Please follow and like us:

Tomorow is is the summer solstice, and tonight is the full moon. This is a coincidence that doesn’t happen very often, and one I used for my first (to be published) novel, The Bones of the Earth.

I chose that because of the symbolism and mystique surrounding both the full moon and the summer solstice. The solstice, of course, is the day in the northern hemisphere with the most daylight.

And tonight is the full moon, always an event full of meaning—a great opportunity for a writer of fantasy.

The last time the full moon came the night before the summer solstice was apparently 70 years ago, so this coincidence is pretty rare. I did quite a lot of research to find when that happened during the Dark Age in Europe, and found it happened in 593 AD. This was fortuitous for a writer of fantasy: it was arguably one of the darkest years of the Dark Age, when the Western Roman Empire was a dim memory, whole nations were migrating across Western Europe, and a new group was invading Eastern Europe, the Avars—a people who made the Huns look like disorganized brush salesmen.

Perfect. For a fantasy writer.

A solstice deal

Initiation Rites, Part 1 of The Bones of the Earth, is 99 cents on Amazon and free on Smashwords. So to get your dark age fantasy on, you can get Initiation Rites for free, and this week, The Bones of the Earth is just 99 cents.

For those who like dark, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, here’s a taste:

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait until the full moon is high, Vorona chanted. Wait until magic fills the night.

They waited as Vorona’s steady drumbeat pulled the full moon over the trees.

“Mysyach,” she repeated with every drum beat. No one else spoke or even moved. They waited as Mysyach, the moon goddess, slowly revealed her face. On this warm night, they felt a promise being fulfilled: “A full moon the night before the summer solstice is a very rare event,” Vorona had said one full moon ago in this same clearing. “It is the time for young men and women to worship, to celebrate their own fertility.”  They had danced naked to Vorona’s beating drum and returned home, exhausted and expectant.

Now, one month later, the night before the summer solstice, they gathered again in the clearing. Vorona’s moonlight ceremonies were irresistible, and open only to the unmarried young adults—no children or married people allowed. Twenty such came to the clearing just before moonrise, speaking low and fast in small groups. In the middle were the most popular couple, Mrost the bully and his girlfriend Grat; the others laughed at all their jokes and never dared interrupt them.

As always, Javor was the last to arrive and stood a little apart, wondering what to do. What if they tell me to leave? he thought. He shifted his weight from foot to foot until he spotted Hrech, his only friend. Then he saw Elli talking with her two girlfriends at the side of the clearing. She is prettier than Grat, and nicer, too, he thought as usual. Why does everyone like Grat better? He wondered whether he should go to Hrech or Elli.

No one noticed Vorona arrive; she seemed to appear in the centre of the clearing. Vorona had set herself up as the village’s witch: the woman who knew about herbs and remedies, who knew who was too closely related to marry, who dispensed potions and advice about finding a lover or getting a baby. But she was no crone. Perhaps twenty years old, she had long, rich brown hair and curves that Javor had started to notice when he had turned 13. She had big, widely-spaced eyes that she accented by painting dark outlines around them, and they flashed green in daylight and strangely silver by firelight. She had high cheekbones, a delicate face, wide lips and a delicate dimple like a tiny furrow in the end of her nose.

Tonight, she wore a metal necklace and a silvery bracelet. A single piece of amber hung in the centre of her forehead, suspended from a leather band around her head. A long robe of yellow and red, woven in a fiery pattern, hung from her shoulders. The front was cut very low and Javor took a good look at the curve of her breasts in the moonlight. As she turned he could see that the robe’s skirts parted at the side, revealing not only her leg but her whole hip. His heart started to beat faster.

The moon’s lower edge cleared the tallest tree and Vorona startled them all by crying “Worship, young people!” She lifted her hands. “Mistress of the night, Mysyach, bless us tonight as we pay homage to thee!” A pyramid of wood at her feet burst into flame all at once, quickly building into a bonfire. How did she do that? Javor wondered.

“It is time, young worshippers! Join hands in a circle around the fire and begin the ceremony!” Vorona commanded, then bent her head down and crooned words Javor didn’t understand.

You can find The Bones of the Earth on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, iBooks and other e-book e-tailers.