Sons of the Shepherd (Hasuu's Song, Snippet 0)

A lengthy debut snippet from the Westsong Cycle

A Note from the Author

Before we get back to Delfii and the Southrons next week, I’ve decided to share another short story: the first canonical snippet from the Westsong Cycle! It was previously available only to those who purchased the Into the Vaporous Realms e-booklet. I’m sharing it here for a few reasons:

1) Posting it in lieu of a Delfii snippet is a December gift to y’all, but also to me and my family in what seems to be, Lord willing, our last move-in / catch-up week. The mountains surrounding our little holler aren’t as tall as Len’s northern Fangs, or as forbidding as Hasuu’s southern hills, but they remind me a bit of both. They’re also the inspiration for one of the countries featuring later in the Westsong Cycle.

2) It’s set in the time period when the folk of the Vaporous Realms dealt with the aftermath of what Egwae got herself caught up in, post-Len, as the “Watchers” story revealed. If you’ve read “Watchers,” see if you can guess which character in the story below is the link. (We’re definitely in Blurry Creatures territory now. And not just because my new hometown looks like woodbooger country.) Though I consider Hasuu a Westsong character, this particular story finds him in the same region where the Dustsong Cycle took place—centuries after Len.

3) In the future, I plan to make the Into the Vaporous Realms e-booklet freely available. As usual, I wanted y’all to have early access! [2.9.24 update: I’m removing the e-booklet from the webstore and remaining third-party sellers. At some point, when I have the resources and gumption, I want to update the tabletop intro, game system, and starter scenario as part of the larger launch of a Vaporous Realms at War product line.]

Delfii snippets will be coming your way soon—a couple times a week. [Update: see this newsletter post.] But for now, without further ado, welcome to your sneak peek at the Westsong Cycle: Hasuu’s Song.

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Sons of the Shepherd

Twenty-one olive-skinned men in ankle-high boots and plain, knee-length tunics fanned out in the tall grass beneath the foothills of the Lower Fangs. Most had long, dark beards and wavy, shoulder-length heads of hair, which they left bare to sun and wind. They clutched six-foot spears with wooden shafts and kept bone-bladed daggers the length of a forearm stashed in their belts.

The blades were straight—always straight. Only their neighbors, the Children of the Valley, wrought curved blades, like those they used for threshing grain. They farmed the long, narrow river country between the Upper and Lower Fangs.

Then, scarcely over a year prior, the Children of the Valley had discovered how to reap other men’s lives, too, and in much the same way.

Hasuu trotted at the center-rear of the scout-band so that even those on the far flanks stayed in his peripheral vision. He couldn’t help but think of them as his men. His next thought was always to chastise himself that no, they belonged to the Wright. They were second-born sons, every one of them including Hasuu. Their kin had dedicated them to the Wright and to guarding the lands of their folk, the Children of the Hills. The other clans called these second-born the Sons of the Shepherd—whoever the Shepherd had been, in time beyond living memory.

Sparing a glance to his right, Hasuu noted the daunting majesty of the Upper Fangs. Snow-capped canines pierced a clear, pale-blue sky. He never entirely wearied of the sight. The gates to the Wright’s hidden realm stood somewhere in those forbidding high places, so folk said. And the Shepherd, whoever he was, lay buried up there. Mayhap it was so, even if Hasuu had never trod there or seen any such thing or known anybody who had.

After all, Hasuu wasn’t an elder or a priest, nor so much as a full chief. At thirty-odd years of age, he was a lowly subchief, leader of this band, and recently named the master of supply for his troop.

For many generations, the Sons had patrolled the foothills of the Lower Fangs all the way to the eastern marches. Beyond that lay naught but endless desert wastes. But today found their troop far to the north, on the ancient boundary between the valley-folk and hill-folk. The Children of the Valley, it seemed, had taken to tearing each other apart, so the elders asked the Sons to guard the hill country against raiders, refugees, and other riffraff.

A day’s walk from the valley-folk city of Danoh, trouble seemed more a promise than a possibility.