A severed head and a cry of “Witchcraft!” start a frenzied witch hunt in a sleepy German village. When her dead husband’s severed head appears on her doorstep, a local woman is charged with practicing heretical rituals. It is up to the knights to discover the truth behind the brutal murder before the torches are lit and the woman is burned at the stake. Their task proves daunting, though, as the townspeople have their own long-buried secrets and sins that they want to keep hidden - even if it means allowing the sacrifice of an innocent woman.

is the summer of AD 1035, and three sons of Tancred de Hauteville are in ambivalent service to Guimar, Prince of Salerno. The three men, who have been trained by their father in the art of war since childhood, spend the sweltering afternoons practicing swordplay, trading barbs, and thinking of how many men they would need to take the prince's poorly fortified castle for themselves.

Sir William the Marshal, legend in his own time, has promised to go on crusade, a vow made to his Young King as he lay dying. But when the Oliphant, legendary war horn of Roland, is stolen by the lethal Assassins, he's charged with returning the relic in order to stop the very thing he'd vowed to undertake - a crusade; this one engineered by the thieves. With his small band of trusted companions - Sir Baldwin, his tourney compatriot; Eustace, his squire; and Henrik, the giant Norseman - William sets out to take back the relic.

SideQuests are stand-alone stories or novellas that chronicle the heroes, villains, and adventures in The Foreworld Saga across numerous eras and ages. They can be listened to in any order with or without prior knowledge of The Foreworld Saga. In this quick-witted and action-packed addition to The Foreworld Saga series, the leader of the Shield-Brethren has dispatched two of his men northward to secure land for a new citadel. When Tyr and his companion come upon the perfect spot, they discover that it is owned by Voldrun, a northern king with a questionable sense of justice.

When the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte is kidnapped by the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask, who can he trust to get her back? The Broken Bards of Paris! What three men, despite deformity and unrequited love, will unite to become a trio of heroic troubadours? The Broken Bards of Paris! When France is in peril, who will sing the songs, fight the throngs, and right the wrongs? The Broken Bards of Paris! Join Cyrano De Bergerac, Quasimodo the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Erik the Opera Ghost in their first daring ensemble adventure! With special appearances by Voltaire, and Napoleon himself!

Raised and trained in seclusion at a secret fortress on the edge of the northern wilds of the Kingdom of Ashai, a young warrior called Rezkin is unexpectedly thrust into the outworld when a terrible battle destroys all that he knows. With no understanding of his life’s purpose and armed with masterful weapons mysteriously bestowed upon him by a dead king, Rezkin must travel across Ashai to find the one man who may hold the clues to his very existence.

After the War of the Gods, the demons were cast out and fell to the world. Mankind was nearly eradicated by the seemingly unstoppable beasts until the gods sent the great hero, Ramrowan, to save them. He united the tribes, gave them magic, and drove the demons into the sea. Ever since, the land has belonged to man, and the oceans have remained an uncrossable hell, leaving the continent of Lok isolated.

When one man is brutally murdered and the priest he works for mortally wounded, Willet Dura, reeve to the king of Bunard, is called to investigate. As he begins to question the dying priest, the man pulls Willet close and screams in a foreign tongue. Then he dies without another word. Willet returns to his task, but the clues to the crime lead to contradictions and questions without answers, and his senses are skewed.

Some of the parchment pages were the color of cream, thick and substantial, made to last many, many lifetimes. Other pages were thin and desiccated, positively yellow from age, and crackled alarmingly as Van Richten turned them over. There were no ornate illuminations, no fussy borders, only lines of plain text in hard black ink. The flowing handwriting was a bit difficult to follow at first; the writer's style of calligraphy had not been in common use for 300 years. No table of contents, but from the dates it looked to be some kind of history.

