Red Wolf Blogs

 From the 08/21/26 newsletter: 5th day of Ice Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic, evening … I am so tired. I slept not at all after hearing Erin’s story last night, and I’ve spent the entire day’s ride, winding our way through the Darinian Mountains on our way to the Valley of Kilaren, trying in vain to figure out a way to help her. So much of Erin’s misery stems from the belief that some power greater than herself—she calls it Fate—has pre-determined the course of her life, and that there is nothing she can do to alter that course. She deserves to know the truth—that the architects of the prophecy of Ka’il Idreth are just a couple of faeries trying to cause mischief and that her own Guild of Dream Walkers is using it to further their own agenda. And if she knew those truths, I believe she has both the power and the will to pursue whatever destiny she chooses for herself. I’m ashamed to admit that self-preservation plays a part in my hesitation to share my knowledge. How can I...

 From the July 24, 2026 Newsletter ... 5th day of Ice Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic, just before dawn … Late yesterday afternoon, we reached the bottom of a gradual descent from the foothills of the Darinian Mountains and emerged onto a broad, flat plain and the intersection of a road. I didn’t say anything, but I immediately recognized its elven design and construction. Sure enough, Erin announced, “We have reached the East Road.” To the right, the road took a straight path into dunes on the eastern horizon. Erin pointed to the left, where the road wound its way into the mountains behind which the sun was beginning to set. “My home is a day-and-a-half’s ride in that direction.” “Should we continue on,” I asked, pointing to a well-used campsite in the shelter of a nearby cliff, “or should we camp there and get an early start in the morning?” She hesitated, then sighed. “It’s probably best to camp here.” I interpreted her hesitation as indicating her eagerness to...

 From the 06/19/2026 newsletter: 3 rd day of Ice Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … I’m afraid I’ve grown a bit complacent as I’ve become more comfortable with my traveling companion. It seems I have allowed Erin to observe my journaling. She is a creature of habit, a trait any goblin would find endearing, and after our evening meals, she always follows the same routine. She cleans up our cookware and eating utensils, packing them into a bundle in preparation for use at breakfast. Then she settles into a period of quiet introspection, almost brooding, before finally banking the fire and turning in for the night. I can usually count on her falling asleep within minutes, and that is when I take the time to make these nightly entries in my journal, feeling safely unobserved. Apparently, that has not been the case. As we were breaking camp this morning and packing up for travel, she asked me, out of the blue, “Did you use magic to catch those fish last night?” I respo...

  2 nd day of Ice Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … I’ve gotten used to riding on the back of Erin’s horse, and I must admit we’ve been making better time since she insisted we travel thus. Yesterday, the trail we’ve been following made a westward turn away from the desert and ascended into the mountains proper, so I suppose I should be grateful to be relieved of a strenuous climb. Still, I’d prefer to be on foot. A goblin’s sense of connection to the world begins at the soles of his feet, as the saying goes, and I am no exception. But I’ve held myself back from expressing any displeasure to Erin. In fact, I’ve become increasingly aware of the disparity between the extent of her kindness to me and how little I am contributing as a traveling companion. She has not only saved my life and offered to safely convey me to the East Road, but she continues to provide food for both of us from her hunting and does most of the cooking, too. Honestly, I’m becoming a little uncom...

 From the 04/24/2026 newsletter: 22 nd Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … It may partially be a new perspective I have on my traveling companion after discovering the dragon pendant among her things, but a change seems to have come over Erin Callen. When she returned from her hunt yesterday afternoon, the first thing she did was dump all the rice and lentils from her saddlebags and announce that we would “no longer have to eat this crap.” Personally, I’d had no objection to our diet. The rice and lentil mixture was nutritious, and Erin had a way of cooking them with spices that brought out the best of what flavor they had. But in light of her current feelings concerning them, I felt it inappropriate to voice my opinion. She then observed that there would be plenty of fish and game for the rest of our journey and that we would be living off the land as we made our way toward the East Road from here. She then set about dressing the guineafowl, constructing...

 From the 03/20/26 newsletter: 21st Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … Today I did something that I’m a bit ashamed of, and I’m not sure what to do with it. Erin has been behaving more strangely each day, and I’m worried that she is suffering from some sort of mental or emotional illness. The crying episode I referred to in yesterday’s journal entry recurred during the night and lasted until the light of dawn, when she finally succumbed to sleep. For that reason, I resisted the urge to rouse her as the morning progressed and she remained wrapped in her blankets. But when the sun began to beat down upon us from directly overhead, I felt compelled to wake her up, lest we lose an entire day of travel time. When I gave her shoulder a gentle shake, her eyelids fluttered open, and she fixed me with a blank stare from dull green eyes rimmed in red. “Erin, are you alright?” I asked. The tone of her voice was void of expression. “I’m wonderful.” “It’s past noo...

