The Quicksilver Wyrm
The Quicksilver Wyrm
Do creepy crawlies make your spine tingle? Well, get ready for the Quicksilver Wyrms… one bite induces madness and death. They are the latest weapon deployed by Hitler's magical forces against Britain. How do you defend the country against an army that can be smuggled ashore in a shoebox.
The year is 1943. In every corner of Britain armies are preparing for the great invasion of Europe but the enemy is still fighting back with its own emerging technologies.
Extract:
Anna-Lise Baldour wished that her brothers would go to hell. They’d done nothing today except tease her about her experiments. They were too dumb to see that her fine control of magic was anything other than a game. They thought that magic was all about blasting things apart using fireballs. Not that any of them could manage more than a single fireball at a time and even that would leave them reeling from the reaction. She’d never even tried to blast something apart, no her expertise was in the detail. Only her father appreciated her skill. He was the finest sword-smith in all Austria and his weapons were rightly world famous. Even normals sought him out for his skills. He had a reputation for making superbly balanced weapons that never broke and kept their edge long after lesser blades had dulled so that they could hardly slice butter.
Swords were reserved for menfolk, she was only allowed to work on razors, but the market for even special swords was dwindling. Most soldiers preferred guns and it was only the old guard who kept swords and even they only used them on ceremonial occasions. However, every male needed a razor and, like her father’s swords, her razors were legendary. They seemed to keep their edge for months no matter how rough their treatment; they could be tossed in a bag, wet, soapy and uncleaned and left for days without being stropped and they would still give the closest shave to even the most tangled beard. It was her delicate manipulation of the fine structure of the metal at the blade’s edge that made her razors the best, and people, well men, paid handsomely to own one of her blades. Besides, razors were always going missing, there was a steady demand for them, unlike swords, so Anna-Lise was proud that it was her skills that helped keep the family fortune sound.
Right at that moment though, she couldn’t have cared less about the money. If she could only blot out her stupid brothers, this time she might succeed. For the thousandth time she concentrated on the glass of sugar solution in front of her. She narrowed her thoughts down until her whole being was concentrated on a single point within the liquid, She gathered her strength and held her breath and twisted the tiny molecular seed that she’d found. She watched with her magical senses as it started to grow. “Oh no!” she sensed it becoming asymmetric as it had hundreds of times before and clamped down with her thoughts. The growth stopped, stabilised then continued. Anna-Lise was sweating profusely and her breathing was becoming laboured but she was determined to hold on this time.
After ten minutes she was shaking uncontrollably and she collapsed into a heap across the table. Her hand flew out and dashed the glass beaker to one side spilling its contents. A shape slid along the smooth wood on it’s cushioning layer of liquid. It was a perfectly-formed, perfectly-clear crystal about two inches on each side… the shape of things to come.
Anna-Lise Baldour wished that her brothers would go to hell. They’d done nothing today except tease her about her experiments. They were too dumb to see that her fine control of magic was anything other than a game. They thought that magic was all about blasting things apart using fireballs. Not that any of them could manage more than a single fireball at a time and even that would leave them reeling from the reaction. She’d never even tried to blast something apart, no her expertise was in the detail. Only her father appreciated her skill. He was the finest sword-smith in all Austria and his weapons were rightly world famous. Even normals sought him out for his skills. He had a reputation for making superbly balanced weapons that never broke and kept their edge long after lesser blades had dulled so that they could hardly slice butter.
Swords were reserved for menfolk, she was only allowed to work on razors, but the market for even special swords was dwindling. Most soldiers preferred guns and it was only the old guard who kept swords and even they only used them on ceremonial occasions. However, every male needed a razor and, like her father’s swords, her razors were legendary. They seemed to keep their edge for months no matter how rough their treatment; they could be tossed in a bag, wet, soapy and uncleaned and left for days without being stropped and they would still give the closest shave to even the most tangled beard. It was her delicate manipulation of the fine structure of the metal at the blade’s edge that made her razors the best, and people, well men, paid handsomely to own one of her blades. Besides, razors were always going missing, there was a steady demand for them, unlike swords, so Anna-Lise was proud that it was her skills that helped keep the family fortune sound.
Right at that moment though, she couldn’t have cared less about the money. If she could only blot out her stupid brothers, this time she might succeed. For the thousandth time she concentrated on the glass of sugar solution in front of her. She narrowed her thoughts down until her whole being was concentrated on a single point within the liquid, She gathered her strength and held her breath and twisted the tiny molecular seed that she’d found. She watched with her magical senses as it started to grow. “Oh no!” she sensed it becoming asymmetric as it had hundreds of times before and clamped down with her thoughts. The growth stopped, stabilised then continued. Anna-Lise was sweating profusely and her breathing was becoming laboured but she was determined to hold on this time.
After ten minutes she was shaking uncontrollably and she collapsed into a heap across the table. Her hand flew out and dashed the glass beaker to one side spilling its contents. A shape slid along the smooth wood on it’s cushioning layer of liquid. It was a perfectly-formed, perfectly-clear crystal about two inches on each side… the shape of things to come.
