost. I learned to create a NEW save, every time I work on something. My novels tend to have over a hundred save files, by the time I’m done.

For a while, I was working a corporate job, and using thumb drives to take my current working files back and forth between home and work (I didn’t have a laptop). I discovered two things about thumb drives:

 

  • They’re easy to lose. I had to completely rewrite an entire chapter once.

  • They’re unreliable. On several occasions, I saved files to a thumb drive, ejected, and discovered the files were not there. They weren’t anywhere – not on the drive, not on the computer, not even in temp files. This is when I started using Dropbox, and yes, they’ve had some problems with security, but they also keep backups of files, so when a file of mine was destroyed somehow (Virus? I don’t recall.), I was able to go to the Dropbox site and download it again.

Lastly, if you can’t get a publisher or agent to buy your novel, consider self-publishing it. I’ve read a bunch of articles which insist self-publishing is what Losers do, when their work isn’t good enough to be published by real publishers. They’re the equivalent of cavemen banging on rocks, angry that “cheaters” have discovered a box of matches.

Look, the fact is, self-publishing is relatively easy, and that’s led to the market being flooded with a lot of stuff I would have to call “poor-quality”… if I’m being kind. This, in turn, has led a lot of readers to assume our self-published work isn’t worth very much. Combined with Kindle Unlimited, authors are now forced to sell months of hard labor for pennies, if we want anyone at all to notice its existence. (Thank you, Amazon, for pulling the floor out from under aspiring authors.) This has led to more and more indie publishers throwing in the towel, so those that are left have been forced to close or severely restrict submissions.

Throw in the fact that, with so many people out of work, everyone seems to think writing might be a way to earn some income, and the end result is that traditional routes to being published, which were already difficult, are now extremely difficult. Good books, bad books, books written by the next Great American (or whatever country you’re from) Author… they’re all being rejected. It is not a sign of failure to self-publish.

Some books make the rounds between publishers for years — even decades. Do you have that kind of time? I’ve published over 30 novels and novellas between December 2010 and now — just over eight years. (Of course, I know authors with two or three times that output.) I may not be a brilliant author, but my work is being read. And that’s what needs to happen, if you want to earn anything writing.

What a lot of authors are doing, if they can, is publishing through publishers at the same time they self-publish. This is called hybrid publishing, and it has the advantage of getting your name out by association with the publisher, as well as convincing readers your stories, including the self-published stories, are professional quality. Going through a publisher can also help you make contacts with editors, cover artists, and others who can help you, when you self-publish.

And that’s a key thing: if you self-publish, you must hire a professional editor and a professional cover artist, and probably a formatter, as well. This shouldn’t break the bank, but it will likely cost a few hundred dollars. It will be worth it. Nothing screams “Crap!” like a homemade Photoshopped cover with free images everyone and his brother has used before. And if a reader skims the preview and sees typos and spelling errors on the first two pages, you’ve lost that reader forever.

But self-publishing has a much quicker turnaround than publishing houses. When I published my last Christmas novel, I finished it, had it edited, got a wonderful cover for it, and published it — all in the space of about a month and a half. I didn’t have a choice about going through a publisher, if I wanted it out by Christmas. Self-publishing also means a smaller chunk comes out of my royalties. This isn’t because publishers are swindlers, but simply because they have overhead costs.

Anyway, all this pontificating has worn me out. I’m gonna go take a nap.

I mean “write.” I’m gonna go write.

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Filed under James Erich, Jamie Fessenden, Life, NaNoWriMo, New Release, publishing, Romance, Writing, Young Adult

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October 20, 2018 · 11:06 am

Writing again – and, boy, does it feel good!

It’s been a scary time for me. I haven’ been able to write since my cat, Koji, passed away last Christmas. It wasn’t just losing my favorite cat, after living with (and adoring) his crankiness and hijinks for twenty years, but that was a big part of it. It was combined with the shocking revelation that Kumar, the “puppy” Erich and I rescued the same year we married and bought a house together, was now too old and arthritic to enjoy playing with the new pup (Nelson) we rescued to keep him company, while we were busy working. Kumar is now on meds that help with his arthritis, but he simply can’t play as hard as he could have just one year ago.

Nobody likes aging and losing beloved pets, of course, but I took it very hard. So hard, I had to go on antidepressants for the first time in my life. I’ve always had bouts of depression, but in the past I could “shake it off.” Not this time. Not without help. And the reason I’m so open about that right now is, I want to encourage anyone struggling with depression to seek help, if things gets overwhelming. It helped me get functional again. Even when you feel like nothing can help, it’s worth trying.

