Because of its subject matter and setting – assassins and the exotic Middle East – reviewers often make a comparison between The Lion of Cairo and either (or both) of the blockbuster video game/media properties, Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia.  In truth, it is a fair comparison.  The Lion of Cairo is, of course, the tale of an Assassin who is sent to Egypt to broker peace between Alamut and the Fatimid rulers of Cairo – a task which calls for stealth, intrigue, and no small amount of bloodshed.  The Sultan of Damascus and the Christian king of Jerusalem also want control of Cairo, whose Caliph is the weak-minded puppet of his vizier.  Add to the mix a clandestine war between Alamut and its one-time vassal, the Assassins of Massaif in Syria led by a sinister necromancer called Ibn Sharr, and you can kind of see why Steven Pressfield (author of the phenomenal Gates of Fire, among others) called it “a cross between the Arabian Nights and a Hollywood blockbuster.”

The first Assassin’s Creed shares much of the same Arabian Nights’ vibe as Lion, with the titular assassin, Altaïr ibn-La’Ahad, exploring a number of extremely well-rendered and historically accurate cityscapes in his quest to thwart the plans of the Templars, led by Robert de Sablé, during the Third Crusade.  Later entries into the franchise expand upon the story and introduce new eras and assassins.  I’ve only played AC and ACII, but both were top-notch games that kept me away from my keyboard for far too many hours.

Conversely, I’ve never played Prince of Persia, Jordan Mechner’s homage to the Thief of Baghdad and similar tales.  The Prince (called “Dastan” in the 2008 movie, also written by Mechner) is an agile fellow who is called upon to put his life on the line to save the world and get the girl.  Among the most prominent tropes it shares with Lion is that of the Sinister Vizier – a standard in The Arabian Nights and associated literature.  Friends who have played it agree that it absolutely lives up to the hype. 

While the comparisons are most apt, Lion also exists as a homage to the Crusader tales of Robert E. Howard.  And if you’re familiar with the latter, then you’ll need to keep an eye out for “Easter eggs” hidden in the manuscript – little nods to the Man and his work.  Someday, perhaps, I’ll publish a list of them. 

So, if you’re a fan of Assassin’s Creed or Prince of Persia (or both) and are looking for something along the same lines to read when you’re away from your controllers, why not give The Lion of Cairo a try?

Click here to read an excerpt at Wattpad.

Or click one of the links below to purchase a copy:

• Amazon
• Amazon UK
• Amazon France
• Barnes and Noble

Nothing I write is truly historical; nor is anything written as fiction prior to, say, the Enlightenment.  It is an echo, myth wrapped in the fleece of fact: in 525 BC, the army of Cambyses of Persia met the army of Pharaoh Psammetichus III at Pelusium on the Egyptian frontier; in 334 BC, Memnon of Rhodes defended the fortress-city of Halicarnassus from the scourge that was Alexander the Great; and in 1169 AD, Shirkuh ibn Shahdi of Damascus fought a battle against King Amalric of Jerusalem for control of the dying Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt.  These are all facts insofar as we can verify them through personal accounts, official chronicles, and the like.  Where is the fantasy, then?  Where is the myth?  Like the Devil, it’s in the details.  In the building of the world around these thin facts.

Not even the most adept author of fantasy creates his or her world whole-cloth.  Middle-earth, the Hyborian Age, Narnia, Westeros . . . all of these are constructed from the bones of our shared history, from the cultural details, superstitions, martial urges, and even the topography.  Fantasists carve up the past into puzzle pieces, reshape them, and put them back together in a manner pleasing to their art.  What most people don’t understand is that writers of historical fiction do the very same thing.  Honestly, do you think Leonidas of Sparta would recognize himself or his nation if he were to read Pressfield’s excellent Gates of Fire?  The answer is an unequivocal and resounding NO.  He would no more recognize himself than Caesar would, or Cleopatra, or Attila the Hun, or Memnon of Rhodes.  Because what authors of historical fiction do, in reality, is to craft a fantasy world and fantasy characters from the exact same materials as Tolkien or REH or Lewis or GRR Martin would use.  We, too, carve the past into pieces, but we tend to put it back in much the same order as we found it.

Why the segregation, then?  Why am I off in General Fiction rather than with my brothers and sisters in Fantasy/SF?  Mostly, it has to do with perception.  Historical fiction set in Antiquity is perceived to be in some way different from heroic fantasy – perhaps it has a more respectable pedigree and none of that fanciful magic to obfuscate its genealogy.  But, wait . . . have you ever read Gates of Fire?  The narrator, Xeones, dies in battle, makes it to the shores of the River Styx, and is selected by the god Apollo to go back and tell the tale of Thermopylae.  Later, we see Apollo help young Xeones out of a tight spot.  No, some might say, that was nothing but an hallucination!  No, friends – that was magic.  Magic as clean and subtle as the sorcery you’d find in JRR Tolkien’s epic The Lord of the Rings.  Antiquity is rife with sorcerers and mages, monsters and foul beasts; what we dismiss as myth and superstition was once the reality of mankind.  And we tend to forget that.

I write fantasy.  Historical sword-and-sorcery, to be precise.  I research events, places, people, and cultural details.  I craft stories from our shared heritage.  I take what I need in order to make the worlds I’m creating come alive.  And those worlds bear a striking resemblance to our own.  But, never forget this: my visions of ancient Egypt, or ancient Greece, or medieval Cairo are not “historically accurate”.  They are all (hopefully) well-constructed fantasy worlds where sorcery and swordplay intersect with familiar tropes from history.  If readers ascribe a sense of realism to my fantasy worlds then I’ve done my job equally as well as those who have come before me.

