Extract from MR. SANDMAN

The priest laid his hands down on top of hers, hard, and she flinched and tried to pull away, but he took hold of her hands, gripping them tightly. His voice was low, but clear. “My dear, you must remember that old saying, ‘be careful what you wish for’, yes? You must think carefully now before you tell me anything else. I want to help you, but please let me be clear. This is not a game.” He released the grip on her hands and let her pull away.

The smell of the burning oil was cloying now, clinging to her clothes, her hair. Trapped in her nostrils. She was too hot, but a feeling of unease was trickling down her spine like a long, icy finger.

The priest started to make a humming sound, a low drone coming from deep in his chest. His eyes were closed; his palms flat on the velvet tablecloth once more. She thought about running out of the tent, running past Matthew, finding a backstreet pub and getting drunk on the local ale with a bunch of strangers. She wanted to be away, anywhere from here. But when she tried to stand up, it was as if she had been glued to the chair, and the chair to the floor—and trying to move was an impossible task. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. The sounds from outside were gone now, drowned out by the priest’s throaty drone and the whooshing of blood in her ears, her heart thumping hard in her chest. Terror squeezed her tight, and she thought that she might pass out from the weight of it all, and then the priest’s eyes flew open—huge and wide and bright . . . and the humming stopped.

She felt her body slump in the chair, released from the invisible bonds that had kept her there. But now, as the fear slid away, she felt light and free—and she didn’t want to run away at all.

From BROKEN THINGS: A Tale of Durstan

The first that Nok knew of the homunculus was not the light pitter-patter of its leafy wings, nor the high-pitched chirrup it issued as it entered her sleep lodge, but the violent jab of its stick finger deep inside her ear.

She erupted from beneath the furs with a howl of pain, swatting at the detestable thing. It made a brief attempt to avoid her wild swings, skirling crazily, before finally seeming to give up and allow her to snatch it out of the air, its purpose now concluded.
Her ear still hot with pain, Nok sat, heart pounding, until the homunculus had finally stopped thudding around inside the loose cage of her fist. Then, blinking gummy sleep from her eyes, she slowly unfurled her fingers to peer at the strange construct.

It had no features to speak of; no eyes, mouth, or anything resembling a head. Just a twist of thin, long-dead branches, bound with desiccated leaves and imbued with anima enough to carry out its single purpose. It squirmed in her palm, as if making ready to jab her again. With a sigh, she closed her fist tight and crushed it.

So. I’ve been summoned.

From the opening of ON THE SHOULDERS OF OTAVA

In the night, drunk men with bayonets stalk through the old churchyard wailing like trolls; a terrible, discordant sound which is supposed to be singing, but which reminds Siiri of the cries of dying men. “Them,” Ester mutters, pointing towards the window. “Men like them are the reason people think the Red Guard is full of inferior, worthless fools. And here we are, doing their goddamn jobs while they drink and whore like there’s not a fucking war on.”

None of them are refined city girls, unaccustomed to profanity, but there are those like Ester who act like it is their imperative to swear; as though a sentence is not complete without at least one perkele or saatana. As though wearing men’s clothing means that one must act exactly like a man.

Siiri rolls onto her back. The floorboards are hard, and the night is cold, and they huddle for warmth like animals; side-by-side, back to back, the scent of musty uniforms, of unwashed skin. They are a small unit, but there is precious little room for the Women’s Guard, and so they find themselves crammed into a single room of this dusty parsonage while the men lodge inside a large, empty house on the outskirts of town. They are so underprepared, all of them; even the men are mostly farm boys, or else starry-eyed Trade Unionists, a motley assortment of shoemakers and tailors and stonemasons who have only ever read about war in books. Few of them had so much as touched a gun before the war broke out, and now, all of a sudden, they are soldiers.