Rise of the Alliance III

Sherwood Smith

Description

In volume one, A Sword Named Truth, a shaky alliance made among young rulers brought too early to their thrones survived an enchantment, commanded by Siamis, the handsome young Norsundrian. Siamis was defeated, and the world celebrated, believing peace had come!At the start of volume two, The Blood Mage Texts, the alliance seems to be a thing of the past as two quests reveal long-hidden secrets. Meanwhile Siamis has gone renegade, hunted by both sides. As the Rise of the Alliance saga continues, Siamis is not the only one being hunted. The sinister and elusive Norsundrian commander Detlev has been seen more often in the past five years than he has in the past five hundred. The young allies to reform the alliance-meeting unexpected difficulties when no one can agree on what form it should take.That is before a series of murders leads to the shocking news that the alliance has been infiltrated by a mirror alliance of Norsundrian boys.Trained by Detlev. Which leads inexorably to the deadliest of stalking games . . .

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Book View Cafe
• Date de parution: 22 février 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611389821
• Langue: English

Extrait

Rise of the Alliance III
The Hunters and the Hunted
by Sherwood Smith

Book View Café edition January 25, 2022 ISBN: 978-1-61138-982-1 Copyright © 2022 Sherwood Smith www.bookviewcafe.com
Table of Contents
SARTORIAS-DELES MAPS
SARTORIAS-DELES BOOKS
Part One: Hunters
Firejive
(gyve: to fetter, to shackle, to bind)
1
Late summer, 4743 AF Delfina Valley to the Border of Chwahirsland
2
Spring, 4744 Everon
3
Colend
4
5
Sarendan
6
Marloven Hess
7
Summer, 4744 AF Vasande Leror
8
9
Beyond Place and Time
Autumn 4744 AF Everon
10
On Goerael Continent
11
Colend
Bereth Ferian
12
Along Goerael Coast
13
Land of the Venn
14
Summer, 4745 AF Colend
15
Land of the Venn
16
17
Early summer (autumn in the south) 4745 AF Bereth Ferian
Colend
18
New Year’s Week, 4746 AF
19
Erdrael Danara
20
Sartor
21
Spring 4746 AF Everon
22
Sarendan
23
Vasande Leror
24
Eidervaen, capital of Sartor
Norsunder Base
25
Weeks Later Colend
26
Western Wnelder Vee
At the Same Moment Wilderfeld, Colend
27
Sartor
28
Elsewhere in Colend
Marloven Hess
Part Two: Hunted
Firejive II
(Fire: to heat clay and glazes hot enough to fuse them into a new form)
1
Autumn, 4746 AF Western Wnelder Vee
Colend
Norsunder Base
2
Deep Ocean North of Sartoran Continent
3
4
Marladath (Twelfthmonth), 4746 AF Eidervaen, capital of Sartor
Roth Drael
5
6
Dyavath Yan (New Year’s Week) 4747 AF Chwahirsland
7
Winter’s End, 4747 AF Two Long Chases
Norsunder
8
Spring, 4747 AF Mearsies Heili
9
10
Norsunder Base
Mearsies Heili’s white palace
11
12
Everon
13
Mearsies Heili
14
15
Land of the Venn
16
Mearsies Heili to Everon
17
18
19
Norsunder Base
20
21
22
Summer, 4747 AF
Western Wnelder Vee
23
24
Western Wnelder Vee
Sartor to Land of the Venn
25
Colend
26
Western Wnelder Vee
27
Autumn 4747 AF
Early winter 4748 AF Western Wnelder Vee
28
29
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
30
Day Five
31
Day Six
32
Day Seven
33
Day Eight
34
35
Fifth World from Erhal, Norsunder Base
RISE OF THE ALLIANCE IV
NIGHTSIDE OF THE SUN
Part One: Prisoners
Al-Athann, Aldau-Rayad
Ten years later—present day
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
About the Author
Copyrights & Credits
About Book View Café
SARTORIAS-DELES MAPS




