The devastation caused society's collapse. Only the strongest survived the Great Dying. In the years that followed, mutations began to appear in animals and people. It was a time of lawlessness, where the only law was the one you could enforce. Cities and larger towns became walled city-forts. Some chose to live outside the city-forts as ranchers, farmers, and scavengers. They enforced the law with violence, and the law of the old west returned. Out of this came the Peacekeepers, modeled after the legendary Texas Rangers. They were empowered by the city-forts to be judge, jury, and executioner. They were a group of hard men: hated, feared, and respected.
This is the story of Price—a human mutation, raised in the frontier wilderness—who becomes a PK Scout.
Lord of the High Reaches
His human father named him Cam, as he and his clan were chameleon cats. Kol-ha is what the clan called him, which means shame in clannish. Being a half-breed, Cam was not allowed to take the test to become a clan member. Cam decides that rather than he not being worthy to be part of the clan, the clan is not worthy of him. Taking nothing, he leaves the clan to find his place in the world. Though ignorant to the ways of the ‘outside’ world, Cam is a quick learner. His first lesson is the outside world is at war, and he is inadvertently drawn into it. Saving the life of a nobleman’s son, from an invading army’s scouts sets him on a path to meet the King of the Eastern Kingdom. As a reward Cam is given lands and becomes a pawn in the King’s chess game. Cam sees it for what it is and decides he doesn’t want any part of the King’s game. Fate, however, has a different plan. Cam discovers two moored airships in a plague-stricken village with a single survivor, La-mar. He also finds new weapon innovations, and information that will change the balance of power in the Kingdoms. With La-mar’s help, Captain Cam finds himself and his ships back in the King’s chess game. This time it’s with more than one King and Kingdom playing, and they’re playing for blood. When they kill some of Cam’s friends, he spoils their chessboard when he starts playing by his rules of fang and claw.
Stonecutter’ Shadow
A coup has thrown the kingdom of Farshores into turmoil, and one of the Pretender’s first moves was to order mercenaries to invade the Mage District and put all its inhabitants, men, women, and children, to the sword. There is one survivor, Horace Stonecutter, the youngest son of the Stonecutter family. Though a member of a stone cutting mage family, his stone cutting gift had yet to manifest itself. Instead, he had a talent he first used playing hide and seek with other children. He discovered could hide “inside” shadows, and the other kids nicknamed him “Hyder”, because no one could spot him once he hid. Embarrassed to tell his family about this seemingly useless talent, he kept it to himself.
But his ability to hide saved his life when the soldiers came to kill his family. Though there was no love lost between him and his five elder brothers, he dearly loved his mother and the mercs killed her. That night vengeance — in the form of an enraged Horace — moved from shadow to shadow killing the attackers without mercy. After all, it takes no arms training to bury an axe in the back of an enemy’s head when attacking from deep shadow. Consumed with anger and a hunger for retribution, he journeys out to find who ordered the murder of his family. He owes someone a blood debt, and he wants to collect.
Along his bloody journey, he meets kings, princes, princesses, noblemen — and not so noble men. He learns that in troubled times few are to be trusted. Join him as he becomes a fully developed Shadow Mage and follow as his abilities and powers grow while he seeks to collect the blood debt he is owed. May God have mercy on his enemies — because he won’t.
Stonecutter's Shadow: A young mage's fight through a fantasy kingdom full of treachery Page 33
