Rory Surtain's Blog

PSYKER is now available in audiobook (Amazon, Spotify, etc.) and podcast formats (Spotify, Pandora, etc.)
Check out the entire multi-voice production for FREE here:
https://rss.com/podcasts/psyker/

With more audiobooks to come!

The Inquisitor spoke, “Do you remember me?”
“It would be better for you if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“You are interfering with Council business.”
“Which council?”
“The Senatorial Council. If you think this night is about anything else, you’ve been horribly misled.” I knew the inquisitor and some of his crew—some well and some not at all. I could only hope they weren’t aligned with the powers that be.
“That young woman is your second?”
“Yes, and I am hers,” I said.
“I was told you two are connected—the phantom and princess.”
“Those are merely names on an assassin’s list. They only tell half the story.”
“Your list of enemies is long.”
Anger elbowed its way into my gut. “Are there others among Malleus?”
“Yes.”
“And Hereticus?”
“Of course. Some are over quick to mind the presence of a rogue.”
My anger surged, not at Locke but at those who fought without consequence in a game without end. The pure emotion drew me back to the situation at hand and the fact that I was tottering on the edge of a black abyss.


Book #5 of the Hiveworlds series is different than the first four. The perspective varies by chapter from first-person to third to third party first. Paric is ever central but his solitary existence is at an end. Others have stepped in. Their stories are crucial and must be heard for the overall Psyker saga to make sense.

Don't miss it!

Princess is launching December 8th, 2023 in ebook and paperback. An full cast, multi-voice audiobook is in the works.

Book #3 of the Hiveworlds series has taken the life of Paric Silver to new depths. The tagline: A psyker goes to war.

The book begins with a seemingly wayward thought, It was always about a name.
As with everything in the Hiveworlds set, a thought is merely a clue to the narrator's dilemma. For a young man that can never keep his name straight, others have stepped in to define his role with the fate of an entire world hanging in the balance.

A battle-psyker emerges, doing the unthinkable, battling foes on both sides of the line.

As the sequel to PSYKER, PSYKANA is set to launch December 11th, 2022.

My goal is always to make the next book better than the last. How is the second Hiveworlds novel better than the first?

While I continue to ply dystopian themes of duty, isolation, and identity, I sought to connect the MC to his reality in a far more personal way. The forces are darker and more sinister, if only because they are sanctioned by the Imperium. Nuances compete with soul-rending moments, while mystery vies with action and suspense. Through it all, the MC is as clueless and clever as ever.

There, I didn't spoil anything.

PSYKER is but the first of several standalone novels in the Hiveworlds universe. Three follow-on novels are listed in the front matter of Psyker: Psykana, Primaris, and Phantom. Each will be better than the one before it.

I'm happy to announce that the fifth book in the series is now under construction, and like the first, every ebook in the Hiveworlds list will be lightly illustrated. My skills in that area are growing by leaps and bounds along with the tools at my disposal.

Paric is as clever as he is clueless throughout. He's forever finding his way through a dystopian galaxy where one noble psyker can make a difference in the lives of many. With the forces of Chaos and the Imperium battling around him, his life is anything but sane.

For those willing to take a chance, you're in for a wild ride.

Cheers!

PSYKER, the debut Hiveworlds novel coming out in the summer of 2022.

Excerpt: Camouflage

Asher whispered, “I saw the video.”
Her green and yellow camouflage dress worked perfectly. No one ever saw the anxious young woman hiding underneath.
“So, that’s why you brought me new boots,” I replied.
The last pair, soaked in blood, had been incinerated in the Medicae ward along with the rest of my clothing. Even my body armor had gone into the recycler. Asher had thought through every detail, and it woke me up.
I sent everyone out of my bedroom suite. Everyone except Ash. She didn’t want to sit down, and she couldn’t hold still long enough to look me in the eye. Having shocked her before, I’d utterly broken Ash’s reality with my back-alley execution. She was anything but bored. I led her over to my bed and told her to lie down. I gently slid her hands into my over-large restraints, but I didn’t activate the locking sequence.
“Do you trust me?” I said.
“You canceled our date.”
“Is that what it was?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you cancel?”
“You saw the video. Would you have gone out with me after that?”
“That was the same night?”
“I messaged you twenty minutes before it happened.”
Ash pointed her chin at me, “Nobody has ever been that desperate to avoid seeing me.”
“I was. That video showed the highlight of my night.”
Asher finally looked me in the eye, searching for the truth. “It was the first shot, wasn’t it? When they blew the bottle of Starfire out of your hand.”
She was right. How could she know that?
I pressed the activate switch, slowly clamping her wrists in place. “I’m impressed by your insight. Starfire. That’s my safe word. What’s yours?”
Her anxiety fled, replaced by a fire that burned right through her dress.
“I’ve forgotten mine,” she whispered, “but maybe you can show me what it means to need one.”

