Ladies
and Gentlemen, our first ever anthology Nine Heroes has been released and in
celebration of that we are doing a series of posts called "That is the
moment when". Each post deals with an experience or experiences that each
author who contributed to the anthology has had that helped shape the way they
write or tell stories.
This time
around we have RA McCandless, who contributed the short story 'Through the Sting
of Fairy Smoke' to the anthology.
Nine
Heroes: That is the moment when . . .
It
was November of 2013, at Fort Rinella on Malta.
That
is the moment when I realized just how important, and how impressive, even
small fortifications could be, and why I loved writing about them. I’d been all over the island nation checking
out the massive turrets, bastions, towers, walls and defenses of the Knights Hospitaller,
and they were all fantastic. It was
research and inspiration in one for a heroic fantasy author. You definitely understand that the men who
held claim to Malta and dedicated to a life of piety, were trained and skilled
in war and violence.
But
the British-built Ford Rinella, constructed between 1878 and 1886 to house and
defend an Armstrong 100-ton gun, is what really brought the concept of
siege-craft into sharp focus. This was brought
to my full and complete attention when the tour guides, dressed in an
era-appropriate red British uniform, led us along the approach, which bent
sharply to the right just as we approached the counter-escarpment. Twenty firing points line the defensive wall,
part of a sheer drop into a dry moat about thirty feet deep. Five of the firing points were manned, and
additional reenactment volunteers began to mass-fire blanks in our general
direction. The noise of the commands to
aim and fire, given in quick succession, followed by the booming report of
weapons, gave me pause.
Considering
the approach from an attacker’s point of view, you’d have to order men down
that death shoot. Without any kind of
armor or shielding, it would take hard, fast running and a great deal of luck
to avoid the massed fire coming from all twenty of the firing points when full
manned. This doesn’t take into account
at all the assault required to breach the moat, pull open the solid siege door
(which had its own firing point) and then attempt to storm into the fort proper
. . . which had its own defenses. I
haven’t even mentioned the caponier with additional firing ports, defensive
ditches and narrow choke points throughout the rest of the small fortress.
Reading
about castles and towers and fortifications is one thing. Even visiting them helps give a good sense of
scale and perspective. For an author
this first hand knowledge is invaluable.
But actually seeing, even as a reenactment, soldiers moving into
position with their weapons to repel an attack . . . that’s quite something.
Explaining
attack or defense or even a soldier’s day-to-day life to an audience in the
context of heroic, valiant or villainous even dastardly deeds is what made the
experience so rewarding. The thrill of
fear in just the approach, the resolve of the defenders in their position of
tenuous strength – it’s the very essence of any good story. Objective and challenges, set-backs and
triumphs are an author’s main stock in trade.
The goal, though, is to take the reader to a place that is so real that
if they ever actually go there, it won’t be for the first time.
Nine
Heroes is available in both paperback and kindle.
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