Sentence Sneak Peek - Erekos

Erekos by A.M. Tuomala

The first sentence from each chapter of Erekos, it's a mini summary of what you can expect to read.

"The long match fit easily through the open slats of the little bronze incense-burner's roof."

"Shabane's body lay in the still water, pounding at the earth in despair as the marsh bugs came to in-vestigate this thrashing hatching ground."

"There is a world beyond the swamp."

"Gamela awoke with the dawn, as did all the priestesses of Terichone who haggled with night for as many working hours as they could afford, and the corpse was standing over her."

"Every time he entered a battle, Erlen faced a wild, horror-struck moment in which he couldn't remember the correct defensive position for a formal duel."

"The king and his party reached the lighthouse at nearly noon, when the grey building's shadow no longer lay stretched across the delta like some massive, dark, lounging beast."

"Shabane's body could not feel the world--it could not study the texture of bark with its fingertips or sense the ground under its bare feet except when a foot stopped moving; it could not tell if the air was cold or warm, and only the motion of the wrap and the hair that her body wore told her whether or not the breeze blew through the marshlands."

"The swamp man walked beside finely dressed, hand-some, young Ilaumeleus--he thrust his broad hands into his pockets and hummed his sea-tune, fixing his eyes on the trees."

"Achane had been nine years old when she had watch-ed her father haggling with a traveling doctor in the clearing by the river."

"In the lighthouse full of refugees, a priestess of Teri-chone could not help but lend her hands."

"Achane had never ridden a steamboat before."

"Shabane did not mind the scarf that cordoned off the scope of her vision and shadowed her ruined eyes, nor did she mind the saddle blanket over her body's arms."

"Heat."

"What makes a man a legend?"

"Achane had finally gotten to sleep on the steamboat's thrumming deck; she lay curled up on her side against the wood planks with her head pillowed on her scarf-bound hands."

"When Shabane had survived eight summers and her mother had grown resigned to an invalid daughter, her father had taken her through the swamp to a river-town and boarded the two of them on a steamboat."

"The woman who came to treat Achane wore the black shawl of a healer, draped to cover all of her hair as well as her neck and lower face, and yet she used no medicines that Achane knew."

"Those people that keep an exact accounting of days will notice that we have left Erlen and Jeiger un-attended for an entire day; we laughed as they drove the miners up from the cold, black earth, and then we dropped the two of them like woolen gloves discarded in warm weather."

"The troubles inherent in finding a mountain fortress--a particular mountain fortress, containing a particular person--were too many to number."

"Morning carries with it a kind of gravity that the sunlight knows how to wear; as that great, distant colossus looks on, the world turns its head to glimpse the celestial king's burning glory."

"Over the capital, the castle bells tolled two hours past midnight."

"Jeiger awoke before dawn to find Erlen gone."

"Gamela woke on the deck while the sky was still dark overhead."

"So many questions."

"At the helm of the steamboat that they had stolen, facing north with the dawn on their right and the night still darkening the left, the coast-man and the woman with the grey braid held one another's hands and did not need to speak."

"The king who rode out in grave state from the capital's gates remembered the last time that the people had thrown white flowers in his path."

"The steamboats came up the river one by one; after the first one arrived at the fishing village in the hills at noon and the borderlanders tied it with ceremony to the trees at the bank, the remaining vessels used the fresh winds of afternoon to drift in a long, broken line to the northlands."

"By the time the king's troops had reached the first way-station, a few cold stars shone in the high, pale reaches of the sky."

"When the mountain people traveled, Gamela soon discovered, they walked."

"The papyrus lay before her, and she dipped her reed pen into the bottle of ink at her knee."

"The zombi hunched on Gamela's back and watched the Wigs streaming in a tight line through the narrow tunnel bored into the mountainside."

"The sun did not rise on the next morning; at the tenth bell of the new day, the muzzy sun drew back the grey and blanketing clouds to blink sleepily at the world, then promptly pulled the covers over his head again and fell back asleep."