About the author
+ +Joe Donnelly was born in Glasgow, in Scotland, close to the + River Clyde, but at a very young age he came to live in Dumbarton, + which is some miles from the city and close to Loch Lomond, Ben + Lomond and the Scottish Highlands.
+ +At the age of 18, he decided to become a journalist and found a + job in the Helensburgh Advertiser, a local paper in a neighbouring + town where he learned the first essential of writing: how to type. + Quickly.
+ +A few years later, at the age of 22, he became editor of his + local newspaper, the Lennox Herald in Dumbarton, before moving to + the Evening Times and then the Sunday mail in Glasgow where he + became an investigative journalist.
+ +During his career he won several awards for newspaper work + including Reporter of the Year, Campaigning Journalist and Consumer + Journalist.
+ +It was while working in newspapers that he wrote his first + novel, Bane, an adult chiller, which was followed by eight + other novels, mostly set in and around the West of Scotland and + loosely based on Celtic Mythology.
+ +This was followed by Stone, The Shee, + Shrike, Still Life, Havock Junction, + Incubus and Dark Valley.
+ +Recently he decided to write for children, although he says his + books are aimed at "young people of all ages, those with some + adventure in their soul."
+ +The Book of Ways trilogy is his first venture at telling + stories for the young at heart.
+ +Joe is now working on two novels: A chiller for adults, and + another rollicking adventure for young people, based on Nordic + mythology.
+Mythlands
+ +Part 1 of the Book of Ways mythic trilogy.
+ +They are running for their lives, from a hideous dark menace. But when Jack Flint and his friend Kerry Malone + run through a ring of ancient standing stones, something happens that will change their lives.
+ +They find they have been catapulted into the ancient Celtic mythical land of Temair. And to find their way + back home, they must face the terrible dangers in this world, dangers that will threaten their lives as an + ambitious chief attempts to raise the deadly demon Morrigan to conquer Temair.
+ +But there is good in this world too. The mysterious bards, the strange forest leprechauns, and a new friend, + Corriwen Redthorn, orphan daughter of a dead lord who is prepared to fight to the death for her + birthright.
+ +Together, they will face all the dangers in a world of myth, magic and mayhem.
+1
++ The phone shuddered on his thigh, sending a jolt along the muscle like he'd plugged into a socket. Somebody always called. He was glad of it. Shona Kintyre + was bored and fiddling with the buttons on the camera. +
++ The brass were milling about and looking at their watches. Chief Constable, justice minister, that new drugs Czar who had promised to win the war and + hadn't a clue. The whole pack were shuffled here, the Mail, and Express, a couple of Sunday boys, Radio Clyde, a bimbo from TV, big hair and teeth. +
++ Tom Risk had the hand-out and wanted gone from here. He could write this from the office in ten minutes flat and get on with something worthwhile. He + fished the phone out and Shona shot him a speculative look. There was nothing for her here but a line up of heads, fake smiles. Smooth smug arrogance. +
++ "Tom, is that you?" +
++ Risk recognised the voice. Gerry Mack, the driver who had ferried him down here. He turned away from the buzz, made it to the swing door. +
++ "Talk now." +
++ "You want a story? Gerry sounded breathless. +
++ "What you got?" +
++ "What's it worth?" +
++ "I'm a mind reader?" +
++ All questions + . "I got a shot cop, that's what I got." +
++ "Shot? Where?" +
++ "In the guts, looks like. Man, he's hosing the place. He's in some state." +
++ "No Gerry, I mean where the hell is he?" +
++ "South Street. I was just heading back. You want me to get you?" +
++ "No. I got Shona's wheels. I'm only minutes away." +
++ She was still looking at him and he used his eyes to draw her across with her bag without anybody catching the gesture. The pack were like crows, scared to + miss out, always watching the moves, ready for a feeding frenzy. +
++ "Slide out quiet." +
++ "Something up?" +
++ "Sounds like." +
++ Over at the back of the reception hall where the Chief was getting ready to make a speech, one of the brass was talking into his radio. Risk saw his face + set like plaster and his eyes narrow as they flicked to his boss. In that instant he knew Gerry Mack was right on the button. He'd have to shift. +
++ Shona got them out of the new Custom House building down on the Clydeside and little Ford made it to sixty on the straight, trailing blue fumes. At the far + end of road they overtook a line of cars that had stuck behind an obstruction and then they had to stop right on the corner. Shona had the camera up and + ready. Blue lights stuttered panic urgency. Up the street somebody was bawling and a flat stench of petrol washed the air. +
++ The policeman was down in a splash of red. Ten yards away, another one was kneeling in the road, hat off, both hands up at his face. +
++ Shona's camera flashed, two quick blurts that seared the scene in his eyes. +
