Uneasy Alliance — Clifford B. Bowyer

Assistance granted. Favors exchanged. Help provided. Lives saved. From the shadows these interactions have been as small as providing food when in need, to prophecies that toppled nations. All with the cryptic reply that one day a mysterious "employer" would need something in return. That day has finally come. Arifos, the greatest Madrew warrior who ever lived is pulled away from his mission of vengeance against the legions of Zoldex as he fights to keep the Suspintian Forest free. Kai, the Madrew protector of the Child of Prophecy is overseeing her recovery after she was dealt a near-fatal blow in a confrontation against Zoldex. Kabilian, the collector of mystical items and self-proclaimed assassin is seeking his own fate before being swept up in the machinations of others. Rawthorne, the tyrant who butchered his own family to claim the Falestian throne now serves Zoldex, but finds doubts and has many questions about just how he got here. These four and their companions all have their own goals, their own agendas, their own sense of honor, yet all four must come together and form an uneasy alliance as their markers are all called in and they are forced together to deal with a threat from the past that they all thought was dead and buried. If they can work together, the debt will be paid. If not, an old enemy threatens to undermine everything that they work so hard to achieve.