Savage Errands – Volume 1 released just before Christmas 2020 and already we’ve had a good response to our latest entry.
During the Siege of Anzioch, Tristanué Yale dodges marriage proposals as she journeys across the magical world of Elsuon.
Volume 1 includes the following stories:
“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and Strange Auspices” – A mysterious minister on Arbonhale agrees to aid Tristanué’s expedition into Kimjudea in return for first-hand reconnaissance of the desert kingdom.
“The Pier of Ventures and Other Instruments” – After the disappearance of her cousin Orland, Tristanué is entrusted with the instruments of her Chapterhouse to aid the Sabler Order during the Siege of Anzioch.
“On the Matter of Tristanué Yale” – An old ministry on the Island Republic of Arbonhale shares their files on Tristanué Yale with other officers who are trying to determine her political value.
“The Sinister Minister” – After a night raid on the religious capital of Anzukar, as assassin takes inventory of Tristanué’s gains, including a magical scabbard called the Sinister Minister.
“The Sixth Kuinkazner” – Tristanué undertakes a dangerous mission to capture a renegade general who has been using sorcery to evade capture by the Sabler Order.
In the Vyn Vanir language, the term sequeyon (se-KWAY-on) literally means “things following things” and refers to a chronicle of events in the Northern Fortunes and beyond.
Like the other volumes in The World of Elsuon, the Sequeyon will be published in volumes with the first volume providing the historical context of the events of the Elsuon series: the Nymirians, their exodus from their dead homeland, the Winter of the Armangantian, the perilous crossing of the Sea of Serenity, the founding the Eastern Fortunes, and more.
Forthcoming volumes of the Sequeyon will be focused on those books nearest it by publication date, such as Savage Errands and The Daughter of Daerogos series.
The Sequeyon will include not only histories, but poems, prophecies, hymns, diagrams, maps, religions, myths, cultures, creatures, ancient races, biographies, battles, and other details behind the events of The World of Elsuon.
“There is in the East, beyond the trick-spirits of the Sea of Pleats, a most-strange country. One that all who hear of it agree has lost and gained more than any kingdom in any place since the world first fell to the riot of those Old Disloyals.”
And so opens Elsuon.
Two-hundred years after a powerful sorceress, an undying queen, and a light-taming saint established a quivering truce in the Eastern Fortunes, a talented architect and his son Allesson enter the mysterious Land of Suzulon.
In the capital, a defiant Archduke prepares for war.
As an centuries-old truce comes to an end, the seven great families of Nymiria contend for the Archduke’s daughter who, being of age before the law, must take a lord.
If she marries, it is one war; if she doesn’t, it is another.
Other dangers are gathering: witches working black miracles; saint-killing separatists arming themselves near the Perch of the Gorgons; barbarians marching in from the Sky Anvils; a fell horde amassing before the Valley of the Moonseeds; a foreign banking cartel lead by a savior turned dark; and the arrival of an alluring traveler from beyond the Keel of Stars.
The final omen: a strange mountain that has slowly turned for nine thousand years has suddenly stopped, angering the lightning-spraying, whale-hunting dragons who have ruled it for centuries.
All this and more gamble for the soul of Nymiria and the young life of a stonecutter’s son, Allesson.
Savage Errands is an experimental anthology. It is part epistolary novel, short story collection, and glossary. The characters and events in this first edition of Savage Errands are canon within the World of Elsuon, only set much later than the events of The Stonecutter’s Son.
The purpose of Savage Errands and its future editions is to introduce new characters, new adventures, and new stories in different times and places within the World of Elsuon.
Set far away from the Eastern Fortunes and the events of The Stonecutter’s Son, Savage Errands primarily focuses on Tristanué Yale, a young Khytherian princess and her adventures in the sandy kingdoms of Sanzakarth and Kimjudeya.
Told both in epistolary (letters) and traditional narrative (story) forms, it is my hope to provide multiple opinions and perspectives to characters, countries, cultures, battles, adventures, religions, relationships, and romances.
As I collect feedback, I will be able to adapt to the expectations of my readers in order to provide them with the best reading experience I can.
Thank you, and I hope you enjoy this first volume of Savage Errands.
The Unsacred Age is over. The strongest and most ancient of the races, the invincible Vyn Vanir, have received their long awaited Emperor. Unpinning their ring kingdom from the world, they sailed their great northern continent back into the strange waters of the Sea of Pleats.
Left behind as custodians of their legend is the small Island Republic of Arbonhale. Founded by a saint, it has prospered for over seven centuries as a beacon of justice, gentle rule, economic benevolence, exploration, high education, scientific curiosity, and deep moral investigation.
Spreading out from this song-raised island, spanning the southern sea, is a loose maritime federation of age-old cities, ports, island states, duchies, and trading nations called the Sabler Commonwealth.
Now a legitimate power, the Sabler Commonwealth has begun challenging the cruel realms that surround it. Desiring all men in all places to be free, the Sablers have used strategy and economic sanctions to abolish piracy at sea, end slavery on land, and topple tyrants wherever they find them.
To these ends a great standing army, supported by an equally formidable fleet, has been created: the Sabler Order.
Heirs to the contracts, obligations, and secrets of the departed Vyn Vanir, the Sablers have crowned their first king, now twenty years into his rule.
Discovering a six-thousand-year old covenant, one ratified by the Vyn Vanir House of Paledragon, the Sablers have entered the western kingdom of Sanzakarth to adjudicate the crowning of a queen. However, a warlord by the name of Kuinkazner opposes the intervention, and is marching towards the Sabler forces stationed at the old sea-side fortress of Anzioch to utterly destroy them.