KARA’ZIN
Empire of perfidy.
With Menuvia little more than a funeral pyre, Xerdes flees to the Traitor’s Kingdom of Nazgan. Where larceny is legal, honor is fatal, and it pays to keep a low profile.
For the deserts of Nazgan are not empty. A lethal legend now haunts the badlands, thirsty for sinful blood. A hooded horror none dare name.
Even as the masked wraith carves its way through the underworld of two separate countries, it has only ever uttered a single word.
“…Xerdes.”
Xerdes
Xerdes is a hunted man. In the wake of 'The Long Moonlight', the thief flees to Vale's hostile neighbor of Nazgan. Finding the Kara'Zin underworld no more welcoming to an 'independent' than his home of Menuvia, he takes the most humble job available: Track down and return an innkeeper's wayward wife. But there's a catch: Her destination is 'The Dead Citadel'. A deathly edifice, reputed to contain a vault spilling with noble wealth. From which none have yet returned.
Tián
A Ferás-sûn slave Xerdes encounters along his dangerous journey. His vocal cords long ago severed by a nameless former master, the mute is newly free, and bent on honoring an unspoken debt to the thief that freed him. If either of them can manage to survive the experience.
Sháiná
Remote and beautiful as a desert mirage, the innkeeper's young wife has her own motivations for braving the Whispering Waste and the terrors rumored to lurk within The Dead Citadel. Is she a hapless instrument of the Nazgani nobility? Or an aspiring queen of thieves herself?
Unknown
Who or what is the shrouded form said to stalk the tracts of the underworld? Why has it allowed crime lieutenants to survive? And why has it only ever spoken a single word: "Xerdes"?
About the Author
RazörFist was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. He produces several web series, including Film Noirchives, Metal Mythos, and the popular Rageaholic review and commentary series. Prior to that, he studied Political Science at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
The Long Moonlight was his first published novel, but not his first published work, having previously illustrated short stories in various anthology magazines as a comic artist.
