James-steinhaus - One Day At A Time
More Posts from James-steinhaus and Others
Kindle Vella is Going Away!
If you read serials or subscriptions, then you have most likely heard about Amazon closing Kindle Vella. Vella is where most of the people have read my work. It has been a fun ride, and I got a lot of good experiences out of it, but that ride is coming to an end. Almost everything I have on Vella is available on Reamstories. Currently, I am continuing to add to the content there and will…
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Free Flash Fiction: Why We Burn Witches
The overhead lights went out. A soft, warm light filled the classroom. Billy looked up from his book. A man putting down a match from lighting a huge three-foot candle stood next to the teacher’s desk. He turned. “Welcome to witchcraft 101,” his deep voice filling the room far better than the English teacher’s had. “I am a witch. Your witchcraft lesson is 13 hours long. That’s how long this…
Can a Mars colony be profitable?
Many have stated you can not have a profitable mars colony, over all. At best some will make money profiting of those who invest in it. Here are some of those that will profit stetting one up. If it is enough for the Colony to be profitable or not, depends on decision not yet made.
New Cover Image to Mercenary Captain Kerric
I used the Ai image generator at 123 to get this image and have put it up as a cover image. To get closer to the mark, I need a better generator, preferably one where you an take on such and this and tell it what modification to make to it such a making the cat larger and dark brown with black stripes.
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Flash Fiction: A Question of Immortality
“Stop burning the body,” demanded Shia, leading her guards into the smoke-filled chamber. “Your highness? Your father bade me destroy this thing,” the large, bare-chested priest responded in surprise, dumping red glowing coals from his shovel. “And you’ve been trying for four moons,” she snapped. “She still starts growing flesh the moment you take her bones out of the fire?” In a whisper he…
Opinion on the UN
The UN was an attempt to prevent the formation of alliances like NATO and the EU and other similar alliances. Their danger and how they lead to corruption and war has been known for along time. It has failed. If you want to fix the UN, make any country shipping arms without security council approval lose their seat. Make any country imposing sanction with out the general assemble authority lose their seat. That was what its function was suppose to be, but these and other groups by pass it. With out that power, it does lots of harm and little good. Fix it or dissolve it, as it make fighting and conflict more likely not less.
Kerric the Mercenary: Episode 7, Run to DeSon
Kerric and his Warcat took the lead. At the edge of DarkGate, he turned Akrus off the road and headed due west. The moment they made it to those dark woods, he said, “Run,” and all Akrus’s anger vanished. He was off as if shot from an arrow.
At home, north of the Black Sand, running was dangerous. There, except for hunting sprints, if he ran, it was in fear, and he was running for his life. It wasn’t until Kerric brought him south of the Black Sand that his war cat had a chance to run full out without fear. Now, only mating and hunting brought his Warcat more pleasure. It was a pleasure Akrus rarely got to indulge in and the perfect reward for being dragged out of his rest.
Like the larger breed of Warcats in the north, the ones his men rode were built for running for days despite that not being a good idea in the north. Except the Tolar, nothing in the south could escape them over the long run, and very few on the short. Only experts here would pick up that this wasn’t the breed you found in the far south in the forest bordering the frozen waste. Those were a patchwork brown, instead of dark brown with black stripes on their hind quarter, and only three-quarters the size of the Warcats Kerric’s men rode. Nor were they as fast or have the endurance of this northern breed.
Yet those southern beasts stilled killed more of their own riders than the northern ones did, making seeing a rider a very rare occurrence in the far south, and nearly legendary this far away from that icy waste. That was, until Kerric, and his band arrived.
Kerric shifted his weight. With a snort, Akrus stopped trying to outrun the others, but kept his pace high enough to make them work at keeping up. They might have longer legs, but Akrus had more muscle. That meant more speed in a run among Warcats.
They hit the edge of the gorge and Akrus leaped from the side to the branches of those massive trees. The others followed. Riding the treetops might be common in the jungles north of the Black Sand but was unheard of here. That shortcut across the gorge instead of around it, as all others had to travel, was why his men would get there before the sun came up, despite having to saddle them before riding out.
Akrus leaped to the next tree, and then the next. Even in the dark, Warcats never jumped to a branch that can’t whole their weight, though sometimes, they bend more than their riders anticipate. That bending and springing back is what the Warcats used to move forward with such speed. It took all the rider’s concentration to stay in those saddles and not one of them could have done so the way Kerric did, without the thigh straps. That springing motion was why in the trees, Warcats move only a little slower than their ground eating normal pace.
Kerric spared enough attention from his own ride to see all of his men having a harder time of it than they should. It was one more sign that they had lost too much of their edge. The gorge was deep and wide, but not so much so that those Warcats could not cross it in half the night.
With well over a candle mark before even the false dawn, his men were on the road to the main keep of DeSon, something that would have been a four-day trip by the road using caravan wagons.
Tantos came out of the woods as they moved closer to the keep. “I found Corman camped on a woodcutter’s track nearing the Aring-DarkGate Road. He’s taking his time and will hit that road early morning tomorrow. If he pushes it, he could make Aring by late night, but more likely is planning another night on the road.”
Kerric nodded and looked over the lands of his prospective employer.
Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
