First Chapters: Shadow's Fall by C.M. Simpson

Shadow’s Fall is the third and final novel in the Shadow series trilogy. This tale contains strong elements of horror, following the path of a small group of heroes who must work together to prevent an ancient evil’s escape.

High Priest Urkhrist has settled to his task as the keeper of Beauwallin’s prison. With his long-time friend and companion, Vorgren, guarding his back, and the spymaster’s apprentice, Tara Bloodthorn, acting as his representative in the city of Thargood, he had thought the battle over, but something is wrong. Beauwallin stirs within his prison, and wizards, priests and sorcerers are being taken from Thargood’s streets. The pattern is similar to the one they saw when Beauwallin attempted to break free the last time. Gilzereet must find out if the Old One is trying to escape, again, and discover how he is garnering the power to do so—and then he must try to find a way to defeat him, to succeed, where a pantheon of gods has already failed.

Shadow’s Fall is available on Smashwords, Kindle, Kobo, Smashwords, iTunes and Nook.

First Chapters: Shadow's Fall

Darkness in the Snow 

The raiders struck before the sun had fully cleared the mountain. Callum heard them coming, and rolled from his bed, his hand reaching for the crossbow hanging on the cabin wall. He died before he could use it to defend himself or his family.

The shuttered window of his cabin erupted in a shower of wooden shards as his bare feet touched the floor. With a snarl as fierce as a winter wolf’s, but in a form shaped more like a man, the raider came through the window, its momentum matching Callum’s own, as he leapt across the room. It tore out his throat as his hand touched the crossbow’s stock. A second invader followed the first, and Callum’s wife screamed.

Her grief was short-lived. A third raider burst through the door in a swirl of snow, and silenced her shrieks before she could draw breath to scream again. A fountain of red spray drifted softly down amidst the tearing veil of white, brightening the raider’s gray skin with scarlet. As the droplets began to darken, their leader looked for his designated prey.

He’d been sent for the hunter’s daughter, and it did not take him long to find her. She was at the edge of the loft, looking down at those that had come. Her long hair hung loose in a soft, brown veil, and her full lips moved silently beneath cheeks that had lost their color. She was trying to calm her mind, enough to gather the energy for a spell.

Her hands weaved the signs. Her lips parted, and she forced the words past a throat that threatened to close off any sound. The first of the raiders leapt towards her, his clawed hands reaching out to grip the boards at her feet.

She stepped back, voicing the final word of her incantation. One of those below her became a statue of ice; it didn’t even have time to roar a protest. The raider clinging to the edge of the loft laughed.

Callum’s daughter looked at him, and the words of her next summoning died in her throat. The raider hanging from the boards at her feet was dead, yet he lived, and moved, and swung himself into her loft with the ease of any man she had known. The creature was something of a mage as well, for he stretched a hand toward her, and she found she could not move or speak or draw the breath to scream. From below her came the sound of meat being torn, and wild beasts feeding.

“Maelinna,” the thing before her crooned, “we have traveled far in our search for you. Come with me now. No harm will be done.”

No harm to what? She wanted to scream but found that only her legs would move as the beast turned to lower the loft’s ladder-like staircase. Maelinna tried to run. Perhaps she could fling herself from the loft’s edge, and die before the creature could wreak its foul purpose on her. She tried, but her feet only moved to stand behind the thing, and her hand reached out to grasp the proffered fingers as it led her down the steps.

The carnage on the cabin floor nearly broke the spell that held her. The beasts, those other raiders, were feeding from the still warm bodies of her parents, but that was not the worst. As she followed their leader towards her front door, her father stirred. Hope that he still lived warred with fear of the same. The raiders stood away from him, letting him rise to stand among them. For a long moment he swayed on his feet, looking at the faces that surrounded him, until he saw his daughter.

“Maelinna,” he whispered, “come. Your papa is hungry.”

Maelinna saw the change in her father’s face, and shrank from him. Her escort stood between them.

“Not yet,” he commanded. “The Lord wants this one. Go with your brethren; they will show you where you may hunt, and on whom you may feed.”

The raiders around her mother began to back away, but Maelinna did not see any more. The raider’s leader grasped her wrist, and towed her from the cabin’s fading warmth. The predawn chill clawed its way through the thin covering of her night gown, as her feet sank into the powder of newly-fallen snow. Now she understood how the raiders had come so close to the cabin without her father hearing. She understood more, when she saw the nature of the beasts the raiders rode.

