Words from Days 7-11 - Lunar Wolves: The Unwanted

I've been a little bit quiet...and a little bit busy, trying to write enough to finish this novel by the end of next week, despite two days of a scant thousand apiece. What can I say? Life happens. Still, that finish might still happen. We'll see. I've hit the middle and we're on the downhill run.

In the meantime, here are the stats from the last five days:

Starting Words: 14,400

Finishing Words: 41,620

Words Written: 27,220

Other Words: 0

Other Project/Project Aspects Advanced: 2

Excerpt: In which Oliver and Lewis arrange an escape attempt and learn that some folk aren't everything they seem:

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“And how far out of orbit will the Damsel be, then?” Oliver asked.

“She lifts in twelve hours. You caught us prepping the final load.” The farmer cocked his head. “Good timing that.”

Oliver wasn’t so sure, but he wasn’t going to argue the point.

“You’re going to smuggle us aboard?”

The farmer nodded. “You got it. How do you feel about dry stasis?”

Both Oliver and Lewis came out of their seats, pivoting to stand back-to-back.

The farmer raised an eyebrow.

“Is that a no?”

“It’s a ‘last time my friend almost died and I’d rather throw myself on Odyssey’s mercy than have that happen again’,” Oliver replied.

“And you?”

“I came close, but didn’t get hit as hard,” Oliver told him truthfully.

“So, are you weres or lupari?” the farmer asked, and Oliver’s mouth almost twitched into a smile.

“Yes,” he said, going on to explain at the farmer’s confused frown. “We are both.”

“Oh, that’s not good.” The farmer frowned and looked over at the men behind the window.

The man who’d spoken before shrugged. “I’ve got two coffin crates we can use,” he said, “but they’ll be hard to replace.”

Coffin crates? Oliver and Lewis exchanged glances.

The farmer laughed. “You boys are a bit young to remember the Zanzibar Knights so I won’t bore you with ancient history, but ‘coffin crates’ was their term for time-decay stasis pods.”

Time-decay stasis… Oliver looked from the farmer to Lewis. Finally, he managed to clear his throat.

“Uh…how old…?”

“They’re still inside their use-by,” the farmhand reassured him and Oliver resisted the urge to ask him how much by. Anything was better than another dose of Suspensis.

The farmer gave him a broad smile that made him want to change his mind…except it was too late.

The sound of a door opening behind them, had them both turning, but feathered darts slammed into their chests with shocking accuracy and the drug punching through their veins was fast-acting. Oliver had enough time to blink before he fell—and that was all.

The farmer’s words chased him down into the dark.

“D’you think they know?”

The answer floated after it, haunting his sleep.

“Not a hope in Hades heart.”

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Thanks must go to my cover artists, from left to right: Mihaela Voicu, Jake at JCaleb Design, and Moonchild Ljilja at Fantasy Book Design.