Warriors in the Mist: A Dark Fantasy

It happened in the mystical magical Dark Ages in a Province called Kantine, ruled by Sakajians. Sakajian warlords vied for power, the mightiest of whom controlled even the King. Brotherhood was vague. Sisterhood was held only by the Priestesses of the Mist, who were nearly diminished.

Kamara Lania is a priestess striving to unite the realm with the divine love. Meanwhile, a violent self-serving warlord, Kayenté Ketola, is acquiring dominion of the realm on his journey to become king. They are both thwarted by a supernatural being, the "Cold One" consuming the world, because good and evil in their extremes, always fall. Mystical interplay throws the Priestess and the Warlord into a harrowing and complicated, even comical transformation, where they each must become more like the other to keep the world from fading into nothing.

Excerpt:

She crawled carefully through dancing feet, under clanking swords, and a rain of blood. She heard whisking and whipping, thumps and thuds, grunts and groans, curses, prayers, and the blasting beat of a thousand hearts, the world yet spinning round and round.

She prayed the warriors would be too engaged in battle to bother with her. Her gown kept catching under her knees, pulling the neck down around her shoulders. Metal feet slammed down around her. Something wet poured over her neck and dripped down her skin curving around her throat. It smelled like blood. However, everything reeked of blood. She kept moving, forbidding tears, wishing she'd drank a second glass of wine, for the elixir seemed to distance her somewhat from the horrors she normally felt.

Ahead, on the outskirts of the battle, she glimpsed a lone oak tree ahead of her, looming there, a live thing, like a mother bidding her to come and fall upon her breast.

Thinking only of the tree, the tree, the beautiful tree, she found herself more quickly there. She dropped her shoulder against the fragrant bark, and curled into a tight ball, very still, afraid to move, lest a knife come flying at her, the way Kayenté had once told her it could.

Her eyes were closed, but the image of swords and bludgeoned bodies flashed erratically in her mind. This battle was like the one in her nightmare: warriors, swords, arrows, blood; and she curled against a tree, trembling in her dirty white gown. Would The Cold One appear next?

Her arm was snatched. Someone pulled her forward so swiftly, she felt like a shooting star. Her vision blurred, so fast they did run. When they stopped, she fell to her hands and knees in the thick foliage, panting hard with burning lungs. Someone stood next to her. Would she now behold The Cold One? What was, was; and what was to be, was to be. She could not change it, so she sat back on her knees and looked up to see dust covered leather pants, and a sword dripping blood.

Raising her eyes further, she saw Kayenté's face. It was Kayenté who towered over her!

Her hand flew to her heart. "You aren't The Cold One."

He squatted, resting the sword over his knees. "I don't know about that."