I have now finished the first draft of my most recent story, "The Temple of the Aspirants", which is my first solo tale about Asnar the Josanian, who has always before appeared with Horbeck as one of his constant companions.
The story is 9,100 words long and the seventh I have completed since the start of July.
This makes 61,000 words in total, which is equal to a short novel!
I have been enjoying a (for me) unique writing spree since the start of July, with drafts finished for six new swords and sorcery tales:
5th July - "From the Ashes" - 6,800 words
9th July - "Masks of Deception" - 7,000 words
13th July - "Trapped in the Dreamlands" - 6,600 words
26th July - "Escaping the Dreamlands" - 15,200 words
28th July - "The Narcolopsia" - 4,500 words
4th August - "The Dark Sacrifices" - 11,800 words
51,900 words in total.
Four concern my hero Welgar, one is about Horbeck and another is about Ossani the Healer.
I am now two thousand words into a story about a companion of Horbeck, Asnar the Josanian.
How long this spree will last I have no idea, other than it will certainly end by the start of October when I begin reading submissions for Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 11. From past experience this always puts a complete dampener on the own writing, which is unlikely to revive before I start reading submissions for Swords & Rockets: Tales of Futures Past in January. Still I have now 34 swords and sorcery, dark fantasy tales finished and another likely to be finished soon, which I am happy about as I only fairly recently began to concentrate on this genre.
Since starting it only a few days ago I have finished a new 11,800 word Horbeck tale, "The Dark Sacrifices", which includes the death of one regular character, a dramatic change of life for another and the elevation ro a higher status and another dramatic change of life for a third.
My Horbeck tales started with "The Demon from Another World", which was published in Anthology of the Damned: Necromorrium last year.
Here is a full list of my Horbeck tales so far, both published and unpublished:
"The Demon from Another World" - Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium, 2024 - 10,000 words
"Lies and Treachery" - Crimson Quill Quarterly issues 6 and 7, 2025 - 11,100 words
"Dead Thieves in the Night" - 10,300 words
"The Sorcerer's Casket" - 15,700 words
"A Murder of Necromancers" - 13,600 words
"The Dark Sacrifices" - 11,800 words
77,300 words in total!
"Escaping the Dreamlands" is the ninth Welgar story since I introduced the character in "Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus" in 2023. Curiously, I have already begun to outline another inside my head (nothing on paper so far).
The Welgar stories so far are:
"Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus" © 2023 First published in Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 7
"The Dark Priestdom" © 2023 First published in Savage Realms Monthly
"Welgar the Cursed" © 2023 First published in Swords & Heroes (Tule Fog Press)
"Mask of a Mad God" © 2025 First published in Welgar the Cursed (Tule Fog Press)
"The Forbidden City of Cyramon" © 2024 First Published in Swords & Heroes eZine
"Emerging from Their Twilit Realms" © 2025 First published in Welgar the Cursed (Tule Fog Press)
"From the Ashes" - new
"Trapped in the Dreamlands" - new
"Escaping the Dreamlands" - new
All of my Welgar stories follow on from each other chronologically to form one ongoing saga.
Copied from its online description:
Lies and Treachery (Part 2 of 2) by David A. Riley: After having
escaped death in the Great Desert as they fled from their pursuers,
Horbeck and his fellow mercenaries are hoping for some time to recover
in the small, stockaded town they reach
beyond the desert’s edge,
little realizing they will be betrayed and forced to grapple with
creatures of appalling evil, some demonic and some human.
Feast
of the Hidden Moon by Gregory Mele: A night’s carousal in the city of Na
Yxim takes an unexpected turn when Ométl Five-Rabbit literally stumbles
into a near-naked and badly abused young priestess, only to have
abducted by a winged-horror. Reporting the encounter to her superiors
only deepens the mystery. With Anaklyse, the priestess’s far more
martially-minded sister, Ometl turns to his sorcerous employer find
answers, and learns that there is far more afoot in Na Yxim society that
he’d have ever guessed.
Chronicles of Fierge – Bloody Escape by
Tom Doolan: After successfully escaping a cultist temple with the
treasure, and his life intact, Fierge the White Rat runs afoul of a few
particularly tenacious cultists. Seeing they aren’t going to be smart
enough to turn back and leave him be, the warrior turns and deals with
them in the best way he knows how.
Chitin is Not Bone by Robert
Bose: Deep within the jungle canyons of Tsombu, Lord Ravencroft, the
Baron of Bone, and Lady Cyn, Knight of Lost Carcosa, find themselves
recruited by the insect like Jaru to deal with the ravenous child of an
elder, potentially unforgiving goddess.
