Sunday Spotlight: The Malaise Falchion by Paul Barrett
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The Malaise Falchion by Paul Barrett
Fantasy
The Spade Case Files (Book 1)
Publisher: Fiery Seas Publishing, LLC
November 15, 2016
Disgraced during the Demon War, Dwarf investigator Snazdaggin Kundarik (Spade to his friends) wants nothing more than a desk to sleep on, a bottle of grog to drink, and the occasional easy case for quick pay.
Then a mysterious female Elf from the posh side of town shows up and offers him exoneration for his past sins and lots of gold. All he has to do is follow her brother and report his activities. Simple, right?
He should have known better. The simple job soon spirals out of control. Spade finds himself sucked into intrigue, powerful magic, and the hunt for a weapon powerful enough to end the world. Ill-prepared, Spade forges on with the aid of his hapless sidekick and a reluctant female warrior.
Will he survive long enough to save the world and get his grog?
Chapter One
There are a hundred thousand stories in Mage City. The best ones start with a woman. Or a fight. Mine starts with a fight about a woman.
It happened on what passes for a quiet day in the North Rimside District; only two screams and one sword fight reached my ears. I sat in my second-story office, bleary-eyed, hot, and in need of a beard trimming. A half-empty bottle of Wizard Piss Grog sat on my cluttered desk. It dared me to finish it off. I accepted its challenge.
The room grew more stifling. I considered opening the shutters. The thought of sunlight and the smell of fresh-gutted Rimbird from the nearby market made my stomach clench. The office already stank of unwashed laundry and smoked meat. The first courtesy of me. The second provided by the store below my office.
I rubbed my hands across my hairy face and ran my tongue over my teeth. They felt as fuzzy as molded fruit.
Two weeks had passed since my last case; it seemed unlikely any new business would wander in this late in the afternoon. I wasn’t in the mood to hit up my usual contacts. Time for a nap.
I had just gathered a stack of unfiled parchments from my desk and rested my head on them when the office door swung open. I raised my head. Crizlyk stood in the doorway. Criz is a Sauro, the smaller, dumber version of a Lizardman. I’ve always thought assistants should be shorter and less intelligent than their boss. Being a Dwarf, I had few options. Gnomes are too damn smart and cheery. Halflings eat too much. Crizlyk listened well, didn’t smart-mouth often, and had to look up at me. And he worked cheap, which was almost what I could afford.
“What is it?” I croaked as my eyes focused on his ugly, green, long-jawed face.
“There’s an Elf here to see you,” he yipped. “Says it’s important.”
“Don’t they always,” I moaned. “Tell him I’m busy, I’ll talk to him later.”
Before Criz could obey, a black leather boot punted all three feet of him to the wall. He hit with a squeak and bounced off. A broad-shouldered figure in a chain shirt and green clothing stepped in. Not an Elf. An Orc with chalky skin, piggish eyes, and short, gold-capped tusks. Another followed. They looked like twins, but who can tell with Orcs? They took up positions on either side of the door and rested their large cudgels against their thick necks.
I had seen the Dance of the Hired Goons enough to know the routine. Sure, they wore livery. A green tabard with a gilded fern leaf proclaimed to all that they worked for Clan Greenstreet, one of the five Elf Clans in Mage City. Livery on an Orc is like flowers on horse dung: the flowers make it look better, but take them away and you’re left with shit. These two were nothing more than street thugs pretending to be bodyguards. There was a lot of that after the war. I couldn’t blame them for taking the work. It looked like they ate well, which was more than I could boast.
I scratched my scalp as they scanned the room. Satisfied I didn’t have an army hidden behind my lone bookshelf or under my threadbare rug, the grunt on the left leaned back through the door and grunted.
An Elf stepped into the room. Though they occasionally stumble onto making a decent bottle of wine, Elves don’t rank high on my list of companions. They don’t even do much for me as clients. Getting proper pay from them is harder than pulling the wings off a gargoyle. All in all, they’re a half step above useless.
This one wore the fancy silk clothes and had the mincing ways of royalty, a class that’s the definition of pointless. An Elf’s age is hard to guess. This one looked young, no more than a hundred years. Barely out of swaddling by their standards. “It smells like a troll pit in here,” he said by way of greeting.
“I’ll take your word for that, having never been in one,” I stood and placed hands on my desk to keep steady. The Wizard’s Piss was doing its job, helped by the sweltering heat. Crizlyk scurried from the floor and stood beside me. His black eyes peered over the desktop in fright.
About the Author:
Paul has lived a varied life full of excitement and adventure. Not really, but it sounds good as an opening line.
Paul’s multiple careers have included: rock and roll roadie, children’s theater stage manager, television camera operator, mortgage banker, and support specialist for Microsoft Excel.
This eclectic mix prepared him to go into his true love: motion picture production. He has produced two motion pictures and two documentaries: His film Night Feeders released on DVD in 2007, and Cold Storage was released by Lionsgate in 2010.
Amidst all this, Paul has worked on his writing, starting with his first short story, about Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, at age 8. Paul has written and produced numerous commercial and industrial video scripts in his tenure with his forcreative agency, Indievision. He has two published short stories (As You Sow and Double Cross) and one self-published novel (Godchild). He lives with his filmmaker/graphic artist partner and their three cats.
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