Foundling
There is a War being fought that stretches beyond eternity. Waging that War are men and angels and demons and creatures and beings beyond time and space. Thrust into this conflict is a foundling boy who knows nothing of this War but is integral to tipping the balance toward whomever can control him.
As a child, Hunter’s world is attacked, and, along with a few faithful retainers and allies, his mother escapes with him, while his father, using his own life as forfeit, stays behind to ensure those he loves escape.
Mother and child are pursued. Their retainers are killed while protecting them until they are able to get out from under the net thrown by their enemies. Now, far, far away, not knowing the fate of her husband or people and with no way of getting back, she has only herself to raise and protect her son.
This is the story of what comes after, of a boy alone, having raised himself, by himself, for half his life. Then the powers that inform and rule that world become aware of him, of his power, his potential. In their ignorance and conceit, they awaken the true nature of the child, and a war, of unimaginable proportions to shake the heavens, comes to their doorstep, and the boy they thought to use, and later kill, is the only thing that can save them.
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Chapter: 14 BattleHawks circled in the clear blue searching for prey below in glades and grasslands. Gliding aloft, wind whistling through feathers spread wide like fingers to catch the rising drafts of heat and air, heads swiveling, eyes darting, it was up not down that they should have been studying. Startled, they shrieked their displeasure as Poe parted their ranks, breaking their aerial ballet as he descended limned in argent and gold.This quickening to glory and power had been neither quick nor easy. He had put a half a day’s distance between himself and the way station when the Magister had begun channeling power to him in slow, steady increments. It had taken another day of careful concentration, cramps that made him squat beside the road as the muscles in his legs bunched, and flesh that became so sensitive that even light made it feel as if it burned. And then there were the other, unforeseen side effects.For all their precautions, the emotions flowing and congealing from all the minds conn
Last Updated: 2025-10-07
Chapter: 13 TalismanPeople could talk about privilege all that they wanted, but being hot, sweaty and not knowing when your next bath would come while putting one plodding footstep before the other in robes that were a comfort in the morning before the sun had warmed the chill air but were too heavy in the afternoon. Then, privilege did very little to assuage any discomfort.He could calm the heart, take longer breaths, slow the blood and cool the body so as not to let the heat discomfit him so, but it would have taken more concentration and attention than he deemed warranted. Such measured control did not come easily to him as it did to healers or those vain in pursuit of an artificially propped reserve. It was rational, effective, but not for him. Instead of focusing his attention on being comfortable or, alternately, letting frustration wash over him because of his discomfort, he welcomed the sensations of the heat that powered the motions of his body, the discomfort that let him know he was alive, th
Last Updated: 2025-10-07
Chapter: 12 ProphecyDinner that night was salted meat skillet fried in lard and laid between the crisp, flakey outer crust of a round loaf split down the middle and quartered for them all to share. A whole onion was chopped into the frying meat and cheese spread over top it all. Added to the meal were dried figs and bananas. It was a welcome repast shared across the heat of the campfire and beneath the light of the moon.Poe knew himself to be have been favored by fortune to have fallen in with a man that traveled with such considered preparation. Ham, however, took no praise for the repast. He credited his wife.A soothing lassitude spread from his stomach to the rest of his body. He laid back to take in the vastness of the night sky salted with flickering stars and was struck by a sudden insight. In the clearing when he had gazed into that dark laceration that split his world open to that other space, what he had seen were the constellations of another heaven.The lassitude that had once filled him tur
Last Updated: 2025-10-07
Chapter: 11 DescentIt was Rumbole and Crest who discovered a route over mountains guarding deep forests hidden between treacherous ridges cut by white-capped rapids leading to precipitous falls. A rough terrain of beauty and bounty where many men had become lost never to return, but not Rumbole and Crest.They would disappear for months on end only to return with strange and exotic furs. They made a small fortune selling their wares to the merchants of Free Hold; a fortune they would drink and whore away during their sojourn there.The legend went that they had become trapped on the high mountains by an early winter storm coming in from the east. With the cold and sleet cutting into flesh, they were forced ever westward. Running before the storm they followed the path of migrating animals. Days of cold, catching sleep when they could, moving so as not to perish, it was some time before they realized they were on the lee of the storm sheltered by the pitched contours and jagged heights of mountain peaks.
Last Updated: 2025-10-07
Chapter: 10 HamCHAPTER NINEIt was argued which came first, Kraagkeep or the School. In truth, it mattered little, for each had grown apace with the other to become seats of capital and knowledge. Kraagkeep was a city of stair-stepped terraces that hugged the slope of a mountainside overlooking a forested basin. The upper plateau was the seat of commerce, its dealings, its intrigues, its vices, and its festering discontent. Descending the main road, that snaked and turned, forked and split as it wound its way between the lanes and alleys of the plateaus, one came to the second plateau where resided the factors of the Great Houses, the Guild Masters, Ambassadors, and the wealthiest of merchants living in mansions. Immaculate hedgerows fronted those mansions and competed with one another for distinction and prestige.The next level below were the townhouses of the master craftsmen and tradesmen, shopkeepers, and Magi who did not reside within the School’s demesne. Moving from plateau to plateau, the
Last Updated: 2025-10-07
Chapter: 9 ConclaveThe Greater Conclave convened in a sparsely furnished room, and the tension was as pungent as the incense smoke that burned from censors hung beside the red lacquered door. Seven Magi discussed, and that was being generous to the nature and tenor of the conversation, their next course of action. Of the seven all but one sat at a round oaken table so old that groves had been worn into its surface over the intervening years from elbows placed on its top.“It’s foolish and dangerous,” Master Proush said. He slammed his goblet onto the thick oaken mantle. The warmed-over cider splashed onto the oiled wood, down the face of the mantle and into the hollow from which blazed a heady fire causing a puff of steam as the ocher liquid hit the flame. The other Magi returned his disapproving glare with equanimity from their positions around the oval table.Master Stephen sat in a plush chair covered in purple velvet inset with large silver studs on the arms and legs and a high round back to support
Last Updated: 2025-10-02
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