David Alastair Hayden

It may not be bla­tantly obvi­ous to you, dear reader, not at this point any­way, but The Storm Dragon’s Heart (SDH) and Wrath of the White Tigress (WWT) are set on the same world: Kai­wen, Kawan, Qawin, and other var­i­ous spellings appro­pri­ate to the respec­tive lan­guages of the planet. I’ve writ­ten six nov­els, and only one of them doesn’t take place on Kaiwen.

Pawan Kor from Wrath of the White Tigress

SDH takes place on the island con­ti­nent of Okoro, which I’d guess is about the size of Aus­tralia. It is on the other side of Kai­wen from Pawan Kor which is the south­ern por­tion of a mas­sive con­ti­nent, the name of which I can­not remem­ber at the moment. (Yeah, I know. Cut me some slack. I came up with all the big pic­ture stuff a decade ago and haven’t needed all of it yet.) Pawan Kor is big­ger than Okoro. Per­haps as big across as Spain to India.

A few clues that show the books share a com­mon world:

• Two moons: Zhura Dark Moon and Avida Bright Moon. You’ll note that their names are the same in both set­tings. An odd but inten­tional choice.

• Magic func­tions the same and a chan­nel­ing stone is gen­er­ally required. The chan­nel­ing stones are called qavra in WWT and kavaru in SDH. Note their names are dif­fer­ent, an odd but inten­tional choice. Qavra are best worked by peo­ple of Zin­darhi descent, or their mys­te­ri­ous, remain­ing ances­tors the Qaiar Zin­darhi. For those beings, use of the stones is nat­ural. I will say no more.

• The nature of deities is the same. Greater deities linked to celes­tial bod­ies and big con­cepts. Such deities are dis­tant and per­haps have no direct impact on the world. Many lesser deities of vary­ing pow­ers, mostly minor spir­its. (The world is pri­mar­ily ani­mistic.) There’s a lot going on in the back­ground that will be revealed in time. I mapped out the source of magic and deities for the world, based on events that took places tens of thou­sands of years before the events of these nov­els. I will say no more.

• White steel which can cut through mag­i­cal ener­gies and beings. Dark iron which is the oppo­site of white steel. It’s able to soak up ener­gies. I’m sure there are other small details that I’m just not think­ing about at the moment. Hell, I’m likely for­get­ting some­thing major. And I may be hold­ing out on some­thing.
  
  

I have included in this post the maps for SDH and WWT, but these are sim­pli­fied views of larger, more detailed maps that I’m not shar­ing yet.

North­ern Okoro from Storm Dragon

Chains of a Dark God­dess should have the larger view of Pawan Kor along with a focused map for the story itself. The big­ger map of Okoro will appear with Legacy of the Lost Gods. Why am I hold­ing out? Because I’m still refin­ing some of the loca­tions and want them to be as accurate.

Galac­tus would never select me. I’m a ter­ri­ble her­ald. Nor­rin Radd I am not, though I, too, seek Shalla-Bal. I have been sit­ting on impor­tant news, fail­ing to alert you, dear reader and friend, that my novel of heroic sword and sor­cery adven­ture, Wrath of the White Tigress, will soon debut as the first novel from Typ­ing Cat Press! [1]

WotWT will be avail­able from Ama­zon, B&N, iBooks, and other fine ebook retail­ers at the highly afford­able price of $4.99. The spe­cific release date is yet unknown (though some­time in the last days of June). I will let you know as soon as I can. (The Kin­dle and Nook ver­sions will appear first.)

The print ver­sion will fol­low in late July, priced around $10–12. Above and to the right, you can see the beau­ti­ful cover art cre­ated for WotWT by San­dara. This same cover will soon appear on the Podi­o­books ver­sion as well. (I’m look­ing into doing an Audi­ble ver­sion of the book for those of you who’d like to pur­chase the entire audio­book with­out interruptions.)

WRATH OF THE WHITE TIGRESS

He thought he was a hero.
She showed him the truth.
Now he’ll do any­thing to stop the man who made him a monster.

For twenty years Jaska Bavadi has faith­fully served the Palym­far Order and its Grand­mas­ter, the pow­er­ful wiz­ard Salahn, but an encounter with Zyrella Anthari, last high priest­ess of the White Tigress, shat­ters the spell that chained Jaska’s mind.

