Hey everyone. I’ve just released the new covers for the Eoriel Saga series (Books 1-3). I’m really excited to get these out, as the cover artist did a fantastic job.
Enjoy the new covers and if you haven’t picked them up, give them a look!
Tag Archives: Fate of the Tyrant
Fate of the Tyrant is Live!
Fate of the Tyrant is now live! Get your copy just in time to enjoy over 4th of July weekend right here. (I promise there’s plenty of explosions)
The Tyrant’s time has come.
Winter has come to the Five Duchies, a time of bitter cold when noblemen scheme and commoners wonder how to feed themselves through the long, dark months.
In the far north, the Warlord Tarjak Rusk stirs his forces, guided by the wizard Xavien, Herald to the dark spirit Andoral Elhonas. Xavien knows that the time has come when the Five Duchies are vulnerable… and with the might of his master behind him, Xavien could conquer the civilized lands as an undisputed tyrant.
In the Duchy of Masov, Duke Hector the Usurper faces a civil war, brought on by the survival of Lady Katarina. If he doesn’t squash this rebellion with the coming spring, he’ll face a war on two fronts. Yet even if he wins victory, it will be a hard fought one against his own people, leaving scars that might never heal or even shattering the Duchy into splinters.
The fate of the Five Duchies might well be decided in Masov, but if Hector and Katarina cannot resolve their differences, then they’ll only be the first to fall to the raiders from the north. Only if they can unite against him can they seal the fate of the tyrant.
You can get Fate of the Tyrant from Amazon as paperback and ebook.
Fate of the Tyrant Snippet Four
Here’s the fourth snippet of Fate of the Tyrant, coming on Thursday. You can find the first snippet here and the blurb and cover here.
Chapter I
Lord Hector the Usurper Duke
Castle Ember, Duchy of Masov
14th of Ravin, Cycle 1000 Post Sundering
Lord Hector considered the map for a long while before he slowly removed the last yellow peg from the hole near Lower Debber and replaced it with a red one. With the loss of Lower Debber to Lady Katarina’s forces, he had no garrisons remaining in the south. Not that I believed I could keep it, he admitted to himself, but I hoped it would at least occupy some of Katarina’s forces over the winter.
The town’s militia had some loyalty to him, seeing as his father, the late and unlamented Lord Mikhel, had called the town home. Moreover, he’d exempted them from much of the wartime taxes elsewhere in the Duchy, mostly because they had provided their taxes in quality steel that his smiths turned into weapons and armor. Now that steel would go to Katarina’s forces. The garrison had fallen to a mix of sabotage and diplomacy, from the little he had heard.
That left him with just handful of notionally loyal mercenary bands in the south, most of them little more than bandits at this point. Covle Darkbit’s force was the largest, yet Hector felt little trust for the man. The rumors passed along by his informants made it clear that while Darkbit hurt Katarina’s forces, they had utterly alienated the general populace.
I wish I had listened to Kerrel and executed him, Hector thought, at least then there would be less blood on my hands. The weight of his mercenary’s actions had grown upon him. It was one thing to sack an Armen raid camp… it was quite another to hear the reports of this or that village burned to the ground, its people turned out into the coming winter.
And not all of them at Covle Darkbit’s hand, Hector thought with resignation. There were red pegs in other locations than the south. Most, if not all, were isolated by his own forces, but some would hold out the winter and he knew that his forces would be too dispersed to defeat them all and still guard the south against the army that Katarina would field in the spring.
This had all spiraled out of control and Hector knew exactly whose fault that was. At least he had savaged the Armen enough that they shouldn’t be able to come south in force. If nothing else, they would have to overcome his forces on the Lonely Isle first, who would have the entire winter to fortify and ready themselves.
While the Armen could bypass the island, their raiding sloops would be low on supplies and their fighting men would need days or even weeks to regain their feet after such a long ocean journey on their light vessels. Odds were, whatever Armen were desperate enough for such a journey wouldn’t be in any condition to be a real threat.
Still, he thought musingly, some will probably try it. His last messages from his spies in the north had reported the winter infighting to be particularly brutal. It sounded as if Tarjak Rusk had begun an attempt to unify the Semat Armen, much as Marka Pall had unified the Solak. If that were the case, Hector could expect a number of raiding parties from those forced out, made up of the desperate survivors. In a cycle or two, Tarjak Rusk would probably come south in force, backed by a larger, more cohesive army. I can only hope that bastard Tarjak comes within reach of my blade, Hector thought. He would have to plan for that… assuming he could survive the civil war in his own lands, of course.
Hector turned to face the woman who had stood silent as he pondered the map. “No words of wisdom? No criticism of my tactics?” He saw her lips go flat in disapproval and he restrained a sigh. The barbed comment had been out of line. Despite Commander Kerrel Flamehair’s stated disapproval of his tactics, she had backed him in every way that mattered. Furthermore, she’d nearly been killed by Grel the Hound, who had proven to be an agent, witting or otherwise, of a sorcerer.
At least I can thank Katarina’s forces for dealing with that particular monster, Hector thought with some minor relief. The mercenary had been his tool for dealing with the least pleasant of tasks. He had become a monster somewhere along the way and Hector had simply used him as a blunt instrument, to smash his foes and create fear.
