Follow a queer band of irregular soldiers—Knickers, Bobbin, Mara, Gerry, Polly, and the legendary Buckaroo Banshee—as they traverse the Meteora Mountains and the Ministry of Souls to save each other and the rebellion.
Coming Summer 2027, Meteora × Mettle is an industrial-era, military fantasy novel following the Third Irregulars of the Lanvan Revolutionary Aerie. Deep behind enemy lines, the mission goes to hell when a many-eyed fiend attacks. Soon, Knickers, Bobbin, Mara, Gerry, the Iron Gale, and the legendary Buckaroo Banshee must traverse both the Meteora Mountains and the Ministry of Souls to save each other and the rebellion.
The Lanvan Revolutionary Aerie made a deal with a daredevil: strap a winged rocket to your back and you're an officer. Knickers (well, Flight-Lieutenant Nicodemus Justinian Rose) hasn't yet managed to win the Sundered Marches their freedom, but he did accidentally rope his baby brother into the war.
While deep in occupied Miltahwark on a sabotage mission, a fiend marked by a thousand amethyst eyes massacres the unit. With the two brothers separated, survival, reunion, and success each seem unlikely. All three? Impossible.
Threading fate's needle will depend on the survivors joining arms with the legendary Buckaroo Banshee – a one-eyed, leathery old witch bearing half a century of trouble and lightning - and the Iron Gale, a convict conscript that has more secrets than murder charges.
Countless eyes watch the heavens above Lanva; iron, grit, and a tailor's wit will have to do. Let Meteora meet Mettle.
He didn’t mean the undergarment, of course. Whether or not those were itchy was mostly a question of what they were made of, how well they were tailored and cared for. Knickers meant himself: the uniformed half-pint dandy rocketing above the clouds at a hundred and twenty miles per hour on feathered metal wings wider than he was tall.
Knickers – more properly Flight-Lieutenant Nicodemus Justinian Rose, Esquire, although he had been Knickers long before he’d chosen such a lovely polysyllabic name, gotten credentialed, or obtained an officer’s rank – was a rebel aerinyes. That meant that he both flew, and was, a death trap.
Toes wiggled inside of his boots, flicking at pneumatic switches as he kept his legs locked against the wind. There were a lot of dangers to flying this way – birds, weather, and you had to mind the rocket exhaust or it’d burn your feet. But he wouldn’t have survived this long if they bothered him. No, most of that was exciting, especially what the boots did for his thighs. There was no upside to the wind whipping at his flesh until everything was cold, numb and kind of itchy.
The numb part was almost worse. Everything about these overland trips was a little mind-numbing compared to dogfighting; just checking his angle against the sun and the distant mountain peaks in a vast and empty sky. At least the itching occupied his brain a little. It wasn’t safe for him to be alone with his thoughts these days. Not since Forti.
A soft, high whistle filled his right ear; it was an unnaturally clear sound, given the roar of the rocket and the howling of the wind, but that’s because it was magical.
The noise was followed by a slightly squeaky, reedy voice. “Hi, Knicks, we’re back! Still no sign of the witch we’re supposed to be meeting.”
Knickers couldn’t help but grin, even as other thoughts ran in parallel. He counted out one, two, three seconds, and then the voice continued. “Um, over.”
“Copy that, Bobbin.” Like clockwork. Hee!
But, not good. They’d been counting on having this lady show up. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be on a mission with a witch given everything, but objectively, they needed her; the unit was short-staffed. And if she was even half as impressive as the stories that Knicks had heard growing up...
He brought back the smile so it’d travel with his voice. “Wild guess that the Captain’s pretty sore about that. Over.”
Nervous giggles, high and fluttering like a flute, came in response. Bobbin was trying not to say something uncharitable. “Y-yeah, you could say that, Knicks. Over. Wait, no, not over. You’re in position now. Probably. Over.”
“Thanks. Going to land, maintain an open key please. Over and out.”