Now faced with the hor­rors he unknow­ingly com­mit­ted against peo­ple he swore to pro­tect, Jaska must put Salahn’s reign of cru­elty to an end. Together, he and Zyrella race to save the White Tigress and stop Salahn from open­ing the Gates of the Under­world. An army of palym­far war­riors stands in their way, but the dan­ger­ous secrets that cloud their des­tinies threaten to doom them first.

In the tra­di­tion of ­­Michael Moor­cock, David Gem­mell, and Glen Cook, Wrath of the White Tigress deliv­ers a thrilling tale sword & sor­cery fans will love.

[1] Full Dis­clo­sure: I am a co-founder of Typ­ing Cat Press.

In down­trod­den Hareez, the golden age of pros­per­ity is long for­got­ten. The gods have fallen into a deep slum­ber, unaware that demons roam their lands and the Palym­far Order no longer pro­tects their peo­ple. In these days all men fear the palym­far while the palym­far fear only their Grand­mas­ter and Jaska Bavadi, his infa­mous Slayer.

But Jaska has no idea he’s a sadis­tic assas­sin feared by all Hareez until an encounter with Zyrella Anthari, the last high priest­ess of the White Tigress, wakes him to that night­mare. Free from Grand­mas­ter Salahn, a man he thought he loved as a father, after twenty years of mind con­trol, Jaska sets out with Zyrella to save the White Tigress and stop Salahn from open­ing the Gates of the Under­world. But in order to suc­ceed, he must first con­quer the mad­ness within.

» Read the rest of this entry «

In Hareez, the golden age of pros­per­ity was long for­got­ten. The gods had fallen into a deep slum­ber, unaware that demons roamed their lands, and the Palym­far Order no longer pro­tected the peo­ple. In those days all men feared the palym­far while the palym­far feared only their Grand­mas­ter, and his Slayer.

~THE SAGA OF PAWAN KOR~

“Hear me, O God­dess! What must I do?”

There was no response, no sound at all except for the golden leaves crack­ling in a bra­zier on the altar. Their aro­matic smoke swirled through the ancient shrine and coiled around Zyrella Anthari, the last true priest­ess of the White Tigress, as she lifted her hands beseech­ingly towards the statue of the god­dess on the dais before her. She had begun her rit­ual upon arriv­ing with her tem­plars but still had no answer to the dream that had led her here. Her knees ached from hours spent on the flagstones.

As she called on the god­dess again, des­per­ately now, faint sparks danced in the amethyst chan­nel­ing stone that hung around her neck. Instinc­tively, she now knew what she must do. Unbid­den dreams and unex­plained urges—this was all she had ever had to guide her. It would have to be enough this time as well.

With a ges­ture and a few arcane words, Zyrella acti­vated the witch-sight spell that allowed her to see into the Shad­ow­land. Her azure eyes turned milky white and she gazed intently into the smoke, her mind focused on the Tigress and the future. She expected to see a vision that would give her instruc­tions for a rit­ual that could free the god­dess from bondage. Instead, her spell uncloaked an enemy spy­ing on her through the Shadowland.

The man wore the rust-colored garb of a palym­far assas­sin, and at his neck was a jet qavra stone puls­ing with malefic energy. His mask was low­ered, reveal­ing a scowl­ing, hawk-like face. Zyrella had never seen him before, but his amber eyes were lit by zeal­ous fire, and by those eyes she instinc­tively knew who he was. Her mus­cles tensed. Her heart pounded. If he could observe her in this way, then he was near, no more than a few hours away.

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A horde of face­less chil­dren shuf­fled toward Jaska. He tried to back away, but Grand­mas­ter Salahn loomed behind him and whis­pered into his ear: “Kill many, Jaska, so that we may bathe in style tonight.” Jaska tried to resist, but his arms moved of their own accord and drew his weapons. Then, even with his eyes closed, he con­ducted his grisly task.

Hours later, he was in a shal­low, marble-tiled pool filled with blood. As he slid between Mardha and Salahn, gasp­ing in orgasm, Zyrella sud­denly appeared, chained to a col­umn ris­ing from the mid­dle of the pool.