“I’m sorry,” Hector said to Kerrel. “That was out of line.” He sighed as he stared at the map of the Duchy… and considered the areas where he didn’t know enough to put a peg. “What do you think about Countess Darkriver?” Hector asked.
Kerrel sighed, “I would say that holding two companies of hers as hostage to her good behavior would be enough, but I’m not certain anymore.” She shrugged, “She has no way to contact them, not since you locked down on passage to and from the Lonely Isle, but she’s a hard one to read.”
Hector nodded, “And she’s capable enough of risking her people. If she thinks signing on with Katarina will swing this civil war to a close before I can have her people killed in response… or that I would hesitate to do so, then she might do it.”
“Would you kill them?” Kerrel asked
Hector sighed, “To set an example? I wouldn’t hesitate. I know you trained with them, I know you served with them. Andoral’s black balls, I know they saved my ass when the Vendakar mercenaries betrayed me… but if they turn to Katarina’s side I will have their officers executed and their enlisted men hung.” Hector shrugged, “I cannot allow any of my men to think that I will tolerate rebellion… or that I won’t punish disloyalty.”
“And Covle Darkbit?” Kerrel asked in an echo of Hector’s earlier thoughts.
“I should have strung him up,” Hector shrugged. “But now he’s the only commander left south of here. Which means when the spring comes, I’ll have to move my forces north.”
“You’re abandoning Castle Ember?” Kerrel asked in surprise.
Hector sighed, “Not entirely. I’ll leave a small garrison, enough to hold it against anything but a full out attack and possibly even then since the rebels will have little experience in siege craft.” Castle Ember was the Ducal Seat. The stone walls around them had seen thousands of cycles of history and legends said that the first Starborn to arrive in the Duchy had helped to design the fortress. It was the cultural and symbolic center of the Duchy as well as one of the strongest fortifications in the known world. Yet so was the Ryftguard, Hector thought, and Katarina took it away from me.
Hector stared down at the floor beneath his feet. In truth, it pained him to abandon the place. It went beyond its symbolic value. This was the place he had been raised… and it was where he had risen to power, over the cooling body of his aunt and uncle. To abandon it now felt as if he had them killed for no reason, that his rise to power had already been undone.
Kerrel didn’t seem to have an answer to that. Hector waited though, and soon enough she asked the question that he knew was on her mind. “Have you considered another attempt at peace?”
“I think that between them, Grel and Darkbit thoroughly destroyed all chances of that,” Hector responded. During the talks at the Ryftguard, the two had attempted to seize the gates and someone, presumably Grel, had stabbed Kerrel. In the process, they had destroyed any credibility that Hector might have. Worse, they had then attacked the rebellious city of Zielona Gora which backfired in the destruction of most of Covle Darkbit’s forces and Grel’s death.
“I’ve met Katarina,” Kerrel said. “She doesn’t want a civil war any more than you do. Maybe if you send me…”
Hector shook his head, “At this point, winter has closed most of the roads. You’d have to travel in strength, carry all your supplies in… you’d need an army to pack everything in and you would look like an invading army. No, if we do something like that, it will have to wait for spring.”
Kerrel nodded, though he could tell from her expression she didn’t like to leave it for so long. Still, she hadn’t read some of his reports. Even now in late fall, there were rumors of heavy snows and bitter cold. Those storms had driven normal people down out of the mountains… but it also sounded as if the Norics had been driven down out of the peaks… along with some of the sorcerous spawn from around Black Mountain. Even assuming the rebels didn’t attack her, she still might have a serious fight on her journey, and Hector wasn’t about to put her to pointless risk as the only field commander he trusted in the south. Especially not since I nearly lost her already, he thought.
The long seasons of Eoriel were both blessing and curse. While he had accomplished so much in the long spring and summer, with how the weather had come in so suddenly in the southern highlands, he had lost four months of the fall and would lose all six months of the winter. Even assuming that spring broke early, he would lose ten months, ten long months in which Lady Katarina’s people would have to plan and prepare for a spring campaign. And though winter had closed down the roads to large forces, the southerners knew how to handle those heavy snowfalls better. Their towns were designed with interconnected homes and steep roofs to shed snow. Their people knew how to travel with snowshoes, pack-sleds, and skis, while many of his mercenaries and recruits from the lowlands had less experience with such heavy snow.
Hector had two companies from the fallen Duchy of Taral, but he didn’t want to feed them into the borderlands that had become such a charnel house.
Besides, he had some doubts over their loyalty in fighting the southerners. While it was true that most of the mercenary companies from Taral had few ties, it wasn’t inconceivable that they might feel some sympathy or even camaraderie with the southerners, being high country folk themselves. Even if they didn’t change sides, they might well desert if given a free route through the Ryftguard and back to their homeland.
“If you’re withdrawing, when do you plan to march?” Kerrel asked, even as she moved up to look at the map. Once again, her odd mix of strength and beauty struck Hector. Her bright red hair matched her fierce temper, the powerful muscles and her lean frame told of her toughness, yet still held more than enough feminine curves to make his blood stir.
