First iteration: the Precise Steps. Into the third iteration, the Maiden’s Pass. I go under a blade, and my Conwy steel darts out, through the eye and into the brain. Fourteenth iteration: the Carter’s Surprise. I spin hand over foot across the table and land behind the last guard. He turns, slashing at me with his blade. Sixth iteration, a Meeting of Hands. I block the downward swing of his longsword.
You get the moment. In the italics he’s not consciously thinking. You get the starting point, the Precise Steps, then he thinks about the next move, the Maiden’s Pass, that’s conscious. And the move works and then he locks into it, into the muscle memory. It kind of, to me, slows the action and gives you this sense of flow, of a dancer linking together a set of moves that are second nature to them. In the book, Girton loses this: he’s put into an unfamiliar situation and it unsettles him; he has to not be everything he is. And then he has to find it again and you get that gradual rebuilding of his skills as he comes to terms with this new world he’s been pushed into.
Of course, I may just be being very pretentious. But that’s the thought behind it anyway.
What do you think are the essential elements of epic storytelling?
I have no idea. I genuinely thought I’d written a whodunnit with a bit of swordfighting and magic in it.
Many fantasy writers have been influenced by myths and folklore from different cultural heritages. Is this something that resonates with you?
Yes, although it’s mostly English folklore and some of the very early beliefs from Sumer and the Fertile Crescent that’s influenced me. There’s also some bits of Austin Osman Spare and Crowley bobbing about.
I was especially interested in woods and land as a child and this came into being (and at quite a late date) as the hedgings. I did a piece of writing for a site called Minor Literatures with an artist called Paul Watson, who uses a lot of masks to play with the idea of spirits, and it definitely started something turning. Also, I’m fascinated by David Southwell’s Hookland Guide which is an invented history of an England that could just have been.
And antlers. I’ve always had a bit of a thing about antlers. But who doesn’t?
Do you have a favourite scene in Age of Assassins? If so, why?
Yeah, a couple. Scene-wise it’s probably when he gives Rufra his sword. It’s never said, but all the way through Girton is quite lonely, really, and then you have this final confirmation of the friendship he’s longed for—they both have—in a physical gift. And of course, swords have always been powerful mythic symbols. But, and this is cheating as it’s not really a scene, I also really like Girton’s gradual realisation that his master is a person in her own right, as fragile and flawed as anyone else, not a superhero.
And Xus, the mount. I love Xus the mount.
When you aren’t writing, what do you like to do in your spare time?
Read. Daydream. Play games. Do family stuff (my son and I are currently working our way through Star Wars: Rebels). Search antique shops for particularly weird taxidermy with my wife. Buy extravagant clothes. Play badminton really badly.
Are you mainly a fantasy reader, or are there other genres that you’re partial to?
I have read a lot of fantasy but don’t tend to at the moment. Partly because I’m writing it and have a terror of unconsciously ripping people off and partly because I think if you’re coming to a party you should probably bring something, so I try and read more in other genres. I’ve always been a huge crime fan and I love history (Queen Adran came out of research on Margaret of Anjou I was doing for something else) and SF. To be honest, I’ll read anything but have a rather Dirk Gently approach and base my reading on what I’ve randomly come across rather than any particular allegiance to a genre. (And that, dear reader, is how I once ended up reading Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews, so you don’t have to.)
Actually, it’s not been asked, but I’d say music is just as big an influence on what and how I write as books are.
Without giving too much away, can you tell us a bit about what can we expect from the next novel in the series?
To save the king, kill the king.
That was cryptic wasn’t it?
I suspect Orbit might want a bit more of hook.
Okay. More murder. Girton, in full flow, the opportunity to see mounts in action. More antlers. Big battles, betrayal, intrigue and redemption.
if you enjoyed
AGE OF ASSASSINS
look out for
HOPE AND RED
The Empire of Storms: Book 1
by
Jon Skovron
In a fracturing empire spread across savage seas, two people will find a common cause.
Hope, the lone survivor when her village is massacred by the emperor’s forces, is secretly trained by a master Vinchen warrior as an instrument of vengeance.
Red, an orphan adopted by a notorious matriarch of the criminal underworld, learns to be an expert thief and con artist.
Together they will take down an empire.
1
Captain Sin Toa had been a trader on these seas for many years, and he’d seen something like this before. But that didn’t make it any easier.
The village of Bleak Hope was a small community in the cold southern islands at the edge of the empire. Captain Toa was one of the few traders who came this far south, and even then, only once a year. The ice that formed on the water made it nearly impossible to reach during the winter months.
Still, the dried fish, whalebone, and the crude lamp oil they pressed from whale blubber were all good cargo that fetched a nice price in Stonepeak or New Laven. The villagers had always been polite and accommodating, in their taciturn Southern way. And it was a community that had survived in these harsh conditions for centuries, a quality that Toa respected a great deal.
So it was with a pang of sadness that he gazed out at what remained of the village. As his ship glided into the narrow harbor, he scanned the dirt paths and stone huts, and saw no sign of life.
“What’s the matter, sir?” asked Crayton, his first mate. Good fellow. Loyal in his own way, if a bit dishonest about doing his fair share of work.
“This place is dead,” said Toa quietly. “We’ll not land here.”
“Dead, sir?”
“Not a soul in the place.”
“Maybe they’re at some sort of local religious gathering,” said Crayton. “Folks this far south have their own ways and customs.”
“’Fraid that’s not it.”
Toa pointed one thick, scarred finger toward the dock. A tall sign had been driven into the wood. On the sign was painted a black oval with eight black lines trailing down from it.
“God save them,” whispered Crayton, taking off his wool knit cap.
“That’s the trouble,” said Toa. “He didn’t.”
The two men stood there staring at the sign. There was no sound except the cold wind that pulled at Toa’s long wool coat and beard.