CHAPTER 1: SKULLS IN THE SAND

Mage and swordsman, Serdrin Falinor stood in the rowboat on his haunches while the rowers grunted with every effort of the ores. He was no slouch at the sword, but in his mage training, he was no disciple in the schools of magic, for he had failed his training and was cast out of his place of learning.

The cool spray of the deep blue waters off the cost of the Giant Isles of Malik’Xor put a chill down his spine, but Falinor reacted very little. His jaw was set, his sword honed to the point where he could shave a hair in half without bending it.

The swordsman and mage, if mage he could even be called, held his scabbarded blade before him, the cross guard gleaming in the sunlight. He was a tall man, lean but muscular and corded, the muscles in his arms easily pronounced as if he had been carved from the finest marbles. The warrior kept his hair tied at the nape of his neck, and a braided thread wrapped about his temples to keep loose strands of his long red-brown hair from his eyes.

Upon his corded forearms he wore leather vambraces studded in silver. His tunic was of a dark green suede, threaded in silver. The breaches he wore had clearly at a time been of high quality, polished and lacquered, but now they showed the wear of use and of age, though they were well-kept and tied to his calves by cords of hempen rope. For armor—true plate armor, he wore none, save for silver plates that he wore over his shins. They protected his legs and covered the lacings of his high boots.

The warrior glanced out over the waters, at the half-dozen other boats loaded with swordsmen, archers and mages. At the head of each boat, a lead man who had been selected by the king himself, stood, watchful and alert.

The salty tang of the sea air filled his nostrils and the stink of fish was on the wind. Falinor set his jaw as he glanced over the blue waters and the chop of the waves at the island before them. The beach was unmistakably the Isle of Giants, with its jagged rocks that appeared like shattered bone, yellowed and marbled in pink, the shore a collection of flat and warn stones of a similar hue.

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Those rocks foretold a future, should they fail to save the princess, their own bones would be added to those rocks, a graveyard of a battle past and a quest failed.

But…

Narrowing his eyes, Falinor saw no sign of the giants who had taken the kings daughter.

He nodded.

Their landing, as each of the lead men in the rowboats had suspected, as told to the rest of the small army before setting forth, was and still is a secret.

Nodding to himself in satisfaction and mild relief, Falinor gripped his leather scabbard tighter. Bravery was not the mark of a man without fear—it was the mark of a man willing to row to an island where men did not go, in the hopes that his landing would be unnoticed, but willing to fight should he be discovered.

When the boat scraped onto the rocky shore, the lead man, Lord Eiver, jumped out first and gave orders for the rest of the men to move. The towers set down their ores and picked up their weapons.

With a splash, Falinor landed in the water behind a dozen other men and made his way up the shore, but not forgetful of the rowboat, his only way off the Giant Isles of Malik’Xor.

The trees ahead loomed large—far larger than he was used to. How was it that even the trees in the land of giants were bigger?

Seabirds cawed, and in the forest even larger creatures squawked and called, their cried echoing through the darkness of the trees that climbed high like bulwarks of protection against outsiders.

A shiver passed over Falinor then, one not of the cold. But of foreboding, for the forest glowered at him, warning him not to enter its dark recesses.

The warrior stepped forward, the first among the many men on the shore now to move toward that forest.

When his boot hit a rock, he jerked forward and caught his balance. Looking down at that rock, Falinor saw it for what it truly was.

It was the half-buried skull of a man.