Dassuk: Part the First:Bloodseeker

Bloodseeker*

Warning!

Contains barbarian warriors, bloodthirsty monsters and weird sex.
Does NOT contain sorcerers, paranormal powers or parallel universes.
Warranted dragon-free.

*The first tranche of the Bignose Cache

Wind from the North, they called him, Lord Harum, Recorder of the Five. To his face. Behind his back they had other names for Leron Karason Donne Biglo: Poisoner, Bluearse, Bridgebreaker. And, of course, and worst of all, they named him Dassuk, and spat.

The nameless planet of the story is Earthlike, apart from the two moons, the absence of grass and trees, and the lack of major landmasses. Human beings inhabit many of the thousands of islands, building civilisations, working with ivory, briars and iron instead of timber. Large, aggressive and fiercely territorial cetaceans make ocean travel between widely separated islands impossible. Yet human ingenuity has come up with a spectacular alternative.

Combining features of airships and sailing vessels, Zepps can carry high value cargoes over long distances, subject to the whims of the weather. Trade flourishes. Zepps are built and operated by a new social class, based on one particular sub-tropical archipelago. Here a rigid feudal society is beginning to buckle under the pressures from the mercantilism of the Zeppers and a recent industrial revolution taking place on one of the larger islands.

Into this unstable situation comes the eponymous narrator. Born on an isolated sub-polar island where all must obey the Rules if they are to survive fierce winters crammed into underground tunnels, Leron is ‘given to Winter’ for offering violence to his half-brother. By outrageous good fortune he survives, bonds with a juvenile intelligent super-carnivore, and escapes on a Zepp, the first of his people to encounter the outside world.

To his horror, Leron, like every other male on his island the uncircumcised son of an uncircumcised mother, discovers that he is a ‘dassuk’. Everywhere he goes, dassuks are monsters of myth and legend, universally believed to be unclean sub-humans motivated by bloodlust and perverted sexual appetites. Armed only with poison-tipped darts and blowguns, protected by the super-carnivore, Leron barely survives two very different island cultures before he arrives in Josi Makem, home of the Zeppers.

The archipelago has been ruled by the Bunds for generations. Purdah, suttee and both male and female circumcision have been the norm, feudalism is enforced with an iron fist. Gheenbay, the Zepper’s township, festers with resentment and rebellion. Here Leron catalyses a violent social and cultural revolution, which propels him reluctantly into a position of supreme power. No great warrior himself, he knows how to manipulate and motivate warriors and merchants alike, and how to hold the balance of power, all in the interests of simple survival against long odds.

The book takes the form of a number of scrolls, written by Leron during his years of power, and subsequently concealed. The scrolls do not form a linear narrative: the story unfolds like a jigsaw puzzle, with each scroll generating new questions and answering others. Part the First introduces us to the great sword Bloodseeker and the warrior who wields it to such effect, and we meet the other unlikely conspirators of the Five.

Read more scrolls from the Bignose Cache in Dassuk: Part the Second: Thunderstroke and Dassuk: Part the Third: Whipsticker

For more information on the world of the Dassuk, including full colour maps, go to www.dassukworld.co.uk