The Shattered Lands

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On her eighteenth birthday Sapphire is transported to a different world where they tell her that she is the lost princess, who disappeared eighteen years prior. Sapphire is thrown right into the kingdom that seems to be full of secrets that nobody is talking about. While trying to discover more about the kingdom that she will one day inherit, Sapphire keeps running into the alluringly beautiful but dangerous witch Ashes. Sapphire and Ashes are at the centre of a history of secrets, political intrigue and a teetering power balance between the dark witches and elementals. This wonderful work put me in mind of the stories I read when I was editing the Baen’s Robert E. Howard library." —David Drake, best-selling author of the Hammer’s Slammers series, Redliners , Vettius and His Friends and the RCN series. A VAST EMPIRE'S GREATEST FOE. A CONQUERED PEOPLE'S LAST HOPE. HIS NAME IS HANUVAR, AND HE WILL SET HIS PEOPLE FREE! Hanuvar, our hero (loosely modeled on Hannibal (the elephants-across-the-Alps guy, not the fava-beans-and-a-nice-chianti guy), was once general of the city of Volanus, which, before the beginning of this story, has been utterly destroyed, its people mostly killed, the few survivors captured and sold into slavery by the victorious Dervan [not-Roman] Empire. While everybody thought Hanuvar had died during the destruction of the city (unsurprising as he went over the side of a galley into the water), he did, in fact, survive, and is now a fugitive on twin, intertwined quests to get vengeance for his people and, more importantly, to free the few surviving Volani slaves and help them get out of the reach of the Dervan Empire so that they can begin building a new Volanus. Oh, and also discovering the final fate of his daughter, who might not be quite as dead as he had assumed her to be.

Against the might of a vast empire, he had only an aging sword arm, a lifetime of hard-won wisdom, and the greatest military mind in the world, set upon a single goal. No matter what the empire musters against him, no matter what man or monster stands in his way, from the empire’s festering capital to its furthest outposts, Hanuvar would find his people, every last one of them.I had some issues with our main character at times because of her immaturity and naïveté. It does serve a purpose in the book but it infuriated me at times. She appeared also very easily accept her new fate. Maybe that’s because of the life she was leaving behind was one of war and famine. Finding herself as the heir to crown of a country shrouded in secrets and in possession of powerful magic she is yet to master, Sapphire soon becomes a pawn in a century long feud which has the potential to destroy the world as she knows it. In the courses of his wanderings, he'll encounter all manner of monsters, revenants, gods and vengeful Dervans (especially once word starts to get out that Hanuvar might not be quite as dead they assumed him to be). But he'll also make friends and acquire allies, including but not limited to a traveling circus that happens to include an elephant of his acquaintance, other Volani refugees, and Antires of Sosilos, who will become his traveling companion and amanuensis.

Lei d'Cannith, dragonmarked heir, artificer. Carries a darkwood staff she acquired in The City of Towers.

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It gets a heavy recommend from me. I have some minor quibbles with it, which I'll outline below, and you can see if any of that might be issues for your taste, but honestly, they are minor and it's a fantastic starting point to what I think will be a great series. The one error i have made when reading this book is reading it now. i don’t think i can wait an undecided amount of time for book two with that ending. i’m going to be ripping my hair follicles out by the time it is released. i cannot wait to see where this story goes next. In classic sword & sorcery style, this is a fix-up novel: Most or all of the individual chapters had previously appeared as short stories in Tales from the Magician's Skull and suchlike venues, and they've now been assembled, lightly edited & polished, and given a bit of connective tissue so that they lead one into the other, although by its nature it remains more of an episodic book rather than a single narrative. Jode Jorasco, halfling healer who possessed the Mark of Healing. He was seemingly killed at the end of City of Towers.