themselves.”
“Is this your entire number?” Cor asked.
“No,” Consilium said. “Others are searching for food or guarding our camp. The Purpures and Mixies infesting this area make it necessary to travel in groups for protection. We come here every day to search for new exiles.”
His gaze drifted across the new arrivals. It settled on Certamen a moment before moving on. “Some of you I know—like Certamen and Galea of the Eleventh over there,” he said. The acknowledgment was gratifying. “Others are unfamiliar to me.”
Consilium greeted each of Certamen’s companions as, in turn, they called out their names and their legions.
“Friends,” he said sadly. “It is good to honor the memory of your legions. We are all that remains of them. As most of you probably know, I was Legate of the Second and later the Eleventh. Often I weep for our Bright Lord slain on Gules, for comrades and friends swallowed by its hungry sands. But we are more than the vestiges of a dead people. We are a new legion, the last hope for our race. We must depend on each other to survive in this wilderness. The petty jealousies and rivalries that so weakened us on Gules are past.”
“Are you the legate of this new legion?” Certamen asked.
“I am,” Consilium replied. His voice was cold, even haughty. His misinterpretation of the question as a challenge stung.
“Then I will follow you,” Certamen said firmly. Some of his companions echoed his sentiment with more fulsome declarations, others with murmurs. Certamen offered the knife to Consilium. “And this is rightfully yours.”
Defensor nodded. “It was a parting gift from my former master.”
Galea’s murmur was too indistinct to make out the words, but the cynicism in his tone was plain. Certamen’s glare warned him to be silent. Regret mingled with pride as Consilium took the knife.
Consilium raised it and studied it. “We must thank Defensor’s master if we ever meet him. Thank you, Defensor and Certamen. A fine blade, indeed, this Parting Gift.”
Certamen shivered as he and his companions stripped off their wet clothes and donned the spares Consilium’s party had brought. It was evident from the faded, dark red spatters on some of them that they had been taken from corpses. It was best not to dwell on the manner by which their wearers had met their end. At least the clothes were dry and warm.
Water spilled from the twisted fabric as they squeezed out their old clothes. Certamen was missing a sandal. He slipped off the other one and drew back his arm to toss it away.
“Wait!” Consilium yelled. “Don’t throw anything away. We have so little as it is. We must keep every scrap of civilization we possess.”
Certamen’s cheeks warmed. Of course, Consilium was right.
As they strolled to the Ors’ camp, Galea whispered to Certamen, “Can we trust Consilium? He and the other legates led us to our near extinction.”
“Do you want to lead?” Certamen asked.
“Not me.”
“Then you, too, must follow.”
Galea sighed and said no more.
The camp scarcely deserved the name. The dwellings could have been mistaken for piles of broken branches. Strewn beside a pile of twigs in an unused hearth were a variety of sticks, probably the tools employed in several unsuccessful attempts to start a fire. So this was what freedom was like. It wasn’t particularly impressive.
The camp’s denizens encircled the newcomers and applauded. Consilium thrust the Parting Gift into the air, and the claps turned to cheers.
“A miracle of the Divine Lights, an edge that never dulls, a blade that never breaks,” Consilium said. “With this weapon, this Parting Gift, we can craft a proper bow drill to light the fire. We can make all the tools we need. This instrument of death will be the means of our salvation. It will lift us above the bestial existence of the other freed slaves. It is the means by which we shall build our new civilization.”
It was a stirring speech. Certamen cheered with the rest, though his heart was troubled. Despite being fully clothed, a sensation of nakedness pestered him. Only a few days before, the world had been a reassuring order, but now Certamen had been stripped of that certainty. For the first time in his life, he was free.
As the cheers waned, there came a distant cry, a guttural wail, bestial and triumphant, reveling in unexpected liberty.
I hope you enjoyed The Parting Gift.
Please check out A Bright Power Rising and The Unconquered Sun, a duology set in the same world.
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Best wishes,
Noel
A Bright Power Rising
Set in the same world as The Parting Gift.
AscendantSun's memory stretches back to the bloody birth of the cosmos. Created to serve a dead god, he tired of his empty religion and adopted the faith of his former enemies. Now, a threat from the past is forcing him to choose between his new friends and his own people.
Escaping enslavement made Grael a hero in others’ eyes. As everything he has won begins to slip away, he strives to protect his loved ones from both the Elfin invaders and the machinations of his own ruler.
Everyone else considers Garscap's childhood tragedy to be a curse, but he knows it marked him for greatness. Mercenary, manipulative and murderous, he has the mind of a great leader, but not the heart. Will his ruthlessness prove ultimately to be his people’s salvation or their bane?
Prophesy is against them. Numbers, too. But, the greatest threat is mistrust. Can they forge an effective alliance before the bright power rising in the east destroys them?
The Unconquered Sun
Sequel to A Bright Power Rising.
Ever wish you were someone else? AscendantSun is about to…
He is beset by foes. The Harbinger’s legions threaten the people he strives to defend. Critics among his own followers undermine him. The ambitions of his unreliable ally, Garscap Torp, endanger him at every turn. Worse, the blood-thirsty god he spurned is about to return. However, the greatest enemy he must face is himself.
The riddle set for him on the Crooked Stair will be answered on the bloody fields of Cliffringden. But will he survive it?
Acknowledgments
I want to thank Claire Ashgrove at Finish The Story for her editing skills. I also want to thank Pamela Guerrieri-Cangioli from Proofed To Perfection for proofreading it.
Thanks also must go to Paula Becattini who designed the beautiful cover of this book. You can check out her work at https://paulabecattini.com. I also want to thank those who took part in the poll to choose the cover—Colette Coughlan, Orla McGrath, Colm Murphy, Kate McAuliffe, Ian McInerney, D.E. Jackson, and the others who chose to remain anonymous.
About Noel Coughlan
I live with my wife and daughter in Ireland.
From a young age, I was always writing a book. Generally, the first page over and over. Sometimes, I even reached the second page before I had shredded the entire copy book.
In my teenage years, I wrote some poetry, some of which would make a Vogon blush.
When I was fourteen, I had a dream. It was of a world where the inhabitants believed that each hue of light was a separate god, and that matter was simply another form of light. Thus, the world of Elysion was born.
I tinkered with the idea for a couple of decades, putting together mythologies, histories, maps, etc., but world-building isn’t worth much without a gripping story. Finally, I discovered a tale so compelling I just had to write it. The story was originally to be one book called The Golden Rule, but it expanded so much in the telling that I had to split
it into two volumes, A Bright Power Rising and The Unconquered Sun.
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