Fifteen-year-old Tobias Doljan, a Walker trained to travel through time, is called to serve at the court of Daerjen. The sovereign, Mearlan IV, wants him to Walk back 14 years to prevent a devastating war that will destroy all of Islevale. Even though the journey will double Tobias' age, he agrees. But when he arrives, he discovers that Mearlan has already been assassinated, and his court, destroyed. The only survivor is the infant princess. Still a boy inside his newly adult body, Tobias must find a way to protect the princess from assassins and build himself a future...in the past.

He has been known by countless names and terrifying deeds throughout the lands of mankind - thief, magic wielder, swordsman, assassin, adventurer. But chief among those names and perhaps the most dangerous of his personae is that of Nightfall, a man - or perhaps the legendary demon himself - gifted with unique powers which any sorcerer would kill to possess. Yet though Nightfall has always escaped his pursuers by moving on to new realms, new identities, and new enterprises, even the cleverest of beings must occasionally slip.

Akiri is a blistering new heroic fantasy novel from the multiple award-winning international best sellers Brian D. Anderson and Steven Savile who have come together to create the first adrenalin-filled standalone novel in Akiri's tortured world. Can one betrayal can save a kingdom? Will two destroy it?

Wolf of the North: It has been generations since the Northlands have seen a hero worthy of the title. Many have made the claim, but few have lived to defend it. Timid, weak, and bullied, Wulfric is as unlikely a candidate as there could be. Jorundyr's Path: Jorundyr's Path is walked only by the brave. As Wulfric pursues Adalhaid's Blood Debt, he soon learns that the path to revenge is never easy. The Blood Debt: A blade fit for a hero. An army for a tyrant. A reckoning long awaited, and a tale reaching its end.

Even for a charismatic pirate, three years is a long time to chase after an unimaginable treasure hidden in the ruins of an ancient city. But when the fabled riches turn out to be virtually worthless, the outraged crew mutinies and leaves their former captain for dead. He is rescued by a mysterious king and transported back to a time of dwarves, druids, and fairies. Enchanting as it is, though, his only wish is to return home and find justice - but only the king has the power to return him...for a price.

Fire. Wind. Pestilence. Earthquake. Drought. Lightning. These are the six Decimates, wielded by sorcerers for both good and evil. But a seventh Decimate exists - the most devastating one of all. For centuries, the realms of Belleger and Amika have been at war, with sorcerers from both sides harnessing the Decimates to rain blood and pain upon their enemy. But, somehow, in some way, the Amikans have discovered and invoked a seventh Decimate, one that strips all lesser sorcery of its power.

Akiri is a blistering new heroic fantasy novel from the multiple award-winning international best sellers Brian D. Anderson and Steven Savile who have come together to create the first adrenalin-filled standalone novel in Akiri's tortured world. Can one betrayal can save a kingdom? Will two destroy it?

Some of the parchment pages were the color of cream, thick and substantial, made to last many, many lifetimes. Other pages were thin and desiccated, positively yellow from age, and crackled alarmingly as Van Richten turned them over. There were no ornate illuminations, no fussy borders, only lines of plain text in hard black ink. The flowing handwriting was a bit difficult to follow at first; the writer's style of calligraphy had not been in common use for 300 years. No table of contents, but from the dates it looked to be some kind of history.

Captain Alatriste is the story of a fictional 17th-century Spanish soldier who, after being wounded in battle during the Thirty Years' War, is forced to retire from the army. Now he lives the comparatively tame, though hardly quiet, life of a swordsman-for-hire in Madrid. Approached with an offer of work, Alatriste is told to go with another hired blade to an unfamiliar part of the city at midnight and wait.

The Roman grip on Britain is weakening. Emperor Nero has turned his face away from this far-flung outpost. The Druids are on the rise, spreading seeds of rebellion among the British tribes. Roman cruelty and exploitation has angered their British subjects. The warrior queen Boudicca will lead the tribes to war. Standing against the rising tide of Boudicca's rebellion is Roman Tribune, Gaius Valerius Verrens, Commander of the veteran legions at Colonia.

