Showing results by narrator "Steven Brand" in All Categories

The best-selling, award-winning author of Stiger's Tigers delivers the action-packed next installment in the Tales of the Seventh series. In this military fantasy, Ben Stiger is given a simple mission: march his understrength company to the Cora’Tol garrison far to the southeast. Once there, he is to take a fellow officer into custody and promptly return. But when Stiger arrives, he finds the Rivan have destroyed the garrison and slaughtered the inhabitants of the valley. Suddenly, what was supposed to be a quick and easy task turns into something far more dangerous.

Vaelin Al Sorna is a living legend, his name known across the Realm. It was his leadership that overthrew empires, his blade that won hard-fought battles - and his sacrifice that defeated an evil more terrifying than anything the world had ever seen. He won titles aplenty, only to cast aside his earned glory for a quiet life in the Realm's northern reaches. Yet whispers have come from across the sea - rumours of an army called the Steel Horde, led by a man who believes himself a god. 

A nobleman from an infamous family, Ben Stiger finds himself freshly assigned to Third Legion, Seventh Company as a lowly lieutenant in the opening stages of war between the Empire and the Kingdom of the Rivan. Third Legion has been tasked with pursuing a retreating Rivan army back to the border where the Empire can take the fight into enemy territory. However, a major obstacle stands in Third Legion's path: the river Hana.

The Sixth Order wields the sword of justice and smites the enemies of the Faith and the Realm. Vaelin Al Sorna was only a child of 10 when his father left him at the iron gate of the Sixth Order. The Brothers of the Sixth Order are devoted to battle, and Vaelin will be trained and hardened to the austere, celibate, and dangerous life of a Warrior of the Faith. He has no family now save the Order.

Now, under the rule of a would-be king, the armies of man fuel the war when they should be bolstering their defenses. Only a few understand that time is against them, yet these few must fight alone if the dawn is to rise over Illian once more. The heroes of the realm have banded together, but they cannot fight side by side. There is only one way they can win, seen by the oldest dragon and preserved inside the broken mind of a ranger.

A father. A mentor. A leader. Still, a soldier. Tyrus expected his world to change once the Geneshan War ended. He expected it to change more once he finally reunited with his family. He did not foresee that the biggest upheaval to his world would be caused by Turine sorcerers tampering with an ancient Geneshan artifact in the capital city of Hol. The land stands devastated and covered in a haze. Sorcerers are unable to use their power. The king and capital are likely destroyed.

Part of John Muir's appeal to modern audiences is that he not only explored the American West and wrote about its beauties but also fought for their preservation. His successes dot the landscape and are evident in all the natural features that bear his name: forests, lakes, trails, and glaciers. Here collected are some of Muir's finest wilderness essays, ranging in subject matter from Alaska to Yellowstone, from Oregon to the High Sierra. 

Grinner and his conspiracy to overthrow Perennia have been defeated, but victory came at a high cost. The alliance suffered losses it could ill afford, for the true enemy still lies in Baresh, growing stronger with each day that passes. Leading the combined armies of three kingdoms, Aaron and his companions march to the city, but even with such a force, even with the power of the Virtues, victory is anything but assured. For when blades are drawn, when battle begins, the only certainty is blood.

Millennia in the dark has left these lost and forgotten monsters hungry for war. The people of Illian can do nothing but rely on their peacekeepers, the Dragorn. Are the dragon riders ready for what has been buried under their feet? Gideon Thorn, Master of the Dragorn, can feel the Third Age coming to an ominous end. With Inara Galfrey and her dragon by his side, they must investigate the return of this ancient evil.

Mankind has lorded over the land of Illian for a thousand years, building on the ruins left by the elves, as if it were their birthright. A thousand years is a long time for an immortal race to see the truth of things, a truth that has remained unsaid for a millennium - elves are superior. They are faster, stronger, and connected to the magical realm in a way that man could never grasp. Illian should belong to them. 

