Age of Assassins

by Rj Barker

What was the most challenging thing about writing this novel?

  Copy-editing. I am, by nature, quite chaotic in everything I do and detail isn’t one of my strengths. Having to sit and consider e v e r y s i n g l e c o m m a was a new experence for me and really quite hard. In fact I may have gone slightly mad and did at one point dream a giant semi-colon was chasing me through our house.

  Though, I must stress, it was also enjoyable, because new stuff is always good. I may have done the odd thing that, possibly, might be seen as idiosyncratic in the text, but now I know why and I have really thought about it. First-person writing, for me, is a journey through someone else’s head and the copy-edit was about deciding on Girton’s voice, which maybe isn’t something you would worry about as much in a third-person piece of writing.

  So, if the way I have written this book annoys you, you can rest assured that it was entirely deliberate on my part.

  You’re welcome.

  In the novel, Girton and his master have a unique and distinctive fighting style. Where did the idea for this come from?

  I fenced for a bit, until illness forced me to give it up because it became too painful to hold the sword, and that’s in there. I wanted to bring in dance in as well, the idea that the assassins evolved from dancers. And pain management, the breathing techniques and idea of “becoming” something are a way of coping with pain—though for Girton this sort of “meditative” idea is applied to fear.

  As to the rest, not entirely sure. I think it’s come partly from a desire to produce a narrative effect as much as to produce a fighting style. I wanted the idea that Girton isn’t really thinking about it. When he’s in full flow (which you don’t really see very much of in this book) I wanted the text to give you the idea he’s reacting on a very instinctual level. The mix of italics and tenses in this passage:

  First iteration: the Precise Steps. Into the third iteration, the Maiden’s Pass. I go under a blade, and my Conwy steel darts out, through the eye and into the brain. Fourteenth iteration: the Carter’s Surprise. I spin hand over foot across the table and land behind the last guard. He turns, slashing at me with his blade. Sixth iteration, a Meeting of Hands. I block the downward swing of his longsword.

  You get the moment. In the italics he’s not consciously thinking. You get the starting point, the Precise Steps, then he thinks about the next move, the Maiden’s Pass, that’s conscious. And the move works and then he locks into it, into the muscle memory. It kind of, to me, slows the action and gives you this sense of flow, of a dancer linking together a set of moves that are second nature to them. In the book, Girton loses this: he’s put into an unfamiliar situation and it unsettles him; he has to not be everything he is. And then he has to find it again and you get that gradual rebuilding of his skills as he comes to terms with this new world he’s been pushed into.

  Of course, I may just be being very pretentious. But that’s the thought behind it anyway.

  What do you think are the essential elements of epic storytelling?

  I have no idea. I genuinely thought I’d written a whodunnit with a bit of swordfighting and magic in it.

  Many fantasy writers have been influenced by myths and folklore from different cultural heritages. Is this something that resonates with you?

  Yes, although it’s mostly English folklore and some of the very early beliefs from Sumer and the Fertile Crescent that’s influenced me. There’s also some bits of Austin Osman Spare and Crowley bobbing about.

  I was especially interested in woods and land as a child and this came into being (and at quite a late date) as the hedgings. I did a piece of writing for a site called Minor Literatures with an artist called Paul Watson, who uses a lot of masks to play with the idea of spirits, and it definitely started something turning. Also, I’m fascinated by David Southwell’s Hookland Guide which is an invented history of an England that could just have been.

  And antlers. I’ve always had a bit of a thing about antlers. But who doesn’t?

  Do you have a favourite scene in Age of Assassins? If so, why?

  Yeah, a couple. Scene-wise it’s probably when he gives Rufra his sword. It’s never said, but all the way through Girton is quite lonely, really, and then you have this final confirmation of the friendship he’s longed for—they both have—in a physical gift. And of course, swords have always been powerful mythic symbols. But, and this is cheating as it’s not really a scene, I also really like Girton’s gradual realisation that his master is a person in her own right, as fragile and flawed as anyone else, not a superhero.

  And Xus, the mount. I love Xus the mount.

  When you aren’t writing, what do you like to do in your spare time?

  Read. Daydream. Play games. Do family stuff (my son and I are currently working our way through Star Wars: Rebels). Search antique shops for particularly weird taxidermy with my wife. Buy extravagant clothes. Play badminton really badly.

  Are you mainly a fantasy reader, or are there other genres that you’re partial to?

  I have read a lot of fantasy but don’t tend to at the moment. Partly because I’m writing it and have a terror of unconsciously ripping people off and partly because I think if you’re coming to a party you should probably bring something, so I try and read more in other genres. I’ve always been a huge crime fan and I love history (Queen Adran came out of research on Margaret of Anjou I was doing for something else) and SF. To be honest, I’ll read anything but have a rather Dirk Gently approach and base my reading on what I’ve randomly come across rather than any particular allegiance to a genre. (And that, dear reader, is how I once ended up reading Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews, so you don’t have to.)

  Actually, it’s not been asked, but I’d say music is just as big an influence on what and how I write as books are.

  Without giving too much away, can you tell us a bit about what can we expect from the next novel in the series?

