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Apocrypha of the First, Chapter VI

Sleep with me, this first winter. You are a broken man, the prison of that well humbled you. My father said that nothing breaks a warrior faster than being in a cell for too long. Once, when he was a soldier, they threw him in a cell for half a moon and he would always talk about it. The

They don’t make cells out of pity, to keep men alive. The silence of the cell shutters a man’s soul, and it can never be glued back together. Your hobbled leg doesn’t help...

Apocrypha of the First, Chapter V

The clouds have gathered above the well and are staring down at us. God sent them to judge me. Jak-Ur will die soon if I don’t face my fear.

It is my last chance because it will snow tonight. I still haven’t buried the dead, the crows have gathered, a cloud of crows, all other birds have disappeared. I have lost the birdsong since the day they came. If it snows, and it will, if the white sheets cover the dead then I can’t burn them anymore. Not until spring....

Apocrypha of the First, Chapter IV

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No spiders, flies, or worms. None of them come near the well anymore. It may be the cold; it may be that Jak-Ur is lying down there like a sick dog that has accepted his fate. He will rot and die if he doesn’t move.

He heard the priest’s mule whinny so I had to do something. I harnessed the ropes to the mule, and it pulled and pulled. It pulled Jak-Ur ten feet high, and he would climb more. I had to cut the rope; he didn’t see me doing that. He can’t...

Apocrypha of the First, Chapter III

I dreamt of fields covered with dead frogs.

“Kill a frog, kill your mother,�� said the witch.

How many times is my mother dead by now?

I am not afraid of the witch. She started coming to the settlement, after the fifteenth night. She never gets very close; she stays where the parsnip field ends, and the forest begins. Another slender standing figure among the beech trees, watching me. She is the only living being that has come so close since the priest.

It...

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Apocrypha of the First, Chapter II

Now, you are down there, and I am up here. I have the power, the bucket, and you are the one begging. I want you to beg me, not to curse me, that’s why I didn’t even approach the well the first two days. I didn’t want you to think that I was the one who pushed you down there. For you, I am going to be the one who keeps you alive. I am going to be water, bread, hope, your only chance that you will not sleep your last sleep cuddling around the skeleton of my...

Apocrypha of the First, Chapter I

Come noon, the sun rays beam straight down at the bottom of the dried-up well, and I see his grimy face staring up at me. He has been standing there for six days and nights now; my brother’s bloated corpse cuddled around his feet. It’s the only way they both fit down there—the well is barely six feet wide—else he must step on the maggots and the wet rotting flesh of my kin.

Come night, I pray to the haloed angels to beat their milky wings and part the autumn...

Come noon, the sun rays beam straight down at the bottom of the dried-up well, and I see his grimy face staring up at me. He has been standing there for six days and nights now; my brother’s bloated corpse cuddled around his feet. It’s the only way they both fit down there—the well is barely six feet wide—else he must step on the maggots and the wet rotting flesh of my kin.

Come night, I pray to the haloed angels to beat their milky wings and part the autumn clouds��so that the moon can illumi...

Drakon Book 1: The Sieve is the first installment in the Drakon series, and starts off strong. Da-Ren is an infidel barbarian who has fled to the Castlemonastery, where he offers a jar of honey in return for redemption for his wife and daughter. The monks ask Da-Ren to tell them their story, which he does. This book focuses mostly on Da-Ren’s earl yyears, growing up in a tribe of warriors and pagan witches.
The Sieve is a ritual all children in Da-Ren’s tribe have to go through, a forty-day i...

Da-Ren appears on the doorstep of Castel Monastery demanding the monks redeem the lives of his wife and daughter. Despite being a barbarian, a pagan, and infidel in their eyes, the monks let him on the island where they are tasked with transcribing the warrior’s story.

This book is the story of Da-Ren’s first trials of training in a gauntlet his tribe calls The Sieve; a series of grueling life or death tests that had me legit wondering if this tribe just runs out of kids at some point. But my...

Not only was the face on the cover odd but the “Drakon�� made me wonder if there were dragons in it. I have a soft spot for dragons. The synopsis sounded interesting so I requested it. Of course by the time I read the book I had forgotten what it was about. I actually think that contributed to me enjoyment of the story.

The story is of a “hero�� Da-Ren who has fled to a monastery asking for redemption for his wife and daughter. The monks there require that he tell his story in detail and assign...