Orcs, an ancient fiend thought lost to history, have risen from The Under Realm. Their hunger for total dominance has plunged Illian into war, pushing the survivors to Namdhor, the last refuge of man at the top of the world. For those who stand up to this foe, they do so in darkness. Ash clouds smother the skies, blocking out the sun as the orcs rampage across the land.

Aaron and his companions return from Baresh with the truth of what the alliance faces, yet such knowledge is little comfort. Throughout the city, men and women whisper of demons, of monsters. But though they might disagree on the nature of Kevlane's twisted creations, there is one thing they have in common. Fear. For the creatures they face are not men - not any longer. They are death given form and function. They are, it seems in the darkest hours - and there are many such now - Telrear's doom.

Aaron and his companions have been saved from Kevlane's creatures only to find themselves in the power of the Akalians, a shadowy group of warriors many believe aren't men at all, but creatures of nightmare bent on blood and death. But not all the shadows' secrets are evil ones, and allies are often found in the unlikeliest of places. In Baresh, the tournament has begun, and the ancient mage, Kevlane, adds more twisted creatures to his army, fashioning a force the likes of which the world has never seen.

The final days of hope have come and gone. The kingdoms of Illian stand on the edge of ruin, threatened by the armies of Valanis. As evil spreads across the land, too few are left to hold the line. A world away, the children of fire and flame may be the only hope for the realm, but the dragons have been defeated before. Now Verda's future hangs in the balance. 

Captain Ben Stiger captured Castle Vrell and rid it of a minion of a dark god. Now he finds himself cut off from the empire, with a hostile rebel army marching on the legion's fortress where they guard the entrance to Vrell Valley. It is not in Stiger's nature to simply wait for the enemy. Badly outnumbered and facing odds greater than 20 to one, he sets out to impede the enemy's advance and show them the steel that the legions are made of.

War is set to ravage Illian. The elves sail from the east. The savage Darkakin rise from the south. Valanis, the dark elf, is finally free of his prison and eager to see his work finished. Only then will he be free of the gods who still haunt him. A new hope rises in The Red Mountains. There, the last remaining dragons have been discovered. Gideon and Galanör, human and elf, will have to work together if they are to convince Adriel, the last of the Dragorn order, to intervene in the coming war.

Throughout the vast lands controlled by the Ironship Trading Syndicate, nothing is more prized than the blood of drakes. Harvested from captive or hunted Reds, Greens, Blues, and Blacks, it can be distilled into elixirs that bestow fearsome powers on the rare men and women known as the Blood-blessed. But not many know the truth: that the lines of drakes are weakening. If they fail, war with the neighboring Corvantine Empire will follow swiftly.

It is 200 years since the deity known as the Absolved went mad and destroyed the Kingdom of Alnachim, transforming it into the Execration, a blasted wasteland filled with nameless terrors. For decades, desperate souls have made pilgrimage to the centre of this cursed land to seek the Mad God’s favour, their fate always unknown. Now a veteran warrior known only as Pilgrim, armed with a fabled blade inhabited by the soul of a taunting demon, must join with six others to make the last journey to the heart of the Execration.

A nobleman from an infamous family, an imperial legionary officer, and a born fighter, Captain Ben Stiger has successfully thwarted the attack from an army of the Cyphan Confederacy. Now Stiger, his men, and his new dwarven allies have fallen back behind the great walls of Castle Vrell. Stiger finds himself named Legate of the Vanished, the long-lost 13th Legion. This title and his own word binds him to the terms of the Compact, an ancient and mystical alliance formed nearly 2,000 years before.

Vaelin Al Sorna, warrior of the Sixth Order, called Darkblade, called Hope Killer. The greatest warrior of his day, and witness to the greatest defeat of his nation: King Janus' vision of a Greater Unified Realm drowned in the blood of brave men fighting for a cause Vaelin alone knows was forged from a lie. Sick at heart, he comes home, determined to kill no more. Named Tower Lord of the Northern Reaches by King Janus's grateful heir, he can perhaps find peace in a colder, more remote land far from the intrigues of a troubled Realm.