Monday, October 29, 2018

Overpowered is OUT! (Sneak Peek and Links)

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
Light and Shadows: 5 Reasons to Read
Dreams and Dragons: The Awesomeness of Biblical Retellings
Heather L.L. FitzGerald: Character Spotlight - Fig
The Labyrinth: Character Spotlight - Taliyah
Unicorn Quester: Character Spotlight - Yotham
Selina J. Eckert: Guest Post - Inspiration for Overpowered
Dragonpen Press: Guest Post - What is Overpowered?

 

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