Word Count: 32,170
Pages to Print: 120
File Format: PDF                 
Price: $4.99

   Journey to worlds of heroes and monsters, of swashbuckling women and magical villains in short stories by a master of action and adventure!

   In Of Swords and Sorcery Teel James Glenn presents a collection of tales of magic and swordplay that range from the frontier forests of colonial America to the fare flung world of Altiva. From the Shores of North Africa against the Barberry pirates to the shadowed alleys of New Orleans to the movie magic of Hollywood in the 1950s!

   There are quests for love, and fights against fire breathing dragons, mystical dictators, alchemist summoned demons and deadly female assassins along the way.

   These are classic tales of damsels and do-gooders, in the pulp style adventure tradition of Conan, Zorro and Captain Blood!

                                                                                                   Excerpt

Word Count: 67,500

Pages to Print: 238

File Format: PDF

Price: $ 4.99

Excerpts:

Hymns to the Battlecrow

Within

(8/31/02)

Within me lies the warrior,

The Savage, killing ghost

Of every Celtish ancestor,

A fearsome shouting host―

Of Blood feuds, wars

And cattle raids

My Cells are all composed―

But life for me's no

Epic poem―

Just

Damne'd

Boring

Prose.

Back to Hymns

Secret of Wolf Island

     “Stupid Chink Bastard,” Morgan, the tallest of the Aryan brothers said as he and his buddy Deek advanced on me. The third one, the fat one, stayed at the doorway looking out into the hall to watch for guards. “You had to know we’d find a way to get you to ourselves before you were sprung.” He grinned showing two missing front teeth.
     I’m a white supremist’s worst nightmare; an uppity breed Asian who won’t take their crap and who can pass. In that respect, I take after my dad at six foot four, just a bit shy of his height, but with his broad shoulders. He was of Scots and Norman French background, so I had his hand-me-down Viking features and premature silver hair with my mom’s dark eyes.
     A kid in grammar school once called me Race Bannon after the old cartoon character and I almost punched him out until I found out it was a compliment.
I’m a sort of all purpose ethnic––most people aren’t sure what mix I am––Mexican, Asian, Israeli, Eastern European . . . or something else.
     In fact, Mom was Korean-Japanese, though the Japanese community pretty much shunned her as a half-breed as well. I got a lot of my uppity from Mom. The rest was from Dad and The Corps, in that order.
     So when the three white brothers cornered me in the Rikers Island prison laundry room I was compelled to do a major uppity on them.
Morgan’s sidekick added his two cents with, “It was worth paying the guard to look the other way for ten minutes.”
     I grinned back at the two of them, and I could see this puzzled the Rover Boys considerably.
     “First off, “I said, “I’m not a whit Chinese, Morgan. Secondly, Mom and Dad were married five years before I came along; and thirdly, the only really smart guy in all this is the guard you paid. I paid him to give us a little privacy as well; double dipping bastard.”
     The dim-witted son of Arrays didn’t get the implications of my statement, even as he drew his shank and brandished it.
     The prison knife was made from a sliver of Plexiglas-glass sharpened to a needlepoint and wrapped with cloth and tape for a grip. It was purely a stabbing weapon and as such he had to extend it to do me any damage.
     Normally a shank is a backstabber’s choice, not a knife fighter’s; so I knew he was counting on his buddy Deek to occupy me so Morgan could stick me in the kidney.
     Not on my agenda, however.
     Deek circled left while Morgan waved his plastic poker in what he imagined a menacing way.
     Before Deek could get into position for the piñata party I did the one thing their race-clouded brains were sure an inferior would never do––I attacked.
I went straight at Morgan who reacted by trying to stab me in the left side of the neck.
     I double blocked with a left knife hand to a nerve cluster near the elbow of the hand holding the knife, my right striking and breaking his collarbone.
