M. R. Ball

Blood & Frost

Blood and Frost cover

Marek’s Saga in Varell Teth

They gathered at the ridge, howled to the moon, and watched as Marek drove the raiders back into the abyss. And then they bowed. No one saw it. Only Elira, the girl who crossed oceans for him, saw the wolves lower their heads. And she whispered the name the tribes would one day chant: The Wolf of the West.

But that was long ago.

Now, Varrel Teth stood on the edge of fire.

The serpent was rising.

And in the halls of an ancient fortress still being built, the man once born in silence would have to rise again. Not as a warrior.

But as a king.

Blood and Frost is a visceral tale of redemption where courage must outlast winter itself.

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Excerpt

The snow grew deeper the farther up the trail we walked. In short order he was marching though waist-high drifts that forced each step to be deliberate. Twice he nearly fell into a ravine, the trail collapsing under ice. Only instinct saved him. Catching himself on a rock ledge or frost covered tree that apparently hung over a chasm. The wind howled with the cry of hungry ghosts. He envisioned things moving just beyond sight. Just inside the ever-present gloom that permeated this land.

The wind roared so hard in his ears it was deafening. He couldn't even hear the sound of his heavy footsteps crunching though the snow. His eyes burned with the constant white of everything around him that showed no texture or distance. Only tinted by the dull grey from the constant cloud cover in this land. His face burned cold, fingers frostbitten, toes cold and numb, lips dry and chapped from the stinging wind.

But he endured.