“In the next couple weeks,” Hector said. “My quartermasters are still reviewing their plans. I’ll need to crush a couple of the rebel outbreaks here in the south to cow any chances at a general uprising. His gaze went to a red peg at Castle Redcoast. He had not expected the jolly Baron of Redcoast to rebel. The man had seemed far too comfortable in the enjoyment of good food and his barony’s fine table wines. Yet rebel he had… and as the only lands to do so, he was a marked threat. If the rebels somehow linked up with him, or worse, he somehow forged an alliance with the Grand Duchy of Boir, Hector would find his forces flanked and any defense almost impossible. “We’ll march as soon as the logistics is sorted out.”
She nodded, “Well, then, my Lord, I’ll go and check on my command’s preparations.”
He winced at her chill tone, but he nodded to her in dismissal.
As she stepped out of his conference room, his gaze went again to the red pegs on his map. It would be a long winter.
***
Fate of the Tyrant Snippet Three
Here’s the third snippet for Fate of the Tyrant:
Chapter I
Lord Hector the Usurper Duke
Castle Ember, Duchy of Masov
14th of Ravin, Cycle 1000 Post Sundering
Lord Hector considered the map for a long while before he slowly removed the last yellow peg from the hole near Lower Debber and replaced it with a red one. With the loss of Lower Debber to Lady Katarina’s forces, he had no garrisons remaining in the south. Not that I believed I could keep it, he admitted to himself, but I hoped it would at least occupy some of Katarina’s forces over the winter.
The town’s militia had some loyalty to him, seeing as his father, the late and unlamented Lord Mikhel, had called the town home. Moreover, he’d exempted them from much of the wartime taxes elsewhere in the Duchy, mostly because they had provided their taxes in quality steel that his smiths turned into weapons and armor. Now that steel would go to Katarina’s forces. The garrison had fallen to a mix of sabotage and diplomacy, from the little he had heard.
That left him with just handful of notionally loyal mercenary bands in the south, most of them little more than bandits at this point. Covle Darkbit’s force was the largest, yet Hector felt little trust for the man. The rumors passed along by his informants made it clear that while Darkbit hurt Katarina’s forces, they had utterly alienated the general populace.
I wish I had listened to Kerrel and executed him, Hector thought, at least then there would be less blood on my hands. The weight of his mercenary’s actions had grown upon him. It was one thing to sack an Armen raid camp… it was quite another to hear the reports of this or that village burned to the ground, its people turned out into the coming winter.
And not all of them at Covle Darkbit’s hand, Hector thought with resignation. There were red pegs in other locations than the south. Most, if not all, were isolated by his own forces, but some would hold out the winter and he knew that his forces would be too dispersed to defeat them all and still guard the south against the army that Katarina would field in the spring.
This had all spiraled out of control and Hector knew exactly whose fault that was. At least he had savaged the Armen enough that they shouldn’t be able to come south in force. If nothing else, they would have to overcome his forces on the Lonely Isle first, who would have the entire winter to fortify and ready themselves.
While the Armen could bypass the island, their raiding sloops would be low on supplies and their fighting men would need days or even weeks to regain their feet after such a long ocean journey on their light vessels. Odds were, whatever Armen were desperate enough for such a journey wouldn’t be in any condition to be a real threat.
Still, he thought musingly, some will probably try it. His last messages from his spies in the north had reported the winter infighting to be particularly brutal. It sounded as if Tarjak Rusk had begun an attempt to unify the Semat Armen, much as Marka Pall had unified the Solak. If that were the case, Hector could expect a number of raiding parties from those forced out, made up of the desperate survivors. In a cycle or two, Tarjak Rusk would probably come south in force, backed by a larger, more cohesive army. I can only hope that bastard Tarjak comes within reach of my blade, Hector thought. He would have to plan for that… assuming he could survive the civil war in his own lands, of course.
Hector turned to face the woman who had stood silent as he pondered the map. “No words of wisdom? No criticism of my tactics?” He saw her lips go flat in disapproval and he restrained a sigh. The barbed comment had been out of line. Despite Commander Kerrel Flamehair’s stated disapproval of his tactics, she had backed him in every way that mattered. Furthermore, she’d nearly been killed by Grel the Hound, who had proven to be an agent, witting or otherwise, of a sorcerer.
At least I can thank Katarina’s forces for dealing with that particular monster, Hector thought with some minor relief. The mercenary had been his tool for dealing with the least pleasant of tasks. He had become a monster somewhere along the way and Hector had simply used him as a blunt instrument, to smash his foes and create fear.
“I’m sorry,” Hector said to Kerrel. “That was out of line.” He sighed as he stared at the map of the Duchy… and considered the areas where he didn’t know enough to put a peg. “What do you think about Countess Darkriver?” Hector asked.
Kerrel sighed, “I would say that holding two companies of hers as hostage to her good behavior would be enough, but I’m not certain anymore.” She shrugged, “She has no way to contact them, not since you locked down on passage to and from the Lonely Isle, but she’s a hard one to read.”
Hector nodded, “And she’s capable enough of risking her people. If she thinks signing on with Katarina will swing this civil war to a close before I can have her people killed in response… or that I would hesitate to do so, then she might do it.”
“Would you kill them?” Kerrel asked
Hector sighed, “To set an example? I wouldn’t hesitate. I know you trained with them, I know you served with them. Andoral’s black balls, I know they saved my ass when the Vendakar mercenaries betrayed me… but if they turn to Katarina’s side I will have their officers executed and their enlisted men hung.” Hector shrugged, “I cannot allow any of my men to think that I will tolerate rebellion… or that I won’t punish disloyalty.”
