In Ch 13/Sc 1a of RAGING SEA by @KimHeadlee Angusel shows his companions a new tactic #amwriting

Graphic overlay (c)2016 by Kim Headlee.

Very little is known about the Picts, the ancient aboriginal inhabitants of what is now Scotland. Their only written records survive in the form of stones carved with glyphs whose meanings defy explanation and precise interpretation.

Some of those glyphs, however, depict warriors armed with what appear to be javelins rather than spears. I have chosen to incorporate that interpretation into my historical Arthurian series, The Dragon's Dove Chronicles, as one of the battle tactics that distinguishes Pictish—excuse me, Caledonach—warfare from that of their opponents.

Although Angusel has been ostracized from Caledonach society, he well remembers his training in the javelin-armed cavalry charge. In today's excerpt from Raging Sea, he is pleased to be sharing this knowledge with his Breatanach comrades-in-arms.

Previous excerpts of Raging Sea 
Chapters 1–6 in Raging Sea: Reckonings

 Chapter 7: Sc 1 | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4 | Sc 5a | Sc 5b |
Chapter 8: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 9: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 1d | Sc 1e |
Chapter 10: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2a | Sc 2b | Sc 3a | Sc 3b | Sc 3c |
Chapter 11: Sc 1a |  Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 12: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4a | Sc 4b | Sc 5a | Sc 5b |

Raging Sea Chapter 13, Scene1a

©2016 by Kim Headlee

All rights reserved.

Angusel trotted Stonn away from the straw target, flexing the soreness from his shoulder and letting the whistles and lauds from the other soldiers tell him that he’d scored a perfect hit.

“That’s how it’s done, lads,” he said as he rejoined them and halted Stonn. “Your turn. Form a single line, and each of you have a go.”

The men did as he bade them without so much as a single curled lip, and one by one they began racing off to fling their javelins at the target. In between casts, ala drudges removed the spent weapons from target or turf and ran them back to the starting line while Angusel offered the soldiers suggestions for improving their approach, aim, and timing.

That the five turma decurions, who outranked him, were also practicing the drill made his chest swell, but when Centurion Cato stepped up to the line, Angusel all but dropped his teeth.

The centurion grinned at him. “Can’t have my men learning a tactic that I haven’t mastered.”

“Right, sir.” What to say to a man with more years in the legion than he had on this earth? Angusel sucked in a breath, praying for wisdom. “Just be patient, gauge the distance, mind your mount’s speed and course, heed your instincts, and throw it as hard as you can.”

The centurion saluted Angusel with the javelin and pricked his horse’s flanks to send him leaping toward the target.

To say that Angusel’s unofficial training sessions with Drustanus and, more recently, Gawain, had been noticed was an understatement. Their commander began foregoing his own evening free time to join them, sometimes offering suggestions, participating on rare occasions, but most often just observing from behind the fence. He’d demonstrated particular interest in the javelin drill, which the all-Caledonach alae practiced constantly since it was a fundamental battle tactic for them. The mainly Breatanach First Ala was trained to run the enemy through with leveled spears upon initial engagement, a tactic Angusel was pleased to learn; he could see combining both in mounted combat. Breatanaich never used javelins.

Until today.

“A fine cast, sir!” he said as the centurion returned. Though two hands wide of center, the height of the javelin’s strike was good. In battle it might mean missing the intended mark but felling an adjacent enemy. “You’ll improve your aim with practice.”

“Indeed you will, Cato,” said a deep male voice behind him. “Well done.”

Angusel knew that voice, and fought the sudden churning of his gut as he turned Stonn to face the newcomer.

***

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Camilla wants to crawl into a hole in Ch 12/Sc 5a of RAGING SEA by @KimHeadlee #amwriting

Graphic overlay c2016  by Kim Headlee.

The Picts—Scotland's ancient aboriginal inhabitants who likely migrated to the Highlands from India, a theory based on root language similarities—created some amazing art left behind on their standing stones.

The subjects of these etchings are varied and vast in scope.

Geometric shapes such as arcs, circles, and rods; domestic items, including combs, mirrors, tongs, cauldrons, and mirror cases; people of various social classes and occupations; wild (including boars, bears, lions, birds, and fish) and domestic animals (bulls, dogs, cats, horses, and geese); flowers; and my favorite category, mythological beasts.

Dragons, centaurs, "Nessie" (or an elephant, or a dolphin; no one is quite sure), and, yes, griffins, such as the design I've selected for the Saxon warrior-princess Camilla, shown on this page.

Camilla's glyph is adapted from a photograph of the stone designated as "Meigle 26", now located on display in the Meigle Sculptured Stone Museum of Meigle, Scotland.

In today's excerpt of Raging Sea, Camilla wishes she could climb into the hole dug for one of these monuments and then pull the stone back on top of herself.

Previous excerpts of Raging Sea 
Chapters 1–6 in Raging Sea: Reckonings

 Chapter 7: Sc 1 | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4 | Sc 5a | Sc 5b |
Chapter 8: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 9: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 1d | Sc 1e |
Chapter 10: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2a | Sc 2b | Sc 3a | Sc 3b | Sc 3c |
Chapter 11: Sc 1a |  Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 12: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4a | Sc 4b |

Raging Sea Chapter 12, Scene 5a

©2016 by Kim Headlee

All rights reserved.

In spite of the steel and leather battle-gear that covered her from the neck down, Camilla felt naked as she strode beside her father King Ælle, traversing the length of Wintaceaster Hall, flanked by King Cissa’s royal guardsmen.

It seemed as if all the West Saxon nobles’ gazes were fixed upon her, brimming with pity.

