The Light of Burning Shadows - Book Two of the Iron Elves

Informationen zum Autor Chris Evans is also the author of the Iron Elves saga:  A Darkness Forged in Fire ! The Light of Burning Shadows !   and  Ashes of a Black Frost !   as well as the nonfiction book  Bloody Jungle: The War in Vietnam.  He is a military historian and former editor for Random House and Stackpole Books. Born in Canada! he lives in New York City. Klappentext Muskets battle sorcery for supremacy! and a dark kingdom teeters on the brink of war in the thrilling continuation of the Iron Elves series. The Light of Burning Shadows ONE There were two of him now, and neither one knew which was sane. He stood atop the ridgeline running the length of the island and waited for the sun to drown. The ocean darkened. Shadows bled up the windward slope toward him. Bodies pierced by the trunks of obsidian trees became shrouded in the gloom. The smell of putrefying flesh fled as the heat of the day leached from the air. It was as if nothing had happened here. No horrors to relive, no nightmares to endure. He might have believed that if not for the screams in his head. They echoed in the space between what he was, and what he was becoming. Here, now, he stood in a world where the sun was setting and a cool ocean breeze was worrying the saw grass behind the dunes of the beach. Only the unhurried slide of waves over sand and the distant shouts and forced laughter of men from the shore party filled the air. But he also stood here, now, where the screams of the dead still rasped from blood-red throats. Only yesterday the trees of the Shadow Monarch had flourished in this place, feeding on all they found as Her forest continued to expand across the known world. Frost fire burned to life in his hands. He did nothing as it arced to the steel and wood of his musket, setting it afire in cold, black flame. He brought a hand close to his face, mesmerized. This was power and curse. The union of the Iron Elves’ blood oath with Her magic. The flames climbed higher and he staggered. There was a price for this. The gulf between his polar selves widened each time he called upon this newfound power. In his mind the outstretched limbs of the Shadow Monarch’s forest inched a little closer. He knew it had to stop. The last rays of the sun vanished into the sea. Dark forms rose from the lengthening shadows, surrounding him. Dead hands reached out. He recognized the fallen and they did not frighten him: One-eyed Meri, killed by dog spiders. Alik and Buuko, struck down by rakkes and the Shadow Monarch’s dark elves. Regimental Sergeant Major Lorian, sitting tall on the horse Zwindarra, both felled in the battle at Luuguth Jor. And so many others… “Join us.” He eased the hammer back on his musket. A charge and ball already rested inside. He turned the musket so that the muzzle rested firmly over his heart. Frost fire danced along the metal in anticipation. It would take but one squeeze of the trigger, but what would he end, and what would begin? “Join us.” He wanted to believe that all the pain, the fear, the terrifying rage, the nightmares that stalked his sleep…all would sink into a cold abyss. The shades of those that had gone before beckoned him, but their voices trembled with a pain he could only guess at. Could it be worse than what he lived with now? One final act on his part and he would find out. His finger tightened on the trigger. “There you are!” Sergeant Yimt Arkhorn said, trudging up the slope. The dwarf’s voice boomed like a cannon in the cooling night air. “I wouldn’t a thought it possible to lose someone on this wee pebble of an island, but you jus...

Product details

• Authors: Chris Evans
• Publisher: Pocket Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 26.10.2010, delayed
• EAN: 9781416570547
• ISBN: 978-1-4165-7054-7
• No. of pages: 448
• Series: Iron Elves; Iron Elves
• Subject: Fiction > Science fiction, fantasy