Showing results by author "Jacob Peppers" in All Categories

I am fire and all I touch turns to ash. Despite the odds, Cutter and his companions managed to bring Matt to the capital, where he was crowned king. But instead of getting better, things have only gotten worse. The Known Lands and its people stand at a precipice. One false move, one mistake, and they will all fall into the abyss. Cutter wants only to protect his people, to right his many wrongs. But a warrior’s hands are made for killing, not healing, and fingers drenched with blood can only ruin anything they touch. Such is the warrior’s truth. Such is the warrior’s curse.

Belgarin’s forces have retreated, but in the city of Perennia there is no rejoicing. The wind carries the smell of freshly dug graves and death. As the city grieves, Aaron and his companions attempt to hold together an alliance that threatens to crumble around them. While the alliance’s leaders bicker and argue, Boyce Kevlane, an ancient wizard bent on revenge, has taken Belgarin’s place as king and uses his twisted powers to create an army out of nightmare. Aaron is forced to venture into a city gripped by madness and terror in search of proof of the coming danger.

When a man goes out seeking blood, he will find it. Always he will find it. It was a truth Cutter had learned long ago, for he had been that man. For countless years, on countless battlefields, he had sought violence and blood...and the gods help him, he had found it. Found more than his share.

Aaron and his companions prevented the assassination of a queen, but in doing so, they angered an ancient evil. Angered it, wounded it, but did not kill it, for such evil never truly dies. An army greater than any the world has ever known marches bringing steel and death with it, and somewhere, a 1,000-year-old evil lurks in the darkness, plotting and bending its will toward revenge.

A warrior's path is trodden in pain and death lies at its end. Those were his father's words from long ago. Not just words, in truth, but a warning. Despite this, in the end, Cutter, like so many others, had chosen pain, had chosen death. Maybe he had done so when he lay dying in some back alley of his home city. Maybe it had been when Yeladrian, the Fey King, had gifted him the Breaker of Pacts. Or perhaps he had not chosen his path at all. Perhaps it had chosen him. Either way, there was no choice left to him now. His path lay before him, and so the only thing left to do was to walk it.

Aaron and his companions have been saved from Kevlane's creatures only to find themselves in the power of the Akalians, a shadowy group of warriors many believe aren't men at all, but creatures of nightmare bent on blood and death. But not all the shadows' secrets are evil ones, and allies are often found in the unlikeliest of places. In Baresh, the tournament has begun, and the ancient mage, Kevlane, adds more twisted creatures to his army, fashioning a force the likes of which the world has never seen.

Alesh and his companions managed to survive Aldrick’s betrayal, defeating the nightlings and driving them back out of the city, but their troubles are just beginning. For there are other traitors in their midst, hiding in the shadows, and while they should be preparing for the approaching enemy army, Alesh and the others are forced to scour the city in search of them. Meanwhile, Sonya and the Broken flee the enemy encampment, hounded by Argush’s soldiers. But Sonya is just a child, the Broken is wounded, and their hunters are closing in.

Darkness reaches forth its taloned hands, and the shadows dance and caper in anticipation of the long night to come. A night that, should it have its way, will destroy the light and those who serve it and will leave nothing but the cold, empty darkness in which the nightlings roam and feast.

The path to peace is paved in blood. Or so Cutter tells himself during the long nights as he travels deeper into the Black Wood, wrestling with his inner demons and battling those creatures which emerge from the shadows seeking his life.