Normally, I usually post my Spear-Woman scenes every week over on my Substack, but this one has enough backstory behind it to feel important enough to merit posting other places.
To quickly recap how my July has been going: Canada Day was the second-rainiest day in Ottawa since they’ve been tracking that sort of thing, which lead to about 5,000 houses flooding — including ours.
We’re all fine. Here. Now. Thank. How are you?
All of which is to say, our insurance has approved redoing the basement, which is happening right now as I type this. All of which is to say, we had to basically take everything out of the basement.
As it happens, that includes a lot of my old writing stuff. Among which was a concept for a story I had written years ago about, essentially, a wandering exorcist that I originally envisioned as the demigod son of the god of death with the ability to see and communicate with ghosts.
I’ve always really liked that concept and never entirely abandoned it. It doesn’t necessarily quite fit in the Spear-Woman world, but this is probably the most refined that concept has ever been.
© 2026 – Joel Balkovec, published by Emona Literary Services™
Bayan’s travels have occasionally taken her beyond the borders of Khalaran. She has followed the River south to its furthest impassable cataracts to stand on the edge of great desert. She has travelled east beyond the frontiers of Khalaran and felt the cold winds blowing off the endless steppes. She has gone north, where barbarian sibyls painted with sacred runes dance to quest their gods. She has ventured even beyond the confines of the Middle Sea and sighted strange lands.
Now, she has gone west, beyond the Gates of Demir. The lands are less strange than others she has seen in her travels, not really so different from the heartlands of Khalaran. She knows the tongue spoken by the Pagans of these lands – the legacy of Adamas of old is not forgotten in Khalaran and many merchants and travellers still speak the Adamantic language as a matter of course.
At a small roadside inn along the ancient Adamantic highway with the court of King Istvan somwhere at its end, Bayan shares one of the modest inn’s few little tables with a man dressed in priest’s robes and the emblem of his god around his neck, folded hands lovingly cradling a dead man’s skull.
In her time, Bayan has met more than a few corrupt priests of Khalaran as fond of drink as this one, though they were all reviled for how they flaunted the Laws of Heaven and proved themselves to be hypocrites. It is odd, she decides, that the gods of the Pagans should grant them so many victories in battle over Khalaran when their faithful seem to pay them so little honour.
“Do you know which of my people’s gods I most revere?” the priest asks her, his speech thick and slurred.
“I do not know your gods,” Bayan answers.
“It’s the god of wine,” he answer, taking a drink.
Bayan stares sceptically at the emblem on his neck. “Your god of wine dresses his priests in dead men’s skulls?”
The priest laughs bitterly. “I serve the Lord of the Last Long Silence.”
He raises his cup.
“But the Lord of Wing serves me best.”
He downs his wine and slams his cup back on the table.
“Because he is the only one who keeps the dead men silent.”
“Dead men?” Bayan asks.
“I see them, you know,” he answers. “I have all my life. I didn’t realises no-one else could, at first. Father Macarius says I am blessed by the god to serve as the instrument of his peace.”
He sighs and looks at Bayan with weary eyes.
“I don’t suppose you can see him?” he asks. “No?”
He sighs again.
“Of course not. But take heed, Spear-Woman. He’s standing at your elbow, trying to warn us. He says his bones are in the yard, under the tree. The innkeeper came upon him as he slept to plunder the chests and purses he carried.”
Bayan inches her stool back from the table, moving slowly towards her spear as she cautiously eyes the innkeeper.
“What is your dead men saying now?” she asks the priest.
“He is telling you to fight,” the priest answers.
Bayan snatches up her spear from where it leans idly against the wall. The innkeeper has taken his chance, dashing forward with a meat cleaer.
Bayan upends their table, booting it into his path as he rushes on.
Also, be sure to check out the Strong Women of Sci-Fi & Fantasy giveaway I’m currently involved in:
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