Six spooky Sunday sentences

Image source: Wikipedia Commons

My favourite holiday, Hallowe’en is coming up fast. In honour of the event, for the next four Six Sentence Sundays, I’ll be posting the spookiest passages from The Bones of the Earth.

The Bones of the Earth is a historical fantasy set in the Eastern Roman Empire during the darkest of the Dark Ages. It begins when Avar raiders kidnap two girls from the village of the main character, Javor.

In Chapter 3, Javor and his best friend, Hrech, go to rescue the girls, and find them that night, just after the rising of the full moon.

It was hard to make out at first what he saw in the moonlight, but when his foot struck something that rolled, understanding hit him like a cold wave. It was a severed head; the Avar helmet rolled off it and continued a short distance before it fell over in the grass.

Javor was surrounded by the dismembered bodies of the whole troop. Ten heavily armoured men had been literally torn apart—maybe more. They may have had friends. Everywhere he looked there were legs, arms, torso, heads.

Want to read more? Click on the tabs above for some longer free samples, or click the cover image on the right for a link to the whole book.

And don't forget to visit Six Sentence Sunday for more great samples from all sorts of genres and writers!

Six-sentence Sunday: The Mother's Day edition

Since today is Mother's Day, this six-sentence sample from The Bones of the Earth is an interaction between the main character, Javor, and his mother, Ketia (remember, no matter how outlandish they may seem to you, all the names are historical).

This is from a flashback, where Javor remembers helping his mother pick beans in the garden just before his birthday. 

Ketia stopped picking beans and reached up high to touch Javor’s cheek gently, tears wetting her face. “You’re so big,” she said with a sad smile. “I never would have thought my baby would grow to be so tall.” She turned away and pretended to look under the leaves for more beans, but Javor heard her sniff.

Sitting in the darkness beside the snoring Photius, Javor scolded himself. Why did I make my mother cry? Idiot!

Liked that? The Bones of the Earth is available on iBooks, Amazon and Smashwords.

For more great six-sentence samples, visit sixsunday.com (warning: some adult content).