nose to the grindstone

Revisions on Ironhand are currently happening (and about time, too!). I have a deadline (11/26), which helps. I need external motivation!

Snippet from the WIP:

A cloak drifts over to us as we enter through the doors of Kaal Baran. I call her Cloud, as in she has her head in them. She seems to live with only half a foot in this world.

I never considered that cloaks had personalities, but then, most of the time we were too busy trying to kill each other to really get to know one another.

“They’re back,” she says.

“Who’re back?” I ask, but with little hope of a response.

True to form, Cloud’s already passed by and down to wherever she sleeps away the afternoon.

Flutter gets visibly tense, hardening at the edges. “The eerie men.”

“Ah, the band we lost.” I see them now, strutting across the courtyard, looking far too pleased with themselves. Soldiers straggling in after going willful missing.

“Perhaps I should—“ begins Flutter, but I’m already striding ahead of her. She’ll want to talk to them, because that’s what she does. Being a silent cloak must’ve just about killed her, the role is so alien to her personality.

Eilendi like to teach, relate, discuss.

But that’s not how you run an army.

The eerie men halt as they see me come. The minions have the grace to flinch and look ashamed, but the leader—Leap’s his name—gives me a grin full of teeth. They smell like unwashed male and fresh blood. Red stains their claws and teeth.

I catch sight of hair in their nails. Goats.

Of course.

I nudge my spiders down my left arm, asking for a little reinforcement. Leap opens his mouth—to explain, to boast, I don’t know and I don’t care.

He never gets a word in because I punch him right in the face.

He goes down like a sack full of bricks. And stays down.

The other eerie men jump, fumbling for the whips and spikes at their belt. I grab the nearest by the wrist—left hand!—and squeeze. The man gasps, turns a pale bluish color from the pain.

“Don’t—ever—leave—without—permission!”

Yeah, I love Kato.

Current progress: 22/88 pages revised.