The Trellborg Monstrosities

By John Houlihan

It is 1943 and the war hangs on a knife edge. Set free by a leading Nazi occultist, an ancient evil stirs in the snowy fastnesses of the Norwegian border, threatening to unleash an artefact which could not only alter the course of the war, but the fate of humanity itself. A band of brave resistance fighters and a crack team of Allied special forces combine to plunge deep behind enemy lines to confront this ancient horror. Yet is their strange civilian adviser, the mysterious Mister Seraph, truly on the side of the angels or pursuing some dark agenda of his own? Can the fearful Trellborg terror even be defeated by mere mortal men?

“A wonderfully evocative tale of blood, bullets and ice.” David J Rodger

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Houlihan
• Release date: Jun 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463833650

John Houlihan

John Houlihan has been a writer, journalist and broadcaster for over twenty five years, working in news, sport and videogames. He has been employed by The Times, Sunday Times and Cricinfo and is the former Editor-in-Chief of Computer and Video Games.com. He currently works for Modiphius Entertainment as a narrative designer and editor, as well being a video game consultant and script writer.His first novel was Tom or The Peepers’ and Voyeurs’ Handbook and he has also written The Trellborg Monstrosities, The Crystal Void, Tomb of the Aeons and Before the Flood in his Seraph Chronicles series (also collected in Tales of the White Witchman: Volume One). The Trellborg Monstrosities is also a game scenario for Call of Cthulhu and Savage Worlds which is published by Modiphius. He is also the writer of the Achtung! Cthulhu: Tactics videogame.He has published The Cricket Dictionary, a modern guide to the words, phrases and sayings of the greatest of games and has also edited a collection of short stories called Dark Tales from the Secret War which is set in the Achtung! Cthulhu universe. Other work includes contributions to sci-fi anthologies like The Hotwells Horror & Other Stories and Flash - A Celebration of Short Fiction.Away from the written word he has an unnatural fondness for cricket, football, snowboarding, cycling, music, playing guitar and all forms of sci-fi, fantasy and horror. He has an unnatural dread about writing about himself in the third person and currently lives in his home town of Watford in the UK, because, well frankly, someone has to.For latest news and information see http://www.John-Houlihan.net or follow @johnh259 on Twitter

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John Houlihan has been a writer, journalist and broadcaster for over twenty five years, working in news, sport and especially videogames. He has been employed by The Times, Sunday Times and Cricinfo and is the former Editor-in-Chief of Computer and Video Games.com and Dragon+ the official Dungeons and Dragons magazine.

His first novel was Tom or The Peepers' and Voyeurs' Handbook and he has also written The Trellborg Monstrosities and the further adventures of the mysterious Mister Seraph in The Crystal Void, Tomb of the Aeons and Before the Flood. The Trellborg Monstrosities has also been converted into a game scenario for Call of Cthulhu and Savage Worlds.

He has also written two entries in The d’Bois Escapades series The Crystal Void (Illustrated Version) and Feast of the Dead, Cthulhu-inspired high adventure during the age of Napoleon. He has also edited a collection of short stories called Dark Tales from the Secret War, and published The Cricket Dictionary, a collection of phrases and sayings from the greatest of all games.

Away from the written word he has an unnatural fondness for cricket, football, snowboarding, cycling, music, playing guitar and all forms of sci-fi, fantasy and horror. He has an unnatural dread about writing about himself in the third person and currently lives in his home town of Watford in the UK, because, well frankly, someone has to.

For latest news and information see http://www.John-Houlihan.net or follow @johnh259 on Twitter

Cover Illustration by Borja Pindado who is a freelance illustrator living in Madrid with his wife and his daughter. He spends most of his time drawing on his computer fantasy art and comics, drinking coca-cola, listening to music and, from time to time, collaborating with other artists. You can see his portfolio at borjapindado.com.

Cover Design and typography by Mark Mitchell who is a graphic Designer and Illustrator based in London.

Also by John Houlihan

Tom or the Peepers' and Voyeurs' Handbook

The Seraph Chronicles

The Trellborg Monstrosities

The Crystal Void

Tomb of the Aeons

Before the Flood

The Seraph Chronicles Volume One: Tales of the White Witchman

Dark Tales from the Secret War (as Editor)

The d’Bois Escapades

The Crystal Void (Illustrated Version)

Feast of the Dead

The d’Bois Escapades Volume 1

The Cricket Dictionary

The Trellborg Monstrosities is copyright © 2012 JOHN HOULIHAN

Published by Jolly Big Publishing

All rights reserved.

