A Lord's Duty

Witness the beginning of a new saga… Jonas, the son of a provincial nobleman, has been sent to the court of Duke Valdimir in the distant coastal city of Newport. There, he and his faithful companion Alastar are to serve as squires of the court, learning how to rule, so that both may inherit their father’s places in time. First, though, they must acclimate to their new lives in a city neither of them has seen since childhood and where they are to be treated as soldiers, rather than young men of privilege. Meanwhile, far to the west, Ansel Wood is a commoner with his own lands and a crushing tax burden. All he wishes is to provide for his family, but it is a struggle that isn’t getting any easier, especially now that the local lord has designs on seizing his farm. Deeply religious and wishing only to live in peace after his time as a soldier, he nonetheless finds himself pressed into lawlessness to pay his debts, starting down a dark path from which he may not return. And, beyond the kingdom’s borders, an army is gathering in the bleak Northlands. The barbarian Wodonni clans are preparing for an unprecedented invasion. Vytaus, Chieftain of the People of the Elk, longs for glory but frets over the wisdom of sending men to war when they should be tending the harvest. Intent on saving as many as possible, he takes it upon himself to become warleader, but soon must face a new and mysterious threat with the potential to change his people’s entire way of life. In the quiet before the...