I Read Stories: Sharper Than Steel, Colder Than Death by Robert Rhodes

 

Sharper Than Steel, Colder Than Death by Robert Rhodes in Sword And Sorcery Magazine

The city of Coriol Magna had been ruled by the five Echelon Houses. They had been overthrown at great cost, not least the revolution’s greatest heroine Elena of House Donne. Left behind are her friends and her lover Petyr, now First Minister of the newly free city.

But then the counter-revolution begins. The magical weapons of the Echelon Houses strike, the Torchbearers burn grainships causing hunger. Lord Nine of House Omnia is a captive, immortal unless the talisman that houses his spirit can be found.

He cannot be compelled. But he will make a terrible bargain. To bring Elena back to life.

The revolution will have to be defended at the point of a rapier, with honour and death and regret.

Read This: Swashbuckling adventure of building from the ruins after the villains are defeated, of compromise and grief
Don’t Read This: You have no interest in the temptation of dramatic, perhaps operatic swordsmen against the backdrop of a fragile new city