At this writing, we are one week out from the release of 'Storm Stone,' my new fantasy novella. Official release date is June 28 2026 and links to both the print and free ebook editions may be found at Arachis Press (arachispress.com). This is a tale of Qala, the eventual Pirate Queen, when she is a young and rising pirate. That would be somewhat before she appears in 'The Eyes of the Wind' but perhaps a decade after 'The Sword and the City.'
This is an excerpt from the work-in-progress, a story I had no inkling I would be writing a couple months ago. Quite first draft-ish, of course. The not-yet-titled book will be not so much a novel as a sequence of related novelettes and short stories.
Zil was right. Tesra tomorrow—sleep now. But anticipation, excitement, maybe a touch of apprehension, prevented her from falling at once into slumber. The merchant’s donkey in the next stall didn’t seem ready to sleep either. She could hear it moving about, uneasy, restless, snorting softly now and again. A low ‘yip’ sounded somewhere in the dark. Close maybe.
“Doggie?” murmured a half-asleep Nib.
Lellie’s first thought was of wolves. She’d never seen a wolf but she had seen their hides, so she knew they existed. As to their exact appearance, much less their size, she knew far less. The girl suspected the marketplace storytellers tended to exaggerate such details.
Then the donkey exploded, braying loudly and insistently, waking all the travelers and, undoubtedly, anyone within miles. Immediately, figures rushed toward Zil, a man and a pair of what certainly weren’t wolves. Just what they were, she had no idea.
