Ko-don Chronicles | Maro’s Third Outing
Taking a peek at the cards
LORE ARCHIVE | ATAR
THE BOOK OF INTOLERANCE | THE SACRAL COMPENDIUM
If your enemies live, they will come after you until blood is spilt; if peace cannot be made, and bread cannot be broken, then ensure you dine alone by sundown.
It’s been a while since we saddled up with Maro, Atar’s most jaded bounty hunter. The brimstones are calling for no mercy, just blood, and we’ve got to feed them.
Maro’s journey is a long one, and we’re still in his infancy on the way to that fabled land of manhood. It’s not so much a destination, but a quiet announcement of arrival, a slow revelation that comes with hard decisions. Well…several in this novella.
Justice spurred him to action to save a little girl from a fate worse than death in Red Cerek. Taking out the entire Lanton gang was an added bonus, and it helped kickstart his legend. Hope and eagerness made him team up with a fellow bounty hunter in Bloodbane, and it almost cost him his life. Both of these incidents shaped him into the man he’s becoming. Lessons were learned along the journey, and sometimes, they soaked in the hard way.
As stated in earlier posts, with each of these novellas, I’m trying to hit a different subgenre within my grimdark, weirdwest fantasy series. The first one was just a straight-up revenge tale. The second was an intense, comedy-horror, and I think it worked well. This time around, we’re hitting the old heist genre with a fish-out-of-water twist. But how can Maro stack up against people who come with a plan? He’s a man of grit, kinetic energy, and determination, but what happens when he can’t predict the next move? And what if it’s an inside job, and one that might be a little too close to him? Maybe a valuable lesson is: don’t trust anybody.
We’re taking Maro out of his element of the trails, dead bodies, gunpowder, and stale britches, and plopping him down with the hoi poloi. Rubbing elbows with the gilded class goes about as well as storing fertilizer in the larder: it stinks to high heaven, and everyone’s searching for an escape.
We’ve got the Wanted Poster, so let’s see what’s the rub…