I want to thank my friend Fred Feeley, Jr. for pushing me to work on a ghost story we’ve been writing together. That helped take the pressure off to write in my usual genre of MM Romance. I didn’t have to think about romance beats or whether the characters were likable enough or the emotional level of scenes — I could just be creepy. And it was fun. Initially, I wrote in fits and starts – a bit here, a bit there, interspersed with days in which I wrote nothing at all. But gradually the writing bug took hold again, and ended up contributing a few chapters. (This novel has been taking us a while, but it’s getting near completion!)

Alas, once my writing began to flow again, I was bitten by the Christmas bug. So I set aside the ghost story (for now) and dove into a novella about a man who visited the kingdom of the fairies as a boy, but has no memory of it. Now, fifteen years later, the fairies want him to come “home” again. It’s steeped in Scandinavian folklore, and of course it takes place at Christmas.

It’s far too late in the season for me to submit it to a publisher, if I want it out by Christmas, so it will be another self-published book, like the last few I’ve put out. (I do have one almost finished for Dreamspinner, and I hope to finish that before the end of the year.) I have a wonderful editor and a fantastic cover artist already lined up, so it should be released in late November or early December.

I’m writing every day now, and it’s wonderful. It still feels a bit fragile, as if it wouldn’t take much to shut me down again, but my hope is that, once I’ve established the writing habit again in my psyche, I’ll keep going. Being a working author has been my dream since childhood. It’s been a rough year, but it’s time to reclaim the dream.

 

 

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Filed under Christmas, Jamie Fessenden, Life, Romance, Work in Progress, Writing

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February 20, 2018 · 5:07 pm

When a dry spell starts to get scary…

I finished a novel in November, and usually I take a few weeks off before I dive into my next big project. But something went haywire this year. Those few weeks turned into a few months, and now the motivation to sit down and begin writing isn’t really there.

What happened? I don’t know, and it’s frightening. This post is going to be a little strange, but since I began this blog, I’ve been posting about the experience of being a writer — not just writing itself, but the way things affect me, like reviews and events in my life. So this is one of those posts, about what it’s like when things aren’t going so well.

There are some obvious things in my life that factored into this dry spell:

  1. My cat, Koji, died. This was huge. Koji was a mean-tempered old cat (about 20-years-old) who was so vicious to outsiders we literally had to sedate him when we took him to the vet. (I have a hilarious story about the mass havoc he created there once, involving slashed hands and pee splattered everywhere.) Even drugged, he growled and snarled in his crate like a demon from hell, making everyone back away in trepidation. But he loved me. I’d had him his entire life. In my arms, he was a cuddly furball, and that’s where he died, purring, when he could no longer stand up on his own power. I was devastated by his loss, just two days after Christmas.
  2. My publisher rejected a novel. This shouldn’t be a big deal, because it happens to writers all the time, but it had never happened to me. Since I published my first novel in 2010, nothing I’ve submitted has been rejected. Perhaps some of those manuscripts should have been rejected, because they didn’t sell very well, but my publisher was willing to take the risk. Now the market has changed. Publishers are closing their doors left and right, so my publisher is understandably more reticent to accept manuscripts that don’t follow tried-and-true romance formulas. This makes me sad, but… business is business.
  3. My Christmas novel didn’t sell very well. Oh, it sold. Far better than novels I’ve released in the past. It just didn’t sell as well as the two previous novels, and that put me into a funk. Especially, since I’d put a ton of work into it, and was really vested in it.  I also marketed it up the wazoo. Considering that my two previous novels far exceeded my expectations, you’d think I’d be grateful for having a banner year. (And I did have a great year, for book sales overall!) But… that’s not the way an artist’s mind works.
  4. I have a friend who is very ill. I can’t talk about it much on social media, but I’m immensely worried for her.
  5. Our dog, Kumar, is aging. He isn’t exactly at death’s door, but his muzzle has gone gray, and he is now on anti-inflammatories and painkillers for arthritis. Just a year ago, I was feeling guilty that I never exercised him enough, so we invested in a dog enclosure in the yard and got another dog to keep him company and play with him! But I was too late. He’s suddenly not in the mood to play much. The pup and he are gradually becoming play buddies, and the meds help him have more energy to wrestle, but he spent so much time snarling at the pup for trying to pounce on him when he wasn’t feeling well, the biggest side-effect of the new dog is jealousy. We spend so much time trying to convince both of them that we love them. It’s not exactly that things aren’t working out with the new dog, but it isn’t working out as I’d hoped.
  6. I feel like I’m letting people down. I’ve missed events I was supposed to participate in as a writer. I have a sci-fi novel (Martian Born) that got me into a wonderful sci-fi workshop, and I got a lot of encouragement to finish it — but it still isn’t finished. More importantly, my husband wants that one finished. I also have a romance novel my publisher was asking for, but after me telling them I needed more time to finish it too often… they’ve stopped asking. I can’t blame them, but it’s just another thing that makes me feel as if I’m drifting away from the career I loved so much…

