{"id":1702,"date":"2016-06-29T20:41:57","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T20:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/?p=1702"},"modified":"2016-06-29T20:41:57","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T20:41:57","slug":"swords-v-cthulhu-teaser-jhj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/swords-v-cthulhu-teaser-jhj\/","title":{"rendered":"Swords v. Cthulhu Teaser: John Hornor Jacobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Swords v. Cthulhu <\/em><\/a>is our newest genre-blending anthology of original fiction, and as it shambles toward its summertime publication we\u2019re going to be posting excerpts from each of the stories. Our next teaser is from John Hornor Jacobs’ “The Children of Yig.” It’s a bloody vision of the Viking age, where a young woman with nothing to lose and everything to prove must hold her own against perils as extreme as any in the sagas…<\/p>\n

\n

Grislae bent her back to the sea.<\/em><\/p>\n

The face of ocean was dead and still. Mist hung about the longship <\/em>Reinen and drizzle fell in gauzy streamers. No breath of wind stirred the sails. It was warmer here in the south, and what land they could see, flatter, the barest inkstroke on the horizon.<\/em><\/p>\n

Oars creaked as Heingistr\u2019s company strained. Hoensa, Rill, Svebder, Uvigg, Snurri – the blooded men who did not row – watched the shore as it slowly passed.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe shape of the land is familiar,\u201d said Hoensa, squinting his eyes against the gloom. \u201cWe raided what farms we could find, five winters past, but the ones near here we spared for future plucking.\u201d He slapped the bulkhead. \u201cOur shields were wet from plunder and we could let these pass.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Grislae sank her oar into the water and pulled. She had found her rhythm among the men from Heingistrhold. At first her hands had blistered, but only a little, since they were accustomed to plow and rope and the labors of the farm.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the covered stern of the <\/em>Reinen, over a small touchwood brazier, huddled Urtha and Wen\u2013wives to Hoensa and Rill. The women would not let their husbands raid without their company. Their cooking. Their guidance. And because Heingistr did not meddle in the affairs of husbands and wives, he allowed this as his father had before him. Indeed, it spared him from eating what his men might cook.<\/em><\/p>\n

Urtha scowled at Grislae\u2019s garb when she boarded the <\/em>Reinen, noting her helm, her boiled leather tunic. Her sword.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou are Ordbeg the Boy-Lover\u2019s daughter, are you not?\u201d Urtha said as Grislae hung her shield over the gunwale. The shield had been her father\u2019s, but she\u2019d repainted it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Svebder and Snurri chuckled. Grislae looked at the women. They called her father \u201cBoy-Lover\u201d in derision because he would not kill children. Last Imbolc he was coughing blood, and by the Festival of Eostre, he was dead , his incessant retching so odious the end came as a relief. She didn\u2019t weep. She swore she\u2019d never pick up another hoe or scythe another hayfield. She dug his grave, placed him in it, and built a cairn. It was her last spring sowing. Her father\u2019s sword and shield and wealth she kept, and placed nothing in the grave with him. Then, back aching, she drank as much mead as her belly would hold, sitting in the dim silence of their farmhouse\u2014leagues away from Heingistrhold and any other soul\u2014and drew Ordbeg\u2019s sword from its scabbard and watched the firelight flicker down its length…<\/em><\/p>\n

For the rest, get Swords v. Cthulhu <\/em>from Stone Skin Press<\/p>\n

\n

John Hornor Jacobs<\/strong> is the author of Southern Gods, This Dark Earth, The Twelve-Fingered Boy, The Shibboleth, The Conformity, The Incorruptibles, <\/em>and Foreign Devils. <\/em>He makes his home in the South of America. You can learn more of him at JohnHornorJacobs.com\u00a0or on Twitter at @johnhornor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Swords v. Cthulhu is our newest genre-blending anthology of original fiction, and as it shambles toward its summertime publication we\u2019re going to be posting excerpts from each of the stories. Our next teaser is from John Hornor Jacobs’ “The Children…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[7,45,12],"class_list":["post-1702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-authors-2","tag-swords-v-cthulhu","tag-teasers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stoneskinpress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}