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Hudson Carhart

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2025

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21 Followers
8 Following

5 Stories

137 karma pts

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Descent

Weekly Contest #341

The ladder descended into darkness. Heavy darkness.The wooden frame of the mine entrance sagged inward like broken ribs while two maintenance racks flanked either side of the abyss, holding rusted sledgehammers and timber wedges—tools for shoring up the tunnels.Drala’s hands found iron rungs slick with condensation, and her body remembered: twelve years old, arms burning, the endless climb up and down and up again until movement became prayer.Twenty feet down and the smell hit—rock dust copper-sweet like old blood, lamp oil rancid enough to ...

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Black Fletching

Weekly Contest #340

The back room of the Broken Mast smelled like tar, stale beer, and that acrid stink of sweat. Oren Makk sat with his back to the wall, watching the door. Old habit. Good habit. The kind that kept you breathing.The man across from him looked like every other Southmere merchant—soft hands, expensive coat, the kind of face that smiled while lying. He’d introduced himself as Siward Lenn, trader in grain and timber, a man looking to hire.“I have a problem,” Lenn said, sliding a folded parchment across the table. “Imperial Trade Minister. Been sni...

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The Smoke

Weekly Contest #339

The fire cracked, spitting embers into the night. Garrett watched them rise and die, red stars that lived for a breath and nothing more.“You hear me, Garrett?”He blinked. Rodyn was staring at him from across the flames, gap-toothed grin splitting his scarred face.“I said, you ever seen a man take an axe to the spine and keep fighting?”Garrett took a pull from his waterskin. “Once. Berserker in the Northern Campaigns. Took three more cuts before he knew he was dead.”The others laughed. Six of them left now, after the ambush two days past. Kel...

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The Avignon Palimpsest: The Testament of Brother Aldric, Anno Domini 1348

Weekly Contest #338

As discovered in the Papal Library at Avignon, transcribed from the margin notes of a palimpsest, whereunto this poor scholar’s confession was inscribed in letters so small as to escape notice for six hundred and seventy-eight years. 3rd of September, 1348I have been a faithful servant of Our Lord for thirty-two years, and in that span I have touched the sacred word made manifest in vellum and ink some four thousand times. I have scraped clean the profane, that the divine might be written atop it. I have illuminated the margins with such dev...

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The Weight of Silver

Shortlisted for Contest #336 ⭐️

The rain hadn’t stopped for three days, and Keld reckoned it never would. The gods were pissing on Vareland again, same as they’d been pissing on it since the Empress decided this stretch of mud mattered enough to die for. He sat in Commander Marrick’s tent and watched the officer drink. The ropes creaked with the wind. One stake had pulled half-free and left the canvas sagging. Nobody had bothered fixing it. When your boots were full of water and your rations were moldy hardtack, tent maintenance wasn’t a priority. “Duty,” Marrick said, the...

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