“The Torrent of Souls” by H. R. Laurence
Old Mooon Quarterly Number 7

In my review of Battleborn, I mention that Jason M. Waltz had a review that started with the first line of the story. I liked the line so much I tracked down the story, something I mentioned in the review.

In the comments, Jason suggested I share my thoughts on it. They are below.

As an aside, I read the book I reviewed in the previous post on the basis of its first line. That’s acutally a good idea, reading and reviewing something based on a great opening line. I may have to do more of that. (I only steal ideas from the best, Jason.)

The story is “The Torrent of Souls”, as noted at the top of the post.

Here’s the opening line: “Heodric had won the knife fight, which was to say his foe was dying faster than he was.”

Heodric loses consciousness, but not before a  man approaches him through the crowd in the tavern who are watching him die. They excahnge a few words. Heodric loses consciousness. He wakes up in a stable. The man is there along with a witch.

They have a job for him. It involves moving through a river of souls to the barrow of a powerful wiard. The witch needs access to some of the wizard’s books.

That’s all the plot I’ll tell. You can buy a copy and read the rest for yourself.

H. R. Laurence isn’t a writer I’m familiar with. I’m going to keep an eye out for his work, though. The opening scene pulled me in.The character of Heodric was well developed. I was interested in what happened to him. The action moved briskly. The dialogue was crisp and moved the plot along while developing the characters.

I’ve not had a chance to read the rest of this issue of Old Moon Quaterly, but I’m going to read the rest sometime in the next few weeks. I’m in the middle of several books at the moment.

And if Luarence has written more stories about Heodric, I’d like to read them. Let me know if the comments if you’re aware of them.