The Strifemaster's Apprentice, Part 1 - The Threshold

THE STRIFEMASTER’S APPRENTICE

A world where time holds no sway.

None can say how long it has been since the gods were banished here by the treachery of men. The Tuatha De Danann, the Children of the earth goddess Danu, built the land of Annwn for their own pleasure and comfort. It is a land of plenty, of pleasure, of unimaginable beauty. It is a magnificent copy of the world they left behind, lush and green and bountiful, studded with wondrous cities, crowned by soaring mountains, bounded by gentle seas. It is the world men could have had, had they only been as perfect as the Tuatha De Danann.

In time others came to this world and settled, by the grace of Danu’s children. Former enemies and allies who could no longer stomach life in a world run by men now dwell in peace beside the gods. Here the dead walk in their pain, crossing the Blessed Plain which takes them to the Land of Youth, to rest, recover and be reborn. There are even human exiles, thrust into this world they know not how or why.

A perfect world, and yet there are cracks beneath its faultless surface, unseen fissures of ancient grudge, half-forgotten resentment and long-harboured bitterness threaten to break out in blood and fire.

None of the races of Annwn want war. But war seems to be seeking them out nonetheless.

THE STRIFEMASTER’S APPRENTICE, released in five parts, is the first book in the Children of Danu series. The First part of the first book is THE THRESHOLD.