Posted by Meg

I am pleased to announce that Graphic Audio just released the first installment of The Desert Spear.

For those of you who don’t already know, Graphic Audio has done a fantastic job converting The Warded Man into a full-fledged radio show complete with music, sound effects and voice actors for different characters. Now they are doing the same for The Desert Spear! It’s going to be even longer than The Warded Man and will be released in 3 parts over the next few weeks.

Starting now!

Part 1 of The Desert Spear is available to preview and purchase here:

The Desert Spear Part 1 (of 3)

Additionally, the Grand Prize for the Create Your Own Coreling Contest is none other than Part 1 and Part 2 of Graphic Audio’s The Warded Man. Not only that, but the Grand Prize with also include a Graphic Audio T-shirt and a signed poster both featuring Lauren K. Cannon’s fantastic rendition of Renna fighting a wood demon.

The deadline for the contest is just two days away, so hurry up and check out the contest guidelines for details.

This entry comes from Glen who reminds us that even in dreams, we are not safe.

I have not written anything for a while and this was all done on my phone. I just tried to tidy it up a bit on the PC. Hope it gets some smiles.

DhrAugh Demon

Arlen woke.

Silence. Arlen did not wake for no reason. All the years of pushing the boundary and living on the fine line between life and death made sure of that. Arlen knew he was not alone. In one smooth movement, he kicked himself out of the bed and swung his right leg towards his left shoulder in a perfect arc and caught the Wood Demon square in the face. The Wood Demon went crashing into the bedside table. Before Arlen even had time to get back to his feet, he saw the Flame Demon projectiling a stream of liquid death in his direction. Flipping himself to his feet, Arlen was already headed for the door of the small wooden cabin by the time the fire hit where he had been. In a practiced and drilled routine, he kicked the door open and dove outside, rolling into a defensive stance.

Then Arlen woke up, standing outside with a menagerie of demons slowly advancing on the only meal they had ever slightly feared. It only took a second for him to realise that it had not been real. Cursing under his breath, Arlen berated himself for forgetting. DhrAugh Demon. So rare were these Corelings that they were almost forgotten, free to roam as they pleased.

DhrAugh (old language for dream/deceive) Demons were unable to solidify like their kin. Instead, theirs was an altogether more terrifying ability. These deceitful creatures enter one’s dreams, as they eat souls, life force. Call it what you will. Many strong young men had been left either as drooling husks, forever lost, or simply a corpse, life simply yanked away. If they did not succeed, they would receive unearthly pleasure from making their prey believe they were running away from danger, only to wake from a dream walking state outside the safety of their wards, next on the list to be brutalised by the other Corelings. Arlen saw it out the corner of his eye, an inky, black oil slick in his peripherals. The only thing to define it from the darkness was its flaming eyes and mouth. It would have made no difference if it was standing right in front of him. Such was the nature of these demons. They never took form, in fact it was almost impossible to focus on them. The only way to describe them was like looking at a living shadow through the shimmer caused by the heat of a raging fire.

DhrAugh Demon’s main strength was their ability to get into your dreams and feed unhindered. Their weakness, well, they could not consolidate. The stories are few and far between. Not much is known about habitat other than there does not seem to be a set type of location. The only stories Arlen had ever found on them pointed to The Deliverer having struck a great fear into them. Was this the reason for their scarcity?

Arlen decided then what the coming weeks would contain. DhrAugh Demon wards would need to be found.

Looks like you need to find some skin, Arlen thought to himself. With that thought, and an array of different demons approaching from all sides, Arlen strengthened his stance and smiled.

Let

them

come….

Thank you to Glen for sending us that story! I love the idea of a Dream Demon; they remind me a lot of the Mind Demons in The Desert Spear. Perhaps they are related?

The deadline is close! Send your demons in no later than 11:59pm on May 18th, 2012. Check out the guidelines and fantastic prizes here.

My World Fantasy Con audio 1/2 interview with @mightymur on I Should Be Writing is up now:

Peter V. Brett Interview / Unrequited Love

Listen to Mur Lafferty’s podcast on unrequited love in storytelling (citing everything from Harry Potter to The Office) and then the first half of an interview with Peat at World Fantasy Con. Listen to them muse about writing deadlines, the benefits of going to a small and business focused Con and how Peat’s writing career opened up new travel opportunities. My favorite topic they discuss is what emerging writers should try not do at Cons while addressing how awkward and exciting meeting awesome writers and publishing people can be.

The second 1/2 will be up sometime in the next week!

This entry is from Suf from Toronto; a story about two brothers who brave the night to fight corelings.

It had become sport between the brothers; Troff and Kreg piled the fire demon corpses in a neat pyramid as they counted their killings.

’14 here newbie,’ said Troff with a grin.

’18 here newbier than a newbie’, Kreg retorted with a chin high.

‘Holy Creator, that is a new record, Kreg, I killed a fat one we will eat this one,’ Troff held up a fire demon by a leg with one hand.

Troff and Kreg couldn’t remember when a night had gone by and they hadn’t killed the demons for fun. Ever since they ran away from Candayn, they had been hunting demons with warded weapons for fun; surviving had become an unminded part of their night. Demons sometimes even ran away from them when they weren’t competing and were working together. It was only an hour in from sunset when they had set up a fire to eat their salvage demon meat. At first it was a last resort to them, and now it had become a fourth meal. Both brothers had recognized the effect the demon flesh embedded in them; they were stronger faster and better than every man they came across in the hamlets.

‘Brother, we need to find a Hamlet soon. We are running low on ink and I think I need a new weapon; this one is getting boring,’ said Troff as he wiped his scimitar on the grass.

