Today I am so pleased to welcome J. Scott Coatsworth to Joyfully Jay. Scott has come to talk to us about his latest release, The Death Bringer. Please join me in giving a big welcome!
Exclusive Excerpt
“It’s time.” Triya put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you ready?”
Desla shook her head and laughed harshly. “How could I be?” She was no warrior. She’d planned for a life of study in the Temple, of helping others. She’d gone through physical training like the other initiates, but combat had never been her strong point. At best, she’d hoped to land a place in the Temple archives with Sister Tela.
Triya stared at her, apparently waiting for a better answer.
She looked away. “I’ll be all right.” Right. And the Temple’s made of gull feathers.
“Good.” Triya squeezed her shoulder. “Just do what we planned. Let’s get into place.”
She took some small comfort in Triya’s certainty.
“Does anyone care if I’m ready?” Spin stuck a small silver finger out of her shirt pocket. The little imp sounded halfway between aggrieved and frightened.
“You’ll be fine. Just stay put.” She was still trying to reconcile the idea of a full-grown man being stuffed inside Spin’s silver shell.
They’d constructed a couple of short walls just inside the cavern using rocks from the gully. They were solid enough, if less than a meter high, but Desla doubted they’d last through any sustained attack. And of course they’d be useless against the fireflies. Not that they had any idea what exactly was coming.
The rumbling was growing steadily, and it was now an ear-assaulting roar. She slipped behind the wall on the right, settling in next to Em.
Over the last twenty-four hours, they’d gotten to know each other better. The woman had grown up in Dalney, on the north coast. She’d fled the small-town life to take up with Triya’s caravan half a dozen years before, and had been with her ever since.
Her relationship with Mes was a newer thing.
She had seen it between them, the connection. She’d wondered more than once, if they were sisters.
“You all right?” There was concern in Em’s eyes, visible in the wrinkles around her eyes even in the cavern’s dim light.
She snorted. “Are you?” She sniffed her arm. It smelled like rotting fruit.
Em grinned. “Would it matter if I wasn’t?”
She bit her lip. Em had a point. It’s coming no matter what we do. “I guess not.”
On the other side of the cavern, Triya and Mes crouched, watching the darkness warily together.
The buzzing increased in volume, and the light in the tunnel changed. It was brighter, a pink glow, shading into red, and it was coming from deeper within the mountain.
Her eyes met Es’s, and as one they crouched behind the makeshift barrier.
Then, chaos.
The world exploded in red light.
Swarms of fireflies poured out of the depths of the tunnel, flowing over the rock barriers like a red tide all around them, the buzz like the sound of an orinth nest.
Desla slumped behind the wall, rolling over on her back to watch at the crimson river that filled the air above, praying that the bandy fruit worked. “Holy hencha.”
Em squeezed her hand.
The fireflies flowed steadily past, leaving them mostly untouched. A couple slammed into her bandy-smeared boots, but they fell to the ground harmlessly, their lights dimming and flaring out.
She squished them with her heel.
The flood tide continued, a massive outflux of the little creatures. Where were they all coming from? Is this happening all over? What’s down in the mountain’s heart?
She held up a hand tentatively, and the stream parted around her pulp-covered hand.
Still, they kept coming. She put her hands over her ears as the sound reached a crescendo and the tunnel floor shook as if in synchrony with the swarm.
She feared for her world. For the Heartland, for Gullton and Devon. For Silya and her parents and all the women in the Temple. If this was just a fraction of the host that was being sent against the rest of Tharassas …
There wasn’t enough bandy fruit in all the world to protect everyone.
She glanced over at Em. The woman’s face was stoic as always, but beneath her stony expression lay fear.
Blurb
AIK WILL NEVER BE THE SAME… AND NEITHER WILL HIS WORLD
War is coming. Aik has become the Progenitor, and the Seed Mother has released him to transform the world for her alien brood. Silya and Raven, Aik’s former friends, are the only ones who can save him and the world. But what if the cure is worse than the invasion?
As Silya rushes to prepare Gullton for the battle to come, she’s determined to save as many people as she can. But new crises emerge that demand her attention.
Raven has his own hands full, keeping the dragon-like verent in line, while helping Silya to save the world. But what if the only way to do so is to sacrifice Aik, the man that he loves?
It’s the end of the world … or could it be the start of something new?
Series Blurb:
The Tharassas Cycle is a four book sci-fantasy series set on the recently colonized world of Tharassas. When humans first arrived on planet, they thought they were alone until the hencha mind made itself known. But now a new threat has arisen to challenge both humankind and their new allies on this alien world.
Universal Buy Link: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/book/the-death-bringer/
Bio
Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.
He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, Liminal Fiction, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and was the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for almost three years.
