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    Days of High Adventure
    Days of High Adventure
    Days of High Adventure
    Ebook72 pages1 hour

    Days of High Adventure

    By Daniel R. Robichaud

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    Steel whispers secrets to the men and women who wield it. Vasily the Voyvodin knows some of these and is eager to learn more. His journeys have taken the warrior through frosty mountains to sweltering jungles to remote isles, and he has crossed paths with beast gods, demons, and vilest science-sorcery. His first three adventures now appear between a single set of covers for the first time.

    Days of High Adventure reveals three meaty tales of a fighting man making his way through a ravaged world, struggling to understand the role he must play there. Once, a member of the elite qasaq warriors, he is now a lone wanderer, a sword for hire, and always driven by the desire to learn, to know, and to experience.

    Fans of Russian folklore, Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies, Fritz Leiber's immortal Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion, Robert E. Howard's pre-apocalyptic fantasy worlds, and Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles will find plenty to keep them entertained in these heroic fantasy adventures.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTwice Told Tales II
    Release dateNov 4, 2018
    ISBN9780463557273
    Days of High Adventure
    Author

    Daniel R. Robichaud

    Daniel R. Robichaud has lived in southeastern Michigan, central Massachusetts and southern Texas. He is a Rhysling Award nominated poet and the author of over one hundred stories, articles and poems, which have appeared in such markets as Shroud Magazine, Rogue Worlds, Goblin Fruit, Rage of the Behemoth, Green Prints, and WritersWeekly. Daniel holds degrees in both Physics and English, and his career path has reflected these passions. In addition to his numerous writing opportunities, he has been an Igor For Hire (aka a freelance research engineer), a substitute teacher, an automation engineer, and a neurophysiology lab manager. Daniel enjoys entertaining people with his words and stories. If you enjoy a good read, why not try one of his works? You might just love them.

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      Book preview

      Days of High Adventure - Daniel R. Robichaud

      Days of High Adventure

      Tales of the Voyvodin

      Daniel R. Robichaud

      Vasily and the Beast Gods

      A man of sense does not dwell long amongst the shadow-crested peaks of the Uryl range, Voyvodin wisdom said. For when the winds come shrieking down those jagged slopes, they come from the unknowable darkness between the stars and can blow a man to madness.

      These words echoed through Vasily's thoughts while he assessed the strength of his chains and rolling prison, endured the jackal-like laughter of his once-allies-turned-captors, considered the smoldering eyes of the girl-slave who had bewitched him to turn on his qasaq company, or swore dire vengeance against the dark robed figure leading them higher into the mountains. With every moment, he remained alert for any opportunity to secure his freedom.

      Mutt-faced Barot banged his mead cup against the bars of the cage and then stepped aside. The scars across both of his cheeks made a cruel, savage smirk from even placid expressions. His face far from placid, he said, I always knew a woman would be your undoing, Vasily. One step closer, and I’ll be the undoing of your throat.

      Of course, just because he grabbed did not mean he would catch the whip-thin man. Before the betrayal, Vasily had long admired the smaller fellow's speed and skill at both evading and delivering blows. Now, Barot was merely another talented enemy. What is it about this scrawny slag? When shapely wenches await us and the fat purses this trek promises, why throw all away for... Barot reproved the girl with a dismissive backhand.

      Vasily remained mute. What could he say that Barot would understand? That this wretch, this girl called Katya, reminded him of the sister he had vowed but failed to protect when he was but twelve autumns old? Barot had sold his own kin for a little road coin.

      Silent with regrets, eh? Barot chuckled. Well, no fear. Your share will not go to the hands of these dogs. I'll entrust its safety. Barot trod ahead, leaving Vasily to brood.

      Vasily’s harsh face, scarred and battered by life's rough road, crinkled in irritation. A man of varied experience, he knew what lay ahead for him now. A man of sense, huh? He snorted and strained his strong body honed by ten autumns spent fighting other men's wars, but the chains were too strong for breaking. Idly he tugged on the bars, on the off chance that Barot's stench might have weakened the iron. No luck.

      No stranger to either the blackest moods or the brightest mirths, always Vasily seemed the bearer of old sorrows. He had wrested crowns from dead men's brows, only to pass them along to the ambitious living; the throne held little allure for him. The road always beckoned.

      The road . . . His first love, his deepest affection. Riding above it, chained in a cage wagon, seemed nothing short of blasphemy.

      Tired with testing , Vasily studied the steel ring binding both his and the woman's chains to the cage ceiling. Only ropes held it in place. Too many and too thick to snap before they would come for me, but a knife would make short work of—

      Of course, he did not have a blade of any sort. Another blasphemy.

      Katya grunted like a hungry bear. She stared at him with a hot outrage, no different than when he had walked on Barot's side of the bars.

      There is no sense in hating me, he said. The both of us are slated for slavery 'til death, now.

      Vasily looked ahead to the robed man, the hairless twig of a sorcerer, shrewd source of coin for the qasaqs and leader of this expedition. The man called himself Gregori, and he was tall, nearly six feet, but emaciated. What few dealings Vasily had with Gregori had revealed the sorcerer to be little more than a bony shell, a husk around some cold, alien flame of power. Without it, Gregori would be a wizened corpse; with it, he was unstoppable.

      Perhaps not. This from Katya.

      Despite Barot's dismissal, there was a fierce beauty to the woman. Hair lustrous as a sable, eyes like emeralds, she carried a kind of strength that many men could only dream of possessing. Hers was the tongue of the Chuckchi mountain folk, neither the fluid Voyvai of Vasily's steppe dwelling forbearers nor the stilted, formal tongue of the Muskovite city dwellers. It startled Vasily, for the woman had never actually spoken to him before, and it took him several heartbeats to realize she did not respond to his thoughts, but to his spoken fatalism.

      He cocked an eyebrow at her, demanding explanation. She offered none, staring instead into the frosty mountains above and around them, as though she might divine the future from their peaks.

      When the wind howled then, the hackles on Vasily's neck rose. Up here, the wind sounded like a living thing and that was eerie enough, but now... Now, Vasily detected something hidden inside that howl, carried upon it like ticks upon a hound. He

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