Steel-Colored Sky

The Sons of War are preparing for a battle over an inheritance—meaning the cauldron called the Great Steppes will soon boil. Meanwhile, dark forces are hanging over the mountains, and the free steppe people, Verdan, decided to return home after thirty years and make the long journey—almost fifty miles—even if it means challenging merciless nomads. Horrific massacres have spread through the ominous network of mountain territory: someone has been mysteriously and terribly killing people here for three months. More than two hundred people have died or disappeared. In the mountains, the patrols of the Guards vanish, but no bodies are ever found.

General Kaver Monele, commander of the Eastern Mountain Guards, and the head of the local Rat Nook, Eckenhard, have good reason to fear that the journey of the Verdan may turn into a bloody slaughter in narrow valleys, on tight bridges, or on steep passes.

Lieutenant Kenneth-l’e-Daravit, the sixth company of the Sixth Regiment from Belenden, has just been reinforced when he receives an order: to escort the Wagoners’ convoys along the route through the mountain terrain to the Liveran Heights. And Kailean-an-Allewan and Dagena Oaniter of the Gearis tribe will set out under false names for the castle of Kehloren, where the spiral of murders relentlessly tightens—and they will try, quietly and indirectly, to find out who or what is responsible for what’s happening. The main thing is not to become the next victims—or executed spies…