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    Serpent's Foe
    Serpent's Foe
    Serpent's Foe
    Ebook51 pages

    Serpent's Foe

    By J.M. Ney-Grimm

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In the legendary duat—the mystical passage where the sun god Ra travels from west to east in the night, so that he rises again in the dawning—a lioness of ancient Egypt lies caged.

    Once she stalked the duat by Ra's side, carrying his light in her eyes and battling the monsters that assailed them.

    Now, tormented by confusion and her own fury, she longs to regain the unique powers which—inexplicably—elude her in captivity.

    Even her own name slides out of her thoughts, while the how and why of her capture escape her memory entirely.

    More than she realizes rides upon reclaiming her freedom and defeating her unknown captor.

    In this mythic tale of pride and revelation, a fight beyond death delivers one last chance at redemption.


    EXCERPT FROM SERPENT'S FOE

    What would hunt a lioness?

    And toward what end?

    Her breath came hot in her mouth and heaved her flanks. She was no horse, meant to race from river mouth to first falls. A sprint, not the marathon, was hers.

    The mud grew dry and cracked under her paws, grew sandy.

    She slackened her speed. Had she outrun that which chased her?

    A rattle of the reeds behind galvanized her anew. Amon Ra! That she should come to this!

    The desert sand provided easier running as she spurted for the Valley of the Kings.

    I will escape my hunter and then defeat him. I, who protect the gods themselves, will do this.


    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    J.M. Ney-Grimm lives with her husband and children in Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She's learning about zero-carb eating, gardening with native plants, and the benefits of getting vitamin D from exposure to sunlight. The rest of the time she reads Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones, and Lois McMaster Bujold, plays boardgames like Settlers of Catan, rears her twins, and writes stories set in the magical realms of myth, fantasy, and the far future.

    Look for her novels and novellas at your favorite bookstore—online or on Main Street.

    J.M. Ney-Grimm maintains a blog featuring lore from her story worlds and other tidbits unearthed by her ever-active curiosity.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWild Unicorn Books
    Release dateFeb 27, 2016
    ISBN9781386210511
    Serpent's Foe
    Read preview
    Author

    J.M. Ney-Grimm

    J.M. Ney-Grimm lives with her husband and children in Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She's learning about permaculture gardening and debunking popular myths about food. The rest of the time she reads Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones, and Lois McMaster Bujold, plays boardgames like Settlers of Catan, rears her twins, and writes stories set in her troll-infested North-lands. Look for her novels and novellas at your favorite bookstore—online or on Main Street.

    Read more from J.M. Ney Grimm

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      Book preview

      Serpent's Foe - J.M. Ney-Grimm

      Serpent’s Foe

      ~ A MYTHIC TALE ~

      by J.M. Ney-Grimm

      Copyright © 2014 J.M. Ney-Grimm

      Cover art:

      Egypt Personified by Farid Fidel

      Blue Sky with Clouds by Sherrie Thai

      For D.J. Gelner –

      without his nudge,

      I would never have thought

      to write

      Serpent’s Foe

      Table of Contents

      Serpent’s Foe

      Bonus Tidbits

      Author Bio

      Excerpt

      More Titles by J.M. Ney-Grimm

      Serpent’s Foe

      When the sun-disk descends below the western horizon, then does the sun god Ra enter the duat, for his perilous passage through the Realm of the Dead. There he must battle many monsters—the chief of them Apophis—before he achieves the eastern gate, to emerge and rise with the sun-disk at dawn.

      —Egyptian funerary text

      She-lion

      Born helpless with eyes shut

      Her mother moves her cub to a new den

      Often, lest scent build up

      She-lion

      Hunts for her pride while he-lion watches their young

      Working with her sisters so cleverly

      Stalking, that all may eat

      She-lion

      Rampant on the shield of might

      Couchant in the sigil of cunning

      Royal, hear her roar

      – hieroglyphic inscription on the fragment

      from a forgotten tomb

      Abruptly she returned to herself.

      Where had she been?

      The desert spaces of a dream, hunting as a lioness should? She didn’t know. But this dim-lit vault looked different through waking eyes than dreaming ones.

      Why didn’t they sweep the floors?

      Sand lay on the flat stone expanse in patches of dusty sparkles. The whole complex cried out for a scouring. Rust coated the iron bars of the cages, from their tops, anchored in the sandstone ceiling, to their bases, sunk into rock. Dung decorated the corners.

      And the carcass of her last meal rotted against the bars separating her from the jackal next door. That black-coated beast gnawed at the bloody remains, his snout poked through a gap.

      Fah! She lifted her forepaw fastidiously to lick it clean.

      Movement diagonally across the broad corridor caught her eye. Another feline – a cheetah, not a lion – paced.

      Back and forth.

      Back and forth.

      Prowling restlessly.

      This is no place for me and mine. I, who carry the sun in my eyes by night.

      She was caged, she who was meant to be free.

      Who had perpetrated this outrage?

      She shifted the bulk of her feline body, feeling the press of the cool stone floor against her flank. She lay in the exact center of her square enclosure, avoiding the bars – cold and radiating evil.

      She’d been hunting, surely. Before she woke to this zoo. Or was she dreaming now of her imprisonment?

      In her earlier dream, the grey shades of moonless night had enfolded her.

      Tall strands of sun-dried grasses rustled in the almost-not-there breeze, brushing against her pelt. The bass rumble of bullfrogs mingled with splashing sounds. A rank smell of river mud crept close to

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