Horses they might once have been, but now they were creatures as fearsome as their masters. Some power had been spent in their making, for their eyes glowed red, and sharp fangs protruded from behind their lips. As one they turned their heads in her direction. Their lips curled up and their jaws parted. Gray tongues, elongated and narrow, lapped the air for her scent, and the lead horse pawed at the snow, nodding its head up and down in approval.

Maelinna had seen such a gesture before—when she brought hay to her pony. It made her pull against the hand that held her. Her captor turned his gaze toward her.

“It is not far,” he said. “We shall not need the horses.”

Maelinna felt a calmness in his words reach out and wrap itself around her, so she no longer tried to free herself from his grasp. This new peace lasted, until the raider murmured soft words under his breath. The sense of them jarred against her mind, but Maelinna could not raise the strength to fight it, and the spell bonds tightened their enshrouding weave.

Suddenly her feet would not move, and her arms hung against her sides like wooden beams. The raider let go of her hand, before her grip trapped his fingers and then, when she was perfectly still and only her eyes mirrored her fear, he wrapped his arms around her and carried her.

He did not have to take her far. An area had been cleared of snow, and stripped bare of vegetation. Colored yarn was tied between sticks of willow and larch in a spell pattern Maelinna had never seen before. She stared, trying to decipher its purpose.

Grandmama would have known, Maelinna thought, as the raider set her down in the center of the pattern. The raider’s hands rested on her hips for a long moment, his fingers lingering as he pressed his face close to her neck and drew in a deep breath of her scent. Maelinna saw his face twist with abruptly-stilled desire, as he took his hands away from her and stepped back from the circle.

“You would have been a worthy meal, indeed,” he said, then the yarn exploded into colored flame, and Maelinna felt herself carried to another place.

The raider’s spell was broken by the wards of the transportation. She felt them tear as the yarn-woven spell took her further and further from home. The morning’s cold combined with the ice of teleportation to take the feeling from her limbs, and soon she became afraid that she would freeze to death in the whirling limbo that held her. Maelinna flailed, trying to keep her balance as the spell cast her across an unknown distance.

She landed hard, the jarring of stone beneath her feet driving her to her knees, and her palms stung where they slammed into the floor. For a minute she crouched there, gasping for breath, relieved the penetrating cold had diminished. This reprieve, however, was short-lived; strong hands seized her before she could recover, and she was lifted from the ground.

“So glad you could make it.” The voice was male and smooth as velvet. Hands pinned her arms to her sides, before arms wrapped around her from behind. Another form moved into her view, stooped, and took hold of her ankles. Still shaking from the cold and disoriented from her journey, Maelinna tried to center herself. She could sense a presence in the room and it was neither human nor undead like the raiders at her cabin. When her eyes had adjusted to the dull light of her destination, she looked around. The entire room was made of stone, and she could see no windows.

There was a wooden table at one end of the room with a bench on either side of it. There was a small cabinet and a fireplace. These she noted, as she was carried backwards. She also noted the face of the woman that held her feet. Green eyes stared back at her, hard as stone in a face losing its tan to being inside too long. Short, brown hair curled around the face, framing it, but failing to soften the deep lines there.

Maelinna turned her head, trying to see the man pinning her arms. She could not, and his grasp crushed her against his chest, so she couldn’t tilt her head back far enough to see his face. They carried her only a short way, before lifting her, and laying her on something hard, and smooth as stone. She felt chains loop about her body, and shackles close around her wrists and ankles, and a deep, cold terror froze her limbs and voice. Lamplight flared and a third person stepped from behind a pillar. Darkness shrouded him, enhancing his features and making the winter’s cold seem more balmy than a fine spring day.

“Shaikhan did well,” he said, and Maelinna felt some other, darker power echo his words with satisfaction.

Well, indeed, it murmured, as the newcomer came to stand beside her. He raised fingertips to her cheek, tracing its line to the edge of her mouth. Maelinna shrank away from him. His eyes were almost black, and full of shadows, hiding secrets that seemed too terrible for her mortality to bear. His hair was dark brown, and glinted with auburn highlights in the lamps.

He smiled, and his teeth were frightening in their perfection. The presence that came with him made her more frightened still. Maelinna felt the blood drain from her face with the strength of her fear. Her captor must have noticed the change. He looked towards her and, with none of the growing amusement she sensed in the presence that rode him, spoke.

“Don’t be afraid. We will not keep you for long.”

