Showing results by author "Gilbert M. Stack" in All Categories

Thegns Beremund and Alaric have done the impossible. Following a plan constructed by Prefect Marcus Venandus the previous winter, they secretly led a couple of thousand people out of Amatista under the very noses of the Diamonte invaders. But now they have to get all of their refugees past the enemy patrols, through the countryside, and safely into the lands of Topacio. If they succeed, they can continue resisting Diamonte's conquest well into the next year. If they fail, Marcus and his legion will be alone in enemy territory without support and without a home to return to. Amatista has ...

Jewel's arranged marriage, designed to bring peace and prosperity to the Hegemony of Armen and the Cartelite Worlds, is instead stoking the furnaces of inter-galactic warfare. From the moment of her marriage, the enemies of her Armenite husband—a stern and rigid man she barely knows—seek to use her to prove that the Cartel Worlds are unworthy of an alliance which monopolizes the fuel that makes faster-than-light travel possible. Complicating Jewel’s efforts to protect herself and her people are disturbing changes in her very cell structure—changes she doesn’t want or understand ...

Jewel’s days as a fugitive are over. She wakes from cold sleep, captive on an Armenite warship with her past rapidly catching up to her. Her parents are arriving soon to force her to marry Kole Delling, the Armenite man she fled into the Fringe to escape. And if that fate isn’t bad enough, some of the Armenites want to execute her and her surviving crew members for their legitimate salvage operations in the Valkyrie system. The walls are closing in, but Jewel isn’t ready to give up. It’s time for the galaxy to learn just how difficult it is to keep a Cartelite Princess prisoner.

The war seems to be going well for Marcus, but he has forgotten the most important rule of the Jeweled Cities—alliances are made to be broken. In a world where even the ethnic peoples of the north—Gota, Gente and Qing—cannot remain united against the other peoples, how can Marcus convince them to remain true to their commitments to an outsider like him? And yet his honor is not so malleable as that of many of his new neighbors. He will stay the course and defend his dead brother’s home—even if the only things he can depend on are the swords and spears of his legionnaires.

Long before Prefect Marcus Venandus directed the defense of the Jeweled Hills, Green Vigil Marcus led his first command into the treacherous jungles of Ekángá. As if the jungle itself wasn’t deadly enough, native warriors and shamans strike from its shadows with magic, spears, and darts, while the forcibly transplanted Graeci population seethes with unrest in the supposedly civilized regions of the province.

The long-feared war has erupted and Prefect Marcus Venandus and his newly raised legion are on the front lines of the fighting. After the successful conquest of a fortified border town, Marcus leads his men deep into Morganitan territory, part of a daring plan to secure Amatista’s rear by eliminating its major northern opponent before its other foes can join in the fighting.

With the passes to Ópalo forced open again, Prefect Marcus Venandus hoped to gain a respite to build his army for the war he knows is coming in the spring. Unfortunately, his enemies understand all too well the threat he poses to them, and they are taking steps to kill him before he reaches next year’s battlefields. Assassins, both mundane and magical, step out of the shadows to strike at him, while other conspirators take advantage of the intense divisions within the city to spark riots to bring the government down.

Days of rain force sane armies to hunker down to wait for dry weather. Yet, no one in the Jeweled Hills would accuse Prefect Marcus Venandus of being sane. Not only has he united the bickering Qing, Gente and Gota in his Black Hat Legion, he rarely embraces conventional military tactics. With three days of drenching weather turning roads to mud, flooding creeks, and bogging down his enemies’ carts and wagons, Marcus seizes the initiative and leads one thousand of his Black Hats on their most daring campaign yet.

Tribune Marcus Venandus and his two trusted officers have gone through hell in their journey north from the Fire Islands and across the Sea of Grass. Arriving at Amatista in the Jeweled Hills, Marcus is looking forward to a much deserved rest in the home of his half-brother, but fate has other plans for the legionnaire. Soon, he will be wishing he’d never heard of his brother’s city.

Forbidden from returning to Aquila, Marcus Venandus responds to a plea from a half-brother he has never met to aid him in the far away land called the Jeweled Hills. When pirates shut down the sea routes the legion officer and his two trusted companions are forced to join a caravan to make the slower journey north across the treacherous Sea of Grass. Yet this may not prove to be the safer choice. A mysterious shaman has sworn to drench the plains in the blood of foreigners and his mastery over storms gives him the teeth to fulfill his oath.

