Tin Universe Middle Grade Series.

Someone is zombifying athletes at Clear Cut High School in Utah. Lucky the school has its own young superhero in the person of Mildred Betbeze to try and figure out what's going on. Pep rallies, cheerleaders, new kids in the neighborhood are just some of things our hero and her sidekick slash best friend Aisha have to deal with in the first audio book adaption in Tin Universe's middle grade series. $2.00 Profits from the sales of this audio book will go to Trans Lifeline for as long as the books is sold on Podbean.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Tin Universe Daily #137

Tin Universe Daily #137

There are so many versions of some stories,
Especially when a prospective to the title of The Pledge is screwing with reality in Utah,

She did not know what to do. Would you? Yes, she was frightened. Bet your life right down to her feet she was scared. Her arms were shaking so badly they ached.
Yes, she was tired also. Her knees where holding her up only by the fact that the wall she had backed against was holding the rest of her up, but through the fear and the fatigue there was something else there.
She held her sword with its shinning green blade up with both hands to try and keep them at a distance to help her not only catch her breath but also just get a few moments to think.
Everything happened so fast when the battle broke. One minute she was preparing to be on the training grounds of Camelot and the next she was being hunted through the old ruins in the Mardock Forest by a group of vampires who were part of a bigger army attacking the city.
See no army attacked Camelot...it did not happen. No one attacked Camelot itself, the outer lands yes, maybe, but not the city. This was one of those things that do happen in life that just should not be happening to those living the events. At least that is the way the person living the events think.
The vampire basically came out of nowhere, just as vampires tend to do. She was cinching up her horse’s saddle when the first strikes of the attack began. Alone in the stables outside of the cities walls is where she found herself. This is the place knights in training are required to stable their horse but also where the first blood was drawn in this sudden war that erupted in The Kingdom Of Merlin’s Watch as the underworld calls Camelot.
The first one to strike at her and maybe the first one to beat the first blow of battle in the attack came from behind. From behind her and out from the shadows in a corner of the stables hardly used because of reasons not worth mentioning.
Her training made her turn swiftly drawing her sword when she heard footsteps walking softly behind her but then there was no one there. Could she have imagined it was the thought that crossed her mind first? The training with Sir Gwain had become very intense of late and she was not sleeping that well thinking about her Knighthood Trial; which was in a month’s time.
But the thought of imagining footsteps was transformed into a nothing thought when she turned back to her horse to find the animal she had named as a child Cloud laying on the ground dead of a broken neck, though she did not know the cause at this time. The huge in weight animal had been killed and gently laid to the ground that made up the floor of the stable and the thing that had done this deed was standing across from her in the stable with a blood smeared smile on its face.
Her first thoughts when drawing her sword up in a combat stance was how the atmosphere of the barn had grown cold. She had been told of Vampires during her training with Merlin but never thought she would come to see one herself.
Merlin had told all Knights of Camelot during their education training the story of how the vampires had been banished to a sand land by himself, another wizard called Delta, alongside Knights of Camelot to a place of eternal grit and fear.
The vampire in the barn with her was dressed from head to toe in what appeared to be black bandages and from across the barn the young knight in training could smell an odor most rancid that could only have come from one direction.
This vampire at first just stood in the very spot she first saw him standing without any sort of movement at all. Vampires are very good at being still, without a heartbeat to hold you back still is a natural state to be in. But she was surprised when its first movements came in words spoken in speech that was lined with an accent foreign to her, ‘A little pup knight of Camelot I have here. Yes, a crusader in training. They send me out as scout to sing them in to attack but I also find myself a snack.’
She pushed her feet and her sword forward a few inches, ‘Back to Hell with you creature of Satan!’
The vampire stood straighter almost pride filled in the words that came from the young knight directed towards him, ‘Oh, but sir knight is it not one of the very sons of Satan who sits by the right side of your King? I am just a humble pet of my master.’
‘Which Lord do you serve creature?’ she asked
‘My lord is not of Heaven nor Hell. He hates both just the same. My lord is not one who speaks in riddles or plays games of sides. My lord and master is eternal. He has walked with The Setting Sun and The Morning Star and stood within the past and the future.’
She moved forward even closer to the vampire, ‘What is you masters name so I can curse him after cutting off your head?’
‘My master is feared by the name of his birth place, Russia.’
But as the name of the creatures master left its bloody lips the young knight in training began to hear screams in the night air and found herself surrounded now by four other creatures of the night who appeared from smoke which had drifted in through the stables side door without her notice.
The vampires who surrounded her in a circle with the bandage wrapped one wore not bandages but armor that shined as black as the Knights Of The Round Tables armor shined white and in their hands they held swords that curved like a demons tongue.
She stood with her sword still facing the smaller vampire without much idea for how she would get out of this fight alive when charging into the stables a familiar face came swinging sword in hand, taking off the heads of two of the armored vampires before they could even move in speed.
It was Sir Gwain, one of the most noble of King Arthur’s Knights and a founding member of The Round Table. He placed himself where he could stand back to back with the young knight, ‘I thought you may need a hand in the stables?’