END FIRST CHAPTER

If you would like to read more,Shadow’s Fall is available on Smashwords, Kindle, Kobo, Smashwords, iTunes and Nook.

New Covers: The Shadow Series Trilogy

With the release of Shadow's Fall, we decided to update the covers for the entire trilogy. The changes were minor, but the covers look better than before.

E-book cover

Print-on-Demand Cover

Large-print cover

E-book cover

Print-on-Demand cover

Large-print cover

Print-on-Demand cover

E-book cover

Large-print cover

New Release: Shadow's Fall by C.M. Simpson

The third book of the Shadow Trilogy has now been released.

E-book cover

Large-Print Cover

Shadow’s Fall is the third and final novel in the Shadow series trilogy. This tale contains strong elements of horror, following the path of a small group of heroes who must work together to prevent an ancient evil’s escape.

High Priest Urkhrist has settled to his task as the keeper of Beauwallin’s prison. With his long-time friend and companion, Vorgren, guarding his back, and the spymaster’s apprentice, Tara Bloodthorn, acting as his representative in the city of Thargood, he had thought the battle over, but something is wrong. Beauwallin stirs within his prison, and wizards, priests and sorcerers are being taken from Thargood’s streets. The pattern is similar to the one they saw when Beauwallin attempted to break free the last time. Gilzereet must find out if the Old One is trying to escape, again, and discover how he is garnering the power to do so—and then he must try to find a way to defeat him, to succeed, where a pantheon of gods has already failed.

Shadow’s Fall is available on Smashwords, Kindle, DriveThruFiction, Kobo, Smashwords, iTunes and Nook.

Print-on-Demand Cover

New Release: Shadow Trap by C.M. Simpson

Released three months earlier than anticipated.
 
Shadow Trap is the second novel in the Shadow series trilogy. The series started with Shadow’s Rise, which was released on January 1, 2013, Australian Eastern Standard Time, and will be completed by the forthcoming Shadow’s Fall.

Exchanged by the gods, so he can better suit their purpose, thargramorg priest Gilzereet Urkhrist must now travel to the distant realm of Thargood in order to discover the Old One’s prison and prevent his escape. Accompanied by Vorgren, Tara, Ailina and four apprentices, he flees the temple of his new god as the current pantheon faces down Beauwallin’s most savage attack yet. With the Old One gathering power more quickly than before, will the support of the gods be sufficient to give them a chance to contain him?

Shadow Trap is currently available from Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, DriveThruFiction, iTunes, and Nook.

First Chapters: Shadow's Rise by C.M. Simpson

While Fisherpriest was C.M. Simpson's first full-length published novel, Shadow's Rise was her first novel, taking almost ten years to complete and undergoing several rewrites before being allowed out in public. It is a slightly different story to what it used to be, but the main tale remains the same.

When the gods discover an ancient power has suborned a king, and now menaces their domains, they must find agents to act on their behalf. Will a goddess’s temper over losing a favorite to the cause stand in their way? Or the capture of one of their chosen mean the attempt is doomed to fail before it has begun?

Shadow’s Rise is the first in a dark fantasy trilogy, containing strong elements of horror. It describes the rise of a group of heroes, chosen by the gods to bring down an emerging dark power.

Shadow's Rise is available from Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, CreateSpace and DriveThruFiction. 

Chapter 1: Freedom's Price

Gilzereet caught the carriage just after it left the Graglecrock city mansion. He tipped the driver, paying him for his silence and the risk he took, and easing the man’s terror with a single golden coin. Skill and secrecy was what he paid for, loyalty was what he inadvertently bought. The coachman gave him all three.

The carriage slowed as it turned from the estate, hesitated long enough for Gilzereet to swing aboard, and sped up before anyone noticed it had collected a passenger. Despite the gathering dusk, Gilzereet wore the hood of his cloak pulled low, and long gloves to hide the skin of his hands. The coachman knew him only as an important member of the thieves’ guild. The man didn’t realize he was also its head or that he was of a different race.

Tonight Gilzereet intended to meet more of his kind, and buy his freedom from them with the life and freedom of another. He lounged back in the padded velvet and leather comfort of the duke’s coach and wondered what the Duke Gareth Aster would say if he knew exactly who was using it that night. He might not be amused that it was used by the guildmaster of Escarlion’s most powerful thieves’ guild, and a cat burglar convicted of breaching the kingdom’s security by breaking into the Harbor Master’s office.