“And Covle Darkbit?” Kerrel asked in an echo of Hector’s earlier thoughts.
“I should have strung him up,” Hector shrugged. “But now he’s the only commander left south of here. Which means when the spring comes, I’ll have to move my forces north.”
“You’re abandoning Castle Ember?” Kerrel asked in surprise.
Hector sighed, “Not entirely. I’ll leave a small garrison, enough to hold it against anything but a full out attack and possibly even then since the rebels will have little experience in siege craft.” Castle Ember was the Ducal Seat. The stone walls around them had seen thousands of cycles of history and legends said that the first Starborn to arrive in the Duchy had helped to design the fortress. It was the cultural and symbolic center of the Duchy as well as one of the strongest fortifications in the known world. Yet so was the Ryftguard, Hector thought, and Katarina took it away from me.
Hector stared down at the floor beneath his feet. In truth, it pained him to abandon the place. It went beyond its symbolic value. This was the place he had been raised… and it was where he had risen to power, over the cooling body of his aunt and uncle. To abandon it now felt as if he had them killed for no reason, that his rise to power had already been undone.
Kerrel didn’t seem to have an answer to that. Hector waited though, and soon enough she asked the question that he knew was on her mind. “Have you considered another attempt at peace?”
“I think that between them, Grel and Darkbit thoroughly destroyed all chances of that,” Hector responded. During the talks at the Ryftguard, the two had attempted to seize the gates and someone, presumably Grel, had stabbed Kerrel. In the process, they had destroyed any credibility that Hector might have. Worse, they had then attacked the rebellious city of Zielona Gora which backfired in the destruction of most of Covle Darkbit’s forces and Grel’s death.
“I’ve met Katarina,” Kerrel said. “She doesn’t want a civil war any more than you do. Maybe if you send me…”
Hector shook his head, “At this point, winter has closed most of the roads. You’d have to travel in strength, carry all your supplies in… you’d need an army to pack everything in and you would look like an invading army. No, if we do something like that, it will have to wait for spring.”
Kerrel nodded, though he could tell from her expression she didn’t like to leave it for so long. Still, she hadn’t read some of his reports. Even now in late fall, there were rumors of heavy snows and bitter cold. Those storms had driven normal people down out of the mountains… but it also sounded as if the Norics had been driven down out of the peaks… along with some of the sorcerous spawn from around Black Mountain. Even assuming the rebels didn’t attack her, she still might have a serious fight on her journey, and Hector wasn’t about to put her to pointless risk as the only field commander he trusted in the south. Especially not since I nearly lost her already, he thought.
The long seasons of Eoriel were both blessing and curse. While he had accomplished so much in the long spring and summer, with how the weather had come in so suddenly in the southern highlands, he had lost four months of the fall and would lose all six months of the winter. Even assuming that spring broke early, he would lose ten months, ten long months in which Lady Katarina’s people would have to plan and prepare for a spring campaign. And though winter had closed down the roads to large forces, the southerners knew how to handle those heavy snowfalls better. Their towns were designed with interconnected homes and steep roofs to shed snow. Their people knew how to travel with snowshoes, pack-sleds, and skis, while many of his mercenaries and recruits from the lowlands had less experience with such heavy snow.
Hector had two companies from the fallen Duchy of Taral, but he didn’t want to feed them into the borderlands that had become such a charnel house.
Besides, he had some doubts over their loyalty in fighting the southerners. While it was true that most of the mercenary companies from Taral had few ties, it wasn’t inconceivable that they might feel some sympathy or even camaraderie with the southerners, being high country folk themselves. Even if they didn’t change sides, they might well desert if given a free route through the Ryftguard and back to their homeland.
“If you’re withdrawing, when do you plan to march?” Kerrel asked, even as she moved up to look at the map. Once again, her odd mix of strength and beauty struck Hector. Her bright red hair matched her fierce temper, the powerful muscles and her lean frame told of her toughness, yet still held more than enough feminine curves to make his blood stir.
“In the next couple weeks,” Hector said. “My quartermasters are still reviewing their plans. I’ll need to crush a couple of the rebel outbreaks here in the south to cow any chances at a general uprising. His gaze went to a red peg at Castle Redcoast. He had not expected the jolly Baron of Redcoast to rebel. The man had seemed far too comfortable in the enjoyment of good food and his barony’s fine table wines. Yet rebel he had… and as the only lands to do so, he was a marked threat. If the rebels somehow linked up with him, or worse, he somehow forged an alliance with the Grand Duchy of Boir, Hector would find his forces flanked and any defense almost impossible. “We’ll march as soon as the logistics is sorted out.”
She nodded, “Well, then, my Lord, I’ll go and check on my command’s preparations.”
He winced at her chill tone, but he nodded to her in dismissal.
As she stepped out of his conference room, his gaze went again to the red pegs on his map. It would be a long winter.
***
Sutek Press releases Fate of the Tyrant on June 30th!
Fate of the Tyrant Cover
Here’s the cover for Fate of the Tyrant, Book III of the Eoriel Saga. This cover is from the very talented Chris Brockman, who also produced the cover for Renegades: Out of the Cold.
