This summer and fall I’ve got a full plate of original novels in development, I hope to have four out by the end of the year in fact. Some of them are familiar to at least some of you, Heart of Matter and On Silver Wings have been made available on the group in varying forms in the past for example. One, I’m sure you all know VERY well. SEAL Team 13 will be making it’s first strike against the darkness that dwells beyond the veil this summer…
The fourth is one many of you probably don’t know about, so I thought I’d share a little snippet from the book that I think will start one of my most epic narratives yet. I’d appreciate comments, in fact if I get them then you’ll probably get more snippets in the future. 
The pic above is just a cool theme image I found on deviant art, it doesn’t have anything to do with the novel, just has that roman theme. 
Check out the artist here.
Bronze carved the Empire. Gold made it legend. Now, in the second century, STEAM will rule the world.
Steam Legion
Alexandria was burning.
The normally soft flickers of the oil lamps and wood fires that lit the ancient city by night had been replaced by the harsh and angry red flashes of fires burning out of control. The city Garrison had fallen quickly, not being ready for the fierce invasion of the rebelling Jewish armies. The rebels against the empire had moved swiftly, taking towns and villages along the way, and managed to outrun the Roman messengers who should have brought warning.
The Legions of Rome were nowhere to be found.
With rebellions across the empire to be put down the normally quiet coast of Egypt was of lower concern to the empire, and the famed legions had been arrayed to the East where the rebels were thicker, and to the north along the borders in Gaul. On the strategic board it was a sensible move, however the enemies of the empire played those games too.
The streets were alternately deserted by places, and filled with fighting in others, bands of roaming thugs in military dress roving through the defeated city, pillaging, looting, and burning to their dark heart’s content. Near the famed University of Alexandria and it’s adjoined Library, one such band paused only briefly to slaughter the handful of guards the institution maintained before pushing through the gates and into the campus beyond.
They had not travelled far before they came upon a young woman walking brusquely across the campus, obviously intent on her destination. She didn’t see them until they fell on her, dragging her to the ground in their blood thirsty glee.
Had they been less drunk on the blood and carnage they were visiting on the city they may have noticed that, while surprised, she did not yell out even as they tore the tunic from her back. They didn’t even note that the tunic had obviously been imported from Cairo, and was clearly of a finer weave of cloth than any of them had ever seen, let alone worn.
Had they noted those two things they wouldn’t have cared, other than to be pleased at the chance to enjoy themselves with the daughter of some Roman noble. Perhaps with a little more sense in their blood addled minds one or two of them would have noted that the gleam in her eyes was not fear, but repressed rage as they groped at her now bared breasts and fought to divest her of her leggings.
She didn’t scream, nor cry, nor struggle as they tore at the coarser cloth of her pants, fighting each other to be the first to bare her ass to their sight. Stoically she bore it without visible emotion, until one of them finally turned just enough as he grabbed at her breast and groped her crotch roughly. Her slim hand wrapped itself around his pommel, the one attached to his sword and not the one he was currently thinking with, and then she made her first sound since the surprised gasp at being tackled.
Her scream of rage startled them, they’d become accustomed to her cooperation, and the blade slid free of the man’s belt in a vicious arc that bisected one of his friend’s belly in an instant. The wounded man screamed himself, wailing in surprise and pain as he tried to hold in his intestines and fell back on his ass in shock. Around him his friends made what would be the last mistake of their lives.
The froze and fell back on shock.
In an instant she was on her feet, blade ringing in the air as she spun it about and brought it down through the shoulder of a second man. His arm was disconnected from his body, save for a ragged length of flesh hardly able to hold the weight of the now dead arm.
Some intelligence won over in that moment and the men instantly put more distance between them ad her, keeping out of reach of her captured sword as they drew their own weapons again and angrily glared on her as her near nude body gleamed slightly in the reflected light of the burning buildings of Alexandria.
“You shouldn’t have done that, girl.” One said, taking the leadership of his group, angrily staring at the woman who had slaughtered two of his friends. “We may have let you live when we were done.”
She glared back at them coldly, eyes barely acknowledging their existence as human beings.
“I am Dyna of Sparta, daughter of the Agiad line, and there are only three conditions upon which you will ever touch my body with your rotted members.” She snarled, a now clear fury showing in her face. “First, if I permit you, which not even your bastard God has the power to demand of me with any surety of success…”
“Woman, Blaspheme against the one true God at peril of your immortal soul…!” He took a step forward, halting as the sword swung in his direction.
“Two.” She said, as if he hadn’t spoken, “If you should win my hand in marriage… a feat I assure you that none of your filthy band has either the intestinal nor scrotal fortitude to even attempt.”
The men spread out, their weapons warily waving ahead of them as they moved to surround her. The leader sneered at her, trying to distract her attention from their motions, “And the third way?”
She looked at him as if he were the lowest form of mobility on the face of the world, “Third, is if you defile my cooling… rotting… corpse!”
Dyna spoke the last three words deliberately, with dripping derision for her audience, but as the last word snapped from her lips she lifted her captured short blade and charged. The leader of the thuggish band stumbled back in shock as she drove straight into him, the slightly tanned flesh of her body almost hiding the lethal intent of her motion from his mind.
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Whoot!
Ok. This, I want to see more of.
It’s my kind of awesome.
So. Fracking. Cool.
Roman Steampunk. The ultimate fusion of coolness. This MUST continue!