The Crowthistle Chronicles
Book 4
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FALLOWBLADE
The astonishing, romantic finale to the Crowthistle Chronicles Now in bookshops across the world. Read SPECUSPHERE's review here (Caution: contains spoilers!) At midnight they came. First a mist arose, winding in and out of the stumps of the forgotten city on the moors, making phantoms of the vestigial towers and walls. Then came a low, distant rumble, which grew louder. The rumble expanded to a roar; the thunder of one hundred thousand powerful hooves shaking the ground. Men peered through the haze until their eyes ached. Dimly they descried shapes hurtling in the murk. The shapes solidified, becoming silhouettes, vespertine blue against the pale grey of the vapours; terrible outlines, horned and antlered, brandishing a forest of spears; row upon serried row of apocalyptic horsemen from nightmare. Towards the united front of the mortal armies the horsemen galloped, their fantastic garments trailing like scalloped kelp-strands, their lawless hair flying, their slaves bounding maniacally alongside. Tatters of shredded mist streamed from their limbs. Fell horse and rider, both were both accoutred with jingling silver and pale jewels. Exquisite were those sinister steeds, with their smooth, resilient stride and their high-set necks. Their ghostly tails and manes streamed out along the wind of their swiftness, green as burning copper-salts. To those mortals who dared to stare, or who, like prey fascinated by the hunter, could not look away, it appeared that the bizarre battle-harness of the unseelie knights included trimmings of sable fur, sprays of sooty feathers and claws, and trappings of ivory, horn or bleached bone.The human troops braced themselves for a frontal assault. Archers drew their bowstrings to their ears and poised, ready for the command; foot soldiers lowered their pikes; cavalrymen pulled sword from sheath. Asrăthiel’s hand rested on Fallowblade’s hilt, ready to draw the swift blade… Only a few hundred yards separated the horde from the battalions of Tir…
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