The Tyrant’s time has come.
Winter has come to the Five Duchies, a time of bitter cold when noblemen scheme and commoners wonder how to feed themselves through the long, dark months.
In the far north, the Warlord Tarjak Rusk stirs his forces, guided by the wizard Xavien, Herald to the dark spirit Andoral Elhonas. Xavien knows that the time has come when the Five Duchies are vulnerable… and with the might of his master behind him, Xavien could conquer the civilized lands as an undisputed tyrant.
In the Duchy of Masov, Duke Hector the Usurper faces a civil war, brought on by the survival of Lady Katarina. If he doesn’t squash this rebellion with the coming spring, he’ll face a war on two fronts. Yet even if he wins victory, it will be a hard fought one against his own people, leaving scars that might never heal or even shattering the Duchy into splinters.
The fate of the Five Duchies might well be decided in Masov, but if Hector and Katarina cannot resolve their differences, then they’ll only be the first to fall to the raiders from the north. Only if they can unite against him can they seal the fate of the tyrant.
You’ll be able to get a copy of Fate of the Tyrant on 30 June. You can find snippet one here and snippet two here.
Fate of the Tyrant Snippet Two
Here’s the second snippet from Fate of the Tyrant. You can find the first one here. You can find the blurb for Fate of the Tyrant here.
Captain Aerion Swordbreaker
“Captain Swordbreaker, should we pursue?”
Aerion looked over at Sergeant Miller, his second section leader. “No,” he said in reply, even as his single eye went back to the withdrawing enemy. Ghost Company had clashed with several of Hector’s mercenary raiders since the first snows began in the fall. As the fighting had grown more and more desperate, Aerion had learned better than to pursue an organized enemy. Some of Lady Katarina Emberhill’s forces had not been so cautious and their bodies lay cold in the shadows of the forests, scattered where they had fallen.
“Form them up,” he called out to Jasen, the company’s First Sergeant, who snapped out commands to the section sergeants. When Jasen turned back, Aerion spoke in a lower voice, “Who did we lose?”
“Donat and Eryk,” Jasen answered. “Gaja is down with an arrow to the leg, but he should pull through. The rest are minor wounds.”
“Be sure of that,” Aerion said with a grave voice. Just the past week they had lost two men to wounds that should have received attention. Neither man had thought to seek help, or at least, not until it was too late. He rubbed one hand across his face. “A few more seconds and we would have had the bastard.”
Rumor had it that Covle Darkbit led this particular band of ravagers. While most of the Usurper’s mercenary raiding bands had grown smaller over the past couple months from casualties and desertion, this one had grown larger, the ranks swelled by bandits and mercenaries who knew that Darkbit would keep them alive and better fed. Darkbit’s men had slaughtered men, women, and children, burned food, and killed far too many of Lady Katarina’s smaller patrols. The man had become a revenant, hitting where Lady Katarina’s forces were weakest and then disappearing.
Aerion had hoped to get the bastard to engage his company in a real fight, which was why he had set up the surprise ambush. “Any enemy wounded?” Aerion asked as he saw the appointed squad return from their sweep of the fallen.
“Two,” Jasen said. “One won’t survive, the other can’t walk, probably why they left him.”
Aerion grimaced at that. The mercenaries tended to leave their wounded behind. They knew that Lady Katarina’s forces would tend to them. The ones they could convict of crimes were punished, but there were few enough survivors from most of the worst atrocities. Lady Katarina had a small prisoner of war camp located near Zielona Gora. To date, Aerion knew that there were another two hundred mouths to feed there… along with a company of troops to guard them.
Hector’s mercenaries didn’t take prisoners. They killed the wounded and anyone tried to surrender.
Aerion just nodded, though part of him wanted to leave both of the mercenaries to die. Yet he had to set a better example than that for his men. He knew that more than a few of them wouldn’t hesitate to kill the enemy wounded. Too many of his company had lost family and friends, either in the past two months or in the previous cycles of Lord Hector’s occupation.
Bad enough to strip the dead, he thought, yet the enemy weapons, armor, and most importantly, their warm clothing, would save lives.
He tried not to think to hard about leaving the bodies where they lay, but the truth was that with the ground frozen so hard, it would be impossible to bury them. If he and his men remained in place long enough to construct pyres, they would spend the night in the open and the lengthening night and growing cold would sap their energy and leave them less prepared for the next fight.
Besides, he thought as his eye picked out movement in the shadows of the trees off the road, the scavengers will pick the bones clean before sunset.
He just hoped that the scavengers were all animals… what with some of the darker rumors.
***
Xavien Tarken, Herald of Andoral Elhonas
Fortress of Armak Zhul, Noriel
13th of Ravin, Cycle 1000 Post Sundering
The winter winds howled at the sides of Armak Zhul like a mad, living thing bent on destroying the mountain fortress and undoing the labor of thousands of cycles. The winds might well have that intent, Xavien thought, certainly it wouldn’t be alone in that regard if it was.
The raised voice of an angry Armen brought him back to the matter at hand.
“I will not kowtow to your demands, woman,” Warlord Sakan Alk snarled. The big Armen chieftain clearly misunderstood his position in the world, Xavien noted.