Written by JOHN HOULIHAN

All rights reserved, no reproduction in any form or media without written permission please (it'll usually be forthcoming for polite requests via the website). Remember copyright and digital theft robs artists of a chance to earn their livelihood, support them by being proud to buy! Especially if you want to read any sequels.

This is a work of fiction, any resemblance to any person living or dead is entirely coincidental. John Houlihan is the author of this work of fiction.

Thanks

Special thanks to Borja Pindado for his superb cover art, which has brought Seraph to such vivid, spectacular life

Special thanks too to Mark Mitchell, the Grey Falcon, for his splendid typography and expert designer's eye.

For my mother

The Trellborg Monstrosities

by

John Houlihan

Dipping a Toe

"Six of us came out, now I alone remain and it shan’t be long before this bitter cold claims me too. I will be glad, for even if by some chance these wounds aren't the death of me, after the things I have witnessed tonight, I’m not sure I wish to live anymore.

It began as it had many times before on a moonless night in early '43. Four stalwart lads of the Section and I, plus our rather unsettling guest, pushed off from the deck of the submarine HNoMS Uredd launching our three fragile canvas canoes Badger, Fox, and Otter into the rolling swells of the Norwegian Sea.

Our destination was clear enough, a small village called Trellborg, some forty miles east of Tromso on the Norwegian-Finnish border, but our mission was an altogether murkier affair. Even though the briefing had been relatively straightforward, our objective most certainly was not. 'Escort Mister Seraph to a rendezvous with the Norwegian resistance and en route render him every assistance possible' is a definitive, but hardly enlightening set of orders. When I raised it with the Brigadier, he merely shrugged, confided 'mum's the word' and indicated that I would get nothing more.

I'm a bluff, plain speaking kind of cove myself, but from the very beginning I was uneasy about our mysterious Mister Seraph. Not only was he apparently a civilian with little training, which meant we'd have to nursemaid him through hostile territory, but something about his otherworldly manner, long, almost unnaturally white hair and penetrating eyes was distinctly unnerving. He wasn’t much to look at considering, being pale, thin and dressed in an eccentric mix of military and civilian clobber topped off by a long, rather shabby looking cloak. His fey, cryptic responses grated almost instantly and I felt this might be a very long mission indeed. Still, orders were orders and they came from the very top which meant we had no choice in the matter, though I took little comfort from the Brigadier’s reassurance that, ‘Mister Seraph is most assuredly on the side of the angels.’

Our paddles bit through the waves as behind us the Uredd slunk below the surface and with the moon playing peek-a-boo with the clouds, we were soon approaching the enemy-held coastline. The gods were kind that night and although fearsomely cold, the sea was as tranquil as I have ever seen her as we slowly reduced the distance to the main entrance to the fjord.

The Uredd had dropped us off in the relatively sheltered waters between the mountainous isles of Vannra and Arnøya, about as close as it could reasonably manage with any safety, but even then we had little intelligence on enemy marine concentrations in the area, which worried me more than a little. There could be anything waiting for us out there and we had a long hard physical slog ahead of us until we reached the relative safety of dry land and we'd have to do it before dawn crept across this bleak part of world and caught us exposed on the open water.

Ahead, Fox and Otter under Sergeant Jones and Corporal Bennett were making good time and I glanced quickly behind me to see how Seraph was faring. But he seemed to be matching me stroke for stroke with perfect timing and he gave a curt nod, to acknowledge my unasked question. Perhaps I'd underestimated the man? We paddled on in silence.

For the first couple of hours, everything went better than could be expected and our canoes cut through the icy waters with barely a murmur. Ice floes and small bergs gleamed in the sporadic moonlight and in that vast empty water, surrounded by snow-capped peaks we could have been paddling towards the very end of the world. We were almost at the mouth of the great Lynengen fjord, when Bennett's urgent voice drifted across the water in the pre-arranged signal, Broadsword! Broadsword! I followed his gaze to the east, where about two miles away, a German cruiser had emerged, steaming its way through a channel into the sound.

If it held course it would be upon us very soon and I tried to remain calm and think rationally. If