Shadow of the Ancients by Pierre Grimbert & Matt Ross

Author:Pierre Grimbert & Matt Ross [Grimbert, Pierre & Ross, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Action & Adventure, Family Saga, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy, Epic, Sagas
ISBN: 1477825010
Amazon: B00J5SASP0
Publisher: AmazonCrossing
Published: 2014-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

As she reviewed her elite troops by torchlight, Chebree realized how much she loved to watch the ordered ranks they formed. There, before her very own eyes, stood the powerful warriors of the largest army in the world. Their army. Her army, soon, if she continued to maneuver without any mistakes.

A lieutenant followed her, naming each of the four hundred companies, represented by the four hundred men present. Their companies had, depending on their origins, anywhere from ten to two hundred warriors. Chebree enviously admired the pike men, the cavalry, the foot soldiers, the archers, the proud gladores, the thistles, the bearded ones, the dragons of Oo, the legendary Wa’r’kal, the Farikii and their horde of rats, the Yalamines, the Headless, the horsemen of Egosie, and more. They were Wallatte for the most part, but also Solenes, a few Thalittes, Sadraques, Grelittes, and a few Tuzéens.

The lieutenant didn’t have to repeat what she already knew, and she barely listened to his droning. The only thing that mattered was to see these people from different corners of the world filing up for her, and for her only.

Before Saat came, she had been Queen Che’b’ree Lu Wallos of a small Wallatte clan with small holdings. As Queen Che’b’ree, vassal to Gors’a’min Lu Wallos, her only ambition was to guard her small territory from attack by the Thalittes, or the Solenes, or even her own lord.

She had rallied to Saat’s army from the first day he arrived, though at the time it was only a disparate group of mercenaries and vagabonds banned from their own clans. Yet the Goranese man had so successfully commanded the group that it struck fear into the hearts of those in even the most well-defended villages. Chebree recognized his power and chose to become his ally before she could be declared an enemy and be thrown into a conflict she had no chance of winning.

Her secret hope had been to use the army against Gors’a’min, now Gor the Gentle, and to firmly grasp the rest of Wallatte territory. But the colossal barbarian king, celebrated for his drunkenness, his frequent raging, his sadism, and most of all his two-handed axe, thwarted her nascent plan by joining Saat himself.

As a vassal, Chebree was forced down a rung in the hierarchy of captains who served the High Diarch. To stay at the top, she became their master’s lover, his only concubine who wasn’t a slave, and the only one to have survived five moons at his side.

Five moons, already, she thought to herself with a clenched jaw. And still nothing.

Saat had seen in her uncommon ambition and intelligence, and had named her Grand Emaz of a new cult, one no one had ever heard of: Somber, He Who Vanquishes, the black god of conquerors.

Chebree invested all of her energy into building this new cult: the priesthood, the ceremonies, the praises to Somber at every captains’ meeting. She became an apostle. After only a moon, half of the army had converted to this religion that promised riches and powers to the worthy.

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