Andoral Elhonas’s consort moved so quickly that even Xavien barely kept up. She spun and drew her blade in a single, smooth motion. The blade’s long reach allowed her to rake it across Sakan Alk’s belly without having to take even a single step closer.
As the Armen chieftain let out a sharp scream and pawed at his spilling intestines, she whipped the blade back around to remove his head.
The other Armen gathered before her were spattered with hot, sticky blood. They didn’t show fear, but Xavien did see shock on their faces. They were not used to women who would strike a man, much less one who could take down a fighting man of Sakan Alk’s caliber. The more fools they, Xavien thought, the women are the more dangerous of the species.
“Rentak Khobis,” Seraphai said as she flicked the blood off of her sword. The red metal of its blade seemed to pulse in an odd fashion. Xavien wished he could study it, but he knew better than to ask. This was Makhvili Dzala, Andoral’s Blade of Power. Even as Herald, he would not be allowed to touch it, much less to study it.
The Armen called stepped over the twitching body of Aratak Sul. He bowed his head slightly, “Yes, my queen?” Xavien felt no surprise that Rentak Khobis remembered to use the honorific. Whatever their other limitations, the Armen were capable of learning when the consequences for failure were rubbed in their faces.
“You are now the Warlord of the Sepak Armen. Follow the commands I gave to your predecessor or meet the same fate,” Seraphai snapped. As the Armen warrior nomad nodded, she sat back in her throne. “You are dismissed.”
She waited as the Armen withdrew, dragging the corpse of their former Warlord with them, all but the severed head which had come to rest in the corner. Xavien wondered if that would be kept as a trophy and displayed on the walls of Armak Zhul or thrown off the side as garbage.
That is the fun part about the new Consort, Xavien thought, I never know exactly what she has planned. A meticulous planner himself, Xavien viewed her actions with a mix of amusement and fear. Just in her arrival to court, she had thrown so many of his plans into disarray.
Not that he viewed her as a threat. Xavien had no desire to rise above his position under Andoral Elhonas. The powerful spirit rewarded such ambition with death, after all. It wasn’t as if Xavien could be the Consort, and that only left challenging the ten thousand cycle old spirit himself. Herald is quite sufficient, especially when I’ll rule over the five duchies in his name, Xavien thought.
The confidence born of knowing his place allowed Xavien to work with his new Queen quite effectively.
Not so with some of Andoral’s other supporters. Some had challenged Seraphai almost as directly as the late Sakan Alk. Others had attempted more indirect methods of her removal. All of them had died. Xavien suspected that was to his master’s intent, a way to challenge them all, to thin out those who might be slower, less intelligent, or disloyal.
Certainly there could be no doubt that their master had chosen Seraphai. She carried Makhvili Dzala, which would be impossible without his will behind it. Besides that, there was the irony of having her as his consort, the one with the combined blood of the line of High Kings and Maghali Mede, the Ancient King, as his consort… the spirits of his enemies must writhe at their inability to prevent it.
“Are you certain of this plan, Herald?” Seraphai asked.
Xavien looked up and met her eyes. Their violet color intrigued him, apparently a natural coloration. “I am certain,” Xavien said. The new plan was merely a refined version of his original plan. The chaos he had sown in the Five Duchies had left them ripe for conquest. While he had met some setbacks along the way, he knew he could pull off the invasion of Masov with little opposition. With the Lonely Isle isolated, it would only take a few months to wear them down and regain the foothold. After that, he could link up with his Noric allies in fallen Taral and invade the Grand Duchy of Boir, followed by the Duchy of Asador. In all likelihood, the Vendakar would invade and conquer Marovingia, yet four out of five of the duchies under the rule of his master would be enough, initially.
With his master’s servants among the Wold and the Noric’s masters, the Five Duchies would fall quickly. And I, he thought, will be free to act more openly. Xavien had enjoyed his game of shadows, but he longed for the chance to use his powers to their full extent. His sorcerous abilities would improve capabilities of his shock troops and he knew that cycles of study and preparation at Armak Zhul had given him enough wizardly power to crush any number of southern wizards.
“What if they unite against you?” Seraphai asked, her voice intent and her violet eyes calm. Xavien, though, thought he caught the barest flicker of crimson in those eyes. Was this a question from his Queen… or his Master?
“It will not happen,” Xavien said. He had planted a letter which revealed his own ties to the Armen for Duke Hector to find. Given that he was Grand Duke Christoffer’s son, the letter had poisoned the alliance between them. Xavien had gloated a bit when he heard of the casualties that his father’s forces took after Hector betrayed him.
No, they would not work together. And after his servants, Covle Darkbit and Grel, had slaughtered so many innocent people in Hector’s name, the uprising in the Duchy of Masov would not end any time soon. Indeed, they would have the entire winter to think upon Hector’s many crimes and let their hatred fester, egged on by Covle Darkbit’s continued raids.
“My army will be ready in the spring, well before Hector’s forces will expect us,” Xavien said. “I will shatter his army with my first strike.” He smiled a bit, “I may even let Hector live, he has been a fine, if unwitting, servant.”
Seraphai did not match his smile, but in Xavien’s opinion, she didn’t take enough pleasure in their work. Everything she did was calculated, drawn to a plan that only she seemed to know and understand. “Hector must die,” she said in an intent voice. “If you succeed in only one thing, be certain of that.”