Her arms seemed to almost grow stronger hearing his voice, ‘Yes, the low duties of a squire sometimes need the help of a High Knight.’
Gwain looked at her from the corner of his eye and smiled as more armored vampires appeared in the stables from smoke that came from nothingness.
The small vampire who had jumped up high into the hayloft when Sir Gwain entered was now hanging by clawed feet from the loft, ‘Outnumbered are the shiny knights of day light.’
The battle started as the armored vampires charged the back to back warriors. The banter was loud as the knights shouted while taking down vampires. The knight in training having to cut off heads to vanquish the enemy while human death wounds from Gwain’s green blade would take down the creatures just as if they were mere mortals themselves.
‘Fight on Knights Of Camelot for our army is eternal in numbers!’ shouted the small vampire from his lofty perch.
‘So is your mouth without the courage of battle worm?’ shouted back Gwain
The two warriors were getting tired and worried about what was going on in the rest of the city as battle was heard loud from outside the stables. As the number doubled of tongued blades flying at them Gwain was caught with a cut across his face, a fatal blow, and he fell at the feet of his daughter, his sword turning to plant roots and rooting itself to the ground as his last breath passed away and it settled with the straw and dust on the ground.
The daughter, the knight in training, had no time to grieve because she was fighting for her life full of anger and hate already at thoughts of friends and other family members who could be dying. As she began to swing wild in style, knowing this was not a way to survive in battle she noticed that, as there was many vampires fighting her more also were guarding the smaller vampire as he watched in joy at the battle that was raging in the stables still hung from the hayloft ceiling.
Joanshir the daughter of Sir Gwain and The Maiden Of The Green throw her sword as hard as she could and it perched the heart of the smaller vampire and it fell from the loft slamming to the floor with a huge force for such a small creature. She did not have time to think of why this did not kill this particular vampire but instead was glade her thoughts where right as all of the vampires in the stable turned their attention from her to the fallen vampire in bandages.
She looked at her father for a second but could not afford a second more. Joanshir grabbed her father’s sword, pulled it from the rooted ground. It changed back to its green blade form as she gripped it, and she dived out a side stable door facing The Mardock Forest and ran for the trees in thought to gather her wits before heading back to battle and defend the city her father loved and died for.
The Mardock Forest was a place by Merlin’s own words where the pain of the future was polluting the past. But all the things Merlin has said that is wise is out distanced by the things he has said that just confuse most of The Knights Of Camelot. And though Joanshir has learned much from Merlin she also has grown to take everything that comes from his mouth with a grain of untrust. Most Knights think along the same as her and almost all have taken Merlin’s words as a warning and stayed clear of the forest. All but her father who took up the charge of protecting it from the enemies of Camelot. Thus was his duty and that of all he trained, so she knew actually where to head in her mad sprint away from blood hungry vampires.
Deep in the center of the forest stood very old and out of the ordinary ruins. Out of ordinary for the place the lands the ruins sat within. Some of them appeared normal to a person of the time to be the ruins of what once was a small castle but other parts of the ruins where beyond understanding to the smartest of this time but were also not of magic but of our time.
That our being you and me reader. We would see it as rusted husks of jeeps from The Korean War, tanks from The Gulf War, and armaments used during the American Revolutionary War.
Joanshir also loved the forest beyond the belief of even her father. She saw it as wonder and adventure she could touch. As a child or adult it also felt safe but as she ran towards her former safety place from the world she began to hear soft running footsteps behind her. These were the footsteps of the dead.
Jumping over a wall made of materials she had never seen elsewhere she began crawling through a tunnel she had found when she was in her youth and when she was smaller because she is squeezing her way through the tunnel right now with a little difficulty. The tunnel led to an armory her father has built up. The armory was mostly a collection of sort for him to stare at but all fully functional and ready for battle if needed. Jumping down from the crawl space entrance tunnel her mind was racing. Her father used an entrance that led down from the castle archery area.
Her father is now dead.
She quickly learns that without a torch the armory is quite dark but the green glow from her father’s sword kept her from falling over things. Above her head she could hear feet moving about and loud thuds hitting the ground. A battle is raging now above. Grabbing a small cross given to her father by Merlin, bags of crystal stones, and a few more daggers she headed back up the crawl space.
Emerging from the small entrance she heared silence. No swords clashing, no armor splitting. Turning slowly she felt her heart twist and started to begin to speed up the beats and it pounded within her chest as she saw the battle scene that she heard from below ground. Twelve Defender Knights dead and standing among the noble bodies are six armored vampires. They turned at once spotting her and begin their charge forward.
Joanshir backed up. Seeing the bodies lying there may have been the last straw for her spirit. She backed up stumbling over her own feet and fell backwards against a left standing wall in the ruins. The armored vampires surrounded her. She pushed her sword out and tried to catch her breath and thinking of nothing but the fact that her moment of death seemed to be approaching.

(c)System * Publishing
brian c.williams

Coming May 31st 2015
Tin Universe Month #24
Featuring A FIRST SHOT FIRED, Part Six
and
May's Tin Universe Daily collected in one place
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