Writing - My Obsession!

Hi everyone – being pestered, albeit pleasantly, to finish putting An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa together as a completed book, so getting to it – in my spare time. Maybe I just love writing, or I’m obsessed – whatever. For me, the perfect indulgence is in watching filled pages roll of the screen, new adventures take shape. Be they Africa’s rough and tumbles, horrors or funnies, I love them all; the urge to produce the perfect story is constantly at my shoulder.

Preparing Feeders for my next Kindle upload, here’s another sneak peek at one of four stories: Wolf Slayer. Good one, this – way back in the seventeen hundreds.

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Extract from Wolf Slayer:

... Where the forest opened, lakes of moonlight flooded in. Still hung with drizzle, ancient trees trembled under the weight. DeLacy’s eyes tricked with the shadows; through his own rampant imaginings, grotesque shapes rose from the earth as living beasts to run alongside him.

‘Keep your eyes well peeled, lad and your sword to hand. You’ll find neither man nor beast of good intent abroad on nights such as this one.’

Swayed by the roll and yaw of the Suffolk warhorse, the silver cage of his sabre nuzzled against his hip. Strapped diagonally to the mare’s left flank, the black, double-handed hilt of a claidheamh mòr, the Great Sword, leaned from its scabbard. Lifted by his father from the Scottish battlefield of Killiecrankie, the double-edged blade was lavishly inlaid with silver, the steel itself honed to a fine edge. Like that of DeLacy’s sabre the pommel was cast of solid silver; the head of a grey wolf was the shape of it – set with those narrowed searching eyes and bared fangs of the mythical beast.

DeLacy slowed his mount and waved the boy alongside him. Up with the Suffolk mare, the boy’s horse stood four hands shorter, though her step was lively and her ears were pricked for every sound.

‘Are you of an open mind, lad?’

‘I like to think so, squire. Though separating the truth from what is unreal can sometimes prove troublesome.’

DeLacy smiled at Jack’s honesty. Though barely sixteen the boy stood almost as tall as his master, his outlook more that of a grown man and with a quick eye and loose limbs he could place the point of his sword faster than most.

‘The beast of Bowland, lad, how do you see it; truth or fable?’

The youngster took his time in replying. ‘I should say truth, sir. Too many men have died in these forests; I know of five good souls who have perished here. Their womenfolk still search for them but find nothing.’

‘So you say the beast is real?’

‘Wolves are killers, squire. If a man is foolish enough to walk the forest alone, then as would the deer or the sheep he might well fall prey to wild beasts.’

‘I have seen it, boy. Believe me; not far from where we are now.’

‘The wolf, squire?’

‘That I did Jack, but only once mind, and no ordinary wolf was this one. Though many have laughed at what I told them.’ Instinctively he reached across for the great sword and drew it half way out from its scabbard. In the moonlight, the blade fired out with lights of brilliant silver; the icy fingers of superstition reached beneath his cape and for a moment he struggled to quell the fear that followed them. ‘Six feet high at the shoulder, Jack, from that day onwards nothing has frightened me more than the sight of that hellish creature walking beside me.’ He sensed the boy’s uncertainty. ‘Like a man, Jack; not on all fours but straight backed and upright, its forelegs hung as arms and its jaws, though shorter than a wolf’s were filled with fangs; some, as God be my witness, were long as my fingers.’ DeLacy paused for a moment and drew his cape closer in to his throat. ‘But the eyes, Jack; they were the worst of any man’s nightmares, yellow in the moonlight, the eyes of Satan, those of Lucifer himself...’

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