Xavien nodded, “Of course, my Queen. Anything else?”
“Beware your father, Xavien, he knows of you, now, he’ll not forgive you for what you’ve done,” Seraphai said the words with no emotion or emphasis, yet Xavien couldn’t help the slightest thrill of nervousness.
“I don’t plan to let him live long enough to be of concern,” Xavien said. His father’s continued survival was a matter of irritation. Xavien could admit to himself that his plans involving his surviving family had been overly complicated. He should have waited to spring his ambush until his father rejoined the Northern Fleet, just as he should have cut his sister’s throat after he used her for the ritual.
“If you fail in this, it will leave the Five Duchies in a stronger position,” Seraphai said as she took her seat. It was a clear dismissal and Xavien gave her a gracious bow and turned away.
In the corridor, Xavien paused to consider his next action. Tarjak Rusk awaited him at his quarters, but Xavien was willing to let the Armen Warlord wait.
The bellowing roar of the wind was muffled by dozens of feed of solid rock, yet even so, the snarl of it sounded like some barely muzzled beast. There was one other thing he could do to sow chaos over the winter. Xavien smiled a bit at that thought and he turned his mind’s focus to a distance, to the creations of his mother’s grandfather.
Awaken, he commanded, awaken and hunt.
***
Fate of the Tyrant comes out on June 30th.
Fate of the Tyrant Blurb
Here’s the blurb for Fate of the Tyrant, Book III of the Eoriel Saga:
The Tyrant’s time has come.
Winter has come to the Five Duchies, a time of bitter cold when noblemen scheme and commoners wonder how to feed themselves through the long, dark months.
In the far north, the Warlord Tarjak Rusk stirs his forces, guided by the wizard Xavien, Herald to the dark spirit Andoral Elhonas. Xavien knows that the time has come when the Five Duchies are vulnerable… and with the might of his master behind him, Xavien could conquer the civilized lands as an undisputed tyrant.
In the Duchy of Masov, Duke Hector the Usurper faces a civil war, brought on by the survival of Lady Katarina. If he doesn’t squash this rebellion with the coming spring, he’ll face a war on two fronts. Yet even if he wins victory, it will be a hard fought one against his own people, leaving scars that might never heal or even shattering the Duchy into splinters.
The fate of the Five Duchies might well be decided in Masov, but if Hector and Katarina cannot resolve their differences, then they’ll only be the first to fall to the raiders from the north. Only if they can unite against him can they seal the fate of the tyrant.
You can find snippet one here.
Fate of the Tyrant Snippet One
Here’s the first snippet for Fate of the Tyrant!
Prologue
Commander Covle Darkbit
Near Tymbark, Duchy of Masov,
12th of Ravin, Cycle 1000 Post Sundering
Covle Darkbit had undergone something of a transformation over the past months of bitter cold-weather fighting. His perfectly trimmed beard and mustache had become a ragged, unkempt thing. His finely tailored tunic and hose had been replaced by a practical — and warm — woolen coat and heavy overcoat. His cheeks, normally slightly plump from his love of good food and wine were gaunt, kept from the edge of starvation only through ruthless efforts to keep himself and his men fed.
The internal changes, though, would have surprised those who had not known him before he took up Lord Hector’s service. He stared through the sparse trees with a hungry look. Yet he remained motionless, a patience driven home by the hard fighting here in the borderlands between what Lady Katarina and Lord Hector’s armies claimed.
Covle would never have waited motionless for hours in the miserable cold and snow, not without the desperate patience earned through dozens of skirmishes in these border lands. He had seen several of Lord Hector’s other mercenary commanders give in to eagerness or impatience… which was why only his force remained of those sent by Hector to savage the rebels.
Well, he admitted, that and the fact that I have some help. He stroked the hilt of his sword, warm to the touch, a gift from Xavien at their last meeting. Xavien had told him that it would draw power from those it killed and that it was an old, and valuable, weapon.
At the time, he had felt flattered by the gift and took it as a sign that Xavien did not blame him for the mess at Zeilona Gora. Now, it was just a tool to keep him alive.
The sun came out from its hiding place in the clouds. He squinted against the sudden glare of sunlight on snow. What a sad, pathetic thing I have become, he thought, a thing of the cold and darkness. Yet he felt a cruel smile part his lips as his patience was finally rewarded.
Bundled figures moved against the bright snow. At least fifty of them, wrapped in blankets cut into jackets and laden with packs. They had only three wagons with them, the oxen that pulled them were gaunt, as near to starvation as their owners. Refugees from the lowlands, seeking safety and protection from Lady Katarina. Some part of Covle Darkbit was tempted to allow them past. More mouths would stretch things even tighter in the southern highlands. While in the north the farmers were getting in the last of the season’s crops, frost and snow had fallen early here in the highlands. Covle and his fellow mercenaries had burned stockpiles of food where they could. Yet he knew that the rebels had some supply routes through the Ryft Guard. And in spring, these starving refugees would be more hands to help get crops in… and more volunteers for Katarina’s army.
No, he thought, while I would prefer to kill rebels, I’ll leave refugees dead in the road just as gladly. Besides, these poor fools would have their most valuable possession with them and he had already accumulated a tidy stash of loot from the others he had hit.