Vigil Storm, Book 9 of the Demon in Exile saga, is slated for release in June 2022. It is the series finale.

Excerpt: The Black Prince

We continued our trip south through the Akio Valley. The bridge over the south fork of the river had been rebuilt, giving us an easy crossing. Nearby, the charred ruins of South Fort remained as they were, a monument to the bravery of its garrison and the sacrifice they’d made during the so-called War of the Wind Catcher. It had been a short and brutal affair for all.
The town of Lonett had been abandoned. The pole barn, once a riverside warehouse, remained untouched. A brown patch of blood still stained its dirt floor.
I searched the shadows and scanned the loft, hoping for a familiar presence. I called Ram’s name and found myself screaming at the rafters in frustration. Why wasn’t he here? The colonel had pointed south.
“Ara, there’s no one here.” Rifter had been sent in to collect me.
“You’re here,” I said.
The first time I met Rifter, he’d been locked in a cage, and he hadn’t been half as distraught as I was now, trapped within the memories of a brave, clear soul. Rifter had known I was there to free him. If only he could return the favor.
“What are you looking for?”
The Akio hadn’t gotten the deal it wanted, and yet I felt like it had. Qreyl had offered me the same exchange, a city for a broken heart, and I’d taken the deal. If only gods were the jealous type.
“Who, not what,” I said. “My heart is lost, and I’m searching for the pieces. One of them should be here.”
“Several anxious pieces are waiting for you outside.”
“My brother died here, butchered by a demon.”
“And you think that you can call him back? Are you a god?”
No, I wasn’t, but I’d fought beings so powerful they could be counted as gods, and each took payment for the privilege of doing so.
I shook my head, “Tell me who I am.”
“You’re Ara Storm.”
“He no longer exists. If you’d met him on the day he was given that name, you wouldn’t recognize him now.”
“What changed?”
“I’ve realized my curse. The demons even have a name for it. They call me Firefanged as punishment for a Black deal gone wrong, and it consumes me.”
“You can’t break the curse?”
“I have the soul of a demonic warlord, and my heart isn’t strong enough to balance it out.”
“Boss Wheeler never protected anyone but himself. The same could be said for the Weasel in Stonnberg and the King in Maidenhall. None of them opened the door to my cage, and don’t tell me they didn’t have a clue about the ruin of Niantia. They ignored it or used it to their advantage.”
“What are you saying?”
“Ara, everyone has the soul of a demon if they choose to ignore their heart. You thought to find a piece of it here, and even if you had, you’d still be at war with the continent in a bid to set things right. That’s what you do.”
“It’s what I do,” I echoed the sentiment that placed me in this barn, searching for another way out.
“Ara, you can’t heal yourself, but you can heal others, so do it. Waiting right outside, you’ve got a family that needs you, and we’ll find the rest together.”
“Rift, you know, Ayla is my favorite. If you ever cross her, I’ll—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. First billing and Black Prince, I get it. Now, get back on that high horse of yours, and let’s do what needs doing.”

Storm Sister, Book 8 of the Demon in Exile Series, is slated for release in March 2022.

Excerpt: The Lost Princess

Skarim had dropped dead. His pipe slipped from his mouth as his body slapped into the Dungarr mud. Watching him fall face down had been the high point of my life. The clan elder wouldn’t be coming anywhere near me ever again. In the end, none of my family would either. The image of the elder’s tattoos sprang to mind every time I walked into the the Brass Monkey. It should have stopped me from ever coming back, but it didn’t.

