The Gates of Dawn (Chronicles of Blood & Stone 2)

'The wind howled, and the lightening cascaded across the sky in unimaginable streaks, a portent of what was to come . . . the firstborn son of the Chosen One lives, and now he is ours.'

For three hundred years, Eutracia was a kingdom at peace. Then a horror from the past, long thought vanquished, returned to wreak dreadful revenge. The war against the Sorceresses of the Coven was won, but victory came at a terrible cost: the king and queen dead, the wizards' council decimated, and the land - ravaged by fear, scarred by battle - lawless. And Prince Tristan, forced by the Coven to turn his hand against his own and kill his father, is now a wanted man with a price on his head.

In underground labyrinths that once bustled with life, the fugitive prince, together with his twin sister and her infant daughter, the wizard Wigg, sole surviving council member, and the crippled wizard Faegan, returned from exile in the forests of Shadowood, take refuge. To them falls the daunting task of rebuilding Eutracia, but it soon becomes apparent that evil has not yet had its fill of this ravaged land.

An army of apprentice wizards, dispatched to hunt down the last remaining servants of the Coven, has fallen victim to foul beings that can only have been created out of hate. And, inexplicably, the sacred source of all magic begins to fail. Without its sustaining force the wizards will perish, and with them magic itself. With time and their powers fast dwindling, Wigg and Faegan must discover who - or what - has succeeded the Sorceresses, and now seeks to destroy Eutracia. As the awful truth is revealed, it is Tristan who must face this new enemy, an evil that transcends life itself, and fight the ultimate battle - for his life, his land and his destiny...

Continuing the monumental adventure that began with The Fifth Sorceress, here is confirmation that, in Robert Newcomb, epic fantasy has found an exhilarating new voice.