Mercenary partners, Dhulyn and Parno, are back in this
fourth entry to the series; their bond made even stronger by
recent adventures in The Storm Witch.
This time they are escorting the Princess Cleona of Arderon
and her cousin Alaria to a politically arranged marriage
with the Tarkin of Menoin in Uraklios. Their deeper purpose
is to track two other Mercenary Brethren who disappeared
with no word from the same city a year before.
Within a day of their arrival, the Princess is found
murdered in a slow and torturous ritual manner. She is only
one of seven victims found in the previous year, according
to their old friends, Gundaron and Mar-eMar, who were posted
in Uraklios to explore a vast ruin and ancient maze of the
Caids.
Prince Falcos and his uncle Epion send mixed signals,
seeming to both help and hinder the hunt for the
murderer. One of them is lying, but Dhulyn and Parno need
more evidence to discover who is telling the truth.
In seeking both the lost mercenaries and the killer, Dhulyn
and Parno attempt the maze named Path of the Sun and find
themselves in a world where Dhulyn's people, the Red
Horsemen, are thriving. The Marked of that land, however,
are all cursed from birth; unable to behave in a human
manner, sentenced to death before they can become monsters.
The Red Horsemen keep their Marked women sequestered, hidden
from those who might kill them, but also imprisoned so that
their madness can do no harm to the tribes.
In THE PATH OF THE SUN, Malan has provided a plot snapping
with action and danger. The search for the murderer provides
a dark and fascinating background to this fourth Dhulyn and
Parno adventure.
Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane think they’re escorting
the Princess of Arderon to her wedding with the new Tarkin
of Menoin, but the Mercenary Brotherhood has a secret
mission for them: find out what happened to the two Brothers
who were sent on assignment to Menoin a year ago, and who
have disappeared.
Once in Menoin they find old friends, the Scholars Gundaron
and Mar-eMar. There to investigate some old Caid ruins, Gun
and Mar suspect that the disappearance of the Mercenary
Brothers is linked to a series of killings. When the
Princess of Arderon’s corpse is found, mutilated in the same
way as the others, Dhulyn and Parno track the killer into
the Path of the Sun, an ancient labyrinth from which people
sometimes don’t return.
But Mercenaries are not ordinary people, and Dhulyn and
Parno draw on their Schooling to reach the centre of the
Path. What they find there is another world, a world in
which the Red Horsemen — Dhulyn’s nomad people — have not
been wiped out, a world in which the Marked are hunted down
and killed as ‘broken’.
Dhulyn and Parno must locate their missing Brothers,
identify the killer, and find their way back through the
Path of the Sun before Dhulyn’s own Mark is discovered.
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