Hi lovelies! It gives me great pleasure today to host Aidan
Russell and his new book, “The Shattered Blades”! For other stops on his Goddess Fish
Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in
this post.
Be sure to make it to the end
of this post to enter to win a Kindle Paperwhite!!! Also, come back daily to interact with Aidan
and to increase your chances of winning!
Thanks for stopping
by! Wishing you lots of luck in this
fabulous giveaway!
The Shattered Blades
The Land of Nod:
Book Three of the Judges
Cycle
by Aidan Russell
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GENRE: Fantasy (Epic)
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BLURB:
The rivers turn to blood and the mournful cry for judgment.
Reslo
returns to his family in the forest of Miradep, but his quest is not finished,
and he will not fail in his duty.
Gratas
and Jerah return to the idyllic town of Dunkhau, their bodies wounded and
spirits scarred by battle. But if they thought war was tiring, they must now
face the unknown horrors of peace.
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EXCERPT TWO:
The
dizziness flared when the Dragon dropped Reslo into a puddle on a flat rock. He
took a moment to catch his breath. He even sucked up a mouthful of the fresh
rainwater from the puddle. He pushed himself to his feet, drew Moreathar, and
faced the Dragon.
“Why
did you take me away? How could you flee? I almost had Mdychi.”
Qa’sin
spun to face Reslo. For a moment, the storm subsided as his great bulk and
wings tossed aside the wind and rain. Eyes that glowed like dew-covered moss
stared down on the Elf. The firelight within the Dragon grew brighter through
his scars.
“Your
father tried to fight me the first time we met. I see you’ve inherited his
temper. Perhaps his stupidity as well.”
Reslo
knew the Dragon was correct. It would be stupid to try to fight the titanic
beast. Moreathar was a mighty sword, and Reslo a great warrior, but neither possessed
the strength to defeat Miradep’s Dragon. Besides, they had no feud with him. If
anything, Reslo owed the Dragon a debt of honor, as his children would after
him.
“Why
did we flee?” Reslo lowered his blade.
“Because
you would have been killed,” Qa’sin said, “and I need you to help rid me of
that scourge.”
“What
scourge?” Reslo slammed Moreathar home in its scabbard.
“That…
That Dragon, no… not a Dragon. That abomination…” Qa’sin sputtered and his
serpentine tongue slithered as he stumbled through his words. “Among what
remains of our people, it is called the Pythoness. The Witch Dragon is what it
calls itself. We must kill it and end its desecration of this forest at last.
It eludes me, hides from me. That is why I need you, warden, tracker, hunter.”
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GUEST POST:
Do any of your characters have a special hobby or interest? If so, write a post in the character talking
about those interests.
Smell the Roses
A poison by Ríaman, Master of the Keys
The
problem with poisons is that everyone thinks they’re so easy. You just grind up
some weeds you found in the forest, sprinkle in some viper’s venom (because
wrangling a viper and taking out its venom is soooo easy, apparently), and
voila! A poison! Well, even if the viper doesn’t kill you, and you don’t
accidentally lick your fingers afterward like some amateur, you’ll probably
wind up messing up the most crucial part: the delivery.
Many
great assassins have met their ends because they spent too much time reading
history or dramatic plays and not enough time thinking. “I’ll just pour a drop
of this Visselix Hex into the king’s wine and collect my payment!” they said.
Well, I have some bad news if this is your plan. If you’re an assassin worth
your gold, you’re already too old to disguise yourself as a cupbearer. If you
manage to pay off the cupbearer, the girl or boy is probably a nervous,
bumbling idiot and will wind up drinking the vial themselves. “I’ll turn into a
shadow and sneak up on my target and drop the poison into the cup when everyone’s
back is turned! Then I’ll go back into the shadows and sneak away again!” Oh,
please! A good target will always have someone watching, and every mage or
warlock in the employ of a noble house has seen the play A Night in Saturame.
That trick won’t work a second time. Don’t even get me started on the dumb
things that were tried when the postage stamp was invented. Seriously, who ever
thought that a noble lord would lick his own postage stamp. Preposterous!
Now,
if there’s one thing people who hire assassins like, it’s no witnesses and
entire bloodlines erased from the history books, and that’s where this
concoction comes in quite well. Some backstory first…
As a
young soldier, I spent many cold nights sleeping under the stars in the
northern lands of Count Maritosa. The wind would rush down off the slopes of
the Sudthenåks and freeze us to death if we didn’t bundle up well enough. This,
of course, made for excellent pranks between the platoons and regiments.
One
night, my platoon was especially industrious in the gathering of firewood, so
we had a roaring inferno to keep us warm. One problem was that the forest we
gathered our firewood from contained massive Gogmagog Hounds, and massive
Gogmagog Hounds leave massive piles of dung. So, another platoon, seeing us in
far too comfortable a state, snuck right up (because our watchman had dozed
off, the bastard!) and threw a heaping pile of the rancid dung right onto our
fire. We all woke up hacking and coughing at the stench. Not just us, but the
entire regiment in camp coughed themselves awake.
The
next morning, some of the soldiers didn’t wake up. Those of us who did were
vomiting and bleeding out of holes we didn’t know we had. The colonel strung up
that whole platoon for what they did, poisoning us with the smoke from that
Gogmagog Hound crap.
Years
later, after the Ministry of State Security put me to work, I remembered what
had happened that night and thought about how to put that dung to use. The
funny thing about Gogmagog Hounds is, despite their size and big teeth, they
prefer to eat plants, but their bodies can’t digest most seeds. Have you ever
smelled a flower that grew from a seed that a Gogmagog Hound had crapped out?
No! You haven’t or you’d be dead!
How
long does it take for a rose bush to grow and bloom? Feed some rose seeds to a
Hound, sneak them into the gardener’s batch (because who, in their right mind,
spends the coin to guard the rose bush seeds?), and come spring there’ll be
nobles dropping like flies all over the castle or palace. You, meanwhile, will
have been gone for months and months.
I
wish you great success with your work, young assassin. If you find any further
uses with Gogmagog Hound dung, please, do not hesitate to write to me. I have
no plans of leaving my posting in the royal palace anytime soon and would enjoy
to put those loveable oafs to more use. For the good of the kingdom, of course.
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AUTHOR BIO:
Aidan Russell is a
Marine Corps veteran living in Las Vegas. He spent his youth following the
adventures of wizards and space demons and decided one day to write his own
tales. His short fiction is available in the Never Fear and Uncharted Worlds
anthologies. When not writing, he enjoys skiing and heavy metal.
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BOOK BUY LINKS:
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
Aidan will be awarding a Kindle Paperwhite
(International) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase made I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just
helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
This contest is sponsored
by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish
Promotions. Prizes are given away by the
sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish
Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
Aidan ~ It is so great to have you here! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for giving me the opportunity to share Ríaman's wisdom today. I'm hope some of your readers can put this knowledge to use soon!
Delete-Aidan
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDelete