Age of Legend Read online

  Praise for Sullivan’s Work

  “Age of Myth bears the hallmark storytelling genius that we have all come to love of Michael’s work. It’s fast-paced, intimate, and beautifully cultivated.” — Fantasy Book Review on Age of Myth

  “Sullivan’s ability to craft an engaging and captivating fantasy world surpasses most any other fantasy author out there, and puts him alongside names like Sanderson and Jordan.” — Fantasy Book Review on Age of Swords

  “In this powerful third book (after Age of Swords) of a projected six-book series, Sullivan continues providing excellent worldbuilding and character development . . . Sullivan also gifts readers with complex lives for his characters, filled with tests, triumphs, and tragedies . . . Sullivan’s fans will be delighted.” — Publisher’s Weekly on Age of War

  “Riyria has everything you could possibly wish for: the characters are some of the best I’ve ever encountered in fantasy literature, the writing is top notch, and the plotting is so tight you’d be hard-pressed to find a mouse hole in it.” — B&N Sci-fi & Fantasy Blog

  “This epic fantasy showcases the arrival of a master storyteller.” — Library Journal on Theft of Swords

  “A delightful, entertaining and page-turning read that reminds us just how enjoyable, and how good The Riyria Revelations series is. A must-buy for all fantasy lovers.” — The Founding Fields on Rise of Empire

  “Heir of Novron is the conclusion to the Riyria Revelations, cementing it in a position as a new classic of modern fantasy: traditional in setting, but extremely unconventional in, well, everything else.” — Drying Ink on Heir of Novron

  “Snappy banter, desperate stakes, pulse pounding sword play, and good old fashioned heroics are all on full display here.” — 52 Book Reviews on The Crown Tower

  “With less gore and a smaller cast of characters than George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice & Fire” but equally satisfying, Sullivan’s epic fantasy will be gaining fans at exponential rates.” — Library Journal on The Rose and the Thorn

  “No question about it, this book is another winner, bringing back everything I love about Riyria: great characters, great setting, great story. I really couldn’t have asked for more.” — The Speculative Herald on The Death of Dulgath

  “Another tale full of twists, turns and that brand of humour only Royce and Hadrian can provide. The absolute best literary duo ever - EVER.” — Scott Vout, beta reader on The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter

  About the Book

  (From the Back Cover)

  EACH CULTURE HAS ITS OWN MYTHS AND LEGENDS, BUT ONLY ONE IS SHARED, AND IT IS FEARED BY ALL.

  With Age of Myth, Age of Swords, and the New York Times bestselling Age of War, fantasy master Michael J. Sullivan riveted readers with a tale of unlikely heroes locked in a desperate battle to save humankind. After years of warfare, humanity has gained the upper hand and has pushed the Fhrey to the edge of their homeland, but no farther. Now comes the pivotal moment. Persephone’s plan to use the stalemate to seek peace is destroyed by an unexpected betrayal that threatens to hand victory to the Fhrey and leaves a loved one in peril. Humanity’s only hope lies in the legend of a witch, a forgotten song, and a simple garden door.

  Works by Michael J. Sullivan

  Novels

  The Legends of the First Empire

  Age of Myth • Age of Swords • Age of War • Age of Legend

  Forthcoming: Age of Death • Age of Empyre

  The Rise and the Fall

  Arrow of Death (Fall 2020) • Farlaine (Spring 2021) • Untitled #3 (Fall 2021)

  The Riyria Revelations

  Theft of Swords (contains The Crown Conspiracy & Avempartha)

  Rise of Empire (contains Nyphron Rising & The Emerald Storm)

  Heir of Novron (contains Wintertide & Percepliquis)

  The Riyria Chronicles

  The Crown Tower • The Rose and the Thorn • The Death of Dulgath

  The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter

  Forthcoming: Drumindor

  Blood of Thieves (contains The Crown Tower & The Rose and the Thorn)

  Standalone Novels

  Hollow World (Sci-fi Thriller)

  Short Story Anthologies

  Unfettered: “The Jester” (Fantasy: Riyria Chronicles)

  Unbound: “The Game” (Fantasy: Contemporary)

  Unfettered II: “Little Wren and the Big Forest” (Fantasy: Legends of the First Empire)

  Blackguards: “Professional Integrity” (Fantasy: Riyria Chronicles)

  The End: Visions of the Apocalypse: “Burning Alexandria” (Dystopian Sci-fi)

  Triumph Over Tragedy: “Traditions” (Fantasy: Tales from Elan)

  The Fantasy Faction Anthology: “Autumn Mist” (Fantasy: Contemporary)

  Help Fund My Robot Army: “Be Careful What You Wish For” (Fantasy: Contemporary)

  Age of Legend is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the copying, scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book (other than for review purposes) without permission is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from this book, prior written permission can be obtained by contacting the author at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Age of Legend © 2019 by Michael J. Sullivan