While Prefect Marcus Venandus struggles with the Curse of Madre Tierra, the Gente of Morganita betray their alliance with the Black Hat Legion and launch a surprise attack on Fort Prime. With all the senior officers in the fort dead, the most junior of officers, Acting Magus Seneca Liberus, finds himself in charge. With thousands of Gente massing to continue the assault, backed by the powerful mago House of Victor, it falls to Seneca to measure up to the proud traditions of Aquila and lead his green legionnaires to victory.

Marcus has defeated the smaller half of the army of Thegn Chilperic by the skin of his teeth, but now he must rally his legion and its allies to stop the Thegn’s main force from rolling back all of his victories. Yet, even as he fights for control of the strategic bridges on the Rio Rocoso, Marcus’ allies remain as fractious as ever. The rebellious Gente of Morganita continue to fight among themselves for leadership of their cause, while the Gota also violently question the leadership of Marcus’ friend, Evorik.

By the author of Legionnaire, the epic new military fantasy continues: Sane men spend the winter season bundled up in their homes near the fire praying for spring to come, so insanity must be on the rise in Winterhaven. With the tenuous unity of the Great Lords fractured by the failures of the Duke’s army in the west and the accusations of heresy against his son, new armies are secretly mobilizing even in this bitterest of seasons. Yet, can even knights as great as William Lord Tavistock and Sir Conn of Edgefield lead armies to victory after the first snows have fallen?

The Duchy of Winterhaven lies at the edge of human civilization. There, Great Lords scheme to expand their borders and take control of the dukedom. Meanwhile the young knight Dhrugal of Edgefield investigates a most unusual murder, little suspecting how this gruesome crime links to a much greater threat. A decade of relative peace is about to collapse, and only Dhrugal and his brothers and sister stand between Winterhaven and dark-spun chaos.

By the author of Legionnaire, the epic new military fantasy continues: Duke Maldon may have suffered the shame of seeing his family's heresy exposed, but that doesn’t mean that the duke and his kin are out of the fight. Launching their most insidious scheme yet, they succeed in transforming a victory celebration uniting the duchy’s leading families into a bloody battlefield that ignites a civil war. And with the great families of Winterhaven doing their best to kill each other, no one seems to notice the far greater dangers arising on the border, threatening to overrun them all. No one,...

Marshal "Sturm Front" Sturm has finally reached Al-Andalus to claim the earldom of Fortaleza from the usurper who has had control of it for most of a year. Unfortunately, the usurper is not proving to be Sturm’s biggest problem. The high king’s officials in Al-Andalus are so concerned with the possibility of civil war breaking out between the two claimants that they are trying to stop Sturm from doing anything that might actually permit him to take control of his lands. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the southern empire of Ahl-Alnaar is also showing interest in the situation, as the ...

Deep in the Fringe on a tramp freighter, Jewel Aurora is about to discover that there are much worse things than being forced into a marriage to secure her parents’ fortune. On the edges of human space, where no one can be trusted with your back, the young woman is about to stumble upon a fortune that star nations will go to war to possess. It’s a treasure that has already killed two sets of colonists who tried to claim it. And if anyone learns she and her crewmates have found it, it is absolutely certain to attract the attention of the two influential families she turned fugitive to ...

From the pages of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine: As an attractive lady gambler in the wild west, Miss Pandora Parson is used to getting a fair share of attention from gentleman admirers. But what is she to do when the man is no gentleman and refuses to take “no” for an answer?

While Marcus Venandus and his legion pluck a second jewel from the crown of Thegn Clovis in Diamonte, Lord Unwen’s army moves in for the kill in Amatista. He has assembled the greatest military force ever seen in the Southern Jeweled Hills and he is determined to crack Amatista wide open with it. Faced with siege engines, scaling ladders, magic, and treachery, while its own legion is far away in Diamonte, how can Amatista hope to survive? Were all of the legion’s valiant efforts for naught? Can anything stop the Fall of Amatista?

Blair Douglas grew up on family stories about the Revolutionary War Battle of Saw Mill Bridge and jumped at the chance to join an archaeological expedition to unearth its remains. But she is uncovering more than she expected in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. One of the other volunteers cannot stop talking about the Reaper, a ghostly serial murderer said to be trapped in the ruins of nearby St. Andrew’s Church. The professor running the dig seems more interested in treasure than archeology. And Blair is starting to hear and see things that no one else does—the sounds of muskets, soldiers ...