 From the 02/20/2026 newsletter: 21st Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … For those who aren’t familiar with human behavior, one of the ways the species expresses emotion is through the phenomenon of crying. A salty liquid, referred to as tears , is emitted from the eyeballs, often forming into droplets that run down their faces. A wide range of emotions can elicit this phenomenon. Humans sometimes cry for joy or in sympathy for others. But the biggest tears seem to come when they are very sad. Today I discovered Erin Callen crying tears of sadness. It was almost noon, and we had not been on the trail long, when we crested a low ridge and were afforded a panoramic view of the desert to the east. After many days of encountering such, I’ve become inured to the scenery. (As spectacular as it seemed the first time I viewed it, the endless rolling dunes of sand are now monotonous to my eyes.) But Erin is wont to stop and gaze at its expanse at every opportuni...

  I love some of the animal characters in the books I read. From the heroic nature of Dean Koontz’s goldens, through the tragic descent into madness of Stephen King’s Cujo, to the comic distractions of almost any pet, animal characters just add depth and breadth to any tale. Right now, I’m having a lot of fun with my MC’s horse in the epic romantasy series I’m writing. Brawn has a bit of faerie blood in him. He’s super-intelligent—a good bit smarter than the MC in many ways—and his frustration at not being able to communicate through speech makes for some interesting scenes. The following scene in A Verse for Witches was placed in the book after some back-and-forth with my editor on the pros and cons of making the horse one of the major characters. It was an experiment that--as she warned me it might--got out of hand. And now, more and more scenes are from the horse's point of view in the series. From A Verse for Witches, Chapter 1: Trevor stepped out from the shadows as the door...

 (From the 01/23/2026 newsletter) 19 th Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … We are three days into our journey north on a trail that winds its way through the foothills of the Darinian Mountains. As we crest each hill, we are afforded an occasionally spectacular view to the east. Through the morning of the first day, that view was of the sweeping grasslands of the Plains of Saha’ar. But we soon made our way through a pass between the Darinians that dominate our view to the west and another range of mountains, the Faricican, that juts away to the east, separating the grasslands in the south from the Great Eastern Desert in the north. Since then, our vistas to the east are nothing but a vast palette of rolling dunes stretching to the far horizon, broken only by an occasional dense cloud rising from its surface. Erin tells me the clouds mask fierce storms that constantly shift the pattern of dunes, confounding even the most experienced desert travelers. Erin cla...

 From the December 26, 2025 newsletter: 16 th Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … It has been an eventful three days since my last journal entry. I have been so busy I’ve not had a chance to write, and I have much to record. I could not have been more wrong about the young woman who rescued me from the hyenas some five days past. She is not the demoness I thought her to be. Indeed, she is one of the most kind and caring humans I’ve run across, and I am grateful for my good fortune in being unable to escape my perceived captivity. In fact, I truly believe the Gods of Urgule answered my prayers when I found myself unable to run after managing to loosen the cords that bound my legs and torso. It turns out that the rack to which I was bound was no device of torture but a bed the girl had constructed, to which she had secured me so that I wouldn’t injure myself during the seizures I was apparently having in the first stages of recovery from my wounds. I found ...

 From the 11/24/2025 newsletter: 13 th Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … I am healing, and I feel much stronger than I did yesterday. But I am definitely a prisoner again. The red-haired demoness who continues to feed me and minister to my wounds has yet to discover I have freed my hands and arms from their bonds, but she has my legs and torso bound to this rack in such a way that I cannot reach the knots to untie myself. When she comes to spoon gruel into my mouth thrice daily, I feign delirium, and so far she has not tried to initiate a conversation. But I don’t know how much longer I can fool her into thinking I’m not well enough for travel. I am certain now that she is an agent of Mazuom’s, for I recognized the stylized royal symbol of Zemburith on her horse’s saddle pad. Undoubtedly, she is planning to take me back to her master as soon as possible. That would surely be the end of me. I’m running out of time. I must come up with a plan to escape. ...

 From the October 23, 2025 newsletter: The following is a corrected post from a month ago, taking into account a corrected translation from the High Elven in the original journal: 12 th Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … I’m alive. Whether or not that is fortunate, I cannot say. I should not have ignored my nose when I detected the scent of hyena before leaving the safety of my cave. Indeed, the beasts were concealed nearby. I’d gone no more than a dozen longspaces from the cave entrance when they came out of hiding and surrounded me. I managed to stun the alpha female with a throwing stone, and for a moment I thought I might escape. However, weakened from days without food or water, my legs gave way when I tried to run. I stumbled, and the beasts were on me in an instant. I tried to fight, but there were too many. I was about to be torn to shreds and eaten piece-by-piece when a fierce war cry rose from somewhere outside my field of vision. Suddenly, the...