It wasn’t quite regulation to do it this way – flying with no real landmarks on the ground, just a heading based on the sun and distance estimated by the subtle latencies of cosmofony. The Captain would pitch a fit if she heard them do it. But both Knickers and Bobbin had always been very good with time, and using this trick let Knickers travel using clouds below to hide from the ground the whole way. Just because he was a dogfighting ace didn’t mean he’d risk it when it’d endanger the mission.
He tapdanced his toe-switches, re-angling a thousand painted metal feathers inside of their golden frame, and dove down through the swirling clouds, white swallowed to gray. Water – ice droplets, even – splashed against his exposed cheeks in the darkness; altitude was cold everywhere, and thunderclouds were twice as. But at least it was only his face. He used waterproof mascara these days, and the long red frock coat shielded him from everything else.
Helpful accessories for his sometimes-unorthodox flight plans – like today’s. Thunderstorms were rarely low enough to fly over, and most aerinyes were afraid the electrostatic build-up in the cloud would be fatal to their wingpacks. Most aerinyes hadn’t been doing this as long as Knickers, though, and the rest hadn’t read Langhurst’s original monograph on the variconductive properties of lumite.
Knickers burst out the bottom of the cloud like a soaking wet scarlet thunderbolt. Jungle treetops screamed up at him, and he flipped inverse – rocket and boots pointed at the ground, wings flared wide and scooting him left and right and front and back among branches. Twigs and leaves rained down around him as he came to a stop just a few yards below the top of the overgrown canopy.
Good enough.
He raised a gloved hand up to his left shoulder and pulled a cord at the same time as he tripped a switch with his big toe. The rocket cut off entirely, and – with careful fluttering of the knees – Knicks flapped over to a large, forked branch and landed, feet first. It was only a little bit wet; it was remarkable how good a roof against rain that the jungle made for itself.
The trees extended out as far as the eye could see in three directions; in the fourth, however, the jungle came to a sudden stop at the edge of a muddy brown river. And on the opposite bank of that river lay brown brick walls, encircling a very old town with a lot of very new buildings.
As his wings folded up, Knickers reached into his coat and fished around for something with one hand as his other pulled his goggles up and away from his eyes. From his left inner breast pocket, he pulled out a pair of leather-wrapped binocs. He wouldn’t have the best view, between the trees and the rain, but it’d be better than any view they had of him. The odds were already bad here.
Redhambe. He’d never even heard of this place before they’d gotten orders to scope out the area, but he knew the type. Miltahwark March only had one type of town, near as he could tell, and they all had turned out to be easy for the Empire to move into. Built during the Wars of the Petty Dames, long before the Duvencht had an empire or the wastes had Marches.
A terrible, droning noise buzzed through the air below, and Knickers looked around reflexively. The armoskites couldn’t get him up this high in the trees – giant bugs made poor flyers – but it was always good to make sure he didn’t get too wrapped up in the binoculars. Would have been nice if they’d had enough aerinyes to do these scouting flights in pairs; he made for a dashing wingman.
He pulled the binocs back up.
Beyond the drab walls, he spied a few equally exciting brick buildings inside. Most of the rest were bamboo construction – quick to build, and sturdy enough for a family, but not something to last generations. The exceptions were ugly white eyesores made of jagged shell-lime concrete. Quick stuff spun up once a century or so when some noble or another got her knickers – this time he did mean the article of clothing, but only metaphorically – in a twist about needing better outposts to put down servant revolts.
One other exception, and this one made Knicks purse his lips and grump. There were a few new sections of wall towards the back – impossibly smooth stone, magically conjured. That’d be imperial work, hexenbauer specifically. The unit wasn’t exactly planning to siege the place, but if Redhambe had hexenbauer, this place was not that sleepy. Probably at least a full brigade. They’d have to be very careful not to get caught snooping around.
A bit of a wild choice to have a single hastily-cobbled-together unit try and take out train tracks near it, if you asked Knicks his opinion, but no one had. Brigadier Lane did what Brigadier Lane wanted. All Knickers could do was try to make it work.
Though, if you asked him – and yes, yes, no one did, but still – this felt reckless even by Lane’s standards. Knickers almost wondered if they were supposed to be here at all.
