In The Dark and Forbidding Land, Saba Colbshallow becomes one of the major characters.  He was around a lot in The Voyage of the Minotaur.  I didn’t really realize how much until I reread it.  He’s hanging around when much of the important changes happen. In this book, he had to be a major protagonist, and his part of the book I think turned out really well.

Also, in this book I needed to introduce Eamon Shrubb.  He and Saba would become an important duo in Book 3.  They remain an important duo in Book 6 as I’m writing it now.  Here is their first meeting.

Saba Colbshallow sat on a piece of log.  It was one of many which had been provided for local lizzies to sit.  His left hand was full of small pebbles and he was tossing them with his right hand at a half rusted tin that had originally held butter biscuits.  Most of the thrown missiles missed their mark and even when one did land in the tin it didn’t improve his mood.  He had been in a bad mood for an entire week now, ever since the wedding.  Could you call that a wedding?  Five minutes in the Mayor’s office?  Yuah deserved much better than that.  She deserved much better than Master Terrence too.  Saba wanted to say that she deserved him, but he knew that he wasn’t good enough for her either.  She was an angel.  He had loved her ever since he was seven.  Then she had been a burgeoning sixteen-year-old beauty, with long dark brown hair and the most incredible eyelashes.  Of course before that, he had fancied Iolanthe, now Governor Dechantagne-Calliere.  But that was before she had changed.  Not that he blamed her; he understood.  Iolanthe was married, and now Yuah was too.  And here he was, an eighteen-year-old corporal in the militia, and didn’t even have a girl.

“Colbshallow, right?”

Saba looked up to see a big man standing a few feet from him.  Saba was six foot three and this fellow was just as tall, but with broader shoulders and a thick muscular chest.  Though the man was a few years older than Saba, he was only a private.

“That’s right.”

“I’m Shrubb, Eamon Shrubb.”

“Nice to meet you, Shrubb.”  Saba slowly stood up and stretched out a hand, which Shrubb took.

“What’s your Kafirite name, if you don’t mind my asking?” asked Shrubb.  “Um… you are a Kafirite, aren’t you?”

Saba nodded.

“I’ve never seen so many zeets before.”

“I don’t much care for that word,” said Saba, icily.  He was still thinking about Yuah and was predisposed to dislike anyone whom he thought might be aiming an insult even in her general direction.

“Quite right.  Quite right.  As I say, I’ve never met many zee… Zaeri.  I don’t have anything against them though.  I never understood that whole ‘killed Kafira’ thing anyway.  I mean, didn’t she come back from the dead?  That’s a big part of the church.  How could she have come back from the dead if nobody killed her?  All worked out for the best, as far as I can see.”

“Do you always talk this much?” asked Saba.

“No.”  Shrubb looked pensive.  “Quite uncharacteristic really.”

“Good.  My first name is Saba.  What would you say to some fish and chips?”

“I don’t generally talk to my food.”