Mardha left Jaska’s embrace and took a scourge from the pool­side. » Read the rest of this entry «

When Jaska next awoke, the dim sun­stone barely illu­mi­nated the cave. Zyrella slept on a pal­let along the oppo­site wall; Ohzikar was absent. Jaska’s stom­ach churned, demand­ing food. So with creak­ing joints and trem­bling mus­cles, he retrieved dried meat and dates from the sup­ply packs. He sat by the pool and ate.

Jaska was dressed in a grey shirt and pants that cinched at the ankles and knees. His pack, weapons, and uni­form lay stacked nearby. No, he thought, those weapons can’t belong to me. Mine fell into the river. These … must have belonged to my students.

He nearly wept as he thought of the young men he had trained for the last few years. But then what sort of men had they truly been? » Read the rest of this entry «

A warm glow emanated halfway up a rock wall on the north end of a dry canyon. Along a nar­row ledge was a cave not vis­i­ble from the canyon floor. Fire­light flick­ered on the walls inside and illu­mi­nated hunt­ing scenes and ani­mal lords painted by tribes­men cen­turies ago. Many of the scenes depicted species long extinct from the region, their pop­u­la­tions dec­i­mated by the inex­orable approach of the north­ern desert.

Zyrella chalked her own sym­bols onto the walls: twist­ing runes that chan­neled the geo­man­tic forces in her sur­round­ings and called upon the divine pow­ers of the great deity Kashomae, the Gen­tle Sav­ior. After Zyrella fin­ished, Ohzikar fas­tened a sheet of can­vas over the cave entrance. Then he joined her at the back of the cave where water, shim­mer­ing like liq­uid fire, trick­led into a small pool.

“That should mask our fire­light.” He frowned at the small pile of brush, dung, and coal. “Not that we’ll be burn­ing much.”

“I’ll con­jure sun­light into a stone tomor­row.” Zyrella didn’t let on to Ohzikar that she was utterly spent. Mak­ing a sun­stone would tax her, and an appren­tice sor­cerer could han­dle such a task with ease.

Ohzikar turned his gaze to a pal­let set into a nook two-thirds of the way back into the cave. » Read the rest of this entry «

The east­ern sky bright­ened as dawn approached while the west remained dark with retreat­ing storm clouds. Along the river­bank, the swollen waters sloshed as they receded. Wind sighed through brakes of reeds and the leaves of three stunted palms. In a nearby stream, Jaska caught two fish bare­handed, despite the pain that tun­neled deep within his mind and the lim­ited range of motion in his neck and left arm. His barely sealed wounds burned with punc­tu­at­ing waves of needle-sharp stabs.

With cold-numbed fin­gers, he ripped the flesh from the bones of the fish. He swal­lowed more than chewed for his jaws would barely open. He was exhausted, but he wouldn’t let him­self fall asleep again. He couldn’t bear to face more night­mares of car­nage and torture.

He needed to get help. Lying here for days would only expose him to ene­mies and preda­tors. It might also mean suc­cumb­ing to his injuries. Jaska splashed his face and drank from the stream. Then he gath­ered a few half-rotten dates that had fallen to the ground and stuffed them into a pocket.

He was ready to move on, but where to? » Read the rest of this entry «

If you head over to Podi­o­books, you’ll see that the audio ver­sion of my novel Wrath of the White Tigress is now com­plete. Please down­load and enjoy.

If you’d like to lis­ten to a sam­ple, click on the player in the right-hand col­umn of this site.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Jaska tum­bled through rag­ing waters, scrap­ing the canyon walls. Though wide hori­zon and starry sky appeared at the canyon’s end, he gave up. Much of his blood now flowed within the Gas­rah and willpower could carry him no further.

But as he sank, the White Tigress shot from the muddy north bank. Water surged around her as she nav­i­gated the cur­rents. She reached Jaska, grabbed his arm gen­tly, despite her mas­sive jaws, and pulled him ashore.

The White Tigress licked his face and pawed at his chest but to no avail. So she chan­neled some of her spirit into him until he breathed again, hop­ing her gam­ble would pay off.

» Read the rest of this entry «