Overpowered is out at last! I can hardly believe it...
After a blood
crime sends Taliyah bat Shammai running from her home, she flees into the hill
country. Yet the hills are no place for
a woman traveling alone. Strange dreams
of talking jackals and mysterious mists are the least of her worries—for she
knows that the Avenger of Blood will be following close behind her.
Barred
from the Refuge by the circumstances of her crime, Taliyah thinks that her best
chance of survival may lie with Cypress and his band of mercenaries: giant
Cedar, hardened Thorn, boasting Vine and tidy Fig. Unsure whether to stay or go, Taliyah is reassured
by the arrival of a young man with a mysterious past and cardamom-colored
eyes. Something tells her that he is a
man she can trust. Yet when a new king
rises at the city of the Dawn, Taliyah and the seven criminals are called to
fight a battle they cannot win. Will the
outlaws stand fast in the face of certain death? Can Taliyah ever find safety again? Even escaping the battle may not save her…
for the Avenger is still coming.
My Snow White retelling is available as a paperback on Amazon, and as an ebook on Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, Apple ibook, Kobo, and any other ebook retailer that Smashwords distributes to. The first forty pages are FREE on Smashwords.
Here are the Amazon links. (For some reason the paperback and ebook are appearing as separate entries.)
And here's the Smashwords link.
Overpowered is being released as part of the Magic Mirrors co-release, a group of seven retellings of Snow White by six different authors, all coming out this week. Go here to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway!
Now we have a special sneak peak of the story! Happy reading...
***
CHAPTER ONE
Taliyah fled through the dark,
stumbling over the rocks at the bottom of the wadi. As she went she wiped her
hands on her skirt, but she did not look down to see if they were clean. She
was sure that they were not.
Perhaps she should have stayed. She
could have called her father’s wife, then run for help; perhaps her cousin
could have been saved.
No.
She thought of the bright blood, blooming against her cousin’s linen tunic, and
could not imagine that anything could have helped him. His breath had been
rough in his throat even as he fell to the earth. No. He must have been dead
before she rushed down the banks of the dry wadi, before she turned her foot
toward the hill country.
She could not go back. They would
have discovered his body hours ago. They would suspect that she had done it—would
see her flight as a sign of guilt.
Ayeh. She had done it, and she was guilty.
I killed him, she told herself, but the thought slid through her mind and would
not settle. I killed him.
She slipped in loose sediment and
fell to her knees, ripping her skirt on the rocks. The side of her leg burned
where she had scraped it, but she hardly noticed.
I should have stayed. I should have
stayed and faced the elders. She could have
gone to them with her bloody hands instead of running away from all that she
knew. In a day, two days, the matter could have been over and done.
It would have ended in stones, she thought.
Her father’s wife would have insisted on it.
Stoning was a cruel death. Yet would
this running end any less cruelly? She had no food, no water. She didn’t know
where she was going.
And her hands were still bloody. That
was the worst thing of all.
The stars were bright tonight, but
not bright enough to light her way. She was thankful for the dark. Don’t
look at me. Do not see me, Overpowerer. Let me escape your gaze.
There were tears on her face, but
she did not wipe them away. She did not know they were there.
Somewhere nearby the curlew cried,
mourning for the lost sun. Its call sounded like words to the shivering girl. Too
late for you! Too late for you!
It was too late. With a
broken potsherd she had killed her cousin, and she had killed Taliyah bat
Shammai in the same moment—a death not as swift, but just as sure.
**
There was mourning in Aphirah. Yerubba’la,
the great hero, had lain down with his fathers. His sons had gathered to lament
at his tomb—all but one.
Abimalk bin Yerubba’la did not go to
weep at his father’s grave. He put no ashes on his head or sackcloth on his
body. Instead, he travelled to the city of his mother’s people, the city of the
Dawn. He went to those among the leaders who were of the ancient stock of the
place, the men whose clans had dwelt there long before the Yeshurnim came. And
he said, “Why should the proud sons of the Dawn bow down to the seventy
offspring of a Yeshurni warrior? Is it not better to have one ruler rather than
many?”
And his mother’s kin whispered, “We
had kings once. Why should we not have kings again?”
**
The sun rose above the hills, shooting
his rays westward like a warrior’s arrows. The morning light found the girl
still travelling. She had been climbing steadily for some time, following the
wadi up into the mountains. Fear had fallen away and tears dried up, replaced
with the wide-open eyes of exhaustion.
A small herd of gazelles, browsing
on the bushes that lined the dry bed of the wadi, threw up their heads as she
neared them. They stared at her, dew glistening on their golden backs. Suddenly,
one spun and went up the bank in a single bound. The rest followed, even the
smallest managing the steep slope with ease.
The sudden movement startled the
girl, and she froze in place, eyes watching long after the gazelles were gone. She
licked dry lips, and realized that she was thirsty.
She sucked the dew from the leaves
of the saltbush, every movement slow and careful. She was too weary to be
quick, too wise to risk a fall. Having chosen to run, she must keep going.