Hidden beneath a Bridgeton merchant’s warehouse, the smoker’s den was growing in popularity by the day, and sleepy minds were careless when it came to guarding their secrets. My watchers were tasked with keeping an eye on the place and letting me know as soon as anyone of significance arrived. There was a good chance that I might already be there, sitting at the bar counter, sipping my tea, and reminiscing with the ghosts of the Dungarr Basin.

Having seen the life-ending outcomes of the addicted, I didn’t partake directly, but I’m sure my body absorbed some of the leaf smoke and felt lighter for it. The tea helped too, and my mug, carved from a tangled coastal oak, gave me something to study while I waited.

Cork Balan, my second, had given me the mug as a precaution, noting that it was far safer to use it than whatever a bartender set in front of me. Cork was one of the larger men I’d ever met, and his mass was amplified by his resolve. I’d once seen the results of his determination to ferret out a mole in the Bridgeton clan. My mug was far prettier, fitting neatly in my shoulder pack beside the false watcher’s gouged out eyes.

Teeg never looked at me directly, nothing more than a quick glance at my ring while he scanned the patrons seated around the room. “Can I pour you another, Miss?”

He called me ‘Miss,’ and I liked him for it. He was far older than most of the men that I dealt with on a daily basis, a grandfather perhaps in another life, and he offered manners where most offered transactions, threats, or the exchange of bodily fluids, and no, I wasn’t a whore. Not even close. Sure, it helped that I flashed certain body parts at times, but that’s where Cork’s surplus eyeballs came in handy. Accidentally dropping one on the bar counter before I ordered kept my mug full and the other patron’s hands to themselves.

We didn’t own the laid-back establishment, but we’d quickly come to an agreement with the owner about who would be managing the place. In the few months since, the profits for both sides had been impressive in terms of both coin and information, offering two key ingredients for the conjuring of power in the undercities of Colivar.

Gold could buy weapons and the hands to wield them, but it couldn’t buy security or loyalty. Information could guide one in where to best invest the gold, the weapons, or the hands, but would grow stale overnight or be sold to more than one party, tainting its worth or changing its substance. While gold and information were ceaselessly mined, the Gray Houses of Colivar ran on resolve and the wits needed to use it every moment of every day. Power was an illusion, and illusion was power. That was my secret, and as much as I guarded it and used it, it couldn’t warm the fingers of a ghost or fill the hunger I carried inside.

The Devil and Koki-Ten, Book 7 of the Demon in Exile Series, is slated for release in December 2021.

Excerpt: Escape

‘The path from desperation to hope is paved with stones of light,’ had been a common maxim of Pastor Albyn right up until the light ran out and the demons consumed him. As the steel door slammed shut behind us, I realized our path would be more of the same; the pitch-dark tunnel offered nothing for us to see.

We felt our way forward along the rough-hewn walls, stopping every ten steps to calm our breathing and double-check our count. There were turns and drops to make and plenty of other potential exits to use, but we only had one in mind, the one nearest to Sanctuary Bay and the untended lighthouse. If there were sails in the bay, they needed to know that we were still here, that we still existed in our bodies, if not our minds, and we hoped that they might carry something to sustain us all.

While there were two simple ways into the Duke’s Hold, both gates through the curtain wall being guarded and barricaded, others allowed for a hidden escape out into the surrounding mountains or down into the port. The route we’d been given offered us little in terms of actual escape and, in fact, served us up onto the wharf-side streets among the Infernal interlopers that had overrun our city. The Castellan had agreed to the mission and shared the secret route knowing that our trek would be one way only. Not wanting us to attract anything that might be lurking below, he’d barred our use of light and any attempt at coming back up through the tunnels.

Feth him.

I’d take my chances and go quickly rather than fade away inside the Duke’s ‘Prison for the Privileged.’ As captain of the Duke’s Guard, I’d enjoyed the same security as a warden of sorts and could have sent another of my men on this trip, but the curtain walls were shrinking daily and the space between them was a cauldron brewing darker thoughts for everyone to drink.