The demon crackled and sizzled as it rotated on top of the fire. While cranking the rotisserie at a very smooth pace, Kreg rummaged through a giant bag for knives; he would use to part the meat. He had grabbed the specially warded steal cleaver when he saw the movement in the bush far from the portable circle.

‘Yes I saw that too, don’t mind it I think it’s a smaller woody being its annoying self,’ said Troff.

‘They never learn do they? This one is going to learn a lesson it’s going to teach it’s kin.’

Kreg stopped the rotisserie and moved it away from the fire. He picked out his favourite weapon, his double sided polearm, and walked with a pumped chest towards the demon. Just as he stepped out of the circle, the demon came out of the bushes.

‘Ah, what have we here,’ Kreg said out of surprise.

The demon glowed of Indigo color even in the night; it stalked on all fours rustling its steps as its crystal like armor flexed with its movements. It was bigger than a fire demon by a bit and walked like a spoiled house cat. Its horns protruded a crown around its head pointing back to the darkness behind. It seemed to not care of Kreg’s growing acceleration towards it.

‘Hey Troff have you seen one of these before?’

‘No never, be careful we don’t know what it can do.’

‘Ah, piece of Krasian cake, Brother,’ as the distance between him and the demon became only around 10 feet. Troff gave the ground a scratching with his weapon as he slowed to meet the demon eye to eye. The noise attracted its attention, and their eyes met.

The Demon wasn’t a Demon at all, it was just a little girl curled up crying as blood leaked from her head, through her hair.

‘Troff, come help me, girl are you alright?’

‘GET AWAY, YOU ARE ONLY HERE TO HURT ME!’

‘NO, I’m here to help, did the Demons do this?’

‘NO, NO NO NO! MEN DID THIS HUMANS LEAVING ME OUT, OUT IN THIS NIGHT.’

‘We are not the same, my brother and I will take care of you,’ said Troff now kneeling in front of her. He reached out and lost three fingers from his pinky as he was yanked backwards by Kreg.

‘What the Core were you doing, trying to get yourself killed?’ the demon chewed with a cynical grin as it looked straight back at him, re-morphing into the girl as she held out her hand missing three finger. She gave a little giggle and melted into the ground.

Troff sat back as he shook his head back to reality, and watched Kreg try to pry his sword out of the ground.

‘Whatever that was , it was messing with my head, I saw little girl and tried to help,’ he held his hand in the air and looked at the already cauterized wound sizzle.

‘It took your flesh and went back to the core; bastard is probably showing off to the others right now.’

Nightmare Demon Size: around the size of a mountain lion.

Where it spawns from the core: Anywhere vulnerable prey are, usually an isolated victim.

Ability: To overpower your will and induce hallucination upon eye contact.

Weakness: the mind ward, water will scare it, but stabbing and beheading it works best with a warded sword/axe. Also avoid eye contact. It’s very uncommon, very rarely seen by anyone, and the prey usually don’t survive. It travels alone and comes in different colored dull crystal armor. The only ward that works against it is the one Arlen used on his forehead against the mind demon.

This Demon is almost sister to the Mind Demon and is also considered ‘royalty’ among the other demons. Its behaviour is like a spoiled cat and like a spoiled cat it also hates water. It’s teeth horns and claws are razor sharp and when they cut they burn with demon magic.

Hope you guys like it

Thank you to Suf for sharing his story with us. I love that the Nightmare Demon is compared to a spoiled house cat!

The due date for the contest looms closer and closer. Hurry and get your entry in by 11:59am on May 18th, 2012. Want to know more? Check out the contest guidelines.

Sent us your entry a while ago and still haven’t seen it up on Peat’s blog? Fear not! We are getting to it. We have had an overwhelmingly good response to this contest, so there are still quite a few to get through.

Nathan brings us the messiest demons yet! Check it out.

The Tar Demon

Bubbling up from the core through tar-sands and oily pits, this rare demon comes out at night to feast on the flesh of animals that have become hopelessly trapped in the mire. Tar demons are extremely slow moving and can be escaped quite easily at a brisk walking pace, so long as their prey does not become stuck. Tar demons are considerably affected by the ambient temperature around them, moving slower on cold winter nights than on warm summer evenings. They get along quite well with rock demons, but flame demons take particular pleasure in lighting them on fire and watching them slowly burn and sputter away.

In appearance, tar demons are hideous to behold. They are short creatures with such sagging flesh that the normal observer is unable to make out many discernable features other than a globular, lunging mass. A sinister mouth and numerous eyes slowly repositioning themselves all over the demons body are their only prominent features. They do not have arms or hands but can shoot out small globs of themselves at short range to latch onto their prey and pull their struggling captives back to their awaiting maw. The bite of a tar-sand demon is often more fatal than a typical demon’s bite as the oil tends to foster the growth of additional diseases.

The smell of a tar demon is foul but if the scent of one is beheld, it is usually too late to escape as the tar pits tend to mask the stench quite well. Of particular note, the odor of sulfur repels a tar demon. Normal fire will ignite a “tarrie”, but the demon usually needs to be incapacitated or coated in something much more flammable than itself to get the flames going.

As the sun begins to shed its rays on the world, the tar demon descends back to the core leaving a slick mess behind on whatever surface it descended through.

Thank you to Nathan for sending in his entry. Glad I’m not on the clean-up crew for these demons! They remind me of quicksand (which has always terrified me) except it can move. Yikes.

The clock is ticking! Get your entries in by 11:59pm on May 18th, 2012. There is an abundance of worthy prizes including Red Sonja comics, warded dice, signed copies of The Desert Spear and, for the Grand Prize, a Graphic Audio recording of The Warded Man. Check out the contest guidelines and send in your best (or worst) corelings.