The Avenger would be coming.
How quickly would her cousin’s
family choose their Avenger? Her father’s wife had a brother yet alive. Perhaps
he would come, his face set like flint, a bronze axe in his hand. He would be
annoyed at the inconvenience of the task, but not troubled by the thought of
what he would do when he found her. He might even be pleased if she fled into
some deserted place, for then he need not bury her body.
Or perhaps one of his sons would
come. Perhaps all of them would come, hunting her down like prey. She
could almost hear Tsavo and Huppim laughing like hyenas. After all, they need
not be quiet to hunt her. She could not bound away like a gazelle.
She shuddered. After her uncle had
died, of course her father had to provide for his widow; but why had her uncle
ever married into such a family? If he had not done so, her cousin would never
have been born. Far better if he had never seen the light of the sun!
She recognized the thought almost
before she had finished it, and cried Overpowerer, forgive— before she
knew what she was doing. But then she cut off that thought as well, turning her
back to the sun that she need not see it blazing at her like an angry eye.
“Why should I scorn them? I’ve done a
worse thing than any of my cousin’s kin,” she whispered to the ancient hills. She
climbed from the narrowing wadi, set her face to the east, and began to walk
once more.
**
Three days later, the girl sheltered
in a grove of date palms, watching smoke rise from a tiny village set on the
rockiest part of a rocky slope. Her stomach growled. She might have taken a few
dates—what was theft to a murderer?—but they weren’t ripe.
I will go up and ask for a piece of
bread, she told herself. It was not such a
strange thing to ask. She had handed out many pieces of bread to travelers when
she lived safe in her father’s house.
I will be brave. I will ask, even if
no one offers me a blessing.
She had passed through a village the
day before, but everyone had looked at her so coldly that she hadn’t spoken to
anyone. She had walked on with her eyes straight ahead, stopping only for a
drink from the well. How her heart had longed for a kind word!
This village was even smaller than
yesterday’s. She hoped that didn’t mean they would be even more suspicious of
strangers.
She stepped softly on the narrow
path as she approached the houses, lifting her feet to spare her battered
sandals. But before she passed between them she heard a grinding noise: the
sound of a millstone turning. She could have wept at the familiar comfort of
the sound. She paused, then turned off the path, following her ears.
Yes—there was a woman, grinding
barley. Sweat gleamed on her skin as she pushed the stone around and around. Just
beyond her, a little child sat playing in the dust, piling rocks into a tower.
“Peace to you,” the girl said, her
voice cracking.
The woman paused, looking up. “Peace,”
she said, squinting. “Who are you?”
The girl took a sharp breath,
feeling as if she had been struck. How could she answer even this simple
question? “T-Taliyah,” she answered, for she did not want to lie. Surely it was
safe to give her name? Such a common name, to be named for the Overpowerer’s
dew! “I’m travelling eastward.”
The woman hummed under her breath. “Then
why cross the mountains here?”
The girl knew nothing about the
routes through the hills. If it had not been for the sun, she could never have
kept a straight path through the slopes and ridges and tiny valleys. “Lady,
your maidservant knows no better,” she said, taking refuge in politeness. “If
it pleases, may I have a piece of bread? The road is long.”
“I have no bread today.” The woman
spoke in such a flat voice that the girl could not tell whether she spoke truth
or deceit.
The girl bowed her head—and her eyes
fell on the dirt around the millstone. “Then if it pleases you, may I have the
barley that has fallen in the dust?”
“Thus,” the woman agreed, lifting
the little boy into her arms. She stood and watched with narrowed eyes as the
girl picked the kernels out of the dirt, gathering them into the front of her
skirt.
The girl did not look at the woman. A
week ago she would have left fallen barley kernels to the goat and the pigeons;
now she was grateful for every one.
When the kernels of barley were
nearly gone, the woman turned abruptly and went into the house. She came out
without the child, but with a worn-out cloth lying across her arm. She thrust
it at Taliyah. “Cover your head,” she ordered. “It’s not safe for a woman on
the road alone.”
The girl didn’t know whether the
gift came from kindness or the desire to keep trouble from her gates, so she
took it with a tentative smile, then walked quickly away.
The village woman was right. It
wasn’t safe for a woman to travel alone; but the girl was alone, and she
had to travel, so what could she do? To dress as a man was a crime…
Foolish. She was already guilty of a far worse crime. How many times was she
going to forget that? There were moments when the crying of her cousin’s blood
rang in her ears, and moments when she forgot it completely. Would the truth
ever settle in her heart?
She felt the woman’s gaze on her
back as she scrambled down the hill to the northeast.
At last the village was out of sight
behind her, and Taliyah slowed her steps. She climbed onto a rock, avoiding a
bush covered in delicate white flowers and tiny sharp thorns. She looked around
her, eyes searching the hills. To the south, she saw a patch of green; a
spring? Some gray shapes that might have been sheep speckled the slopes around
it. Directly east, the mountains rose in shattered spires. She had no desire to
climb their yellow slopes. To the north were more hills, but there was a gap
between the two nearest, and perhaps a gap in the ridge behind them. Beyond
that, the hills faded into blue distance.
