About the Book:
“No surrender. No retreat.” With twenty enemy swords at their backs and a broken bridge ahead, the last knights of an outlaw order turn to fight. A young woman with forbidden magic joins their final stand. And as blade meets blade, she starts to sing…
Adelais was raised in the far north, learning stories of the old gods and the skill of weaving runes into magic. Now, she is locked in a convent far from home, forced to kneel to a foreign god.
When inquisitors arrive with plans to torture an innocent man, Adelais cannot stand by. She aids an attack to free the prisoner and joins the raiders as they flee into the night.
Her new companions are the last of the Guardians—once a powerful holy order, now ragged fugitives, hunted almost to extinction.
The knights carry a secret treasure, precious and powerful enough to shape kingdoms. Their pursuers, desperate to possess it, will crush any who stand in their way.
Nowhere is safe—in city or chateau, on the road or in the wilds. And even disguised as a boy, Adelais draws attention wherever she goes. Is she angel or demon, priestess or witch?
Adelais must summon all her courage and all her memories of the old gods’ magic as the noose tightens around her and a thunderous final reckoning approaches.
Discover a thrilling new series, with a rich world and action that will leave you breathless. Hammer of Fate is inspired by Viking magic, medieval combat and the fall of the Templar knights—perfect for fans of Mark Lawrence, Andrzej Sapkowski and Robin Hobb.
EXCERPT
THE STRAWBERRY MOON
C H A P T E R
ADELAIS
Adelais knew the winds by their smell, even when she could not feel their touch on her cheek. From the east they arrived at the sisterhouse along a slow-flowing stream that carried so much sewage that it was called the Pissbourne. It curved around the capital’s walls, a stinking barrier between the hilltop hamlet of Montbeauvoir and the crawling mass of Villebénie, half a league to the south on the plain. Veer a little south of east, and there might be hints of a richer corruption from the great gibbet dangling its thin fruit outside the city walls at Moncrâne. The west wind was cleaner, though laced with wood smoke from the sisterhouse and the cluster of houses around it, but to Adelais the rare northerly breeze was the fairest, no matter how strong or cold or wet, for it carried memories of home, fading but bittersweet, the way incense clings to wool.
On a morning in the last quarter of the strawberry moon, the wind blew from the foulest quarter of all, for the south wind reached Montbeauvoir across the great, crenellated midden of Villebénie. It choked on a thousand fires and festered in the city’s tanneries and slaughterhouses; it eddied in fetid, pisstrickling alleyways and flowed over the encircling bone-grey walls into the slums piled against them. The wind pushed soldiers, merchants and wagons along the Great North Road at the foot of the hill, and had no time to lose its smell even over half a league of summer-lush fields. It broke like an invisible wave against Montbeauvoir’s slopes, and when it reached Adelais, tending the sisterhouse’s vines, it still carried the taint of packed humanity, living and dead, from scented lord to manure-footed stable boy. Today she didn’t mind the stink, for if the gods willed, it was a breath that would blow her homewards, away from enforced servitude in this fordæmdur sisterhouse, and back to Vriesland where she belonged.
She’d tried before. Fool that she was, she simply stole a sisterhouse cloak, and as much food as she could carry, and walked out. Within a league, two priests had spotted the novice’s habit under the cloak and seized her. Novices did not leave sisterhouses unaccompanied, not unless they were on an errand. The beating that followed had put her in the infirmary, face down, for six days. Adeifi Fabianne enjoyed administering punishments, particularly on a novice’s bared backside; she had a range of pliable willow switches for the purpose.
Adelais had learned one thing from that whipping, though. It had been thrashed into her, one cutting stroke at a time. Did. She have. Any idea. How a lone woman. Would be expected. To pay her way. On the road? Adelais wondered if Adeifi Fabianne relished that thought, too, but it had rung true enough for her to plan her escape differently this time. This time she’d be dressed as a man. They’d seek a novice, and not see a peasant…
If you’re intrigued, you can find out more in Hammer of Fate by G.N. Gudgion here: https://geni.us/B0BT8BH85Dsocial
About G.N. Gudgion
G.N. Gudgion (‘Geoff’) grew up with his nose in a book, often one featuring knights in armour. A later search for stories where women didn’t have to be either beautiful damsels or witches led him to the fantasy genre and the works of Guy Gavriel Kay and Mark Lawrence. After Geoff gave up a business career to write, it was natural to gravitate to historical fantasy, to stories with complex, conflicted characters that a reader can bleed with, cry for, and perhaps fall in love with. They live in worlds where you can smell the sweat and the sewers, as well as the roses. Geoff lives in a leafy corner of England, where he’s a keen amateur equestrian and a very bad pianist. He spends much of his time crafting words in a shed, fifty yards and five hundred years from his house. He is also the author, as Geoffrey Gudgion, of supernatural thrillers Saxon's Bane (Solaris, 2020) and Draca (Unbound, 2020)
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This does sound like the start of a thrilling series. I really love that excerpt. I haven’t really wanted to start any new series this year, but I don’t think I can resist this one. 😀 Great review!
I could easily see myself enjoying this one. Thanks for sharing!