Hugh J. O'Donnell

A black frost, a killing frost, lay heavy on the ground when he awoke that morning. Most of the nearby crops had yet to be harvested, and this disaster would mean a lean winter for the village.
He ventured outside, bracing against the sudden cold, and put his hand to the earth.
As he suspected, the early frost which had defied his predictions wasn’t a natural occurrence.
He looked out at the fields, and saw one was already cleared. He would start there. Dark magic hung over the village, and he would root it out before it did more harm.

The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!

We decided to take a shortcut home through the graveyard. We’d been warned it was dangerous, of course, but what better night than Halloween?
The path was lit by the light of the full moon through the skeletal branches, and leaves crunched under our feet as we held hands. We felt a thrill, but no fear as we passed the stone markers of our antecedents.
We didn’t even know about the escaped killer until the next day, when they found his body hidden in the bushes, trampled to death and surrounded by skeletal footprints.

The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!

They found the dagger resting in a pile of treasure, it’s ruby-studded cap glinting in the torchlight. The thief, captivated, reached out to take it but the mage stopped his hand.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit too easy?”
“Don’t be such so paranoid,” he said. “It ain’t trapped, I checked.”
After that, the thief always carried it with him, and the rest of the party noticed a dramatic shift in his personality. The cleric was certain he was cursed, but he was so deadly with the new blade that they let the matter rest.
Until it was too late.

The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!

They had worked on the original creation, and were immensely proud of it. For millions of years, the divine forces of light, heat and gravity interacted in a vast cosmic dance predictable down to the second. It was good.
Until suddenly, the universe wasn’t quite spinning properly. Something had been added.
That was how they found out about life.
The work hadn’t been enough. The Creator had to go and add to it, infesting the universe with teeming objects that behaved unpredictably and upset the clockwork perfection of their universe.
They’d expunged it from three planets before they were caught.

The Mountain’s Shadow is now available from Amazon and Smashwords!