Deadshepherd (Tales of the Final Fall of Man Anthology Book 1)

by Andrew Hindle

  He couldn’t have said who Bonshoo had been, or what. Either one of the initial settlers, or a pet thereof, or an imaginary figure of Single Sigh folklore, who had presumably dropped from the cliffs in a moment of ill-advised carelessness. The fall wouldn’t have been all that dangerous to a Molran unless he or she was particularly unlucky, so Gandicon tended to believe it had been a fictional character or one of the terribly fragile local organisms. For all that the Single Sigh-dominated community of Bonshoo Drop had grown in the vicinity of Ghåål’s home, there had already been a few people living in the area when his family moved here, and the place had already had – and forgotten the precise origins of – its name.

  [←8]

  The Fleet did find more Bharriom on their journey towards the gate in space, but never in quantities quite so large as the original hearts. Smaller crystals were placed in the Porticon, Bosskra and Big Shooey, although it was uncertain how long they would last. After that, the Fleet intruded deeper into Damorakind territory where it seemed the Bharriom had been harvested to nonexistence.

  [←9]

  They no longer called themselves the Single Sigh, although as a result of Gandicon’s folk hero status, it remained one of the more enduring facets of early Twin Species counterculture. A fact that both Mer and Bason thought Gandicon himself would have found endlessly irritating.

  Table of Contents

  Sisterhood

  Black Honey Wings

  Malachi’s Gambit

  Ghåål’s Ark