And Tuesday comes, bringing whispers of fiction on the wind…

It’s time for the next part of The Wings Take Shape, the second entry in the serial novella series I run on this here blog.

If you’re new to the story, head to Part One and start from the beginning!

In Part Four, the last known Winged Riders scrambled to gain information and plan their next move. Jonathan Sawyer, Skinchanger, grappled with his emotions over the slaying of an enemy while in his wolf form, Swiftstrike. He felt like he might be losing himself.

Captain Renee Mollen and Sergeant Marie Mollen, twins and twinners, sharing an empathic bond, reassured him that he did what was right and necessary. With Sergeant Regina Hughes, they set out to gather an army from the surrounding villages to take back the capital from foreign enemies, only to find each new village and garrison of Kingsguard assaulted and burned down.

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The Wings Take Shape

Part Five – Dismay

by Rick Cook Jr.

“This is intolerable,” Renee hissed. She booted her mare into motion after surveying the seventh burned village, the second garrison of Kingsguard slain. Marie marked every body as they passed through. These were innocent men and women. Children. Elders. People that had done no wrong.

“We’ll get the bastards, Renee,” Marie said, riding up beside her sister and giving her a small jostle.

“I’m beginning to doubt it, Marie.” Continue reading →

Tuesday is here again, my friends! I hope the week passed for you as fast as it did for me, but perhaps not if you were impatiently awaiting the next part of this story, eh?

If you’re new to the story, head to Part One and start from the beginning!

In Part Three, Wing Captain Renee Mollen conferred with Sergeant Regina Hughes in the Red Forest while learning what she could of the events inside the capital city. The place has been overrun, and Renee’s old Captain, Claire Claymonte, is presumed dead along with the rest of the Winged Riders and Kingsguard remaining in the city.

Sergeant Hughes is now on a mission to round up every Kingsguard and able-bodied adult around the empire and return in force to retake the capital. Captain Mollen agrees to escort her on her mission and help lead the assault, though the thought of acting as a general terrifies her.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Marie Mollen led three of her Winged Riders down the road, hoping to distract the soldiers and keep them off Sergeant Hughes. They successfully trick the enemy soldiers into chasing them, and dispatch them before they can escape back to the capital. A wolf the size of a horse comes leaping out of the Red Forest to stop an escaping enemy soldier, then disappears back into the woods. Marie suspects it was Jonathan, Changed into the wolf she and Renee know him to be capable of becoming.

Before they rejoin Captain Renee Mollen, they discover evidence of the enemy soldiers possibly serving the Totemic Gods, one of which is a cougar.

On to Part Four!

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The Wings Take Shape

Part Four – Madness
by Rick Cook Jr.

Jonathan stalked the bloody wood as Swiftstrike, his throat raw and his stomach empty after what he had done to that soldier. He had deserved it, surely. He was the enemy.

And yet the taste of his blood was sticky in Jonathan’s mouth, coating his muzzle, and he dry-heaved against the forest floor yet again. He had never killed a man before. And it had been so easy.

So very easy.

He was almost back. Just a little farther. But suddenly he felt woozy, dropping to the loamy earth. Continue reading →