The Frewyn Herald: Home of the Haanta Series

As many of our readers are aware, Smokey, our beloved cat, passed away on Sunday. We are inconsolable, but there is some relief in knowing that wherever he may be, his Haanta counterpart Khaasta will always be at Leraa's side. I n the hours of early morning, before the sun’s peak began skimming the horizon, Khaasta awakened from her gentle doze and went to prowl the perimeter of their family home. She stalked the neighbouring grassland and planted steppes, searching for anything that might interest and serve as an early morning meal. It was her usual time for being alone; the early hours provided her with the voer she required for hunting, and the want of any other predators in the immediate region left her as an unchallenged predator. There was no one else about: the whole of Mhavaledhran was still lying under the governance of its nightly sloom. The famers, though possibly awake, still kept to their beds and homes before sunrise, the other hunters who could have ruined her...

I have really done with the horror of 2016. My mind has tried to reason away the dejection and despondence of this abominable year so many times, but in vain. I convince myself to hope and happiness, my failures of the heart flying over personal bereavement with the ambition of reaching higher ground, but in vain. I do my utmost as an upstanding human forced cramble about in this world of monstrous inanity, but in vain. For all our cares, for all our great endeavours, for all our efforts and surmises, we are continually disappointed, for no matter how much we fight against the evils of life, raging tranquility can never reconcile us to the most unspeakable tragedies. I no longer pretend to defer grief; at last, something in the world that makes sense: an escape from the maddening prospect of ceaseless insensibility. Early this morning, Ted, our Smokey, our Khaasta, decided he had done with the trials of life and left us, to join his ancestors in the great expanse, to live on in verda...

Marridon is in general not a magical society. When they came to the west from the Olde Kyngdom of Adieth, Marridonians threw off their magical inheritance and their Gods in favour of a more scientific approach to life. While they do acknowledge that magic does still exist, Marridonians now are little disposed to care for it, but there are a select few who still like to keep to the old ways: A champion for the ancient wonders of Adieth and a devout fondling of Myrellenos, Captain Danaco Divelima made himself a friend to the wizards of Marridon, and when there was an injustice to be corrected or a crime against them to be answered for, he would listen and respond accordingly. He had a longstanding affection for the old and extraordinary, and Marridon’s magical practitioners, if not the former, were certainly the latter in many respects. Their wizened aspects rapt in eternal concentration, their noses planted firmly in their ancient tomes, their companions perching on their shoul...

A demigod who reaches his apotheosis never mourns for himself. It is the business of his many adulators to mourn for him. He cannot feel sadness to be so great, leaving all the rest of us to champion in trembling misery. I, surprisingly, have very few words to offer, only because this year has taken so many sensational performers from us. There comes a time when the agony of loss is too great, when we feel it too much-- there is nothing left but painful astonishment. My grievances lie more with the Gods for taking him away from us than they do with his parting. I suppose I shall reach the stage of unconscionable sorrow at some point; now I am half confusion and half indignation. It should be impossible for people to be so deeply affected by someone whom we have never formally met, but this is existence: it is a bold measure we take, this stake in sufferance; we must all go through everything together, another proof of the mask of division. We all feel the same things, and Prince...

We're going to be bringing out a new Damson's Distress novella next month for all our readers. If you've enjoyed the series, contribute a few dollars to our new campaign HERE on Patreon and receive the Clan Fight novella today, as well all subsequent novellas for free. And now, for the second half of the fight between Gaumhin and Vyrdin: No swords in a Frewyn clan fight, but kilts are paramount. T he fight continued for sometime, the blows becoming laboured and strenuous, their blood seeping into the ground, the brontide of clan war soon giving way to the hiss of heavy breathing. Frames were broken, limbs hung in disarray, but it was a kick from Gaumhin that ended the contest at last. A few close blows and blocks were exchanged, a knee to the stomach and strike to the ribs followed, but just as it looked as though Vyrdin might win the contest, Gaumhin, with his thigh still bleeding out, brought his leg up. He steadied himself, drew his shin high, and as Vyrdin ...

T here comes a point in one's life where the people whom we grew up admiring begin to die, leaving a great chasm in the world. This is awful enough to deal with without having anything so annoying as feelings getting in the way of personal equanimity.  And then, possibly even more horribly, there comes a time in one's life when the people whom we grew up with or the people who are in our same age group begin to die. I have had the disagreeable business of having to watch colle agues only a few years my senior perish without warning, though premonition would not soften the blow. I am now realizing that I am entering this time, the dreadful gateway of existence, the one that leads to watching the ebb and flow of time, the great rote and sussuration of life and death, and being able to do nothing but welter in misery and pine over the dregs of hideous mortality. Death is an unaccountable business, one that robs the living of the peace we believe to be --perhaps mis...