Let us presuppose a few things, for a moment.  Let us take for granted that you, Gentle Reader, are an author and that you have achieved a basic competence in the writing of singular combat.  You know to keep your sentences short and punchy, to engage the senses, and to eschew the “strike and parry, strike and parry” sort of narrative (the sort of writing that reads like the transcription of a combat turn from last week’s session of Dungeons & Dragons).  And, if you’re not familiar with the rules for writing action, let’s presuppose that you’re going to go over to The Night Bazaar and read Betsy Dornbusch’s article on action and fight scenes.

So, now that you’re back, the question becomes: what if my story takes my characters into a large-scale battle, replete with flights of arrows, shield walls, and a horde of screaming Orcs?  How do I keep it from drifting into the land of boring repetition?  Or do I simply gloss over it?

The answer, of course, depends upon the necessities of your plot, the characters you’re writing, and the genre.  The preparation, execution, and aftermath of a single large-scale battle can fuel an entire book – witness Pressfield’s Gates of Fire or Cornwell’s Agincourt or David Gemmell’s Legend – or it can serve as a cornerstone event that either kicks off the narrative (Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage) or serves as its climax (Angus Donald’s Holy Warrior, or my own Men of Bronze).  But, regardless of where they fall in your manuscript, set-piece battles are fraught with dramatic possibilities.  Use an epic clash to highlight your characters’ gifts – or to emphasize their flaws.  Put your characters on the losing side.  Injure them.  Break them.  Let them shine.

Here are a few simple guidelines for writing battle scenes:

1. Do your research.

Whether you’re writing about the Battle of Marathon or the Battle of Fangtooth Hill, research is ever your best friend and most useful ally.  On the historical side of things, the past will suggest troop complexion and deployment, equipment, the physical landscape, tactics, notable personalities, and the general flow of battle.  Sometimes you’ll get conflicting information – things as basic as the day or time the battle occurred, who was there, or how it played out.  That’s where creative license comes into play.  What makes the most sense to you?  What helps your narrative?

Fantasists, too, should pay close attention to historical research, since you can adapt and import every aspect of the past to your fantasy world to lend it a sense of verisimilitude.  In fact, why not find a similar battle from history and use it as a basis for the epic clash at Fangtooth Hill?  It worked for David Gemmell – the Battle of Dros Delnoch in Legend is but a fantasy retelling of the Greek defense of Thermopylae in 480 BC.

2. Remember to engage the senses.

Just like in smaller fights, the senses play a huge role in translating to the reader your character’s fear, excitement, wonder, resolve, what have you, about the coming battle.  To the common catalog of our five senses – sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing – I would suggest adding a sixth: emotion.  For most soldiers (and most characters), fear prior to going into battle is a common reaction.  Even combat veterans experience it – that gnawing sense of the unknown; that moment where they wonder if these will be their last hours alive:

Tension knotted Memnon’s gut.  He knew he should say something to the men around him — a word or two of encouragement, perhaps a fitting quote — but his eloquence deserted him, the first casualty of phobia.  Instead, he contented himself with looking up and down the line.  Each man developed his own ritual before battle, some small thing he could do to restore a measure of control over his emotions.  For the veterans, something practical — a buckle readjusted, a sword loosened in its sheath, a handful of dirt abraded along the grip of a spear.  Those less experienced preferred the spiritual observances — a talisman kissed and tucked away, a prayer chanted under breath, a dialogue with the gods responsible for winnowing spirits from the battlefield.  As always, one or two of the soldiers possessed irrepressible humor; their jokes and the attendant laughter calmed even the most terrified among them.”

– Memnon, 2006.

Sight, sound, and smell are easy enough to imagine, but what is there to taste or to touch on a battlefield?  Simple: you can taste sweat, blood, smoke, dust; you can touch sweat-soaked wrappings on a sword hilt, armor made hot by the sun, or the sticky slickness of your own entrails.  Read widely and imagine.  Weave these details together – but sparingly.  Don’t overwhelm the reader.

3. Pacing is everything.

This bears repeating: PACING IS EVERYTHING.  Just like a smaller fight scene, between two combatants, the pace of a set-piece battle should have an ebb and flow like music; it should have momentary lulls where your characters can think or speak, or where you can inject a bit of strategic overview, followed by moments of desperate action that rise throughout the piece until they reach their shuddering crescendo.

Sometimes, large-scale battles necessitate multiple points of view – multiple eyes to grasp the scope and scale of the destruction.  This is one of the great strengths of Gemmell’s Legend: he makes the tactics of the battle crystal-clear by seeing it from multiple POV characters, both allied and enemy.  As you plot out your battle, be mindful of places where you can insert other eyes to clarify what is happening on the ground.  But, don’t merely create throw-away characters – do your best to integrate them into the whole narrative, so they won’t merely pop up like an embedded journalist, relate their tale, and fade away.

If possible, use dialogue to your advantage as you relate the tactical disposition of your forces.  I prefer to insert some kind of scene where the command character is laying out the field – it adds personality and relays information in one package:

The sun was well past its zenith, and the heat of afternoon lay like a stifling blanket over the Nile valley.  A mile distant, across a sandy plain where the cultivated lands touched the desert, Assad could discern the vanguard of the Nazarene army, their harness flashing like lightning through a haze of dust.  Nigh-deafened by the roar of the Turkomans, Assad nevertheless gave ear to Shirkuh even as he watched the enemy fan out into a line of battle.

“Allahu akbar!”

“—are tired from their march, thirsty, and unprepared to fight!  Amalric thought to find a fretful city on the verge of capitulation, with an unseen ally plucking the strings of power in a song of submission!  He did not expect to find an army facing him!  He did not expect the lords of Damascus to join with the lords of Egypt!”  The gathered officers bellowed their approval.  Shirkuh calmed them with a raised hand.  “Blessed Allah saw fit not to grant Amalric a surfeit of imagination where the waging of war is concerned.  He is predictable.  Even now, he arranges his lines as he always does: his cursed knights in the center with his infantry defending each flank.  He will try and use his horsemen as a carpenter uses a wedge, to split our formation.  I am of a mood to turn his conceit against him.”

