Ian H. McKinley

Cassandra Thordwall shook her head to let Jacyntha know exactly what she thought of that idea. Then she added, “Here in Guayamartí, that’s called murder.” She looked out between the columns lining the Militantes’ training ground towards the aqueduct. Then her gaze shifted to the citadel atop its cliff before straying to the City Port beneath the Bridge of a Hundred Arches. In fact, her gaze strayed anywhere and everywhere except up slum built climbing the hill overlooking the packed-dirt pitch. Supposedly there was a spy up there in the favela observing the Militantes’ training session. Or, at least, trying to observe the training session … it wouldn’t be easy with the columns lining the sunken dirt pitch and the roof overhead.

Sweating, Jacyntha crept low through the underbrush, spear in one hand, machete in the other. It was hot, hotter than the N’Itgat Jungle usually got. The light was strange … muted, diffuse, as opposed to refracted and verdant under the influence of the canopy high above. This part of the jungle was unfamiliar to her; it didn’t look anything like where her soldiers patrolled around Mytilan. Fronds, big as her torso, dangling off saplings hung at eye-level all around her, blocking her line-of-sight.

He’s got a dagger! Jacyntha ducked and felt the blade trim her hair. She dodged to the left and scrambled around the side of Rodentien line. The sewer-slipper spat green phlegm after her. Protecting Gods, these things are disgusting! Pre-season training, all two sessions of it, hadn’t prepared her for this. Hidden weapons, plague-bearing claws, matted and mangy fur, unnatural mutations weeping pus, gangrenous, scabby skin between the islands of fur, and worst of all, long, wiggling, stomach-churning tails. It all sent shivers down her spine.

Naught says “you’re not going to score” like a spike through the arm. It was Karsgaard Neuvil’s approach to footy. You could swap out the specific body part, but the principle held; it’s impossible to score a touchdown when impaled on a spike. In this particular case, it was the arm.

One hit Umberto, another embedded itself into the snug’s door-frame. Neuvil jumped up and grabbed a stool. Thordwall dove under the table and another dagger thumped into the wood panelling right behind where her head had been a second earlier. Two men and two women surged from the throng that had crowded into the Luffing Lateen, though one clattered to the floor in front of Gosling, who had stuck out a leg and tripped the assailant.

Whatever one’s thoughts on hell, Karsgaard Neuvil’s detractors certainly called it “devilish,” implying that some foul power had aided him. His Hammarskjöld Nordhammers had been drawing 1-1 heading into the final moments of their last game of the season against the Karthini Royalists.

Jacyntha knew him, Pierce Rosethorn, knew he’d make for the sideline. Get him now! She had seen the Quarrel’s thrower fade right and had known Rosethorn would be the target. She had backed off her sisters in the ruck and had done so just in the nick of time.

Up and Under takes place in an astounding world of dangerous continents, stunning archipelagoes, and bountiful seas. This map will help you navigate around its corners and see whence come the teams of the Sommer Sea Football League.

Up and Under is an innovative collaboration between an award-winning artist and a recognized writer of fiction. Ian H. McKinley published his first fantasy novel, The Gallows Gem of Prallyn, in 2014. On the strength of this debut effort, he was invited to participate in the 2016 Frye Festival, Atlantic Canada’s largest literary event, as …

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