Duke Kelton, the old buzzard, lived in his tower, up above the growing din of desperation in his overfilled keeps. Still, it was his daughter, Miraa, whose eyes had seen what no one else could: sails of hope on the horizon. Of course, she’d noticed them at dusk, the setting sun outlining their presence for mere moments before they disappeared somewhere near the mouth of the enormous bay. That she still gazed out into the bay with hope after so many months was merely one more testament that Lady Miraa was far above us all.

Feth her too.

“Captain!” Corporal Jenkins tugged me back. “That’s twenty.”

Sure enough, sliding my foot forward, I found the edge, and my next step forward found nothing but air. I turned around and lowered myself over the edge, dropping the last five feet onto another section of tunnel and landing gracefully on my ass.

“Nothing to it, Jenks. Short drop once you let go.” I scurried out of the way and listened, searching for the hiss or rumble of a rill.

Jenks landed beside me, keeping his feet and pissing me off in the process. “No worries, Captain. We’ll get you cleaned up once we get back.”

Had I mentioned that Leni Jenkins was my younger brother and always a bit too wise for his britches? My lack of response only fed his grin. Sure, I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there, just like Jenks knew about the filth on my backside. Brothers were like that, and we’d grown up knowing each other better than ourselves.

“Start the next count,” I said, trying to focus. “Fifty-five steps and then a right turn.”

We’d both memorized the crude map in terms of steps and directions, not being allowed to bring a lamp or even a torch. An hour after our first drop, we’d found it, an underground stream that, with the near arrival of spring, was pretending to be a river of liquid ice. Tell me a demon is going to swim up that. Not a chance. Maybe in summer it could throw a party in the tunnel below us, but not tonight.

“Jenks, do you feel that?”

“What? The icy water?”

“No, the lack of anything, the pitch-black peace. No worries, no evil buzz weighing on your brain down here.”

“So, Colum, either we’re safe for the moment, or we’re already dead.” Jenks always had a knack for hitting the mark.

That feeling of safety had eluded everyone in the city of Kelton for more than a year, starving hearts and minds of hope and the will to live. Once enough of the demons had arrived, breaching the outer wall, a hunger had settled in across the city to vie with the terror that everyone already felt. As we considered the last leg of our route, Jenks and I felt nothing, and that, in and of itself, was a boon, a kind gesture ahead of whatever waited beyond the unseen rill’s frigid flow.

“Jenks, I couldn’t have said it any better. Now, let’s catch our breath and decide who’s going to jump in first.”

We both knew it would be me.

Firefanged

Firefanged, Book 1 of the Demon in Exile Series, is currently available on Amazon and BN.COM.

Excerpt: Shadow Demon

“To the Barn! Run, Cy! Run!” yelled Katie as she leaped off the cedar post beneath the corner of our front porch.

Our eleven-year-old bodies flew across the barnyard in the deathly silence of mid-night, sprinting toward the dark maw of the tall, aging building. Back inside our house, we could barely make out the banging and rumbling of an unseen beast until it suddenly reached the porch, and the harsh sound of the night-demon’s claws shredding the old wood planks brought new terror to our hearts.

The final, defiant scream of our mother had roused us moments before, telling us to go, before a screeching growl in the room below us signaled the demon’s triumph and its intention for more. We heard it clatter up the narrow stairs of our house as Katie and I slipped out the window of our bedroom. The shingles of our porch roof were wet with dew, our bare feet slipping on the wood as we scurried to the edge and slid down to the ground.

The heavy barn door was open, and my target was barely visible through the gloom. A heavy rope hung in the center of the barn, tied to the rafters more than twenty feet above us. I jumped as high as I could and started climbing, hands and feet alternating up the thick cable. Katie, my twin sister, followed on my heels as we shimmied upward together. It was a race we’d done many times that summer as we helped our father ready the loft for the upcoming harvest.

I was almost twenty feet up when a scuff on the dirt floor near the doorway drew my attention. The heavy rope began to sway erratically, but I hung on, finally daring to look down. My sister was gone, the thick line sheared off more than a dozen feet from the ground.

“Katie!” I sobbed. “Katie!!!”

An Infernal laugh answered me from somewhere below, but I saw nothing, nothing but shadows.