The Stone Horseman: Skiagunsta — Beatrice Smith Samples

Spanning continents and cultures…love, hate, greed…faith… Fleeing the Holy Inquisition, young knight Suero de Montaneros de Lugo joins an expedition to the New World. Steeped in the pride and greed of sixteenth-century Spain, dreaming of mountains of gold, the young knight is ill-prepared for an extended trek into the vast wilderness one day to be known as North America -- whose interior no European has ever seen. Straddling the southern mountains of this virgin country lying north of Cuba de Antilles -- the Tsaragi, The Seven Clans (Cherokee). They hunt the mountains and ride the rivers, and follow time-honored laws of love, war, and Clan Blood. In the village of The Place of Otters, Chestnut Bread, matriarch of the Red Paint Clan, keeps a vigilant eye pealed on her daughter, Stone Hoe; her beautiful granddaughter, Deer-eye; her sons, the handsome, love-sick trader, Possum; and her eldest, the fearsome Terrible Otter, Skiagunsta -- Great War Chief.