The coach wheel’s rumbled over cobbles, the steady rhythm of the horses’ hooves barely breaking until the coachman approached the city gates. Outside the coach, rough voices asked the coachman his business in leaving the city so close to night. Inside the coach, Gilzereet tensed, ready to react should the guardsmen decide to search his chosen transport.

“Who knows what passes through the master’s mind,” he heard the coachman reply in a brusque tone hinting at resentment. “I get paid to do as I’m told, when I’m told, and I don’t get paid to ask the master why.”

It was the right answer for the guards and, after hearing them deliver the traditional caution that the gates would close for the night and not open again until morning, Gilzereet felt the coach move forward once more. The coachman took it through the gates at a walk, as though hesitant to leave the protection of the city walls. For all Gilzereet knew, that might be exactly how the man was feeling, but it also matched his instructions.

Waiting until he heard the gates clunk shut behind him, Gilzereet opened the coach door and slipped out onto the verge. With the bulk of the vehicle shielding him from the gate, he looked back at the wall until he saw the man waiting at its base.

Mavlock. The thief had failed him, gotten caught stealing some papers from the Harbor Master’s office, and been sentenced to die on the gibbet at the crossroads a mile from the city gates. Now he stood, his arms crossed, rubbing his hands against his biceps as though he felt the coming cold of night.

Gilzereet felt a small smile curl his lips. The man should be feeling the cold. He should be feeling a cold worse than the dampness of the rising mist and the encroaching dark. Moving swiftly and silently, Gilzereet slipped from the shadow of the coach, toward the base of the wall. Behind him, the coachman drew his vehicle to a halt. Clucking his tongue and shaking his head, the man made a fuss of dismounting from the driver’s seat and moving to inspect the horses’ hooves and harness.

Glancing toward his target, Gilzereet saw that Mavlock had tucked himself closer to the base of the wall. The guildmaster’s smile widened just enough to show a little fang. Mavlock was competent, but he had signed the guild agreement when he joined, and knew there would be a reckoning for his release.

“A child to one such as me.”

Gilzereet made all of them swear it, and as a result, had never once failed to make the required payment for his own freedom. A small part of him felt guilty at the sacrifice he made, but another part of him reveled in the deceit. He never traded them for just one child. He traded them for life. Theirs for his. Sliding forward, he noted that Mavlock had fallen for the coachman’s routine. Gilzereet focused on blending with the rising mist and ghosted towards the soon-to-be-ex cat burglar.

Mavlock didn’t see his approach, startling when Gilzereet’s hand descended on his shoulder.

“Guildmaster Urkhrist,” Mavlock stuttered, his blue eyes wide. “I… I did not hear you come.”

Gilzereet did not reply, schooling his face to an impassive mask as he surveyed the man he’d chosen to pay his debt. Blue eyed and dark haired, Mavlock’s fair skin was pale against the grey stone wall.

“Come,” Gilzereet ordered, and, sliding past him, led him toward the coach standing a short distance from the city gates. “We have but little time.”

Gilzereet wound back through the mist, noting how the coachman had finished his round of the horses’ feet and was now making a show of checking the reins. The man would start on the wheels next, but that would be stretching it. The guildmaster snaked his way through the door and into the coach, noting when Mavlock followed. The burglar pushed a velvet cushion aside to settle in the corner farthest from his master.

When the man was seated, Gilzereet drew his dagger and used the hilt to rap on the front wall of the coach. He didn’t miss Mavlock’s flinch as his forearm brushed the man’s shoulder.

“The same carriage will bring you back,” Gilzereet said, causing Mavlock to startle once more. Gilzereet smiled, as though to reassure the man. “You shouldn’t believe all the stories you hear about the thargramorg,” he said. “There are clans, and not all of them are responsible for the deeds of which you’ve been told.”

“Mavlock nodded. “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m not used to… not used to…”

“Not used to selling yourself for freedom?” Gilzereet asked, leaning back against the leather as the coach lurched forward. He watched as Mavlock licked his lips nervously, but the man only nodded once more, before wrapping his arms across his chest and closing his eyes.

Gilzereet watched as the thief settled into near-sleep. While the driver had been paid, and agreed to stop outside the city gates, he’d warned the guildmaster it wouldn’t be for long. It still seemed that an eternity passed before Gilzereet heard the driver clamber into his seat, and felt the coach lurch forward beneath him. Using a gloved hand, he tweaked the curtain aside and watched the dusk descend into darkness, and darkness grow to full-blown night. Letting the curtain fall back, he took an hour glass from his pocket, and turned it, watching as the sand began to fall.

