I am so excited by this! Crown of Ash, book four of Steven Montano's incredible Blood Skies saga, is now available to his needy minions. And it's really not our fault that we're needy! Steven has created a delightfully bleak post-apocalyptic world. Fragmented and splintered, our Earth was torn apart by The Black, and is swarming with frightening, fetid vampires, warlocks that meld with spirits, evil creatures of all sorts, and armies of human survivors that always just barely seem to hang on. At the centre of this is warlock Eric Cross, a likable protagonist whose abilities and knowledge, though admirable, seem to attract more trouble than they're worth. As if that alone isn't enough to keep you reading through the night, these books are beautifully descriptive and incredibly intense. Once you've read one of them, you'll see why his minions are needy for more!
Okay, so let's get on with the show, shall we? How's this for a great sounding book?
Okay, so let's get on with the show, shall we? How's this for a great sounding book?
CROWN OF ASH:
Eric Cross and his team have been to hell and back, but their journey isn’t over yet.
Marooned in the remote criminal city of Blacksand, the only way for the mercenaries to get home is to help a local crime boss protect his territories from the Ebon Cities.
To complicate matters, Danica Black is also being hunted by The Revengers, a powerful band of corrupt prison wardens, while Cross himself is trapped in the Whisperlands, a realm of darkness controlled by a cadre of evil mages known as the Shadow Lords.
The team will battle their way through corroding wastelands and deadly vampire outposts, but even their considerable skills might not be enough to save them from the cruel machinations of the Shadow Lord’s mysterious master, a malevolent creature who has manipulated their destinies right from the beginning…
Return to the world of The Black in Book 4 of the BLOOD SKIES saga!
Crown of Ash is available on Amazon.com and Smashwords!
Catch up with the rest of the series on Amazon.com!
So do I have your attention yet? Good. In acknowledgement of your now undying worship of this series, I will present to you a small token. Here is an excerpt from Crown of Ash. Feel free to print it out, pin it up, roll around in it, hug it, whatever. But when you're done, don't forget to buy the REAL THING on Amazon.com or Smashwords. Enjoy, minions!
Excerpt from Crown of Ash:
Tendrils of web stretch between the trees. Dark silk plays against his skin like smooth fingers. He feels dust on his skin and burned wood on his tongue.
Bodies dangle from the trees, suspended by necrotic threads. They appear frozen in mid-fall and hang at violent angles. Most of their flesh and clothing has corroded off the bones. They bob like grisly marionettes.
He pushes through the perpetual gloom. His joined arcane blade lights his way with a subtle shine like blue moonlight.
The forest grows darker. He smells dead fish and glacial moisture, a raw ice-water breeze that clings to the trees like saliva.
He sees more signs of passage, blades and bedrolls and cold camps that have long-since been looted for anything of value.
The presence he sensed earlier returns. It shifts in the dark. Being close to it makes him feel like he stands at the edge of an abyss.
The air is grey. His feet swim in a cold wash of shadow that obscures the forest floor. The air is so cold he feels crystals in his beard, and every breath freezes in his throat and lungs.
He realizes he hasn’t passed through any of the black webbing for quite some time. He’s moved past its outer perimeter, past the warnings, and straight into the home of whatever made them.
A bone-white and bladed arm as long as a lance launches at him from out of the darkness. He uses Soulrazor/Avenger to knock it aside, then hacks through the carapace and severs the knife-limb. Tender layers of pulsing red meat lie beneath the cracked bone shell. White puss oozes from the maimed appendage.
He sees the trees and the darkness, and nothing else. He stands surrounded by a world of shadow, and it grows thicker as the curled howls of his attacker draw close. Fear ices his gut. He holds the blade ready, and calls his spirit. He remembers that she isn’t there, and his heart sinks.
Another blade-limb erupts from the dark. He barely rolls away before it slices by him and cleaves a bone tree in two.
Another limb flies out, insanely long, a bone needle mounted on a pale and twisted tentacle. He can’t see the source of the limbs – they stretch back into the vertical sea of darkness beyond the trees.
He rolls beneath the hacking attacks and runs forward, leaps over piles of skin and bones left to wither and freeze on the soiled forest floor.
The creature bleeds into his vision like a white wound. It’s humanoid, but only barely, a pale and writhing mutation with an elongated torso that twists like an eel. Its head is bald, with tiny black eyes and an enormous maw of razor teeth. Its many arms are spindly whips of flesh dotted with bone spurs.
It resembles the strange creatures he saw before, back at the edge of the forest, only this one is white where they were dark. It’s somehow resisted the corrupting pall of the Whisperlands, only to evolve into something much worse.
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About the Author
Steven Montano is a full-time accountant and the author of the Blood Skies series. He enjoys dark music, depressing cinema, cooking, hiking, and spending time with his crazy family. He lives in Washington, where he desperately prepares for the vampire apocalypse.
Visit Steven’s official website, bloodskies.com
Visit Steven’s official website, bloodskies.com
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