All of these things point to a big problem with depression right now, of course. I can see that. I could go to a therapist, but like a lot of people suffering from depression, I’m not sure I want to commit to going onto antidepressants. I know they help people. I’m the son of not one, but two psychologists, and I lost an ex-boyfriend to suicide. (I.E., we weren’t boyfriends at the time, but still close friends.) I don’t want to discourage anyone from getting help, when they need it, and I’m still leaving that door open. But knowing myself like I do, I think there are some other things to try first. This may be the first big dry spell I’ve had, but it isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with my tendency toward depression.

What I do think will help is finishing this damned romance novel. It’s good. I know it’s good, and my publisher thinks it’s good (what they read of it). It’s only about two chapters from being done! I just need to sit down and force myself to start writing. Then maybe the words will start flowing again. Then maybe it will be time to finish that sci-fi novel…

And honestly, there is so much good in my life right now. I have to keep reminding myself of that.

I have a wonderful husband and a wonderful home. The new puppy is adorable and a great addition to the household (even if he does bark incessantly), and I did have a good year, professionally. My best ever, in fact.

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Filed under Jamie Fessenden, Life, Pets, Writing

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July 21, 2017 · 1:35 am

I just finished my first MMM Romance!

I’ve just finished a novel that explores some themes I’ve been toying with for a while now. I’m doing a final polish before sending it off for editing, and I’ll be working with the cover artist soon. Despite what the title might suggest, there is no BDSM in this novel. It’s a MMM romance, and it should be released this fall.

“The Rules” is about Hans Bauer, a college student in New Hampshire who accepts a job as a housekeeper for an older gay couple, Thomas and Boris. He soon learns that the reason they’ve hired someone with no experience is that professional agencies won’t work there. Boris is a writer who immigrated to this country from Russia, and suffers from depression and PTSD because of some of the things he endured in his native country.

He also refuses to wear clothes — ever.

While Hans is working alone in the house with Naked Boris all day, things start getting a little weird. When Boris gets flirtatious, Hans backs away, not wanting to come between him and his husband. So Boris calls Thomas at work and asks permission.

And at that moment, The Rules are born — rules about touching and kissing and pet names that the three men use to keep jealousies at bay, as they explore the possibilities in a new type of relationship….

 

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Filed under Christmas, College, Contemporary, Drama, gay, Gay Marriage, Jamie Fessenden, Nudity, Rape, Romance, Russian, Writing

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February 6, 2017 · 5:53 pm

The Jomsvikings

jomsvikingsI’ve been working on a novel for a while now—an adaptation of The Saga of the Jomsvikings, which was written in Old Icelandic in the 13th century. It tells of an elite band of viking warriors residing in the fortress of Jomsborg on the island of Jom. They were theoretically real, though it’s hard to say how much truth there is to the story. They appear in other sagas, including the ones I based my first YA novel Seidman on. But by then, they were in decline. They appear briefly at the battle of Svoldr, when King Olaf Tryggvason was defeated, but they quickly decided to sit the battle out.

This novel will be an adult MM romance, because, frankly, the story begs to be a MM romance. It’s a fortress full of young men, and no women are allowed. The Norse were a very homophobic society, but I can’t imagine a context like this in which absolutely no sexual activity occurred. Conveniently, the saga has a gap of three years between the initial founding and selection of warriors and the death of their leader, which led to their decline. I’ve written up to that point, and now I’ve begun to fill in those three years. That’s where the romance will really take place.