  To save the king, kill the king.

  That was cryptic wasn’t it?

  I suspect Orbit might want a bit more of hook.

  Okay. More murder. Girton, in full flow, the opportunity to see mounts in action. More antlers. Big battles, betrayal, intrigue and redemption.

  if you enjoyed

  AGE OF ASSASSINS

  look out for

  HOPE AND RED

  The Empire of Storms: Book 1

  by

  Jon Skovron

  In a fracturing empire spread across savage seas, two people will find a common cause.

  Hope, the lone survivor when her village is massacred by the emperor’s forces, is secretly trained by a master Vinchen warrior as an instrument of vengeance.

  Red, an orphan adopted by a notorious matriarch of the criminal underworld, learns to be an expert thief and con artist.

  Together they will take down an empire.

  1

  Captain Sin Toa had been a trader on these seas for many years, and he’d seen something like this before. But that didn’t make it any easier.

  The village of Bleak Hope was a small community in the cold southern islands at the edge of the empire. Captain Toa was one of the few traders who came this far south, and even then, only once a year. The ice that formed on the water made it nearly impossible to reach during the winter months.

  Still, the dried fish, whalebone, and the crude lamp oil they pressed from whale blubber were all good cargo that fetched a nice price in Stonepeak or New Laven. The villagers had always been polite and accommodating, in their taciturn Southern way. And it was a community that had survived in these harsh conditions for centuries, a quality that Toa respected a great deal.

  So it was with a pang of sadness that he gazed out at what remained of the village. As his ship glided into the narrow harbor, he scanned the dirt paths and stone huts, and saw no sign of life.

  “What’s the matter, sir?” asked Crayton, his first mate. Good fellow. Loyal in his own way, if a bit dishonest about doing his fair share of work.


  “This place is dead,” said Toa quietly. “We’ll not land here.”

  “Dead, sir?”

  “Not a soul in the place.”

  “Maybe they’re at some sort of local religious gathering,” said Crayton. “Folks this far south have their own ways and customs.”

  “’Fraid that’s not it.”

  Toa pointed one thick, scarred finger toward the dock. A tall sign had been driven into the wood. On the sign was painted a black oval with eight black lines trailing down from it.

  “God save them,” whispered Crayton, taking off his wool knit cap.

  “That’s the trouble,” said Toa. “He didn’t.”

  The two men stood there staring at the sign. There was no sound except the cold wind that pulled at Toa’s long wool coat and beard.

  “What do we do, sir?” asked Crayton.

  “Not come ashore, that’s for certain. Tell the wags to lay anchor. It’s getting late. I don’t want to navigate these shallow waters in the dark, so we’ll stay the night. But make no mistake, we’re heading back to sea at first light and never coming near Bleak Hope again.”

  They set sail the next morning. Toa hoped they’d reach the island of Galemoor in three days and that the monks there would have enough good ale to sell that it would cover his losses.

  It was on the second night that they found the stowaway.

  Toa was woken in his bunk by a fist pounding on his cabin door.

  “Captain!” called Crayton. “The night watch. They found… a little girl.”

  Toa groaned. He’d had a bit too much grog before he went to sleep, and the spike of pain had already set in behind his eyes.

  “A girl?” he asked after a moment.

  “Y-y-yes, sir.”

  “Hells’ waters,” he muttered, climbing out of his hammock. He pulled on cold, damp trousers, a coat, and boots. A girl on board, even a little one, was bad luck in these southern seas. Everybody knew that. As he pondered how he was going to get rid of this stowaway, he opened the door and was surprised to find Crayton alone, turning his wool cap over and over again in his hands.

  “Well? Where’s the girl?”

  “She’s aft, sir,” said Crayton.

  “Why didn’t you bring her to me?”

  “We, uh… That is, the men can’t get her out from behind the stowed rigging.”

  “Can’t get her…” Toa heaved a sigh, wondering why no one had just reached in and clubbed her unconscious, then dragged her out. It wasn’t like his men to get soft because of a little girl. Maybe it was on account of Bleak Hope. Maybe the terrible fate of that village had made them a bit more conscious than usual of their own prospects for Heaven.

  “Fine,” he said. “Lead me to her.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Crayton, clearly relieved that he wasn’t going to bear the brunt of the captain’s frustration.

  Toa found his men gathered around the cargo hold where the spare rigging was stored. The hatch was open and they stared down into the darkness, muttering to each other and making signs to ward off curses. Toa took a lantern from one of them and shone the light down into the hole, wondering why a little girl had his men so spooked.

  “Look, girlie. You better…”

  She was wedged in tight behind the piles of heavy line. She looked filthy and starved, but otherwise a normal enough girl of about eight years. Pretty, even, in the Southern way, with pale skin, freckles, and hair so blond it looked almost white. But there was something about her eyes when she looked at you. They felt empty, or worse than empty. They were pools of ice that crushed any warmth you had in you. They were ancient eyes. Broken eyes. Eyes that had seen too much.

  “We tried to pull her out, Captain,” said one of the men. “But she’s packed in there tight. And well… she’s…”

  “Aye,” said Toa.

