A Warrior's Rising

Night falls on the kingdom of Daltenia and its people. In the shadows of that coming darkness, Prince Bernard, eldest son of the king, stalks the alleyways of the capital city's poor district. He, like the rest of his people, is unaware of the doom that approaches.

It is not some terrible knowledge that has driven him from his bed at the dead of night. He has not come to this place of murderers and thieves in search of understanding or wisdom. Instead, he has come seeking one thing and one thing only. A reckoning.

A reckoning for the mugger whose blade nearly took his life. A reckoning for himself, a famed duelist, who, when faced with a true battle of life and death, was too scared even to draw his sword in his own defense.

Prince Bernard lost much at the tip of that mugger's blade—his pride, his false understanding of the world, and nearly his life. But during the week past, a week spent writhing in agony as his father's healers sought to save his life, he gained something, too—the truth.

The truth that in the real world outside the walls of his father's castle, there are no rules and no judges to uphold them even if there were. No audiences to clap or maidens to swoon. In the real world, the only judge a man could count on was himself, the only rules those which he could enforce at the end of his sword.

Prince Bernard, then, has come out into the darkness in search of revenge, in search of blood, and so he will find it. But as so many who have come before him, he will find far more than he intended.

Night falls on the kingdom of Daltenia. The Skaalden come, giant frost demons of mist and shadow, and in their coming they bring pain and death and despair. And one more thing… In their coming, a warrior will rise.