  Theft of Swords excerpt © 2011 by Michael J. Sullivan

  Cover illustration © 2019 by Marc Simonetti

  Cover design © 2019 Michael J. Sullivan

  Map © 2016 by David Lindroth

  ebook design © 2019 Robin Sullivan

  ebook version: 1.05

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Riyria Enterprises, LLC

  Printed book distributed by Grim Oak Press

  Learn more about Michael’s writings at www.riyria.com

  To contact Michael, email him at [email protected]

  Michael’s Novels Include:

  The First Empire Series: Age of Myth • Age of Swords • Age of War • Age of Legend • Age of Death • Age of Empyre

  The Riyria Revelations: Theft of Swords • Rise of Empire • Heir of Novron

  The Riyria Chronicles: The Crown Tower • The Rose and the Thorn • The Death of Dulgath • The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter

  Standalone Titles: Hollow World

  This book is dedicated to Shawn Speakman for creating Grim Oak Press

  and making a habit out of beating the odds.

  Author’s Note

  If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’ve finished Age of Myth, Age of Swords, and Age of War. If you haven’t, please stop now, go back, and do so. Otherwise, the story will not be nearly as entertaining. If you have read them but need a refresher on those books, you can find recaps for each at www.firstempireseries.com/book-recaps. You can also take a gander at the Glossary of Terms and Names section in the back of this book. It’s written to be spoiler-free, and it’s updated after each book to provide more detail when events change.

  Okay, what can I tell you about this book? One of my goals for this series was to provide insight about the foundations of the world of Elan, and much of that has been explored in the first three books. But one day as I was just writing away, a character—who shall remain nameless—made a morbidly funny joke. They do that sometimes, but in this case my jaw dropped, and I stopped typing.

  What if it wasn’t a joke?

  Just as the Big Bang was said to have given birth to the universe
in less than an instant, a whole new direction for the story exploded in my head. Can I really do that? I thought excitedly. The answer was, I have to at least try. And that is how the second half of the series was born. In doing so, I went even deeper into the bedrock of Elan to create something I feel is truly special and unusual, and I hope you will agree.

  Now, there are a few things in this second half that I’ve done differently than my other books, and I want to warn you about them in advance. The first involves the span of time. The war between elves and men lasted six years, but revealing all the events that occurred during this period is both unnecessary and actually counterproductive to the plot of the story being told. When I originally wrote Age of Legend, I opened it a full six years after Age of War. But when my alpha-reader wife, Robin, read the novel, she found I’d made a leap that was too far. Relationships had matured, discussions that should have taken place years before were only now being brought up, and there was too much of a gap between Age of War and Age of Legend to easily follow the events. In order to fix these problems, Age of Legend is now presented in three parts. The book opens immediately following Age of War. Part two occurs a year later, and part three jumps another five years into the future. Some readers, like those who’d prefer to see all the significant events in the lives of their beloved characters, will be disappointed with me skipping ahead, and for that I’m sorry. But I believe I owe you the best story I can produce, and doing otherwise would have resulted in a meandering plot that would likely drag the story off focus. The best way to solve this was to cut out the fluff and touch only on those events needed to move the plot, so that’s what I did.

  Okay, so that’s the first thing. The second is that this book is not self-contained as all my previous works have been. Yes, it does have a beginning, middle, and end, but when you get to the last page you really have only completed act one of a three-act play. The fact of the matter is that the entire second half of the series takes us in a whole new direction, and it’ll require three full-length novels to tell the story the way it needs to be told, and each of these tales has a very defined climax that wraps up each book. Bottom line, this novel ends much in the same way as Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring concluded the “fellowship” portion of that tale, and as with that book, when you finish, you will find the story is far from over.

  Now, I know this will cause some distress for some readers. Few alive today were forced to wait for Tolkien to publish the second book in his series, and while I regret the delay you will face, the good news is that this series is complete, and we’ll have an accelerated release schedule for the next two volumes. For those wondering why I don’t just release them all at once, there are two reasons. First, a completed manuscript does not a final book make. While almost all of my work is finished (barring some minor rewrites), my editors, beta readers, gamma readers, publicists, cover artists, designers, and so on have to do their magic to make the novels the best they can be, and that takes time. Rest assured, we’ll get the books out just as soon as possible, and we’ll even offer early copies to Kickstarter backers just as we did with this book.

  That’s really all you need to know going into the start of the second half of the series. So I’ll repeat something I’ve said in other author’s notes: I have greatly appreciated receiving all the amazing emails, so please keep them coming to [email protected]. It’s never a bother hearing from readers—it’s an honor and a privilege.

  Now, as this preamble is over, let’s all gather in a circle around the lodge’s cozy eternal flame and listen as I invite you back to an age of myths and legends, to a time when humans were known as Rhunes and elves were once believed to be gods. In this particular case, allow me to take you to the Age of Legend.