  He knelt down next to the opening and forced himself to keep looking at her, even though he wanted to turn away.

  “What’s your name, girl?” he asked, much quieter now.

  She stared at him.

  “I’m the captain of this ship, girl,” he said. “Do you know what that means?”

  Slowly, she nodded once.

  “It means everyone on this ship has to do what I say. That includes you. Understand?”

  Again, she nodded once.

  He reached one brown, hairy hand down into the hold.

  “Now, girl. I want you to come out from behind there and take my hand. I swear no harm will come to you on this ship.”

  For a long moment, no one moved. Then, tentatively, the girl reached out her bone-thin hand and let it be engulfed in Toa’s.

  Toa and the girl were back in his quarters. He suspected the girl might start talking if there weren’t a dozen hard-bitten sailors staring at her. He gave her a blanket and a cup of hot grog. He knew grog wasn’t the sort of thing you gave to little girls, but it was the only thing he had on board except fresh water, and that was far too precious to waste.

  Now he sat at his desk and she sat on his bunk, the blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders, the steaming cup of grog in her tiny hands. She took a sip, and Toa expected her to flinch at the pungent flavor, but she only swallowed and continued to stare at him with those empty, broken eyes of hers. They were the coldest blue he had ever seen, deeper than the sea itself.

  “I’ll ask you again, girl,” he said, although his tone was still gentle. “What’s yer name?”

  She only stared at him.

  “Where’d you come from?”

  Still she stared.

  “Are you…” He couldn’t believe he was even thinking it, much less asking it. “Are you from Bleak Hope?”

  She blinked then, as if coming out of a trance. “Bleak Hope.” Her voice was hoarse from lack of use. “Yes. That’s me.” There was something about the way she spoke that made Toa suppress a shudder. Her voice was as empty as her eyes.

  “How did you come to be on my ship?”

  “That happened after,” she said.

  “After what?” he asked.

  She looked at him then, and her eyes were no longer empty. They were full. So full that Toa’s salty old heart felt like it might twist up like a rag in his chest.

  “I will tell you,” she said, her voice as wet and full as her eyes. “I will tell only you. Then I won’t ever say it aloud ever again.”

  if you enjoyed

  AGE OF ASSASSINS

  look out for

  THE DRAGON LORDS: FOOL’S GOLD

  The Dragon Lords: Book 1

  by

  Jon Hollins

  Guardians of the Galaxy meets The Hobbit in this rollicking fantasy adventure.

  It’s not easy to live in a world ruled by dragons. The taxes are high and their control is complete. But for one group of bold misfits, it’s time to band together and steal back some of that wealth.

  No one said they were smart.

  1

  Will

  It was a confrontation as old as time. A tale begun back when the Pantheon of old first breathed life into the clay mold of man and set him down upon the earth. It was the tale of the untamable pitted against the master. Of the wild tearing at the walls of the civilized. It was man versus the beast.

  Will placed each foot carefully, held his balance low. He circled slowly. Cold mud pulled at his feet. Sweat trickled down the crease between his eyebrows. Inch by inch he closed the distance.

  The pig Bessie grunted at him.

  “Five shek says she tips him on his arse,” said Albor, one of Will’s two farmhands. A strip of hairy gut was visible where he rested it upon the sty’s rickety old fence. It was, Will had noted, significantly hairier in fact than his chin, which he scratched at constantly. Albor’s wife had just departed the nearby village for a monthlong trip to help look after her sister’s new baby, and Albor was three days into growing the beard she hated.

  “I say it’s face first, he lands,” said Dunstan, Will’s other farmhand. The two men were a
study in contrasts. Where Albor’s stomach swayed heavily over his gut, Dunstan’s broad leather belt was wrapped twice around his waist and still flapped loose beyond the buckle. His narrow face was barely visible behind a thick cloud of facial hair, which his wife loved to excess. She had a tendency to braid sections of it and line it with bows.

  “You’re on,” said Albor, spitting in his muddy palm and holding it out to Dunstan.

  Will gave a damn about neither beards nor wives. All he cared about was his father’s thrice-cursed prize sow, Bessie. She had been his dancing partner in this sty for almost half an hour now. He was so coated in mud that if he lay upon the sty’s floor, he would have been virtually invisible. He briefly considered this as a possible angle of attack, but the pig was as likely to shit on him and call it a good day’s work as anything else. There was an uncanny intelligence in her eyes. Still, she was old and he was young. Brute force would win the day.

  He closed the distance down by another inch.

  Bessie narrowed her eyes.

  Another inch.

  Bessie squealed and charged. Will lunged, met the charge head-on. His hands slammed down hard against her sides.

  Bessie flew through his mud-slick palms and crashed all of her considerable weight into his legs. The world performed a sprawling flip around Will’s head, then hit him in the face.

  He came up spluttering mud, and was just in time to hear Dunstan say, “That’s five shek you owe me then.”

  Bessie was standing nonchalantly behind him, with an air of almost studied calm.

  Will found his resolve hardening. Bessie had to die. With a roar, he launched himself at the pig. She bucked wildly. And yet still one of his hands snagged a bony trotter. He heaved upon it with all his might.