Shirkuh drew a dagger and knelt in the sand.  He sketched out a series of lines; then, gesturing to his nephew, he said: “Yusuf, take the left wing.  Dismount four thousand of your men and have them dig their heels in against the Nazarene infantry.  Load the remaining thousand with as many arrows as their horses can carry and send them against Amalric’s flank.  I will do the same on the right.  Harry them without mercy, Yusuf.  Force them to wheel and we will crush them in on themselves.  You, sons of Cairo, you will have the center.  Nay, do not cheer so, for you will bear the brunt of Jerusalem’s cavalry charge.”

Turanshah stepped forth from the knot of Cairene officers, grim and deadly in the plain gray mail he had adopted since his fall from grace.  “You honor us, Amir Shirkuh.  Let Allah witness my oath: we will not falter.”

The Kurdish general grinned.  “Ah, but I want you to falter.  When Amalric’s cavalry presses you, fall back.  Draw them off in pursuit.  The Nazarene will break his own lines to keep up.”

A slow smile spread across Turanshah’s face.  He salaamed and returned to his place.  Shirkuh stood; he stropped his knife against his trouser leg to clean sand from the blade before sheathing it, and then swept his sobering gaze over the assembled officers.  “It is a soldier’s duty to risk all in battle.  If any among you fear death or slavery, then I say you are fit to serve neither Sultan nor Caliph!  Go home, if fear threatens to unman you!  Put down the sword and take up the plough!  Raise goats!  Stay with your wives for you have no place here among true men, if indeed true men you are!  I go to fight!  Will you come?  What say ye?”

The officers responded with one voice, a roar that echoed across the plain: “Aye!”

“Take your marks, then!” Shirkuh bellowed, vaulting into the saddle.  “And may God grant us a swift and easy victory!  Allahu akbar!”

“Allahu akbar!”

– The Lion of Cairo, 2010.

And then, when the time comes for the spears to shatter and blood to run, incorporate all the narrative devices you’ve picked up from your readings.  Keep your sentences short and punchy.  Engage the senses.  Use lulls and surges.  Keep your over-arching plot in mind as you write – remember: no character should be on the field solely to split enemy skulls.  This leads nicely into our next point . . .

4. Give your characters a task to accomplish.

If you’re like me, then you’ve got the tactics covered via extra sets of POV characters’ eyes; you know the ground, the equipment, and the enemy disposition.  But, you’re not writing history (even if it’s historical fiction); you’ve got a number of extraordinary individuals running around your battlefield.  Give those fellows something to do besides carrying a spear, shouting orders, or splitting wigs.  Alan Dale, in Donald’s Holy Warrior, was a messenger between Locksley and the King at the Battle of Arsuf.  That got him out of the battle lines and gave him more to do – which meant optimizing his dramatic potential.  Is your character’s mortal enemy in the field?  Is he on the enemy side or on the allied side?  Even something relatively “small”, like a break in the allied line that needs defending, is imminently better than keeping your characters stationary.

They’re the heroes, for pity’s sake . . .

And, if need be, give them a glorious death:

Against Nebmaatra, the Hyrkanians fought like madmen.  The first few hours served to pare the fat from the Egyptian lines.  Soldiers who were too slow, too afraid, or too reckless fell first.  They were good men, all, but they lacked the killer instinct of the survivors.  Those who remained were harder than granite.  Again and again the Egyptians hurled the enemy down the slope, only to watch them reform and charge once more.  They were relentless.

“Watch the flank!  Don’t let them overlap us!”  Nebmaatra shouted to his captains during one of the many lulls in the fighting.  Below them, a wall of snarling faces surged up the hillside.  “Here they come again!”

A scream pierced the din of combat, a sound unlike any Nebmaatra had heard this day.  It wasn’t fury or pain that wrenched that yell from a soldier’s lips.  It was defeat.  Another scream, this one closer.  Then another.  Sensing something wrong, the Egyptians grew panicked.  They rolled their eyes toward the center, toward Pharaoh’s banners, and saw the core of the army in retreat.  Panic turned to fear, and despite their granite-hard exteriors, that fear sapped any vestige of honor they might have had.  They threw down spear and shield and ran, following the example of the Son of Ra.

The Hyrkanians, sensing imminent victory, redoubled their efforts.

“Stand!” Nebmaatra roared as Pharaoh’s army crumbled.  “Stand and fight, damn you!”  A few heeded his cry, but not enough.  The Hyrkanians crushed the right flank as if it were made of pottery.

Nebmaatra found himself alone.  His guard lay dead about him, crowning the small hill in a ruin of flesh and bone.  The Hyrkanians gave him little respite.  Already they were streaming past him, a river split by a lone rock, to fall on the unprotected flank of the center.  The Egyptian swayed.  He was covered in blood, much of it his own, his corselet in tatters and his helm long since lost in the wrack.  Gore clotted the blade of his sword.

For a moment he stood again in his family’s home, in Thebes.  A breeze ruffled the linen sheers; sunlight striped the tiled floor.  He saw a scribe delivering his chest to his sister, saw her open it.  She was thin, like their mother, with large eyes the color of a moonlit pool.  Her husband, a quiet man who served the temple of Amon, stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders.  “He lived the best way he knew how,” he said.  His sister bowed her head . . . .

The noose of Hyrkanians tightened.  They rushed forward.  The foremost among them fell under Nebmaatra’s blade.  The Egyptian bellowed in defiance and hurled himself at a barbarous Hyrkanian, splitting his helmet open.  The injured man’s axe crushed his shoulder.  Nebmaatra reeled.  A slender lance darted past his failing guard to bury itself in his chest.  The Egyptian fell to his knees; his sword dropped from his weakening grasp.  He coughed blood.