++ A motorbike cop was on his knees, keeping the uniformed man flat. Another one was up at the tanker where two men were yelling and hauling and a rivulet of + gasoline poured from a hose, channelled down the gutter and turned a greasy purple where it picked up some of the dirty blood. +
++ The big cop's boots drummed the bitumen and he snorted, like a bullock in a slaughterhouse that doesn't know it's dead yet, a short and helpless gulp that + was quiet and loud at the same time. It sounded bleak and deadly. +
++ "Where's the fucking ambulance?" +
++ The motorbike cop's voice was high and angry and scared. +
++ Risk reached his shoulder and looked down, ignoring the smell of petrol and blood and the odd sound of heels rattling on the ground. The younger cop was + whey- faced and paralysed with fright or shock and his hands fluttered like birds. +
++ Risk knew the man. +
++ Harry Stirling's eyes were wide and grey as the sky, pupils shrunk to points and his skin matched his eyes. The camera flashed again and every line stood + out. +
++ "What the fuck…" The motorbike cop started to swing round. +
++ "Keep pressure on that," Risk said fast. "Push hard." +
++ The bullet had gone in low, low enough to miss the heart, but it had carved its way through plenty. Blood pulsed out in slow dark heaves. Risk bulled in + and Harry's eyes swung round, glanced over him, flickered vague recognition. Risk saw the dull realisation. +
++ His mouth worked and he croaked. Pink spittle ran down his chin. +
++ "Fake." One word and then a shuddery intake of breath. +
++ "Stay still. Don't talk." +
++ "Said it was fake." The voice was just a whisper. "Gun. Not fake." +
++ The motorbike man turned round to Shona. +
++ "Get that fucking camera away." +
++ "Keep the pressure on," Risk said again. He had his tie off now and wadded it fast. Harry tried to sit up and the bike man forced him down again. +
++ "Ambulance is on its way." +
++ Risk slammed the wad of material against the pulse of blood and pressed hard, forcing his fingers in against the flow. Harry Stirling grunted again and + coughed. Up the road, sirens came dopplering higher as they hit speed below the bridge and then there were people shoving in and Risk was surrounded. +
++ "Right man. Well done. We got it." +
++ "Everybody back." A female voice. He recognised that one too. +
++ "Stick in, Harry. You'll be fine." That was a triumph of hope over evidence. +
++ The big cop's eyes were rolling up as the medics jammed the tube in his arm. +
++ "Get those people away." +
++ Risk got to his feet and turned round, his hand slick and hot. The tie dripped onto the road and he dropped it there. +
++ "Did you see what happened?" Inspector Katrine Miller had turned from the medics. White patrol cars screeched up one by one and blocked the road. She waved + her hand to the two nearest uniforms. +
++ "Clear them to the corner. Nobody gets within two hundred yards." +
++ Risk shook his head. He needed a cigarette and a drink, in any order at all. +
++ "That includes you, Risk." +
++ She turned away, head angled in to the radio, talking fast. +
++ That was it. He was out of the picture and Kate Miller was setting up a crime perimeter. +
+Contents
+-
+
- Chapter 1 +
- Chapter 2 +
- Chapter 3 +
- Chapter 4 +
- Chapter 5 +
- Chapter 6 +
- Chapter 7 +
- Chapter 8 +
- Chapter 9 +
- Chapter 10 +
- Chapter 11 +
- Chapter 12 +
- Chapter 13 +
- Chapter 14 +
- Chapter 15 +
- Chapter 16 +
- Chapter 17 +
- Chapter 18 +
- Chapter 19 +
- Chapter 20 +
- Chapter 21 +
- Chapter 22 +
- Chapter 23 +
- Chapter 24 +
- Chapter 25 +
- Chapter 26 +
- Chapter 27 +
- Chapter 28 +
- Chapter 29 +
- Chapter 30 +
- Chapter 31 +
- Chapter 32 +
- Chapter 33 +
- Chapter 34 +
- Chapter 35 +
- Chapter 35 + +
Other books by the author available on
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+ All available now on the Amazon Kindle
+Preview of
+SPELLBINDER
+The next in the Book of Ways mythic trilogy
+ +1
Corriwen Redthorn had vanished into another world.
+She had tumbled, was thrown, through the space between the standing stones and she was gone. Disappeared.
+Jack Flint lurched from the far side of the ring of stones. Kerry Malone had his arm around him, bracing him up. But for that, both of them would have sunk to the ground.
+They were hurt. They were bruised and bloodied and Jack felt as if every inch of his body had been beaten. Blood was matted on Kerry's shoulder where the thing had hit him, slammed him into the air.
+The thing. The Morrigan.
+As old as time, as foul as sin, she had harried them across the dead lands, rending the very rocks with her fury. They had made it to the ring of stones where they had started and she had come sweeping after them, a shade within a shadow; screeching for vengeance.
+They had fought her and she had almost killed them both. But they had survived and she was gone, still screeching, all the way down into the infinity of dark under the capstone.
+But before it had sucked her down she had reached out and caught him by the leg, claws digging into his bones, her rage as cold as death, dragging him down with her into the eternal black.
