Nurik Shernazar had been fighting a typical religious war until the goat-men attacked.
His army waited between the parallel lines of fortifications and entrenchments that encircled the town of Silverwic, an important silver-producing center in the Kingdom of Garmundland. The star-shaped fortifications around the town were thick enough for ten men to walk abreast behind their parapets.
At only twelve feet high they were a small target, which forced Nurik to bring his cannon closer than he wanted. As if the fortifications weren’t formidable enough, the town sat atop a hill his men called the “Tit.”
He observed the placement of his artillery from atop a rampart. A series of three trenches zigzagged up the muddy hillside, ending half-way to the town’s southeast ravelin. Large wicker baskets of dirt from the excavation lined the edges and gave the gun crews cover.
Three men led a pair of oxen, harnessed in single file, pulling a limbered cannon. They entered the trench network at a sloped access point and guided the team along the winding path. When the master gunner barked an order to stop, the men unhitched the gun and aimed it at the wall west of the ravelin.
A musket shot bounced off the rampart at Nurik’s feet. Well-churned mud at the bottom softened his landing when he dove behind it. The muck ruined the purple sash he wore as a knight of the Holy Warriors of Saint Hartwell.
Nurik kept his head down as he inspected his weapon, a repeating crossbow he designed and paid for himself. A glop of reddish-brown gunk clung to the firing lever, but otherwise it was undamaged. He flung the muck aside and spit-cleaned the metal to remove the residue.
“Are you trying to get killed?” said Yonas Iskinder, Nurik’s second-in-command.
“Thought the woods were clear.” The enemy had used the forest south Nurik’s lines to launch raids, but this was the first time anyone had tried an assassination.
“The patrol didn’t find anything, but it’s impossible to search the entire forest,” said Yonas.
“Anyone hit?” asked Nurik.
“Don’t think so.”
A Curse upon the Saints Description:
As one war draws to a close, an ancient enemy returns with a vengeance.
The Nasirians are one battle away from winning an eight-year holy war. As they lay siege to the pagan city of Silverwic, the deadly Sarbarah emerge with fire in their eyes. The “goat-men” once enslaved the human race for thousands of years, and they aren’t interested in Silverwic alone. They want to reconquer everything they’ve lost and retake humanity.
Cynical soldier Nurik suspects his mentor Cardinal Renwick has forged an alliance with the goat-men. He must join forces with his idealistic sister and a devoted pagan father to stop the alliance, retrieve a relic stolen for a demonic cult, and confront the new threat to mankind. Failure to unite humanity against the slavers could rid the world of freedom for good.
A Curse Upon the Saints is the first installment in a series of epic fantasy novels that feature religious conflict, magic, and a war of good versus evil. If you like captivating worlds, religious undertones, and compelling creatures, then you’ll love J. Rutger Madison’s debut fantasy epic.