Nebmaatra craned his neck and stared at the sky.  Gray and white clouds drifted across the face of the sun god, Ra, sparing him from witnessing the shame wrought by his son, by Pharaoh.  Many were his tears, and they spilled down from the heavens like rain . . . .”

– Men of Bronze, 2005.

The story itself is derived from a much older work: The Histories of Herodotus.  Known as “the Father of History”, Herodotus’ work chronicles the causes and outcome of the Persian Wars – that series of invasions during the 5^th century BC that produced such touchstone events as the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) and the heroic last stand of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae (480 BC).  Indeed, it is only because Herodotus’ work has survived into the modern era that we’re so well-acquainted with the triumphs of the ancient Greeks.

But, Herodotus detailed more than just the wars of the Greeks versus the Persians.  He also told the tale of Persia’s expansion into its neighboring kingdoms and especially of the Fall of Egypt in 525 BC.  To the ancient Greeks, who we in the modern era look upon with the reverence of antiquity, Egypt was impossibly old – a land of soaring monuments to Gods and Men, where wisdom is written on temple walls in a language only the learned can decipher.  Egypt was, according to Herodotus, the Gift of the Nile.  He journeyed to that ancient land, listened to the sages and the priests, and put much of what he learned in his Histories, books II and III.

The backdrop for MEN OF BRONZE is historically accurate: because of its strategic importance as a maritime nation, as a food producer, and as a treasure house, the kings of Persia long sought a way of conquering the Nile valley.  But its navy was formidable and the vast and inhospitable Sinai Desert protected its eastern border.  Egypt, according to Herodotus, was untouchable.  At the time, the backbone of the Egyptian military was an army of Greek mercenaries, called the “Men of Bronze” due to their heavy armor, helmets, and shields.  Because the Pharaohs of the 26^th dynasty – the rulers of Egypt from 664 BC to 525 BC – did not trust their native Egyptian commanders, they allowed the Greeks to garrison key forts, and even to garrison the ancient capital of Memphis.  Pharaoh treated his Greek mercenaries well, and paid well, but still – as Herodotus tells us – one of their officers nursed a grievance against him:

There was another matter, quite distinct, which helped to bring about the expedition. One of the mercenaries of Amasis [Pharaoh Ahmose II], a Halicarnassian, Phanes by name, a man of good judgment, and a brave warrior, dissatisfied for some reason or other with his master, deserted the service, and taking ship, fled to Cambyses [King Cambyses II of Persia], wishing to get speech with him. As he was a person of no small account among the mercenaries, and one who could give very exact intelligence about Egypt, Amasis, anxious to recover him, ordered that he should be pursued.” – Herodotus, The Histories, III.4 (translated by George Rawlinson).

Quite a few of the characters from the book were true historical figures, mentioned first in the pages of Herodotus and later in various non-fiction history books associated with the Persian Wars, or with ancient Greek and Egyptian history.  Some have even been identified through archaeological discoveries.  Here’s a list of historical characters:

PHANES OF HALICARNASSUS: Greek mercenary officer whose defection from Pharaoh Ahmose II triggered the long-planned Persian invasion of Egypt.  Phanes provided Cambyses with the crucial last piece of the puzzle: how to cross the Sinai Desert with an army.  His answer was to suggest to the Persians that they ally with the Arabs (Bedouin), who kept the army supplied with water.  According to Herodotus, the Greek mercenaries still in Pharaoh’s service executed Phanes’ sons – whom he’d left behind in Egypt – and ritually drank their blood prior to the Battle of Pelusium.

UJAHORRESNET: a physician and admiral who defected to the Persians and helped King Cambyses understand the ways of the ancient pharaohs.  His tomb was found in 1995, in the necropolis at Abusir in Egypt.

PHARAOH AHMOSE II: ruled from 570-526 BC; a former Egyptian general who was elevated to Pharaoh by the acclaim (and power) of his troops.  He was called “the Philhellene”, or “Lover of the Greeks” for his patronage of the Greek mercenaries.  Herodotus gives us a sketch of his character at the end of Book II of The Histories.

PHARAOH PSAMMETICHUS III: ruled for only a year, from 526-525 BC; he was the eldest son of Ahmose II.  Herodotus paints him as a just king who moved Cambyses to pity for his concern over the fate of an old family friend who had fallen on poverty.  At first, the Persians allowed him his freedom, but later they executed him for trying to raise an Egyptian revolt.

LADICE: Historically, Ladice was a Greek princess from Cyrene (modern Libya) who became Ahmose II’s third wife.  She was sent back home after the Persian conquest of Egypt, as a gesture of goodwill to the people of Cyrene.

Like any good piece of historical fiction, MEN OF BRONZE liberally mixed the history with the fiction, and some of the book’s most memorable creations were the result of several years of study.  The MEDJAY, for example, actually existed during the 18^th Dynasty (the period of Egyptian history most well-known to modern audiences, thanks in no small part to the discovery of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen – a minor ruler in an age of giants).  Originally, the Medjay were a nomadic people from the south of Egypt who drifted north and became almost a police force, guarding not only the tombs of pharaohs, but also patrolling the desert corridors on both sides of the Nile.  When I needed a name for the mercenary brigade Barca commanded on the eastern border of Egypt, I found a reference in An Oxford History of Ancient Egypt on how the rulers of the 26^th dynasty were prone to recycle institutions and names from the 18^th dynasty – what they considered the golden age.  Thus, I swiped the name Medjay and applied it to Barca’s command.