+Then Corriwen Redthorn was in front on him again and both knives were out, flashing red in the hideous moonlight. She dived headlong and slashed at the claw gripping Jack's leg. The second knife flickered past him and pierced a monstrous red eye. Something burst wetly and the demon-thing's sudden agony blasted out of her and the standing stones shuddered in their foundations.
+And then the Morrigan was gone, screaming as she fell. Screaming so long that it seemed to take forever before the hideous cry faded to nothing.
+But in the instant before the grip broke on Jack's leg, her last desperate act had been to reach out, fast as a snake, and hit Corriwen a tremendous blow which slammed her into the air.
+And now, in the aftermath, Corriwen had vanished.
+Kerry groaned aloud. Jack could see the bruise swelling across his cheek. He had taken a hard blow, but his eyes were still bright and somehow fierce.
+"We beat the bitch," he said.
+"We did. And I think I got us back to before. I mean, before it all went crazy."
+He paused in mid sentence.
+"Where is she?"
+"I told you. She's gone."
+"No," Jack said. "Where's Corriwen?"
+They both turned round quickly.
+"She was…" Kerry started, then stopped. "I think she was here. I was running with that thing coming on like a train. Then I threw the heartstone to you and she hit me such a wallop I went ass for elbow."
+"Corriwen was hit too," Jack said. His heart lurched. "She was hit. I saw it." He started to walk, ignoring the pain and they helped each other to their feet.
+"She was hit really hard and she went flying." He took a slow step and then another in the direction Corriwen had tumbled when the Morrigan had flipped her away, all the time expecting to find her broken body against one of the standing stones. The final blow from the Morrigan must have been devastating.
+He searched around, moving from one stone to the other before he saw it. There on the soft earth, was a small depression where she had landed and rolled, scuff marks in the thin grass.
+They continued onwards, towards the space between two standing stones.
+Then they vanished.
+Jack looked at Kerry.
+"She must have been thrown through," Kerry said. Regret and relief were struggling in his expression. "Back home to Temair."
+Jack reached for his friend's arm. It was all coming back to him through a haze of hurt and numbness.
+He shook his head. "No," he said. "That's not the gate to Temair. The Farward Gate. She was thrown through the wrong one. They were all open at the same time. I saw different places out there."
+They locked eyes. "Kerry. I don't know where she's gone."
+"Oh Jack," Kerry whispered.
+Jack picked up the amberhorn bow and hefted his backpack. His jacket was in rags. One shoe was torn from sole to heel. He was hurting from head to toe. The standing stones towered above them.
+Beyond them, Cromwath Blackwood's trees crowded close, now back to its thick, twisting glades. Beyond them, some distance away was the tall wall that was built to keep people out. Now he and Kerry knew the astonishing secret of the wall and the stones. The gates.
+Beyond the wall was a world back to normal, he knew for sure. No creeping darkness, no whispering shade. No madness in the night.
+Beyond the wall the Major's telescope would still be focused on the woods. The major would be up in the turret with his charts.
+Jack had so much to tell him, so much to ask him. All the answers he needed to know about who he was and where he came from, all the things he needed to know, lay beyond the wall.
+He paused, heart aching with the need for that knowledge. He walked across the ring, to the space between the stones through which they had run, panicked, on that first night.
+Jack leaned against the stone, utterly worn.
+He had to get home. Had to speak with the Major and find out all he knew.
+He took one step beyond the ring, aching with the need to find the truth about his father.
+But Corriwen Redthorn had saved his life. She had helped both of them survive all the odds in a strange world and she had helped them get home again after all they had been through.
+The memory of their travels, their battles; her bravery. They all came back in a rush, and with them came the knowledge that he would have to act like the old heroes he had always admired.
+They made sacrifices. Their word was more than their bond. It was their life.
++
And Jack Flint owed a debt of life to Corriwen Redthorn. A debt he would repay come what may, no matter the cost; no matter the sacrifice.
+He turned back and faced across the capstone to the gateway through which Corriwen had disappeared.
+Kerry's eyes followed him, sensing the battle going on inside Jack's mind.
+"What do you want to do?"
+Jack slammed both fists against the great stone, venting his frustration and despair.
+Unsteadily, but very deliberately he limped across the ring of stones to the far side. He hurt all over and he felt he could sleep for a week.
+"She's lost somewhere. Lost and alone. I don't know where, but I've got the key to open the gate."
+He turned to face Kerry, looked him straight in the eye. He held up the black heart stone on its silver chain.
+"I'm going to find her," he said.
+Kerry nodded. Understanding was clear on his face. He clapped Jack on the back. They both winced.
+"Not on your own, you're not."
+"I can't ask you…" Jack began.
+Kerry held up a hand. "You're not asking. And you don't have to. We're not going to let a girl come between us, are we?"
+"Cross my heart," Jack said.
+"And hope to die."
+And together they walked forward into the unknown.
++
MYTHLANDS
+
+ 2015-09-10
+ +All rights reserved
+ +The moral right of the author has been asserted
+ +This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by + way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or + otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any + form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published + and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent + purchaser
+