No, he put that thought out of his mind. Perhaps it would be relevant to ask the Captain when he got back to camp, but it had no bearing on what he was doing now.
“Knickers speaking! I’ve landed, Bobbin,” he announced, putting a little bit of theatrical oomph into his voice. “Please continue to keep the key open. Over.”
If he got attacked, he didn’t want to fiddle with having to reopen the key to let them know. His hands would be occupied.
“Sure thing, Knicks!” returned the musical voice. “Have fun sketching! Over and out.”
The lieutenant took another look around – at the rain, at the dark verdance surrounding him with its many shadows – and then withdrew from his coat a small, leather-bound notebook. He wasn’t sure the pen was mightier than the sword, but a good tailor penciled before they jabbed a needle anywhere.
THE SUNDERED MARCHES are not safe or simple; they're alive.
Revolution is in the air. Not an uprising of liberty alone, but also of industry, finance, agriculture, and society, each change forking into three others like an unending chain of lightning.
The empire demands saltpeter and gold, but takes blood and steel too. The rebellion asks pint-sized pipsqueaks to strap rockets to their back and fly; many never come back. The moon bleeds, the pen is mightier than the pistol, and wandering witches live on leather and lightning.
The soil of Alovis, from the lowest point of Lanva Crater to the peaks of the Meteoras and the Vencht Mountains, is riven with good and evil. What few roots find purchase in the prairie soil drink deep of both; life chases power like a lonely weed turns to sunlight, even if only to see another day's dawn.
What people and empires do for that light, the lies they tell themselves over it, and how the very best and worst of those lies spring up from truths – that is what the Sundered Marches, and every single nation of Alovis, is about. It's the story of every skyship, it shadows bandits, buckaroos, and banshees, and it sings with each note in a cosmofonist's score.
There's a war on, but there's a world still living around it, too. Hold on to your knickers, friends; it's going to be one wild ride.
The draft is complete. Five years of worldbuilding, a released novel, a 200,000-word RPG supplement, and a soundtrack have built the foundation — now M×M needs its professional edit to cross the finish line.
This campaign is a second shot at a story (and a world) I've been working on since 2019. With a much more developed setting under my belt and a better grasp of storytelling, I want to revisit the world of the Sundered Marches. However, putting out a book costs a pretty penny these days; I need developmental editors, formatting, and some help with all the languages I run.
Rough draft's done, the trick is the polish. The book is currently being targeted for a Summer 2027 release.
A lot of campaigns start with very low bids but they really have to be ten or a hundred times more what they say they need.
I very sincerely need about $1,000. I know exactly what to spend if I had more than that, but at the bottom line, this is what I absolutely require to cover costs. Here's a tracker.
Funding Tracker, indicating goals of Dev Edit ($1,000), Polish ($2,000), Additional Art & Music ($3,000), Audiobook ($5,000), and mystery goals of $7,500 and $10,000. Currently all unfunded.
Examples of our music and art are present in our youtube channel:
A Map of (part of) the Sundered Marches
Notes on an armored creature called a Hipaitne. It resembles a buffalo crossed with a rhino and smolders to boot.
Cynthia Skye has been writing books for 22 years now; Meteora × Mettle will be her sixth completed novel. The Sundered Marches setting began as a lark in mid-2019, with two goals:
To create unique, fun characters that everyone can enjoy, and then take them as seriously as possible.
To explore the economic aftereffects of a magical plague that hit a magical republic at the height of its empire.
(Regarding the latter, Cynthia would like to emphasize that she began writing this setting in the summer of 2019, and leaves it as an exercise for the reader to determine if she is prophetic or merely unfortunate.)
In accordance with the prophecy, the Sundered Marches has been developed through a 200,000 word tabletop RPG supplement, a released book, a soundtrack available on YouTube Music, and an unreleased book. M×M is the definitive reimagination of the first book, with the benefit of experience and thought.
Daniel Wilson is a musical chameleon who has written music on the down-low for Youtubers, video game developers and authors alike. He is influenced by the music of John Williams, Danny Elfman, Masanori Adachi, Wojciech Kilar, Eveline Novakovic, and Mark Korven.
