Paksworld

Location:  in Aarenis, within several days’ march of Cortes Vonja.  Situation: night after a frustrating day of marching, barely evading an ambush, more marching.

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…his assailant lay dead on the ground.    He was a small, wiry man in short trousers, barefooted–his soles horny as goats’ hooves–his hair in a curious braid, stiff with something he’d smeared on it.  On a thong around his neck was a medallion with a design Arcolin did not recognize.

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This is part of an incident added to the part cut off from what is now Oath of Fealty and will be in the second volume of the group.   It helps fill in what had been a sketchy way to cover some weeks.     Although the forward part of the plot of the second book is moving, there’s fill-in to be done, because I was compressing the last 55,000 words when I hoped to squeeze it all into that first volume.    It was packed tight–too tight, too much left out.  This is putting some juice back in.

It was also one of those surprises, a bit of plot-stuff I didn’t expect.   It was so unexpected I had to check with a couple of people to see if the whole situation was feasible.  And it is.

Of course, the really interesting thing is  not a sailor in a tree, but who put the sailor in the tree.