WarWizzen

Yarmian Eventyde, emotionally numb and still in shock after losing the two loves and ten years of his life on Greenwater Island, receives a request for help from the man in Farakand, Ranquin Dutt. Leaving Coldharbor and his friend, Sumner, the only man who truly understands what happened to Yarmian, the Wizzen takes ship to Farakand.

There, Yarmian learns from Dutt that a warlord is rising in the far eastern wilds of Jumtuk, and that four neighouring lands are living under the threat of possible attack by the Warlord of Tuksmount and his barbarian horde. Worse, Ranquin Dutt believes the warlord is in fact a Wizzen... a WarWizzen of old drawing an army of thugs, brutes, and criminals to his fort atop Tuksmount.

The Isle of Sinnock, and its new Philostrate, Kurster, refuse to act on what they consider to be mere rumours, and will not involve themselves in what is, they say, a civil matter for the militaries of those four east coast nations to settle for themselves. No Wizzens will be sent, in spite of the fact that spies and an expeditionary force sent out to investigate Tuksmount have failed to return...

Yarmian immediately agrees to Dutt's request that he venture out into the wilds to discover the truth about Tuksmount, and in company with the business mogul's two biggest and best bodyguards, he sets off on what should be a simple journey across seventy-five miles of uninhabited wilderness.

Alas, poor Yarmian... it's neither.