There was an audible snap and Morgan groaned.
     I wrapped my right hand behind his neck and pulled his face down at the same time I brought my right knee up to meet his nose. I heard a second, wetter sounding snap.
     From the chamber of my knee near my chest I shot back my right leg to ram my heel into Deek’s breadbasket. The blow was right on the money and knocked him out cold.
     Morgan was on his knees moaning, half out of it. I bitch slapped him twice to wake him up to full alertness, and then leaned in close to stare eye-to-eye with him. He had pretty blue eyes and if hate could kill, his gaze would have incinerated me.
     “Listen good, you anachronistic piece of crap,” I said, “I could kill you and you know it, but I’m not going to; not now, not ever. You know why?
He stared at me and said nothing so I slapped him again, this time hard enough to leave a hand print on his face.
     “I asked you a question, you pecker-wood loser. Do you know why I won’t kill you?”
     “No,” he hissed. Blood was cascading from his shattered nose. “Why won’t you kill me?”
     “Because, like my old Hwa Rang Do instructor used to say, if I kill you, you won’t suffer anymore. So here’s the deal instead; if you or any of your White bread monkeys ever bother me again inside or out of this can, I––or one of my mother’s family who specialize in this sort of thing––will find you and with a carefully aimed blow to your seventh cervical vertebrae, leave you paralyzed for life.” I smiled that evil smile my ex-wife used to hate when I was playing pool with her.
     “Think about it, Morgan, A nice long life lying in your own waste with a catheter up your ever limp dick. Nothing to do but think about what a total wash-up you are as a human being, and what a waste of flesh your useless body is.”
     I stepped away from him and let my words sink in. I watched the virulent hate in the depth of his eyes slowly transform into realization and then fear. He knew my reputation, but like most who had not encountered me one-on-one, he’d thought it was exaggeration and brag until that epiphany moment.
     “And I swear on my father’s grave,” I continued, “I will piss on your limp-ass body and laugh till I cry if you even try to contract out a hit on me. This ends here, capish?”
     His race hate flared up and I saw his eyes widen with hope as Fatso from the door––who thought he was being slick––tried to bushwhack me.
I snapped back a right fist and punched butterball in the throat just hard enough to take the starch out of him. My eyes stayed locked with Morgan’s.
     The Aryan genius registered his friend dropping to the floor and gasping for air. I saw the last vestige of defiance melt away from him and his worldview reorient
     “Capish?” I repeated.
     “Capish,” Morgan whispered and I could hear in his voice the thought that his surrendering to me was like barbed wire in his guts.
     Good!
     I turned my back on him dismissively and stepped around Fatso, who was still making choking noises on the ground.
I grabbed a bottle of liquid laundry detergent and poured it on the linoleum floor of the room near the door.
     “Gentlemen,” I said cheerfully and stepped out into the corridor.
The guard, a shaved-headed Puerto Rican name Lan, was standing about five yards down the hall trying to look disinterested in the laundry room proceedings. His face lit up when he saw me but not with surprise; it was joy.
     “Some of the Aryan brothers had a little accident in the laundry room. Slipped on some soap, I think.”
     He nodded. “I kind of expected that to happen to them putas.”
     “Really?” I asked.
     “Only reason I took those pricks’ money,” he said.
     “Don’t suppose I get a refund from you then, huh?”
     He shrugged. “Business is business,” he said philosophically.
     “Thought as much,” I didn’t look back as I walked back toward my cell, even when I heard Lan exclaim,” My-my, guys; a little clumsy, weren’t we?”
I resisted the urge to laugh maniacally, because Mama-san had always said to be humble.
     Right.
     I laughed so hard I almost pissed myself.      Back to Secret of Wolf Island