  — Michael J. Sullivan

  April 2019

  World Map

  Maps are problematic on e-readers that don’t have adequate resolution to display them, and for this reason you can access a high-resolution map online.

  Contents

  Praise for Sullivan’s Work

  About the Book

  Works by Michael J. Sullivan

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  World Map

  PART I

  Chapter 1: Innocence Lost

  Chapter 2: Exodus

  Chapter 3: Return of the Fane

  PART II

  Chapter 4: Battle of the High Plains

  Chapter 5: A Change of Plans

  Chapter 6: The Dragon and the Pigeon

  Chapter 7: The Battle of Harwood

  Chapter 8: The Face of Evil

  PART III

  Chapter 9: Stalemate

  Chapter 10: The Trouble With Tressa

  Chapter 11: Techylors

  Chapter 12: Avempartha

  Chapter 13: My Prince

  Chapter 14: Down by the Riverbank

  Chapter 15: The Animal in the Cage

  Chapter 16: Six Dead, One Captured

  Chapter 17: Malcolm Told Me

  Chapter 18: The Mystery in the Garden

  Chapter 19: In the Land of Nog

  Chapter 20: Beyond the Light of Day

  Chapter 21: The Swamp of Ith

  Chapter 22: Treya’s Gifts

  Chapter 23: Whispers in the Mist

  Chapter 24: Unpleasant Paths

  Chapter 25: The Hidden Isle

  Chapter 26: Dragon Hill

  Chapter 27: The Tetlin Witch

  Chapter 28: The Key

  Chapter 29: Father and Son

  Chapter 30: The Fetid Pool

  Chapter 31: Facing the Fane

  Chapter 32: The Fate of Fools

  Bonus Chapter

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Kickstarter Backers

  Glossary of Terms and Names

  About the Author

  PART I

  Chapter One

  Innocence Lost

  What a strange treasure is innocence, a virtue to the old and a curse to the young, so highly prized but eagerly parted with—the riches of beautiful skin traded for the wisdom of calluses. — The Book of Brin

  Suri sat alone with a sword across her lap, staring at what most would call a dragon, but which the onetime mystic of Dahl Rhen saw as a fragment of her broken heart. Having been shattered several times, her heart had left pieces strewn across two continents. But the part she watched that morning was both physically huge and the only one visible.

  For days, she had monitored the dragon-like creature lying atop the hill. Being the one who had created the thing, Suri felt responsible for whatever it might do. She’d kept a vigilant eye on her handiwork, but after it had saved the inhabitants of Alon Rhist by slaughtering half an army, her creation hadn’t moved. It hadn’t so much as twitch its tail. This came as both a comfort and a concern to nearly everyone. Most hoped that the once miraculous—now unsettling—dragon lying on their doorstep would just fly away. They wanted their monster-savior to go back to whatever mysterious place it had come from. Few knew of the creature’s origin, although news of Suri’s involvement had spread. The mystic imagined that the gilarabrywn remained a disturbing fixture to most, sort of like a wasp’s nest on the porch—if wasps could tear through stone and breathe fire. The beast remained curled up, still as a stone, like an enormous sculpture or an unusual rock formation. A quiet, sleeping dragon, while not ideal, was better than the alternative.

  From where Suri sat, with the rising sun casting her subject in silhouette, the gilarabrywn blended into the craggy outline of Wolf’s Head, and some effort was required to make sense of its shape. Suri struggled to remember where the head and tail were, but the wings were unmistakable. Even folded, they stood up from the hilltop—two sharp points like listing flagpoles. Suri felt the weight of the black-bronze blade on her lap and considered going closer. She would have to release the creature eventually, but tomorrow always seemed better than today. Instead, she sat on a ro
ck, beside a dead tree, at the bottom of a sea of guilt.

  If I go up there, its eyes will open. Suri was certain of that. Those giant orbs would narrow on her, staring with . . . what? Hatred, fear, pity? Suri wasn’t sure and wasn’t confident she’d recognize the difference. The worst thing about a gilarabrywn is I have to kill them twice.

  Despite several days of pouring rain, the Grandford battlefield remained stained. The beige rock and dirt had a rusty tinge, and the air smelled foul, especially when it blew from the west. Not all of the bodies were buried; many Fhrey had been left to rot. There was too much to do, too few people to do it, and burying the enemy was low on everyone’s list of priorities.

  “This is a horrid place,” she said, looking at the beast, “but you always knew that, didn’t you?”

  She had felt the bleakness of the plains of Dureya even before the day when the premonition of Raithe’s death had threatened to overwhelm her. The Art granted a second sight, a sixth sense. Arion sometimes called it a third eye, but that wasn’t right. The sensation had nothing to do with vision. What it granted were feelings, impressions, and usually they came in a jumbled, tangled mess. The closest and strongest perception usually stood out from the background noise, but here the clamor was deafening. Generations of men had fought and died on this land.