Herodotus is also the original scribe of Egypt’s downfall.  From him, we learned of the final battle outside the Egyptian port-city of Pelusium, on the eastern border of the Nile Delta.  Our sum total of knowledge on this particular struggle, where ancient Egyptian autonomy was lost for the first time in almost three thousand years, is this:

Stubborn was the fight which followed, and it was not till vast numbers had been slain upon both sides, that the Egyptians turned and fled.” – Herodotus, The Histories, III.11 (translated by George Rawlinson).

Herodotus lived a generation after the events of the Persian War.  He traveled widely and talked to those who had been there, veterans of some of the greatest clashes of Western civilization.  He walked the battle fields and saw the trophies erected by the victors – including the field of bones left in the wake of the Pelusium.  It was not the Persian way to bury or burn their dead, but rather to leave them exposed to the elements.  Somewhere among those bones laid Phanes of Halicarnassus, in reality as well as in fiction . . .

If you’ve not read MEN OF BRONZE, why not give it a go?  It’s still available in hardcover and for the Kindle.  In the UK, there’s a nice paperback edition, and also a Kindle edition.

What has become A GATHERING OF RAVENS had its genesis in a dream.  According to my old blog, that dream occurred on 15 August 2006:

“I woke Tuesday morning to a vivid dream-image: A figure standing atop a precipice of broken rock, sword in hand, long black hair drifting on the wind and obscuring a non-human face. Below, surging up a narrow gorge, comes a horde of veiled warriors clutching saw-toothed scimitars, spears, and wickedly-curved knives. This is the only part of the dream I fully recall; the rest is hazy. On the surface, it seemed common enough for me – pulpy and obviously inspired by too much REH and too many Frazetta paintings. But the emotion is what forced me awake, like I was witnessing the tail-end of some heart-and-gut-wrenching saga. Immediately I jumped up, fired up the laptop, and started throwing stuff on paper. By breakfast I had four single spaced pages of notes, history, background material, and research topics.” (“When Ideas Attack”, posted 17 August 2006).

By 14 October 2006, I revealed that the thing I’d been working on – dubbed the Unnamed Fantasy Project – would be a novel featuring Orcs (from a close reading of posts, I seem to have kept the Orc part under wraps for fear of being put off by the nay-sayers).  I had enough info to post an introductory snippet:

“The gods made them warriors; Mankind made them invincible.

“Forged in a brutal environment of isolated valleys and snow-clad peaks at the Roof of the World, the Orc tribes of the Zhrokari Mountains had known no masters save the gods of sky and rock; being warlike, neither had they known peace. For a hundred generations clan fought clan, tribe fought tribe, to the pleasure of their savage gods.

“But, two centuries ago, when an army of Men dared set foot in the fastness of the Zhrokari, the independence of the Orcs became their greatest liability. They were zealots, these Humans, followers of Ash’a, the God of the Blade—those pious warmongers who had subjugated the East, men whose harsh and austere Faith had forged a holy empire from the ghost-haunted ruins of ancient Nerona. The tribes resisted, but without a leader strong enough to overcome centuries of in-fighting their resistance was in vain. The followers of Ash’a descended upon the Orcs in a rain of cleansing iron. Those not slain outright found themselves shackled and driven south, into the lowlands, to begin a new life in bondage to the Prophet of a foreign god . . .” (“A Secret Revealed”, posted 14 October 2006).

As you can see, the book was initially going to be a created-world fantasy, set in a world called Tharduin (used as the setting for my Orc short-story, “Amarante”).  I went on to write:

“The Orcs … are one part Vandal, one part Afghan tribesman, and one part Mameluke; they possess none of the near-clichéd attributes of their literary brethren. They’re not inherently evil or blighted; they have no aversion to sunlight; they don’t require a powerful non-Orc will to guide them; they are not green, simple-minded, or piggish.” (“A Secret Revealed”, posted 14 October 2006).

Such are the vicissitudes of the writing life that what became known simply as “The Orc Book” got pushed onto the back burner as I wrote THE LION OF CAIRO, worked on SERPENT OF HELLAS, and finally put writing aside to take care of my terminally ill parents.  But because it was a project dear to my heart, I kept tinkering with the Orc Book – trying my hand at secondary world building and trying to nail down some of the specifics of their culture.  But it wasn’t until 2008 that I started to question whether or not I should play to my strengths as a historical writer or trust my unproven world building skills:

“I could eschew a wholly created world altogether and attempt to insert Orcs into our own mythological past – mixing Greek and Germanic myth with REH’s “Worms of the Earth” (themselves a riff off Arthur Machen’s tales of the Little People).  Steve Tompkins of The Cimmerian illuminates the problem of taking Orcs out of their milieu far better than I can. He writes:

“ ‘. . . to reconfigure them as an unlovely-but-arguably-racially-profiled warrior-race, unrestricted free agents looking for a destiny of their own is to risk losing the plot. It’s precisely the fact that they were gengineered in the hells beneath the halls of a Dark Lord – “And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery” – the tension between slavery and sentience that characters like Gorbag and Shagrat evince, that renders them so compelling.’

“Though he does make a fine point, I’m nevertheless leaning toward inserting Orcs into ancient myth as the spawn of Phorcys and Ceto, a brother-and-sister duo who gave birth to some of the most fearsome denizens of the Greek mythological landscape. The use of Phorcys is especially noteworthy since, according to Robert Graves’ notes in his two-volume The Greek Myths, Phorcys/Phorkys becomes the Latin Orcus – a Roman god of the underworld whose name is at the etymological heart of the word Orc. But still, I’m faced with the very problem Steve Tompkins elucidates so well: without a Dark Creator to fuel their hate and their fear, Orcs tend to slip into clichéd roles, savages who serve either as sword-fodder or one-dimensional foils.