He did not need light to see by. His eyes were those of a hunting cat, and he had enchanted the sand so it gave off a very faint glow. When the last grain had started its descent, he leant forward, rapping the end of his cane on the front of the carriage ceiling. Numerous dents in the wood paneling showed it was an action oft repeated.

Mavlock woke with a start, reaching for the dagger he no longer wore at his belt.

Gilzereet rested a hand against the man’s chest and shushed him gently.

“Peace. This is our stop.”

“Peace,” Mavlock repeated, and some of the fear left his eyes.

The coach slowed, and Gilzereet turned towards the door. Behind him, Mavlock rose to his feet and braced himself against the carriage ceiling. When they were going no faster than walking pace, Gilzereet unlatched the door and jumped lightly down onto the road. Pivoting, he walked beside the coach and offered Mavlock a hand to steady his descent. There was no point in delivering damaged goods to the hunters.

Hunters. Gilzereet shivered. He would be meeting more of them tonight. He wondered which of the clans had won the honor of collecting his tribute. Tree Cat, Tree Rat, Sky Falcon and Cavern Spider—all these clans produced the best Hunters. An elite force, the Hunters were charged with tracking down and returning any who tried to leave clan lands, be they thargramorg or slave.

Gilzereet had escaped them once, then twice more, before they caught up with him and struck the deal allowing his continued absence from the homelands—ten lives for every year he had spent in freedom against their wishes, and two for every year he continued to dwell away from the clans; ten unspent lives, they had reiterated, lives not bereft of their youth.

Given that he had evaded them for two years before finding sanctuary within the walls of a Berveragnan temple, and that he had stayed safely within those walls for ten years more, while he learned the goddess’s ways and a new trade, there had been one hundred and twenty lives owing to start with. Add the years he had spent travelling with Ailina and her companions, and he had accumulated a debt of around two hundred lives before the Hunters had successfully captured him.

They had taken him beyond the pursuit of his friends, and the protection of his goddess, and they had forced him to accept the pact of lives, or forfeit two hundred years of his own. They would, they assured him, make sure he survived to the end of his debt.

And not much longer, he had thought, reading the confirmation in their eyes.

The Lady Berveragna had a counterpart in the thargramorgan pantheon, called Shavreet. Some said that Shavreet was just another facet of herself, others that Berveragna was a facet of the beast elves’ goddess. Whatever the details of their relationship, Shavreet resented the human goddess, and did not agree with the way she governed her domain of night. It seemed that physical darkness was not enough. Where Berveragna delighted in the occasional deception, deceit was not tolerated by the goddess of thargramorg—at least, not when it was practiced by one thargramorg on another. It was a thing of pride to be able to deceive and disadvantage members of a race not their own.

Memories of those days of confinement flickered, unwanted, across Gilzereet’s mind, and he shivered, shaking his head to rid himself of them. His goddess felt his pain and grew ominously silent. His capture had embarrassed her greatly, counterpart or not, she had failed to keep her servant safe, and it had shamed her before two pantheons for the beast-elf goddess had not kept her failure a secret.

With a sharp rap on the side of the coach, Gilzereet draped an arm across Mavlock’s shoulders, and pointed towards a nearby stand of trees.

“They will meet us there,” he said. “Stay close.”

The failed cat burglar licked his lips and nodded. His eyes betrayed almost no feeling, but Gilzereet could scent the man’s nervousness, see the tremor of fear that ran across his muscles. He gave Mavlock no time to think, instead sliding his arm from the man’s shoulders, and hurrying quietly into the night. The burglar followed.

Within moments, the shadows in the copse had engulfed them, and Gilzereet could hear Mavlock breathing hard in the dark. He placed a hand on the man’s arm, feeling him startle.

“Not far now,” he said, soothing the man’s panic with his voice.

He felt the air shift in the shelter of the trees, a soft breeze, smelt a scent like the one that preceded the winter’s rain, heard something rustle through the leaves. Beside him, Mavlock drew another shaky breath and held it, as though fighting to stop his breathing sounding so harsh. Gilzereet pulled him further into the trees.

They crossed the boundary, the grove much larger on the inside than it was on the outside. It was more tangled and old than was possible for the little copse of trees they had entered. Gilzereet did not give the thief time to think about the grove’s age or impossible depth, but drew him further through the underbrush until they came to a clearing where the afternoon sun still shone.

