One week after I finished my last sword and sorcery story involving Horbeck and his mercenary comrades, Brud and Asnar, I have now completed another involving their misadventures: The Mummified Demi-God.
This makes four stories in which Horbeck appears: The Unhappy Inquisitor, The Demon from Another World, Lies and Treachery, and now The Mummified Demi-God. Of these only The Demon from Another World is scheduled to be published at the moment. It will appear later this month in Anthology of the Damned, Necromoirrium from Treeshaker Books.
From its opening paragraphs:
The three mercenaries rode leisurely down the winding, hard-packed
road, their camels and packhorses burdened with sacks of gold, payment from a
particularly rewarding job. Despite their nonchalant appearance, though, all
three kept their eyes alert on the surrounding woodlands, bushes and small hillocks,
wary of bandits.
Their erstwhile leader, Horbeck, was a huge northerner
with a sun-bleached beard and long, dust-filled hair, his rugged chainmail only
partially covered by what remained of his leather jerkin, scored so often it
was all but rags. His fellow northerner, Brud, was slightly shorter but no less
robust in appearance, a well-used battleaxe hanging from the saddle of his
camel from which, in the north, he would have hung the heads of his enemies, a habit
he had been persuaded to forgo in the civilised south. The only non-northerner
in this trio was Asnar, a black-bearded Josanian archer. Like his comrades, his
clothes had seen better days. His lacquered leather breastplate had all but
lost whatever colouring was scrolled across it when he first set out as a
mercenary years ago. Over one shoulder hung an unstrung bow of surpassing power
and accuracy, though he also had a scimitar sheathed across his back in a gaudy
scabbard. All normally wore steel helmets, plain, serviceable and much dented;
these now hung from straps beside them as the sun beat down on their heads. Two
wore straw hats to keep it off. Asnar preferred a felt cap.
In the distance they glimpsed the gleaming towers of a
large city, though none of them knew its name, having lost track of where they
were many months ago when they were pursued across the Great Desert by their
enemies.