“What might work is to have them be slaves of Hades (much like how the race of Cyclops serves Hephaestus as forge-workers), who toil never-ending on the great palaces and prisons of Tartarus. Punishment for some transgression, such as fighting on the wrong side in the Titanomachy or perhaps for stealing the secret of ironworking from the Cyclopes (Hades could have seen some worth in preserving the Sons of Phorcys from the wrath of Hephaestus). It’s still quite rough, of course, and there’s a great deal of time between now and the moment I needs must commit something to paper.” (“Orcish Antiquities”, posted 9 November 2008).

The idea of moving Orcs from their original genre elicited a great deal of conversation, both pro and con.  But, in my mind there existed an extremely good reason to make the switch from straight fantasy to historical fantasy: the existing oeuvre of great books with Orc protagonists already populating the bookshelves.  It begins with Tolkien, who started it all, and runs to Stan Nicholls (undoubtedly the godfather of the modern Orc book), Christie Golden, RA Salvatore, Morgan Howell, Mary Gentle . . . I wondered if another pure fantasy featuring Orcs could stand out in that stellar crowd.  Because of Tolkien’s love for the Northern Thing, Orcs seemed a great fit for Norse myth.  But I wanted to take it a step beyond:

“ … its core conceit is the idea that Tolkien’s inspiration for Orcs came from a cycle of Norse myths unknown to us until recently.  This cycle identifies a race of creatures descended from the Dvergar (dwarfs) that haunt caves and fens — Grendel and his monstrous mother from Beowulf are degenerate members of this race of “mythological Orcs”.” (Scott Oden to Patrice Louinet, via email, 12 October 2012).

This leads up to where we stand today.  The initial draft of A GATHERING OF RAVENS (which, until August of 2012 was known as GRIMNIR after the protagonist; prior to that, it was known as ORC: A TALE OF THE FORSAKEN, and before that it was FORSAKEN: THE FIRST CHRONICLE OF THE RAVEN; its first title was simply, UNTITLED) is a few hundred words from being completed.  Then I’ll hammer out – quickly – the finished draft that my agent and editor will deconstruct and make better; then, if all goes well, it will come to you, Gentle Readers, hopefully by the end of 2014.

It has been a long road to get this idea even this far – a road fraught with disappointment, detours, sadness, and triumph; now, it has even more road left to travel – a more difficult road, at that.  I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

Hellenic Reconstructionism is the methodology for restoring to the modern world the religion of the ancient Greeks, through the study of ancient sources, recreating ancient rituals and prayer, and extrapolating knowledge from the academic work of historians and archaeologists.  It doesn’t seek to return to the past, but to bring elements of the past forward into our world.

I identify myself as an Attic Polytheist with a bias toward Neoplatonism.  Now, what does that even mean?  A polytheist is, of course, a follower of multiple gods; an Attic polytheist follows the Gods as they were in ancient Attica, the homeland of the Athenians.  Like most of my peers, I was raised a monotheist — and fairly agnostic, at that.  I can imagine raised eyebrows at the conversion of “maybe” to “multiple . . . and Greek!”  My argument is, this is what makes the most sense to me.  Not logical sense (religion as a whole doesn’t make much logical sense), but spiritual.  This way answers my needs and soothes my fears.  The bias toward Neoplatonism means I study the works of ancient philosophers like Plotinus and Sallustius and can see much merit in their cosmology.  I also see merit in the ethical demands of Stoicism.

How does all this mumbo-jumbo apply to the modern world, to the life of a 45-year old writer from Alabama?  That part I’m still working on.  It is most evident by a stated desire to live as well as I can, guided by the Delphic Maxims (here’s a more scholarly pdf; here’s a list of just the Maxims), the sayings that form the ethical backbone of Hellenismos (the name the ancient Greek religion goes by, credited to the Roman Emperor, Julian the Philosopher ["the Apostate", to Christians], who sought to restore it to prominence).  I’m still learning them, and learning to live by them.  My new-found faith guides my private study, for learning and questioning are both sacred to the Gods.  And each morning, on an altar-space I’ve created on a sunny windowsill above my workspace, I offer frankincense and a prayer to the Gods, and especially to Apollon and the Muses.  There’s more I could do, more I should do, but that’s all, for now.

This is a new and alien experience for me, as it must also seem for my friends.  I’d be glad to try and answer any questions or concerns . . .

I went into my teens and early twenties with a healthy fear of religion — a fear that translated into a type of atheism that predicated itself not so much on a denial of God, but a fear that the god the Baptists worshipped really DID exist.  This impulse was so strong, in fact, that I credit it for leading me to the study of ancient history.  I wanted proof, you see, that this god, who would condemn me to hell for not loving him unconditionally, did not exist.

The study of history and the ancient religions that thrived prior to the advent of Christianity seemed to assuage my fear of God (I think time and maturity also played a role).  I started to ask questions: Do I believe in God?  If so, then how should God be worshipped?  Many people I talked to are content, at that point, to declare themselves spiritual but not religious and go about their lives as a member of whatever sect they’re most familiar with.  Some simply go it alone (my Father was that way — knew the Bible front to back, but rarely stepped foot in a church).  Problem was, I didn’t have a religious sect I was familiar, or comfortable, with.

Quietly, because I was rather embarassed by my youthful outbursts of atheism (which many of my friends remember to this day), I began to look for my faith.  Like many humans, I feel keenly the need to belong, to have others of the same faith to talk to, to question.  I began my search with what I knew, and rejected wholly any sect of Protestantism; I found much to admire in Catholicism (and much to condemn), and could appreciate Anglicanism and even Judaism.  I turned quickly from Islam.  I also admired the Eastern faiths, though it took me a while not to feel scandalized by the aspect of polytheism.  In Paganism, though, I found a certain resonance.  I discovered I really liked Pagans.  They are some of the most friendly, non-judgmental, and open people I’ve ever met in connection with religion.  I explored Wicca but found it too eclectic, too “do-it-yourself” — and I couldn’t get past the whole witchcraft aspect.  I’m not offended by it or scared of it — the ancient world had practitioners a-plenty — but I just don’t think it works, especially for me.  Most recently, I’ve explored Asatru, the ancient Norse religion.  It felt close, but not quite right.