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

In the chaos of 14th-century England and France, wine is the nectar of angels - a valuable commodity buttressing kingdoms and vaulting vast fortunes. A mysterious old archer named David Arrowsmith recounts his tale to an eager French chronicler, Jean Créton, when the latter learns that his mission to Scotland seems a failure. The burden of Arrowsmith's story rests with Créton, who suddenly finds himself writing about a seemingly cursed infant that barely escapes the grip of the Black Death in rural Wales when his family dies.

Year 10 of the new republic, in the remote port city of Masalia: Dun-Cadal, once the greatest general of the empire, has been drinking his life away for years. Betrayed by his friends and grief stricken at the loss of his apprentice, he's done with politics, with adventure, and with people. But people aren't finished with him - not yet.

Sixteen-year-old Leinad thought he was a common farmer's son, nothing more. He wondered why his father had trained him for years to master the sword, not exactly a tool of the trade for farmers. But one tragic event initiates a world of revelation. Only then does he begin to understand his calling, a calling no other man in the entire kingdom of Arrethtrae can fulfill - a calling given him by the King himself.

Japan in the late 16th century was a land in turmoil. Lords of the great clans schemed against one another, served by aristocratic samurai bound to them by a rigid code of honor. Bennosuke is a high-born but lonely teenager living in his ancestral village. His mother died when he was a young boy, and his powerful warrior father Munisai has abandoned him for a life of service to his Lord, Shinmei. Bennosuke has been raised by his uncle Dorinbo, a Buddhist monk who urges the boy to forgo the violence of the samurai and embrace the contemplative life.

Since the days of Isaiah, two families have been charged with safeguarding the brass plates containing the history of God's works among his people - one to preserve them and the other to protect them at all costs. But these are dark times. Having spent the last decade apprenticing in the closely guarded secrets of steel making, Zoram anxiously returns to his childhood home of Jerusalem to fulfill his destiny and take his place as the new Keeper of the Sword.

Lisbon, 1755: A distinguished-looking gentleman emerges from the bowels of a ship freshly arrived from London, and sets into the city with a singular purpose. This is Sebastian Foxx, born SebastiAo Raposa, and his parents were abducted by the Inquisition when Sebastian was just 13 years old.

In the pre-dawn hours of August 24th, 1305, in London's Smithfield Prison, the outlaw William Wallace - hero of all the Scots and deadly enemy of King Edward of England - sits awaiting the dawn, when he is to be hanged and then drawn and quartered. This brutal sundering of his body is the revenge of the English. Wallace is visited by a Scottish priest who has come to hear his last confession, a priest who knows Wallace like a brother. Wallace's confession - the tale that follows - is all the more remarkable because it comes from real life.

In this debut historical thriller, an aristocratic young nun must find a legendary crown in order to save her father’s life and preserve all she holds dear. When novitiate nun Joanna Stafford learns her rebel cousin is condemned by King Henry VIII to be burned at the stake, she makes the decision to break the sacred rule of enclosure and flee her Dominican order in Dartford to stand at her cousin’s side. Arrested for interfering with king’s justice, Joanna, along with her father, Sir Richard Stafford, is sent to the Tower of London.

Gen was a bard's apprentice, his nimble hands meant for the lute and his voice for a song. Then the half-mad and completely bored Shadan Khairn invaded Gen's village to winter there and start a war. He shoved a sword in Gen's hands and tormented his body, shaping a bard into a warrior to be killed for sport. As the days of torture pile up like the snow, Gen searches for death. But the day is at hand when the shattered shards of the world will knit together again, and the world's slain god will be reborn.

How much must one pay for an hour of youthful folly? The Pureblood Registry accused Lucian de Remeni-Masson of "unseemly involvement with ordinaries", which meant only that he spoke with a young woman not of his own kind, allowed her to see his face unmasked, worked a bit of magic for her.... After that one mistake, Lucian’s grandsire excised half his magic and savage Harrowers massacred his family.