Winter Swords

An intelligent, six-limbed beast snatches a girl away from her family. An orphan confronts the darkness in his past, while a menace stalks his small town. A young woman cast into servitude tries to forge her own path in an unforgiving world. And an inexperienced soldier following the path of honor and duty comes face to face with a foe born from his worst nightmares. Seemingly unconnected, this small group of normal folk will fight to survive, for an ancient evil has awakened, and Denoril will need heroes if it is to endure The Winter of Swords.

AD 1301. Following the great quest north with Cortez de Bretagne ( The Questing), de Bretagne's knight, Sir Drake de Winter, returns home to the great de Winter empire in Norfolk, but it is not the safe and wonderful haven he remembers. Family unrest causes him to flee to London and into the service of the elderly King Edward I, a personal friend of Drake's father. In Edward's service, Drake finds himself in Scotland as a major player in the Siege of Caerlaverock Castle.

Hraban's dice are cast. He has chosen to serve Nero Claudius Drusus, the mighty Roman general and the stepson of the princeps of Rome, Augustus. He has abandoned his hope of ever finding fame and home with the Marcomanni and has turned his back on Armin the Cherusci, who offered him a place amongst the foes of Rome and Maroboodus, Hraban's traitorous father. Yet, the fate of Drusus is not to idle in Gaul, but to take the war to Armin and the Cherusci, and Hraban follows him to war, serving the great lord in his drive to slay Armin.