An aside: I’m sure some people might wonder how anyone in the 21st century could believe in a plurality of gods.  My answer is, it’s not that hard.  The seen and unseen worlds are huge and mysterious places; we kid ourselves into thinking we understand even the slenderest portion.  There’s much more to the cosmos than we can see or know.  Whose to say divinity could not exist as multiple, distinct personalities as easily as it could manifest itself as a single deity?  I’m not going to presume.

Last week, I experienced a moment that the Greeks called gnosis.  It was small, like someone opened a door — but just a crack; research into “orthodoxy” led me to the term “orthopraxy”, I clicked through a few links and suddenly a little corner of the Internet I’d never noticed or heard of opened up.  There’s a movement called Hellenic Reconstructionism (sometimes called Hellenismos or Dodekatheism) devoted to the revival of ancient Greek religious practices based on information found in primary source texts — not to be confused with Wiccans or Neopagans who worship the Greek pantheon (some Hellenic Reconstructionists find the practice of magic to be irreligious and not in keeping with the ancient Greek way).  Discovering this was a distinct “a-ha!” moment, for me, as little things about myself suddenly fell into place — personal beliefs, attitudes, interests.  I spent the weekend reading countless essays on the core beliefs of Dodekatheism, the historical versus eclectic schism, how it fits into the scheme of religion in the modern world; I joined an eGroup and had some of my questions answered.  I have more to do, more to research, more books to read — some ancient, some modern — and more questions to ask, but this morning, as I write this, I don’t feel quite so lost.  After 40-odd years, I finally feel like I belong somewhere . . .

The basic tenet behind THE WAR OF ART is the constant battle between the artist and a force called the Resistance . . . the sum total of every shred of procrastination, self-doubt, self-sabotage, and even self-loathing to be found in our creative hearts.  As artists, we all hear the call of the Muses, but the Amateur finds ways to reject it, blaming all and sundry for NOT being able to complete that novel, short story, script, sculpture, still life, what have you; the Professional strikes back and finds ways to overcome the foe, which is also himself.  TURNING PRO expands upon this.

THE WAR OF ART spoke to me; it’s one of the only books that’s ever caused me to talk aloud to the printed page like some movie goers do to the screen.    TURNING PRO shouted at me; it roared and shook like an angry Zeus, taking me to task for straying from the Muses’ path.  And I said nothing, for everything it told me about myself was the god’s honest truth.

You’ll have to read TURNING PRO to make full sense of what I’m about to say, but it needs must be said: my sins are legion.  I have allowed my addictions to take over my writing space.  These addictions have turned the time I should spend in the presence of my daimon, listening to the Muses and following their call, into time wasted — frittered away in pursuit of my drug of choice: the internet and its lure of instant gratification.  I use grief as a crutch and the fear of homelessness as an excuse to crawl into bed with Resistance.  I’ve allowed myself to fall into bad habits, into despair, into a death-spiral of anger and loathing that sap my creativity and cause me to consider everything through the cere-cloth of hopelessness.  I was a Pro.  Now, I am the rankest sort of Amateur.

“But,” I can hear people say, “you’ve been struck by a vicious series of blows — the illness and long decline of both parents, the looming spectre of poverty and homelessness.  Cut yourself some slack.”  Slack, though, is another word for allowing Resistance to flourish.  Slack is akin to removing a piece of armor before going into battle, then cursing the gods when the first blow is directed at that unarmored spot.  I’ve been hit, sure, but what TURNING PRO taught me is that the Professional acknowledges it as a good hit from a worthy foe, gets up, dusts himself off, and goes back into the fray.  It’s the Amateur who slinks away to lick his wounds, who feels the need to cut himself some slack because the battle’s gotten too intense.  It is good to be reminded of this.

The greatest take-away from both THE WAR OF ART and TURNING PRO is this: the creative person, be they a writer, artist, designer, etc., exists in a state of constant warfare.  Not only with external forces like economic necessity, family dynamics, social interactions and the like, but — more importantly — with an insidious enemy lurking inside themselves: self-doubt, addictions, depression, grief, anger . . . anything that subverts you from the path that the gods have set you upon, that the Muses call you to follow.  Each day is a fight — some days you’ll lose; others you’ll break even.  And some days, you’ll taste the blood and sweat of Victory.  What Steven Pressfield has done in both THE WAR OF ART and TURNING PRO is imparted upon his readers the wisdom of Telamon of Arcadia, that eternal warrior who crops up in his fiction.  Pressfield shows us the Enemy, shows us the weapons, sketches out the battlefield, and sounds the Call to Arms.  It is up to us as individuals to chose our place in the phalanx, to don our armor and take up the spear.  We choose to overlap our shields with his.  But, if we step forward, the Gods expect nothing less than our best.

My armor needs mending, but I will stand with Telamon, regardless . . .

It has been more than a decade since I’ve worked a “real” job.  Things have changed since then, and changed mightily.  Jobs are posted and applications processed online, removing the job-petitioners ability to show up out of the blue and wow the powers-that-be.  Now, you’re just a faceless blot of data, relegated to a file until someone has need of you.  I tried applying to various online venues that were seeking writers, and had one tell me I lacked experience; I’ve been training as a remote transcription editor, but that’s looking a bit spotty — especially after I totally whiffed transcribing a math lecture and was only saved from the axe by my grammar and usage skills.  I stewed for a day or five, but then . . .

