Hallowe’en Treat, part 4: Six spooky sentences

The ride of fear



Photo used under Creative Commons from wwarby


It’s the last Sunday before Hallowe’en, and this is the last installment of my Hallowe’en treat to readers of this blog. Don’t worry, I’ll have lots more posts in the future, including more excerpts from various works.

This six-sentence excerpt comes from Part 2 of The Bones of the Earth. Here, Javor is riding with a column of Roman Legionnaires because … well, you’ll just have to read the book for the “because” part.

At any rate, they column is riding two wide along a long, twisting forest path, when suddenly they’re attacked by something they cannot see. Their only hope is to gallop as fast as they can to the end of the path and hope …

Three times, they heard screams; three times, legionnaires at random points in the column fell to the side. But the column dared not break stride and flew along the path. Horses stumbled, but righted themselves. Men gripped their saddle horns and prayed for salvation. Javor heard nothing but thundering hooves and jangling steel, and the amulet was vibrating so hard it felt like it was on fire.

Up ahead, he could see light as the path came to some kind of clearing, but at that moment, something cold and damp clutched around his neck and yanked him from the saddle.

Want to find out what happens to Javor? Click the cover image on the right and get the whole book!

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6-Sentence sample: The lost patrol

This week's six-sentence sample is designed to make you shudder. It comes from Part 2 of The Bones of the Earth. Valgus, the Roman Legate posted to the edge of haunted Dacia, tells the main character, Javor and his mentor, Photius, how he got that wound that would not heal.

He begins with a little background about a lost patrol in the mountains.

“Then, high in the foothills of the Montes Serrorum, they came upon something, I know not what, that destroyed them utterly. Ten heavily-armed cataphracti! One man came limping back to tell us the news. All he could tell me was that the patrol had been wiped out by a group of something. But he couldn’t say what it was before he died in my arms.” Valgus closed his eyes and shuddered.

Want to read more? Get The Bones of the Earth from Amazon,  Smashwords, or on iBooks (search for Scott Bury).

And for more great six-sentence reads, check out Six Sentence Sunday.