A CANON OF CARNAGE
About this series
In music, a canon is a compositional technique where a melody is played by one voice and then imitated by one or more other voices, each entering after a delay. Essentially, voices chasing each other with the same tune. Though it repeats the same melody, it crescendos gradually as it continues.
For the continent of Terra Dira, it is caught in an endless canon...of carnage.
In a human-dominated empire built on conquest and religious supremacy, a series of linked events shatters the fragile pretense of coexistence between humans and nonhumans. Justice is a lie told at swordpoint.
AI Disclosure: Cover art was created with AI assistance.
Stories
KNIGHTMARE
Story 1 • 11 chapters
The Knightmares were once hundreds strong: human vigilantes mutated by vampiric blood, forged to hunt the corrupt. Now only five remain, hunted by the Paladins, a holy order devoted to human supremacy.
Knightmare Jevan lives by a code: Don’t care. Get paid. Heroics are how Knightmares become martyrs. When Jevan’s team takes a contract to rescue a nobleman’s sister, kidnapped by Paladins, a bloodbath ensues when the nobleman transforms into a wolfborn. Even so, the surviving Paladins escape with his sister. The mission has failed. No gold. Just carnage. Disappearing is the smart move, until Jevan faces the nobleman, on his knees, begging to save his sister. Jevan decides to rescue her, telling the Knightmares it’s just for gold, and trying to believe it himself.
Paladin Eriken just watched Knightmares and a wolfborn butcher his comrades. His rage hardens into renewed devotion to his oath. Obedience is justice; doubt is heresy. But when the Paladins he idolizes pardon a confessed rapist, and torture an elf woman before a jeering crowd, that righteousness curdles into disillusionment. Defying the Order is apostasy, punishable by death, but remaining silent means he’s complicit. If he breaks his oath, his life is forfeit.
As Jevan’s contract puts him directly in Eriken’s path, Knightmare and Paladin blades clash in a struggle that could doom the last Knightmares to martyrdom and brand Eriken an apostate. Survival demands a betrayal of creed and comrades neither is prepared to commit.