Sorry, sorry, sorry to my two faithful readers for having to break my covenant with you. I thought I could finish Penumbra before November 30th, but the problem is I am now in New Zealand until the end of the month, and my time here is limited, and I have a lot of family and friends to see in a small bracket of time, so I don't have a lot of spare time to devote to writing. The book will be fini ...

It is worth considering at this time that, for the people of Alys' world, hell was not some abstract concept, or some faraway place. They did not follow the sun for no reason. Their hell chased them continuously, as they in turn chased it. It was the place where the criminal and infirm, those who could not stay on the great circle, were sent to be punished. The place where nightmares dwelt, when t ...

The heat from the burning tower seared one side of Alys' face, even as the other side stayed cold against the night. She looked about frantically, trying to think of a way out of her predicament. Below her and to her left the tower continued to burn, spreading across the now-shattered wood of the tower. Within minutes the fire would spread to the remains of the turret she clung to, if it already h ...

With the exception of a few bowmen manning the windows, Alys was soon left alone in the mess, as each and every warrior had scrambled up or down the ladders, each according to his role in the line of battle. Rogan and her father had gone to the stable level, each barking orders at their men as they did. Before he had left, Rogan had grasped his sister by the shoulders. ...

Borin was hurled to the dewy grass of the penumbra, crying out as his knees and bound hands hit the ground roughly. He was weeping without shame, and had been stripped of his Frontiersman's uniform. Keleth, Lord of Arms and fist of the King, stood over him. He was not dressed in armour any finer than all other warriors of the realm, but he had a presence and authority about him that hung like an ...

When Alys came to, shaking nightmares of fingers and teeth out of her hair like cobwebs, she found that she was in a small, single bed, in a small room with a curtain for a door. The gentle rocking motion of the room told her immediately that she was in one of the watchtowers, and a quick glimpse at the terrainpassing by out of a small window by the bed confirmed this. Alys felt slightly queasy bu ...

Traveling North along the line of the Frontier, the sun neither set nor raised, a burning orange sky burst through the trees and hills to Alys' left, while to her right lay the eerie void of the night. To Alys, it seemed as though a great cliff lay just beyond her view, dropping off the edge of the world to an endless fall. Or worse- that she was already sideways on the cliff itself and it was the ...

The soft tolling of a bell and the heady scent of straw was the first thing Alys registered when she awoke in the tower for the third time. She had spent much longer there than she had first intended, but also realized that she had been travelling to the Frontier for well over two moons, and her body had been holding back much of its weariness from her- now that she had an opportunity to rest, all ...

Thick hooves beat the hard ground as Atrius swept towards the approaching darkness. Alys, who had never before known the true absence of light, was surprised to find that her eyes were adjusting to the dimness of the penumbra. Whilst what surrounded her was a colourless world, she began to become aware of a variety of greys within the darkness, and she soon found that she could see quite well in t ...

Night was falling. Dark fingers of shadow stretched out from the bases of the twisted trees on the horizon, deep fissures of emptiness crawling slowly away from the setting sun. It was almost as if the trees, in their slow cycle of death, were leaking bitter sap into the earth below, to have it infect the earth, seep through the tundra and spread like a virus through the surrounding hills. Mergin ...