I decided to tell the story from the POV of two characters not actually in the saga: Bragi and Asleif.

ragnarBragi is older than most of the men in the fortress, and he’s seen a lot of combat. He’s weary of the death he sees on the battlefield, but he’s a survivor and he takes pride in his skill with a blade. At Jomsborg, he’s given the opportunity to pass some of his knowledge of fighting techniques along to others and help keep them alive. The actor who most closely resembles him is Travis Fimmel from Vikings.

tumblr_mub3o5naae1qa2ovmo1_500Asleif is young, and he has endured a lot of teasing over the years because of his feminine features, even after he grew to stand over his comrades. He’s skilled and cocky, and sees Bragi as a challenge. But he also senses a strong sexual undercurrent between them. Bragi is hesitant to pursue it, but Asleif gleefully chases after him, despite the danger of discovery. I found this picture online, which I believe is of Alexander Skarsgard, and despite the modern clothes and background, it perfectly represents the image I have of Asleif in my head.

The novel has been coming along slowly, in part because the saga is very short and sparse. I’m having to flesh out a lot of scenes. It also requires a lot of research into Viking fighting styles, locations (Jomsborg was most likely on the island of Wolin in modern-day Poland), and what life would be like in that environment. But it’s coming along.

Here’s an excerpt from when Asleif is being tested in mock combat to see if he can be accepted into Jomsborg. He’s part of Vagn’s crew — Vagn being a 12-year-old boy with his own raiding fleet, and no I didn’t make that up — and the entire crew is fighting against the men already residing in Jomsborg.

Excerpt:

Asleif parried a thrust to his midsection, and then bashed his attacker in the face with his shield. The Jomsviking staggered back. He seemed to be readying himself for another charge, but Bragi came up behind him and forcefully shoved him aside. “Leave him! He’s mine!”

The warriors swarming Asleif suddenly drew back, forming a circle around him and Bragi. Asleif was so startled, he almost failed to parry Bragi’s attack—almost. He deflected Bragi’s sword with the head of his axe in a quick upward and outward motion.

“Good!” Bragi shouted delightedly.

Asleif knew then that Bragi wanted him to test him, rather than kill him. Not that it was going to be easy. Bragi’s next cut was swift and powerful, looping around Asleif’s arm and coming up inside. Asleif barely managed to jump back in time to prevent a nasty cut to his abdomen. As it was, the tip of Bragi’s sword cut through his tunic, before he slammed down upon it with the edge of his shield.

It was a hasty move, and it opened his upper body up for an attack. Bragi lost no time in crashing down upon Asleif’s head with his own shield. Asleif had a thick head—he’d be the first to admit it. And he was wearing a helmet. So the blow didn’t knock him unconscious, but it rattled him. He staggered back.

“You went easy on me,” he grumbled. “You could have easily hit my eyes or my throat.”

Bragi grinned. “Now, what would be the fun in that?”

It pissed Asleif off to be treated like a child. But he’d also seen in just the few blows they’d exchanged that Bragi’s skill was equal to his own. Possibly—though he was loathe to admit it—greater. He’d never defeat the man, as long as he stayed on the defensive. Bragi could keep coming at him until he collapsed or opened himself up again. Asleif would have to go on the attack. But a charge could prove foolhardy. If Bragi managed to sidestep, Asleif’s momentum might carry him past and open him up to an attack from the rear.

Instead, he began walking slowly forward, whipping his axe around in a swirling motion and striking against Bragi’s shield so fast it was impossible to count the blows. Bragi was forced to duck behind the shield and edge backward. Any attempt to thrust his sword at Asleif would merely damage the blade against the axe.

At last, the shield cracked loudly and split in two. Asleif immediately drew back, surrendering his advantage, rather than bringing his axe down upon Bragi’s arms or head.

Bragi tossed his broken shield aside, but he was laughing. “Excellent!”

In the distance, someone blew a horn.

“Give him a shield!” Asleif shouted, panting.

A man tossed one into the air, and Bragi caught it. But then he stepped forward with the pommel of his sword held outward. “Let’s see how you do with a sword.”

The men around them laughed, and someone shouted, “This isn’t a fight! It’s a lesson!”

That evoked more laughter. But Asleif was up to the challenge, so he reached for Bragi’s weapon. But as he clasped it, a second horn called out over the strand.

Bragi glanced up. “It seems the fight is over.”

It was true. Straightening, Asleif looked over the heads of those nearby and saw that everywhere men were sheathing swords and catching their breath. Some had cuts on their bodies and their clothes were blood-spattered, but if anyone was severely injured, Asleif saw no sign of it. All appeared to be standing.

“Get out of my way!”

The men near him parted to let Vagn through. The boy looked healthy enough, despite a bloody gash on his shield arm. “Asleif!” he shouted in exasperation, “Did you miss the entire battle? We won!”

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