Tales of Swords and Sorcery

Devil of the Deep Woods
Prologue
The Fire in the Deep
 
   The Huron lived in their homeland they called Ouendake in the shadow of the Other Folk who lived in the caves of the underworld and the Sky People. Thus they were always in a middle place between the warring forces. Yet they practiced the sacred rituals that made sure they lived in balance.
    Then the White Skins came from the land across the great waters and brought with them a different way. The French were wise and let the People live their lives much as they had before. But the British, enemies of the French, decried the gods of the Huron, took the land that was the free right of all and claimed it-as if any of the middle realm could own land.
    So for generations, the British and the Huron contended for supremacy sometimes violently, sometimes peacefully, while the world continued to spin with neither gaining advantage.
    Then the French and English settled their feud in far away Europe and those who had allied themselves with the French were suddenly told they should serve the English. The arrogant Sir Jeffery Amherst made it known old treaties showing respect and annual gifts to the Ouendake were to be discontinued.
    The Prophet of Delaware preached a return to the old way and the great Pontiac fought against the whites. But some who fought the invaders did so with even darker weapons then the bloody tomahawk.
    From the darkest of the deep woods the echoes reached the settlements of the British of a new prophet who was leading the Huron down paths leading straight to Hell. With the echoes came the screams of the damned and the cackle of unholy laughter that lingered even in the bright sunlight of midday.
  
 
Chapter I
The Dark God Descends
 
    "Kill us if you want, monster," the pain wracked farmer cried in a hoarse voice, "and end this abomination!"
    His only response was twisted laughter out of the early morning darkness; a song played on pipes never meant to play such a tune.
    The smoke from the burning buildings of the English settlement filled the valley with a dense fog that stung the eyes and muffled the cries of the tortured souls trapped within. The light in the eastern sky was pale pink with false dawn and combined with the flames of the burning huts, casting a hellish red glow over all. It illuminated a scene from the darkest corner of Hell.
    Thirty of the pitiful victims were tied to stakes in a long line down the center of the road running through what had been the settlement of Willow Creek.
    Standing before the staked figures were a small army of savage figures who might have come directly from the halls of the damned. They were dressed only in breech cloths, with eagle feathers braided in their long black hair, with clan tattoos and war paint clearly visible against their bronzed skin.
    They were Huron warriors from many clans and they stood united behind the cackling figure at their head, who spoke to the staked-out prisoners.
    "You will die to the glory of the Huron," the old man who lead the warriors said, "and will bring to this frail form of Karkuk the means to drive all the white skins from our land forever, French and British." He stepped forward and took a long curved knife to the neck of the farmer in a long slice. One of the painted warriors raced up with an ornately carved wooden bowl and placed it beneath the wound to let the flowing blood pour into it.
    A wailing went up from the group of children and women forced to their knees by a knot of warriors. Each of the prisoners was yoked with rope to the next. They cried in horror as one by one their men were slaughtered with prayer and ceremony. The ritual was repeated with all the men until almost thirty vessels were full of the sanguine liquid
    The old wizard stepped up to the last two men who were fastened to the stakes, the minister and a farmer named Paterzun, a Dutch settler. Both men looked at the old Indian with stolid faces.
    "You are the examples to show the power of my dark god," Karkuk said. "Then my followers will know without doubt." He raised his hands above each of the men's heads with his twisted fingers spread.
    He began to mumble in a deep voice words of the ancient Wyandot language. After a few moments the two men started to moan and their faces contorted as flaming pain passed through all their limbs. They began to vibrate as the pain swept through them and the women and children watching began to cry all the more.
    "Become the symbol of what will become of all the white skins! Our land and our gods will claim you all!"
    As he spoke a change crept over the two men. Their faces contorted to hideous masks of pain and then the color of the skin began to change and darken. The texture of their skin began to alter so that in a few minutes their flesh no longer looked like flesh; it had the aspect of some gnarled wood with deep ridges and whirls as it hardened into a bark-like covering.
    The two men's moans rose in volume until they became wails like the damned; and the women and children's voices stilled, and the very forest seemed to fall silent as they screamed their last as humans.                                        Back to Of Swords and Sorcery