Mavlock did not pause, but walked on in wonderment, as though mesmerized by the play of the sun’s light across leaves he had never seen before. Gilzereet drew him to a halt when they reached the clearing’s centre.

“We are here,” he said, and his words were both warning to his guildsman and an announcement of the Hunters themselves.

Movement amongst the trees drew their attention.

A woman, whose gold skin was streaked with slashes of green, stepped through the hanging leaves and came to stand in front of them. Gilzereet’s hand tensed on Mavlock’s shoulder, preparing to stop the man from making a run for it. The woman smiled.

She was wearing a sheath of finely spun spider silk, split so that it revealed most of her thigh. Her gaze passed across Mavlock as though he didn’t exist, and she addressed Gilzereet in a tone as distant and cold as the southern mountains.

“What is the human doing here?” she asked.

“He pays a debt to me by providing the service,” Gilzereet replied, and he could see that the meaning underlying his words was not lost on the woman.

She laughed, a short bark of amusement that was quickly gone as she turned to look at Mavlock, tilting her head from one side to another as she inspected him. Slowly, she circled the thief, and only Gilzereet’s grip on his shoulder prevented Mavlock from turning to face her.

Another fine tremor shook the man, and Gilzereet knew Mavlock had come to recognize he had something to fear. The woman’s next words made the thief jump.

“He will do. Your terms remain the same?”

“Unless the Hunters have changed their price.” Gilzereet suppressed a smile as he replied.

The woman’s lips quirked as she responded.

“Hunters do not change the terms of their pacts.”

Mavlock turned his head to look at Gilzereet’s face, but before he could ask the question on his mind, the grass in the clearing swayed, and four more golden beings rose around them. The thief’s eyes widened and he started to shake as the serpentine forms thickened and grew limbs. Gilzereet tightened his grip, as he greeted the newcomers.

“Clan Viper,” he said, and could not keep the awe from his voice. “I am honored.”

“We fought for the honor,” the woman replied, her pupils upright keyholes as she met Gilzereet’s gaze and held it. A scale-like shimmer marred her skin and she flicked a surprisingly long tongue towards one of those who had risen from the grass to join them. Gilzereet saw the creature bow his head in reply as Mavlock turned to his guildmaster in horror.

“Master,” he said, and dropped to his knees, “you can’t leave me with these…”

Gilzereet let go of the man’s shoulder and stepped away. By the time Mavlock thought to reach for him, he was more than an arm’s length away and it was far too late.

“Master!” Mavlock cried as two of the golden-skinned men laid their hands on his arms.

Gilzereet met his bondsman’s terrified gaze and made his voice stern.

“I made a pact with the Hunters, Mavlock,” he said. “And you made a pact with me. My pact is fulfilled. Make sure you honor yours.”

With that, Gilzereet turned to the lady.

“He is yours until the first successful birth, and then he must be returned. Those were our terms.”

“Maste—” Mavlock cried, only to be cut short by the open-handed blow that struck his face, and a rough voice cut across his protest.

“You have no master. Bow before our Mistress of Venom, Tanizeth, Third Lady of Clan Denegrath Viper. It is her mark you will bear on your chest and her orders you will obey with your heart."

       Gilzereet did not look towards Mavlock as he bowed to Tanizeth and left the clearing. Behind him, on the other side of the distance bridged by Clan Viper’s magic, Mavlock raised his voice once more. The agony Gilzereet heard there made him wince, and he remembered that Denegrath Viper marked its slaves with a dilution of the poison possessed by the clan’s namesake and totem. Venom and acid, the scars remained for life.  

*END-EXCERPT*

Should you want to read more, Shadow's Rise is available from Smashwords, Kobo, Kindle, CreateSpace and DriveThruFiction. 

New Release: C.M. Simpson - Shadow's Rise

Shadow's Rise was released on the 1st of January 2013.

When the gods discover an ancient power has suborned a king, and now menaces their domains, they must find agents to act on their behalf. Will a goddess’s temper over losing a favorite to the cause stand in their way? Or the capture of one of their chosen mean the attempt is doomed to fail before it has begun?

Shadow’s Rise is the first in a dark fantasy trilogy, containing strong elements of horror. It describes the rise of a group of heroes, chosen by the gods to bring down an emerging dark power.

Shadow's Rise is available on Smashwords, Kindle, iTunes, Kobo, and DriveThruFiction.