Click here for a list of Dramatis Personae.
SARTORIAS-DELES BOOKS
All these are available at BookView Café :
HISTORICAL ARC
“Lily and Crown” Inda The Fox King’s Shield Treason’s Shore
Time of Daughters (two volumes)
Banner of the Damned
MODERN ERA
The CJ Journals
Senrid Spy Princess Sartor Fleeing Peace
A Stranger to Command
Crown Duel
The Trouble with Kings
Sasharia En Garde
And
THE RISE OF THE ALLIANCE ARC
* A SwordNamed Truth *available at Amazon The Blood Mage Texts The Hunters and the Hunted Nightside of the Sun (February 22, 2022)
Part One: Hunters
Firejive
(gyve: to fetter, to shackle, to bind)
This chronicle begins with Detlev, who emerged fromNorsunder Beyond into the center of a violent struggle for power at NorsunderBase. He stepped over the dead and entered the command center, currentlydeserted as the mage Dejain and the military commander Bostian stalked oneanother elsewhere in the fortress.
Because there is no time measure in the Beyond, he found thedate—and calculated how long he’d been gone—via the accumulation of messages inthe dispatch tray. There was no sign of Siamis, nor any report.
He reached the last, considered the lacunae, then sat downto write a coded note.
Why was I not alerted about the blood mage text? Did any of youtry to secure it?
A short time later came the answer:
Jilo of the Chwahir was either given it, or was given thelocation by Kessler Sonscarna. Senrid Montredaun-An took it away. I wrote areport immediately. I found out through gossip that Kessler took the textsback, and I reported that, too. Since we received no new orders, andinformation was long after the fact, we stayed tight with standing orders.
Detlev wrote:
Our relay is compromised. Reports to be made in person, throughyou. Commencing with your conveying these orders, face to face.
At the other end of the world, in a place of mutabletime, occasionally—cruelly—some trick of light in a changing sky evoked inSiamis’s memory the cloud ships of Yssel, the last of which he witnessedsinking slowly to a fiery death nearly five thousand years ago: dragon-ribbedkeelson, spars of glowing crystal, and vast sails iridescent as wasp wings.
The glimpses into past times were never quick to last. Theworld had changed so vastly, and he was no longer a terror-stricken, bewilderedboy. But echoes of those long ago emotions sometimes lingered: astonishment,harrowing realization, the numbness of betrayal, and finally a long-smolderinganger.
“I will someday destroy the entire world,” he had shrieked whensummoned to the Garden of the Twelve early after he was taken, and all the Hosthad laughed but one.
Ilerian tipped his head, regarding Siamis with mildinterest. “How will you go about it?”
Later, Detlev had said, “Existence will be far less painfulif you say nothing to catch Ilerian’s interest. But if that cannot be avoided, havean answer. And always have a plan. “
Siamis had scorned his uncle’s too-late advice as he’dscorned everything his uncle said and did, until it was proven—excruciatingly,and lasciviously prolonged—to be true.
So his real training began. In Norsunder-Beyond, where timewas nearly meaningless, marked by occasional and brief emergences into the realworld for either training or a lesson, he had no age markers to measure byexcept by guesswork.
He might have been the equivalent of fourteen when hefigured out how to combine the two—flout and stealth. Flouting Detlev when hecould be perceived by the Host or their minions had amused them, and each timehe’d been caught he’d suffered the consequences philosophically. WhileNorsunder’s lords, who rarely stirred from their timeless citadel, began toregard his errors as a typical for callow youth, he had learned from each.
The lesson he kept closest: the mind gained in strengthalong with the body only in the physical realm, where time resumed its naturalprogression, where there was sunlight and the fresh air that renews itself asit sweeps over pure water. But those excursions had to be brief, and always inobedience to someone else’s plan.
When at last he dared venture on his own to explore the immeasurablerealm between Norsunder’s ageless, arid center and the world, he knew how toleave no physical trace or magical shadow. Detlev called that the hand throughthe water.
Finally, the most dangerous of all, he essayed single visitsback in time, using the great window in the Garden of the Twelve at Norsunder’scenter. It was vital to be unperceived; an error meant far worse than the idlecruelties of those who found entertainment in such pursuits, it meant beingforever lost in a fold of time.
And so, it transpired, learning to maneuver in Norsunder hadprepared him for dealing with the anomaly the mages of Old Sartor had named theMoonfire.
He moved with practiced stealth, the stages of his planranked mentally in meticulous order, but found that this anomaly was far moreslippery than Norsunder’s magic-straitened boundaries. He had the where ,but not the when . . .
1
Late summer, 4743 AF Delfina Valley to the Border of Chwahirsland
Mondros’s beard bristled as his eyes widened with horror.
“When I think,” he said to Tsauderei, as thunder rumbled lowin the distance, “how very close we came to knowing nothing whatsoever aboutthis blood mage text, I’m afraid I am going to have nightmares for months.Years.”
Tsauderei shook his head slowly. He, too, felt thatunsettling roil in the gut that came with a sense that they had lost control ofsomething important. “This is, in a way, worse than the time the youngsterstook themselves off to Geth-deles without consulting any of us. What do yousuggest we do?”
“What can we do?” Mondros asked, broad hands extended toeither side on the word can .
Tsauderei said, “Jilo, Senrid, the Mearsiean girls—it’stheir alliance again.”
“Which was a benighted idea.”
“But don’t you see, I feel confident in stating that, exceptfor Kessler Sonscarna, whose motivations are impossible to guess beyond anapparent animus against Norsunder, at every stage they thought they were doingtheir best. Jilo turns to Senrid of Marloven Hess, who turns to young Leanderin Vasande Leror, who turns to his friends in Mearsies Heili, all using those youngColendi scribe students as a communications clearing house. The way they’vebeen trained to serve.”
“I see ignorant youths acting without due consideration,especially for their guardians.” Mondros’s deep voice rumbled low in hismassive chest.
“Oh, and they’re the first generation to do that,” Tsaudereisaid sardonically.
“Granted.” Mondros uttered an unwilling laugh. “My ire isentirely bound up in my sense of personal failure. I thought I’d established agood enough understanding with young Jilo to enable him to come to me. He facesa monumental task, one might as well say an impossible task. He cannot possiblysucceed alone, and he seems to know it, yet there he is, laboring alone in thatvile fortress where no one can get in to aid him in dismantling Wan-Edhe’sarchitecture of evil.”
“Mondros. Don’t you see the problem?” Tsauderei said. “I do.At far too late an age.”
“What problem?”
“The very reason we have mage schools, to provide ahierarchy as fallback. A trusted hierarchy. None of these young folk seem tohave the luxury of trusted hierarchy, representing cumulative wisdom. Several survivedby learning early they could not trust those in authority over them.”
“So they trust each other instead. Yes, I see it.” Mondrosglared into space.
Tsauderei opened his hands. “When youth turns to youth forwisdom, it makes good sense to