No Escape

By Noel Coughlan

A desperate warrior carries a baby girl across a foreign desert. Although truth and honor are tattooed on his face, Tharo has abandoned both virtues in his quest to protect his charge. But it’s only a matter of time before he fails her. Another man stalks them, a hunter no prey can escape, the dreaded Souldiviner.

A seven thousand word short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noel Coughlan
• Release date: Jan 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781910206140

Noel Coughlan

My name is Noel Coughlan. I am married and have a daughter. I live in the west of Ireland.From a young age, I was always writing a book. Generally, the first page over and over. Sometimes, I even reached the second page before I had shredded the entire copy book.In my teenage years, I wrote some poetry, some of which would make a Vogon blush.When I was fourteen, I had a dream. It was of a world where the inhabitants believed that each hue of light was a separate god, and that matter was simply another form of light.I tinkered with the idea for a couple of decades, putting together mythologies, histories, maps etc. but world building isn't worth much without a gripping story. And then I finally found one, a tale so compelling I had to write it, The Golden Rule Duology.I also write other fantasy, science fiction, and horror stories.

Book preview

NO ESCAPE

by Noel Coughlan

NO ESCAPE

Copyright © 2017 Noel Coughlan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover by Ivan Cakic

Edited by Proofed to Perfection

Published by Photocosmological Press

Epub Edition: ISBN:978-1-910206-14-0

NO ESCAPE

Crouched behind a clump of rusty bushes, Tharo stroked his sunken cheeks. Remembering the lies tattooed in white on his green-black skin—honor on the left cheek, truth on the right—he dropped his hand. In the evening light, beneath two marbled moons, red Ruis and white Neor, a traveler and his mule trod across the blushing dunes toward him. Tharo primed his crossbow with his last bolt and waited for them to draw closer.

The weapon would serve to deter his victim from a fight he could not possibly win. Tharo needed the mule, but he had no desire to kill for it. In the distant highlands, his tattoos—the marks of an elite Warserk of the Kaplar Empire—would have cowed all but the most foolhardy into submission, but here in this foreign land, the crossbow proved to be a better threat.

He winced as a hot, dusty breeze tickled his face and flapped the empty sling against his battered breastplate. Please, gods, halt this infernal wind before it wakes the princess! An eerie stillness immediately settled over the desert. A coincidence—that was all. Tharo’s gods had abandoned him long ago.

Eh eh eh.

He looked down at the little, green-black face peeping out of the dusty, red bundle of swaddling. The blue-green jadeite tear on her forehead gleamed in the evening light. Shush, Drinith.

The baby whimpered. Any moment now, she would bawl.

Holding the crossbow in one hand, Tharo waved at her. Shush, please. They needed the mule to evade the souldiviner hunting them, to drag