Flashback to last year.  I had the idea to start up an editorial service.  I mean, I’m a multi-published author who once served as a submissions editor for a small literary agent; I’d taught classes in manuscript and submission preparation.  I’ve even suggested a few unpublished books to my editor, which resulted in sales.  I could do this.  So, I made a website, connected it to Paypal, and mentioned it on Facebook.  I got a nibble from a writer whose work I’d rather edit for free, as a way of saying thanks for the help she gave me with Memnon.  Otherwise . . . nothing.

But then . . . a friend on Facebook asked how much I’d charge to do a light edit and critique of his historical novel.  I tossed out a figure, he accepted, and a new business was born, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old.

THE EDITORIAL GOBLIN has come, and while you’re sleeping he’ll creep from hiding; he’ll ignore your shoes (that’s elf-work, dammit!) and give you a second set of eyes on your manuscript, looking for plot holes, bad grammar, weak usage, and many other things.  Click the link, check out the site, and spread the word, please!

By night the King passing near an Alley,
He of Cyprus and the principal guard:
The King mistaken, the hand flees the length of the Rhône,
The conspirators will set out to put him to death.
–Michel de Nostradame

 

I.

“Strike no light.”

The man paused, his hand poised above the sooty chimney of an oil lamp. He cocked an eyebrow. A crack in the door frame allowed a faint candle-glow to seep into the filthy room, at the back of the least infamous brothel in the labyrinthine Rue du Grand-Huleur. By that palest of gleams, he saw a seated figure in a broad-brimmed hat staring at him, the waxed tip of a beard barely visible. A manicured hand gestured at the room’s only empty chair.

“Such deeds as ours require the anonymity of the shadows.”

“As you wish,” the man said. He sat; between them rested a rickety wooden table, its surface pocked and scarred. There was no wine, nor any offer of refreshment. The two silhouettes watched one another, each sizing the other up based on rumor and supposition. Two gentlemen: one in brocade and silver, the other in silk and leather; both were nonchalant, their hands calloused from sword-hilt and pistol-butt.

Around them, the hôtel of Mlle Paquet creaked like the bones of the old woman who owned it – a dowager caught between faith and financial need, who sought penance weekly for giving succor to the daughters of Jezebel. Faint moans and rhythmic thuds reached even into this shuttered closet as the femmes folles who were the source of Mlle Paquet’s sins went about their business in the rooms above. Laughter and jeers echoed in off the street, along with the dissonant trilling of a flute. But, to all this, both silhouettes paid no heed.

The man in the hat leaned forward. “That you have come yourself must mean our master has made his decision, no?”

“He has,” the newcomer replied, his accent betraying his Provençal heritage. “Our master is resolved to recover his honor. He had hoped to use political means to remove the Italians and their creatures from Court, but to no avail. Thus, when words falter good men needs must rely on steel.”

“It will not be easy. The revolt of the Princes has put our master’s enemies on guard.”

“Strike quietly, then, if you fear reprisal.”

The man in the hat stiffened. “It is not for myself I fear, sirrah! It is for our master. He will suffer far more than a simple death if we fail.”

“Then see we do not.” The newcomer stood; he brushed at his doublet as though the ineffectual gesture might remove the stench of the Rue du Grand-Huleur from the costly fabric. “Our master bid me tell you this one last thing: if you succeed, there is no reward he would refuse you.”

The man in the hat touched a finger to the brim in salute. “Tell our master his gratitude is reward enough.”

The newcomer nodded; he opened the door and in a flash of candle-glow he was gone. Gone from the hôtel of Mlle Paquet, whose mistress clung to her prie-dieu and whispered the Rosary; gone from the Rue du Grand-Huleur, where every night the song of Sodom reached its shuddering climax . . .

II.

That Sunday, the twenty-third of April, in the Year of Our Lord 1617, the Grande Galerie of the Palais du Louvre was nigh deserted. For six days it is the haunt of artists and envoys, courtiers and courtesans, but on the seventh day it becomes a respite for those who called the Palais home – and for those summoned to attend them. Such was the station of the man who strode with purpose down its length.

Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, the Bishop of Luçon, cut a grim figure against the Baroque backdrop of the Grande Galerie, a lean black shadow who wore the purple sash and skullcap of his rank. Gold winked on his finger as he acknowledged the bow of a passing servant. But, Richelieu was not there that afternoon in his capacity as a clergyman; it was in his role as Foreign Minister of France that he found himself called to attend the Regent, the Queen-mother Marie de Médicis.

Richelieu did not waste time speculating as to the reason behind the summons. He served at the pleasure of the Regent, and if it was her pleasure to summon him from his weekly game of chess with the Rector of the Sorbonne, then so be it. Marie de Médicis was a charming old woman from a storied family, deeply entrenched in politics and desperate to keep both crown and head intact. Richelieu frowned. As much as he loved the Grande Dame, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep power in her hands; in truth, he wasn’t sure she wanted to hold the reins of State any longer. But, to whom would she give them? Her son, Louis de Bourbon, the rightful King, or perhaps his cousin, Henri, the Duke of Enghien? Or would the Regent’s favorite, Concini – Italian adventurer and self-styled Marechal d’Ancre – seize power for himself?

Richelieu shook his head. Regardless of the outcome, his task was to keep France’s enemies at bay – be it through treachery, treaty, guile, or gift.

Not a bad start, though the line in part I about the revolt of the princes needs some cleaning up . . . I’ll probably rewrite that whole line, do away with the reference.  I could use a good schematic of the Old Louvre Palace, but barring that I may have to fudge some bits — in the next few paragraphs, Richelieu sees the King and Luynes in a courtyard while he waits for his audience with the Queen Mother; the King is hostile, but Luynes salutes Richelieu, perhaps foreshadowing the notion they’re working together for the good of the King.

Tomorrow, we’ll proceed!