Focus: Toni V. Sweeney's Barbarian Blood Royal

. . .Following their parents’ deaths during the Genocide Wars, the five sons of Riven kan Ingan escape the margrave’s injustice by going their separate ways.

. . . Growing to adulthood in foreign lands, each lives by his wits or his skill with a sword as they wait for the day of their revenge. When that time comes, they’ll answer their elder brother’s call, leaving homes and friends and returning to their homeland and avenge themselves upon Morling, king of Francovia.

. . . In the following battle, the gods prepare to make the achieving of their goal as complicated as possible. They don’t realize the kan Ingans need no divine help in making that feat as difficult as possible.

Wild Women Authors is pleased to welcome back author Toni V. Sweeney and Barbarian Blood Royal (Book 6 of the Narrative of Riven the Heretic, Part 1 of the Arcanian Chronicles)

EXCERPT:

Val One Eye stood upon the high precipice under which the wolves’ fortress was carved out of the mountain.

The spring wind, sharp with the lingering bite of frost, blew about him but he didn’t feel its chill. The long-sleeved woolen shirt woven by one of his women kept the cold from touching him, as did the leather tunic he wore over it. The tanned hide fluttered, making the tiny metal disks, so thin and close together they resembled a fish’s scales, glitter as they cast back the reflection of the torches flaring below him.

His fur-lined cape whipped away from his body, billowing behind him like the wings of a monstrous bird. For an instant, Samric, standing a few feet away, thought he truly resembled the bird of prey whose name his father’s clan had taken.

For three nights, One Eye had come to this cliff, wearing Tamsin’s cloak and calling into the night…

It’s time to return.

He’d known it for months and ignored that knowledge, but now, he could refuse no longer. Wherever they were, Ilke, Shael, Hroric, and Merigan must return to Francovia, meet him and keep the promise they’d made fourteen years before.

“This is a fool’s errand.” Samric raised his voice so he could be heard above the wind’s howl. “You can’t know they still live.”

“They live,” Val replied shortly.

The wind blew his words to Samric, whipping his hair about his face as he looked back at the wolf leader. The narrow leather band holding in place the patch over his lost eye looked like a streak of dried blood against his skin.

“They live, and they’ll come, no matter how far away they’ve fled.”

“You’d return to that place of death? There’s nothing for you there. Why would you leave what you have here?”

“What do I have here?” Val cut sharply into Samric’s tirade. “My women? I’d gladly give them all to you, Brother, if you’d forget that idiot’s vow of yours and promise to bed even one of them.” He ignored the black look on Samric’s face at mention of his finding Tamsin, the woman making him forswear any other female. “Children? I’ve none of those and I can’t blame the gods for that. What’s there to keep me here?”

After the first night with the slave girl given him, he’d made certain no woman within the wolves’ fortress bore his child. It diminished some of the pleasure in taking them but he’d done it nevertheless, unconsciously following the same practice his grandfather used so many years before. There would be no kan Ingan bastards among the wolves, Val swore. No great-grandsons of Trygare kan Ingan taken into the tribe, none of his great-granddaughters used for the men’s pleasure.

“Death awaits you if you go back, One Eye. You’ll be taken prisoner the moment your mad sovereign learns you’ve returned. Here, at least, you’re among friends.” Samric stepped onto the ledge beside Val. The wind threw a fresh gust of frost over them. It twinkled on the copper torqs on their necks and on the metal covering their leather vambraces. “I’ve heard of the punishment they give traitors...”

“If I die, I die.” The smile Val gave him was grim, an expression of wolfish pleasure on his scarred face. It was the look of a man who didn’t fear death because he’d ridden with it for too long. “After the hangman’s rope’s done its work, one doesn’t feel the ax, brother.” Turning his back on Samric, he took Tamsin’s cloak and shook the neatly folded square so it belled in the wind, then wrapped it around his shoulders. It seemed to have grown, for it fit him now, as if measured to his height instead of the witch’s small frame.

Arms crossed over his chest, hands clenched into fists, he looked up, finding the highest star above them. It was like a single staring eye, burning, like his own, as he repeated the words the old seer traveling with them had taught him.

Speak these words in the night, he’d instructed. Form a picture of your kinsmen in your mind and throw the words into the wind, and they will hear. Wherever they are, they’ll hear your call. It will be as a dream, but they’ll know it’s truth, and they will answer. They won’t be able to do otherwise.

Closing his eye, Val concentrated on the images of his brothers in his thoughts. He knew they wouldn’t look as they had when he’d last seen them, but he couldn’t envision them as older men, still seeing the tragic-laden but fresh-cheeked children they’d been. Little Merigan, the baby, would be almost twenty-four now, while Ilke... His half-brother was now nearing thirty. It was difficult for him to accept that though he knew it to be true. Instead he saw them as they were, pictured them as the frightened but determined boys standing in the castle courtyard, and called out to that image.

It’s time, my brothers. Wherever you are, I call to you. We’ve the strength now to bring about our revenge. Come to me. I’ll meet you where the river enters the three lands.

For three nights, he repeated the same words. For three nights, he waited for a sign, a reply telling him they’d heard.

Each time, nothing happened.

Tonight, it was the same.

Samric, sensing his disappointment, touched his shoulder, saying softly, “One Eye, let’s go back.”

“Aye, Samric, I— Uh!” Val stiffened and cried out.

Clutching at his temples, he staggered backward, spinning so violently he careened into the wolf leader. Samric caught his arm, preventing him from toppling over the ledge. Val raised his head, pain and a look of utter relief blending on his face.

“Gods. They heard...”

He’d felt their reply. As he spoke to Samric, four images flashed into his mind. It happened so quickly he couldn’t remember how they looked…merely four men, strangers yet familiar, each in the act of awakening, a look of fear giving way to knowledge on each half-sleeping face. The thought was like four separate explosions of light inside his brain.

My brothers have heard. That was all that mattered.

To Purchase Barbarian Blood Royal, go to:

Paperback: http://classactbooks.com/component/virtuemart/fantasy/barbarian-blood-royal-8622017-12-14-18-02-47-detail?Itemid=0

Amazon e-book and Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Barbarian-Blood-Royal-Arcanian-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B0789446S1/

About our Focus Author:

Toni V. Sweeney has lived 30 years in the South, a score in the Middle West, and a decade on the Pacific Coast and now she’s trying for her second 30 on the Great Plains.

Since the publication of her first novel in 1989, Toni divides her time between writing SF/Fantasy under her own name and romances under her pseudonym Icy Snow Blackstone. In March, 2013, she became publicity manager for Class Act Books (US). She is also on the review staff of the New York Journal of Books. In 2016, she was named a Professional Reader by netgalley.com.

In 2015 and 2016 Toni was voted one of the Top 10 authors of those years by Preditors & Editors Readers Poll. In 2013, the Paranormal Romance Guild’s Reviewer’s Choice voted The kan Ingan Archives (Part Two of the Arcanian Chronicles) a Special Mention, and the following year, named the individual novels The Man from Cymene, and Space Studs, from the same series two of the Top 8 SF/fantasy novels of 2014.

As of 2018, Toni currently has 55 novels in print, including 3 series, and 3 trilogies.

To Find Out More About Toni, go to:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tvsweeney

Amazon Author’s Page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002BLQBB8

Twitter: @ToniVSweeney