North. She could go north; why not? After
all, as a murderer, what better place would there be for her than the Refuge? She
had heard of the city of the Dawn, though she had never met anyone who had travelled
so far. Perhaps she could lose herself among other blood criminals.
North to the Refuge, the girl decided. She finished the last of her barley and dusted herself
off, then turned her feet toward the gap between the hills.
She walked as swiftly as she might,
stretching each stride until her thighs ached. She did not look at the sky, not
wanting to meet the sun’s stern gaze, nor yet to see it sinking to its rest. Though
she had spent only a few nights under the naked heavens, she had already
learned to dread the dark.
She did not stop until the moon
rose, casting strange shadows that set her stumbling. At last she crouched in
the shelter of a bush to munch the handful of half-withered wild onions she had
gathered on her way. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine that she was
already in the Refuge—somewhere safe and walled. She would sleep in the dirtiest
corner, scrub floors, card wool in unending rolls, if only they would let her
stay there.
She heard a jackal’s howl. The girl
gritted her teeth and wormed farther under the bush. Ayeh. She wished
she could pray, but surely the Overpowerer would scorn her prayers now. Perhaps
he would even send the jackals here to slay her. Cowards by day, a pack at
night could be dangerous.
The jackals cried again, sounding
nearer. The girl couldn’t keep from opening her eyes a crack. A mist had risen
in the valley, and she could not see far. Was that a reddish shape moving through
the mist?
An owl wailed overhead, and the girl
pressed her face into her hands, holding back tears. It’s only an owl. Nothing
to fear, nothing to fear…
But all the stories her father told
were coming back to her now. Of owls-not-owls, the white-winged kos of
the wastelands who hunted the ghosts of the unburied dead. Of
hyraxes-not-hyraxes, the brown-furred pazir, who kept the orchards of
the righteous and stole the children of the wicked. Of jackals-not-jackals and
goats-not-goats. Of winged lions and bulls with the heads of eagles, and the
dragon that lived in the well.
Long ago when her mother had been
alive the girl had woken crying from a nightmare. “Immah, it was the tannim—they
came to drag me away,” she had sobbed.
“Peace, Taliyah. The tann
cannot touch you. None of the nade qitorim, the mist wanderers, can
touch you. The Overpowerer protects us.”
The girl was not protected any more.
She fell asleep thinking of her
father’s stories, and perhaps that is why she had the dream.
She dreamed that she lay on the
ground with open eyes, staring into the swirling mist. The mist was damp on her
skin, gathering into drops like tears on her cheeks and hair, yet it did not
smell like water. It smelled like cinnamon, like lightning.
She dreamed that a pair of
silver-eyed jackals came out of the mist. They looked at her and laughed, and
their laughter was like the laughter of men. “What do you think, brother? Is
the creature forsaken?” one asked the other, tongue lolling.
“Forsaken,” it agreed.
“Is it alone?”
“Quite alone.”
“Now, the important question… is it
delicious?”
The girl lay frozen in wide-eyed
horror. She could not move. She could not speak.
There was a sharp chirring sound and
a brown shape rose up out of the earth. “Bad! Go away!” it scolded the
silver-eyed tannim.
“Run away, furry one,” the talkative
jackal advised. “This creature is too old to be one of your foundlings.”
The hyrax-not-hyrax shook dirt out
of its fur and rose on its hind feet, scolding the jackals in its own language.
“Shqit! You make too much
noise,” the tann hissed.
An owl called again, its call longer
and louder. A white shape swept overhead. Sparks of silver danced in the mist,
strands of fog moving like twisting veils.
The quiet jackal snarled and lunged
at the furry creature, but the other tann knocked him aside. “No time
for that! The mist is fading!” The silver-eyed predators raced away into the
night.
The furry creature waddled closer,
then reached out to pat the girl’s cheek. It crooned at her, and she felt
strangely comforted. “Small,” it said, its paw soft against her face. How
carefully it kept its long digging claws from her skin!
“I’m alone. Can you help me?” she
asked. In the way of dreams, she did not question the fact that her father’s stories
were coming to life before her.
“Too old,” it told her sadly. “Too
old.”
“Please,” she said.
It gazed at her, its brown eyes
wise. “Not good, nameless in wilderness. Can be lost in mist. Find name. Be
safe.”
“I’ll never be safe. The Overpowerer
has forsaken me,” she whispered.
The pazir chirred softly and
patted her cheek again.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?”
“Thus, thus,” it agreed. “Dream. Only
dream. Now shut eyes.”
The girl shut her eyes obediently,
and did not open them again until the morning light was shining on her face. By
the time she woke, she had almost forgotten her dream of mist.
***
Other stops in today's blog tour:
Knitted By God's Plan: 7 Reasons to Read
