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

Reviews
   From Heroic Fantasy
   From Toni at Sony eBook Store

	ORDER THE PRINT BOOK! (ISBN #978-1-61950-145-4)

Reviews
   From Toni V. Sweeney

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

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