The thin snow of late fall slowed them as they trundled along the road. It tugged at their wagon wheels and dragged at their feet.
“At them!” Covle snarled and his men leapt to their feet. His handful of bowmen loosed a volley and threw aside their bows to join the charge.
A few of the refugees fell from the arrows, but most of them seemed to hunker down. Covle felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he saw them withdraw to their central wagons. Most of the refugees he had attacked had either fled or cowered, but this lot had consolidated, almost as if to form a fighting rank…
“It’s a trap!” he shouted out as he stumbled to a halt.
The laden wagons had looked heavily laden… and they were, save with fighting men instead of furniture or supplies. At least thirty more men rose up from the wagons, many armed with bows. They took aim and loosed as Covle’s men stumbled to a halt in shock.
Those arrows scythed into his men from close range and Covle felt his stomach sink as dozens of his men went down. On fair terms, he would have taken any hundred of the enemy with his own company… but now the enemy had the numbers and advantage… and they had already proven the had the element of surprise.
“Fall back!” Covle shouted out. They closed ranks as his sergeants shouted commands and began to withdraw, even as the enemy started to advance. Covle felt his mouth go dry as he hoped, for a moment, that the rebels would charge him. If they broke ranks to pursue him, his men could hammer them, for his men had the better armor and weapons for this fight.
Covle felt his hopes dashed, though, as a big, one-eyed man moved to the front of the rebel formation and slow their movement. Damn, Covle thought, it would be good to salvage something of this.
The enemy volleyed more arrows towards him, but Covle’s men at their shields up, and Covle swept out his sword to dash a couple out of the air that were headed his way. He had become used to such feats, no longer certain if his skill had improved or if the sword somehow sensed such threats and used his arm of its own volition.
In truth, Covle didn’t care. He was still alive… and he would live another day.
He nodded at Savino, his second in command, “Orderly withdrawal, once we get back to the trees we’ll mount and head for Myrtai. If they’ve a company here, then they’ll be thinner there. We might take one of their patrols as payback.”
“Yes sir,” Savino said. The former mercenary captain had signed on under Covle after the losses he took at Zielona Gora. He hesitated though, “Their leader, do you think that was the Swordbreaker?”
Covle grimaced at that. The rebels had a number of commanders who had garnered fear among Lord Hectors mercenaries. Swordbreaker was one of them, purportedly the same who had killed Grel. Covle didn’t believe that any one man could have killed Grel, the Duke’s Hound. More than likely it would have taken dozens of men and left most of them dead in the process.
Still, Swordbreaker had a reputation and Covle could understand the importance of such things. “Him?” Covle scoffed. “Any man can wear an eyepatch and wave a sword. Probably half of Katarina’s forces have someone looking like that, just to scare piss-ant cowards.”
He saw Savino nod and look a bit more confident at that. Then again, if the rumors were right, half of his company had died when they ran into Swordbreaker’s Ghost Company. Have to put some spine back into the men after this fight, Covle thought. Though he had mentioned a patrol, he would probably have them burn out some more farmers to give them their confidence back.
Covle gave a last glare at the rebel formation before he turned his attention back to his men. “Alright, move it out!”
***
You can find Snippet Two here. Fate of the Tyrant will be available on June 30th
Kal’s June 2016 Forecast
Wait… where did May go?
The good news I guess is that I’m elbow deep in The Sacred Stars and I hope to have it out to my alpha readers soon. The fourth book of the Shadow Space Chronicles will continue the military science fiction series as we delve a bit into the Ghornath and just what has been going on with them. Its a step back from the massive battles of the last book, but with plenty of desperate odds, exploding space ships, treachery, romance, and everyone’s favorite pair of engineers.
I’ve got the final cover for Fate of the Tyrant, and I’ll be pushing that as well as the blurb out here soon, also starting snippets as I lead up to the release later this month.
As I said last week, I’ve been sick so I’ve fallen a bit behind on my writing schedule. I hope to get caught up this month, which means putting lots of words to page. My next project is an urban fantasy work, which I’ll be submitting to publishers (if that doesn’t work, I’ll self publish, but either way, it’ll be a while before it sees the light of day).
I hope to have it done by the end of the month or early July at the latest. My next project after that is the third Renegades book. I’ll be adopting a more standard novel format for that one, so it’ll have a more linear reading style rather than the collection of short stories and novellas like the previous two books.
That’s all for now, thanks for reading!
Quick Update
Just a quick update for now. I’ve been extremely busy this past few days and also fighting a serious cold. I’m sort of on the upswing, but I’m still utterly wiped out. I’m still at work for 10 hours a day plus about an hour commute either way. To top things off, the whole family has been sick, so things have been a bit stressful.
That said, I’ve been finalizing stuff with my cover artist for the Fate of the Tyrant. The third book of the Eoriel Saga will be coming out sometime in June, basically as soon as I hear back from my alpha readers, get the edits done, and send it on to my beta readers for a second look. There’s so much going on in this book that I’ve had to spend extra time on it, in order to do all the characters justice.
I’ll go more into what’s going on with my June update, but since it’s been quiet here I just wanted to pass that along. That’s all for now, I’ll have more news and posts later.
Kal Spriggs 