See each teaser for downloadable first chapters in PDF or RTF format
Touched By Magic
A world's last connection to magic. . .
Six year-old Rethia woke to wild hoofbeats, and, frightened, pressed herself against the ground. The beasts ran, circling her meadow, whipping through the wiry, long-stemmed flowers and trampling the briars without heed. When Rethia gathered courage to peer through the thick fall of her light hair, all she could make out was flashing legs and leaping bodies--and, all the while, the unmistakeable tingle of magic coursed through her body.
Imperceptibly at first, the pounding diminished
and the tingle of magic intensified. The creatures were leaving, and a lucky
glimpse showed her they weren't just running away. They were bounding into the air and never landing. Disappearing. Fading. And when there was only one set of hoofbeats left, solid and deliberate and walking toward her, Rethia trembled with the knowledge that she was witnessing magic in a world that was drifting free of such things, and forgot to be afraid of the beast itself.
The hooves stopped in front of her basket, strong round hooves with heavy-boned, clean-lined legs rising from them. Not a horse, she knew that even before she looked up to see the horn. A unicorn. The animal looked around the trampled, abandoned meadow, and blew out a huff of air. When it looked back down at her, its icy gaze warmed. It dropped its head to accept her touch.
She had no idea it would be a trade.
©1996 Doranna Durgin
Download Chapter One of Touched By Magic
 
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Wolf Justice
"They Have Kacey. . ."
Sky ignored Readn, shifting and huffing air and then, finally, unexpectedly, nickering a greeting.
To what?
Out of the darkness, over light footsteps on the road that were just now
audible, Rethia's voice said, "Dan? Danny is that you?"
"Goddess damn," he breathed, not believing what his ears told him,
though the rest of him had already known. "Rethia...?"
Her answer was to quicken her step, while Readn ducked under the lead
rope and headed for the road. He met her in the middle of it, and got
nothing more than a glimpse of her face before she caught him up in a hug so
sudden and fierce it literally knocked an oomph out of him. "What?" he
said, when her indistinct words met up with his jacket and turned
incomprehensible, and then didn't give her a chance to repeat herself, but
took her by the shoulders and set her back a few steps. "What are you
doing here? Why are you alone?"
She didn't answer any of those things, but what she said was infinitely
more important. "They have Kacey," she said breathlessly. "The Knife has
Kacey."
©1998 Doranna Durgin
Download Chapter One of Wolf Justice
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Wolverine's Daughter
Looters at her mother's pyre. . .
Looters! Their quick presence stunk of magic.
Kelyn ran into the roundhouse, flung her satchel on top of the
rough wood chest that held foodstuffs and supplies, grappled with it a
moment before she got enough of a grip on it to heave it up against
the dirt-and-rock wall of the house. She snatched a handful of furs
and tossed them leather-side-up over the chest and, grunting with the
effort, hoisted a water crock the size of her torso high up into the
air so that it crashed down to soak the leathers, chest and
surrounding floor.
Pounding hoofbeats marked time for her as she snatched a burning
limb from the fire and dashed outside. She glanced at the waiting
pyre. A signal fire was her only chance to call for help, but she'd
be damned if she used her mother's glory, her pyre for the purpose.
The galloping, whooping looters were in sight; she didn't have
time. She ran back inside anyway, scooped up her mother's
stiffening body and carried it to the pyre.
The looters were circling the house and grounds now, looping
around the pyre and plowing through the dried stalks from last
summer's garden. Kelyn made one last, desperate dive for the house as
the looters mocked her, circling closer, mimicking the fear they were
sure they saw.
They saw wrong.
©2000 Doranna Durgin
(Excerpt coming in November)
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Monday September 28 2009
Monday September 28 2009
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