Into the Siege by Malcolm
North: Clegg, a half-orc freebooter, is sent on an extraction mission
that requires him to infiltrate an invading army and break into a
besieged city. But he must contend with horrors that extend beyond war
and a mission that he does not fully understand.
Judgement for
All by Jason M. Waltz: Once again, Death stalks where Pawft walks. One
botched theft, escaped hanging, street warfare, religious assault, and
devious God later, the Breath of Death again walks alone.
The
Kingdom of Memory by Tim Waggoner: A simple Egyptian fisherman finds
himself trapped in the afterworld, pursued by a monstrous crocodile, and
haunted by a suppressed memory as terrifying as any ravenous reptile.
I have just finished the first draft of a new Welgar tale, tentatively titled "Trapped in the Dreamlands". It stands at 6,600 words long and follows the events that unfold when Welgar feels a compulsion to visit the family he has not seen for several years in the northern hills.
This makes the second Welgar story I have written after publication of Welgar the Cursed by Tule Fog Press, the first being "From the Ashes".
Issue 7 of Crimson Quill Quarterly will be available soon as a paperback and kindle eBook, but this is the cover, listing all the authors whose stories will appear in it, including the second part of my serialised Horbeck the Mercenary tale, "Lies and Treachery".
This was first published on Hellnotes August 2013
By Charles Day
Blood Bound Books
Paperback version $7.43
Kindle version £2.96
Reviewed by David A. Riley
This is the first YA novel I have ever read. It’s also the first horror Western I’ve read too. In both instances I had a pleasant surprise – I enjoyed it far more than I expected.
Charles Day has a very readable style and the action moves rapidly, though not at the expense of character and some vivid descriptions. The Ghoulish Bartender himself, though completely evil in his actions, is far more than a two-dimensional villain. He has a back story every bit as tragic as any of his victims – and an awareness of what he has irretrievably lost to become what he is – a fate that not chosen by him, but forced on him as a curse.
Nevertheless he has grandiose plans to spread the curse of the ghouls on every community he comes across. In this, only Kyle McGertt, inheriting the crusade of his dead father, can hope to stop him. Robustly violent, yet with some subtle humour, this short novel is the story of how these two opponents finally come confront each other for a final showdown.
This is an old review of mine from Hellnotes back in January 2014.
The Smell of Evil
by Charles Birkin
Published by Valancourt Books
ISBN: 976-1-939140-74-6
December 2013, $16.99 PB
Reviewed by David A. Riley
Dennis Wheatley is quoted on the back cover as stating “More than a definite touch of the great master, Edgar Allan Poe.” Well intentioned though that comparison may have been, it is totally misleading. Birkin’s style is as far from Poe’s as it could possibly be. You’ll rarely find anything approaching the Gothic horrors of Poe within the dark tales of human evil in Birkin’s stories. Invariably set within the contemporary world, the characters in these thirteen tales are firmly based on reality. Whether they be self-deceived German gardeners working within the shadow of Second World War concentration camps or young tearaways escaping from a race riot in 1960s London, the horrors within these stories are of man’s (or woman’s) own making.
With an elegant writing style, Birkin shows his complete mastery of the conte cruel, leading the reader on to some of the most sadistic climaxes in literature. He rarely uses the supernatural, though when he does, as in “Little Boy Blue”, he is as proficient in this as in his more usual kind of story.
Born in 1907, Charles Birkin (later Sir Charles Birkin) had a long literary career, editing the Creeps series for Philip Allan in the 1930s, as well as an inaugural collection of his own stories, Devil’s Spawn (1936), before laying his writing to one side during the Second World War when he served in the Sherwood Foresters. Many of his most infamous stories stem from his experiences during and just after the end of the war when he witnessed first hand what men were really capable of doing. It was not till the 1960s, though, that he began writing again with the encouragement of his friend, Wheatley. The Smell of Evil was the first of seven collections published during that decade, culminating in Spawn of Satan in 1970. After living in Cyprus for several years he died on the Isle of Man in 1985.
Long out of print, other than several hard cover, now collectible volumes from Midnight House, it is wonderful to see Valancourt Books at last bringing an easily affordable collection to a new reading public. It would be even more wonderful if over the next few years if the rest of Birkin’s collections are brought back into print.
This volume is rounded out with an insightful introduction by John Llewellyn Probert.
