It looked official: the seal of the Norostein Watch was scuffed but unbroken. “Fuckin’ hot place t’be sellin’ wool bales, sir.” “It’s all I’ve got - but you’d be surprised, the weavers here snap them up.” Vann took the proffered envelope. “ Good to meet you, Flosteyn.” “Honoured, Cap.” Holstein glanced at the wagon. Part of Langstrit’s legion.” Vann smiled sadly. The brotherhood of veterans. You won’t remember me, sir, but I was on the mountain, back in nine-ten. “Who’s asking?” “My name’s Relik Folsteyn, of Knebb. At least the temperature was bearable - Decore in the East was the onset of what passed for winter here cold by local standards but akin to early spring in Noros. The horizons were straight, the land here flat and brown.
It was so far from Vann’s present reality that for a moment his guts ached. The man’s voice invoked home: snow-capped peaks, verdant forests and sudden storms, lush grass and tumbling rivers. He didn’t have to look far: a despatch rider was alongside his wagon, peering at him intently. He hauled on the reins to pull them back into line, then cast about for what had startled them. Vann Mercer was startled awake as his horses snorted and danced sideways. Its unlikely guardians are the failed mage Alaron Mercer and market girl Ramita Ankesharan - pregnant widow of the world’s greatest mage - and what they choose to do with the Scytale could change the world forever. But concealed amidst the storm and fire of war, emperors, Inquisitors, Souldrinkers and assassins alike are engaged in a desperate, deadly and secret struggle to find the Scytale of Cornineus, the key to ultimate power. And Ramon Sensini, trapped behind enemy lines with the shattered remnant of the Southern Army, sees it as one more obstacle in his desperate attempt to get his men safely home. For Queen Cera Nesti of Javon, it is a beacon as she seeks new ways to overthrow her husband, the usurper king, and reclaim Javon for her brother. To Elena Anborn and Kazim Makhani, Shaliyah is a call to arms against the renegade spymaster Gurvon Gyle and his mercenary cabal.
Suddenly the East is rising, and Emperor Constant’s Crusade is teetering on the edge of disaster, as the unprecedented success of the Shihad becomes the catalyst for resistance across Antiopia.
Shaliyah, birthplace of the Prophet, now has a new name: Mother of Victories. But things are not going entirely as planned for the mighty magi of the West. The Moontide has arrived, the Leviathan Bridge has risen from the waves and the armies of the Third Crusade are battling to conquer the continent of Antiopia once and for all.
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