Twisted Plot Revision Page70

For more information on the entire series, read the "'Demon's Due' Defined" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… or the "'Demon's Due' Plus" journal entry here faile35.deviantart.com/journal… .

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The horse and rider move slowly along the Belfry Road beneath a sky heavy with drifting smoke. Luther had pushed the animal hard through the first two legs of the journey to Dernhem from the northwestern fields. There the road was wide and straight, the slopes more gentle, and the horse’s strength soon left flaming fields and columns of smoke far behind.

But closer to the city, the Belfry Road weaves through hillocks of rock, dropping and climbing through gullies and hemmed in by groves of trees and shrubbery that can readily trip up a fast-moving mount. In places the road narrows to barely more than a man’s arms can reach out wide, treacherous bottlenecks that make a wagon’s journey in and out of the city a miserable enterprise without a strong team and extra hands for leverage. Here it is better to keep one’s horse to a steady walk, and after such a hard run, Luther’s mount seems content to cool in its own sweat as the twisting road and trees reveal one new vista after another of the land cradling Dernhem’s walls.

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When next we meet Avora, it will be to watch her practice her own peculiar brand of gardening. For now, though, I'm jumping to Luther's vignette. My intention was to jump to another trio of characters to be introduced at this point, and I have the first four images of that sequence done, but I'm waiting on some reference material for the rest of it. So, Luther's scene was to follow that introduction, but it won't really change things to put it here while I wait for the references. Then, too, I've got three more images of Web of Betrayal nearing completion, which I'll post in the next few days.

Enjoy!

Note: Twisted Plot and Demon's Due are a work of fantasy and fiction. The artist/creator in no way condones this kind of treatment toward any woman or man, by living person, gremlin, plant, assassin, ratman, viscous fluid, programmed device, animated home furnishings, or otherworldly spiritual beings. Furthermore, the artist opposes the marginalizing and restriction of women in general by any institution, political and/or religious, including those which have individual women amongst their membership touting/promoting their own happiness within that institution as evidence that ALL women should feel the same way. This includes the religion I was raised in and which I have utterly discarded from my life over this and other issues.