Not only had that demon-queen Guenevara killed the man she loved, Camilla’s attempt to exact revenge had failed in the most humiliating way conceivable: as an attack—a failed attack—on the wrong woman.

Her cheeks burned afresh from the memory of her father’s wrath when he had confronted Camilla about the incident, against the Dragon King’s own sister, no less. It was a miracle that Ælle hadn’t removed her from command of the Cymensora garrison, and an even bigger miracle that she’d been able to convince him to accompany her here, to request the help of King Cissa.

She and Ælle reached the platform where Cissa was seated upon his throne, and they saluted him with dips of their heads. Cissa returned the nods with one of his own and bade Ælle to state his business.

“Our business,” said her father with a brief but pointed glance at her, “involves raising an army to attack the Dragon King and his consort, Guenevara of Caledonia. We invite our royal brother-in-arms to share in what shall surely prove to be a profitable venture.”

“So.” Cissa stroked his gray beard, a grin forming. “When subterfuge fails, a direct approach is sought.”

Camilla wanted to crawl into the nearest hole to get away from the glare of that piercing gaze.

***

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— Follow Kim on Twitter
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Please enter often, and good luck!

Musings from Morgan le Fay aka Morghe in RAGING SEA Ch 7/Sc 4 #amwriting #Arthurverse

Graphic overlay (c)2015 by Kim Headlee.

Hm. The way I've been creating these excerpt posts, I wait until a character first appears before preparing their blog graphic. 

I didn't realize till just now that Arthur's youngest sister, Morghe (Morgan le Fay), doesn't get a viewpoint scene in Raging Sea until chapter 7! 

Not that it's a bad thing, mind; this is just the first I've noticed it in the mumbledy-some years that I've been working on Raging Sea.


Fans of my work will recognize Morghe's glyph from the cover of Morning's Journey. It is a vector drawing I made from a photograph of the Brough of Birsay stone found in Orkney, Scotland, one of more than three dozen ancient Pictish (or Pictish-inspired) designs that I have either adapted or created outright for use in The Dragon's Dove Chronicles.

Although Morghe herself is most certainly not Pictish, this design spoke her name to me with its embedded M, its asymmetrical alignment, and its regal, warlike embellishments.

And in today's excerpt, you get a glimpse of Morghe's regal—and secretly warlike—character as she reacts to the surprise appearance of former-enemies-cum-wedding-guests.

Previous excerpts of Raging Sea 

 Chapter 7: Sc 1 | Sc 2 | Sc 3 |

Raging Sea Chapter 7, Scene 4

©2015 by Kim Headlee

All rights reserved.

What a disappointment.

The litter resumed its lurching, swaying gait. Morghe closed the curtains and settled back against the cushions. As entertaining as the meeting of Arthur and Gyanhumara with Urien was expected to be, she would have liked to have seen her brother and sister-by-marriage bloodied by those Scots, even though Fergus and others of his ilk had terrified her half out of her wits last year.

But Gyanhumara had made a valid observation: why were they here?

Morghe resolved to find out. As Urien’s wife, she deserved to know what was transpiring inside Clan Moray’s borders. And if Urien didn’t agree, she had a plan for changing that too.

***
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All this month, you are invited to...
— Follow Kim on Twitter
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— Subscribe to Kim's YouTube channel
— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow
...and each action this month is good for one chance to win an e-book copy of Dawnflight. Please enter often, and good luck!

Why the Second Edition?

Guest Post: Dawnflight

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Beth Ann Masarik. 

I am happy to have on the blog today, author Kim Headlee, who is here to tell us about her book, Dawnflight. 

---

What I did after my summer vacation

Or, “Why the Second Edition?”

This year marks the release—14 years after its original publication by Sonnet Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster—of what I officially term the second edition of Dawnflight.

In this age of instant gratification and DIY publishing, fans wonder why I took the trouble to make such substantial changes to what was already an award-winning, critically acclaimed novel to warrant labeling it a new edition. The answer lies rooted in the maze of my psyche.

I am, and always have been, a chronic overachiever.

There. The secret is out! I feel much better now. Thanks for letting me share it with you.

Oh… you want to know why. Quite right; I did promise you the why.

A late addition to Dawnflight’s first edition featured “Pictish” language terms I invented, based upon Scottish Gaelic, to convey key concepts of my characters’ world. So far, so good. But keep in mind I was performing that research in the late 1990s, before the Internet became the repository for everything under the sun and beyond, and I had bumped up against the deadline for submitting the final draft for publication. For the Pictish terms requiring a plural form, I simply slapped on an “s.” Bzzzt—wrong! Thank you for playing. That’s an Anglo-Saxon construct, not a Gaelic one.

No one else seemed to notice…but I never forgot.

Flash-forward to the summer of 2012, when I made the decision to self-publish Dawnflight’s sequels. While waiting for professional editorial input on the first sequel, Morning’s Journey, I decided to dive back into Scottish Gaelic to figure out how to generate the correct plural forms of my terms. The deeper I dove, the more immersed I became; I began to see linguistic patterns that I could mine to create new endearments and epithets for my characters to use toward each other. As summer blazed into autumn, these patterns led me to study Irish Gaelic, Old Welsh, and Old English, where I discovered to my chronic overachieving delight that I could invent entire sets of idiomatic terminology for my characters of the various races to describe themselves and each other. Even their pantheons gained new deities from this trove of linguistic knowledge I had acquired.

I like to believe that J. R. R. Tolkien—the second “R” of which I employ for the name of a minor character in homage to Professor Tolkien’s academic contributions to the English literary landscape—would have been proud.

Ah yes, before I forget…I ramped up the sex, too.

Read, dream, and enjoy!