 From the 09/19/25 newsletter: I need to issue an apology to my readers for possible errors in our previous excerpt. To explain, let me give you a little background. The story of the adventurous love affair between Erin Callen and Theon Alanis, chronicled in the Song of Tsing trilogy, has been pieced together mainly from three different sources. Two of them were originally oral ballads transposed into the written word thousands of years later by historians. The Illisandra, an ancient Persian epic about an antediluvian prince, contains accounts of battles in which the protagonist fought against a mighty king with a singing sword. The Orcanis Heraldanus , a somewhat disjointed collection of folk tales from across Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, has a number of versions of the affairs of both Erin/Theon and Shia/Mustava, plus related references to places like Azurith, Zemburith, and Arleanne. But the document that ties the stories together and links them with the activities of the...

 From the 08/22/2025 newsletter: 12 th Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … I cannot believe that I am alive. I should not have ignored my nose when I detected the scent of hyena before leaving the safety of my cave. Indeed, the beasts were concealed nearby. I’d gone no more than a dozen longspaces from the cave entrance when they came out of hiding and surrounded me. I managed to stun the alpha female with a throwing stone, and for a moment I thought I might escape. However, weakened from days without food or water, my legs gave way when I tried to run. I stumbled, and the beasts were on me in an instant. I tried to fight, but there were too many. I was about to be torn to shreds and eaten piece-by-piece when a savior arrived in the unlikely form of a human female warrior. She charged to my rescue astride a mighty steed, raining arrows of death upon the hyenas, killing half the pack outright and scattering the rest to parts unknown. The last thing I rem...

 From the 07/18/2025 Newsletter: 12 th Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … Finally! The female hellhound and her mongrel pack have moved on. I woke before dawn this morning after a delirious, nightmare-filled sleep and peered out of the cave entrance to see … nothing! I lay at the mouth of the cave, peering into the gathering light, desperately hoping the rising sun would reveal that it wasn’t a hallucination brought on by dehydration. I’ve not had a drop of water since draining my waterskin yesterday, and my eyes are so dry and scratchy that closing the lids gives no relief. Yet, as the sun rose and the shadows disappeared, there was not a hyena in sight. The scent of the pack lingers, but there were so many keeping vigil for so long, how could their smell ever be entirely gone? I’ve sniffed, watched, and listened for hours. It is now mid-morning, and if the pack was lurking nearby, surely they would have given themselves away by now. I’ve stuffed my empty water...

 From the June 20, 2025 Newsletter 11 th Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … I’m getting desperate. As I closed my eyes last night and tried to sleep, I prayed to the gods of Urgule that when I woke this morning the pack of hyenas keeping vigil at the mouth of the cave where I’m hiding would be gone, and I could be on my way. My prayers remain unanswered. I now count at least a dozen in my narrow field of vision at the mouth of the cave. The big female alpha lies patiently in the shade of a large boulder, one eye half open and focused on the cave entrance. Occasionally, she will raise herself on four paws, lock eyes with me, and growl. It sends a chill through my very being. It is hot, dry, and cramped here in the cave, and my water is completely gone, having just barely moistened my mouth with the last few drops from my waterskin moments ago. At this point, even if the bitch gives up and takes her pack to find other prey, I will be too weak and dehydrated ...

From the May 16, 2025 Newsletter ...   10th Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … It’s the afternoon of the second day of my stand-off with the pack of hyenas. I’m hunkered down in this small cave where they cannot get to me. But I have no food and only enough water to last a day or two if I ration it sparingly. I had hoped that I could wait them out until they lost interest and left. But they show no signs of giving up the prospect of feasting on my poor carcass. Their perseverance is both disturbing and confusing since I’m sure they could find better game than me in the surrounding grasslands. It’s the big female alpha that is keeping them here—I am certain of it. She didn’t like that I outsmarted her and thwarted her hunt. When I look in her eyes, I see more than hunger. I see hatred. She’s cunning too. This morning, she dragged the remains of my pack to the cave mouth—without the food, of course. She left it just out of my reach, then disappeared. I susp...

 (From the April 18, 2025 Newsletter) 9th Day of Snow Moon, 1219 th Year, Human Age of Magic … I’m writing this journal entry from the safety of a small cave near the pass between the Darinian and Faricican mountain chains. It is hard to see the position of the sun from my hiding place, but I believe it is mid-morning now. I had hoped to reach the pass before nightfall yesterday, but dusk overtook me, and in the tall grass with the moon not rising until late, I found it impossible to proceed without losing my way in the darkness. I was nervous about predators, so I built a small campfire in the middle of the trail, something that usually keeps them at bay. I planned to stay awake and vigilant until the moon rose to light my way. Unfortunately, I was more tired than I was aware and fell asleep, waking in the early hours of dawn to a smoldering campfire and a sound that brought my heart into my throat—a distant yapping and yowling that resembled a cruel laughter. Hyenas! I...