Strength of Conviction

By William L. Hahn

As the central kingdom of the Lands of Hope languishes without rule or reason under a worsening pall of chaos, most Children of Hope stand by and do nothing. The few who would dare are outcasts and strangers, either too high up, or too far inside, or still too young to help. Worse, all their scattered mysteries seem unconnected.

Treaman the Woodsman struggles to guide his companions through ensorcelled wildlands to safety. The poorest knight in the city prays by Conar’s statue for weeks without ceasing, as though his life depends on it. The young scribe Anteris copies histories for his master by day, dreams of adventure till sunset, and searches the stars by night for the riddle of his future. A noble Conarian heir seeks to join a lost legendary Order, putting his duty before his life. A gentle Elvish sage confronts the greatest of puzzles, the closed door barring the way to friendship with his greatest, and most dangerous pupil.

For Solemn Judgement, the Man in Grey, is learning that names are indeed important when he shows... Strength of Conviction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Bookworm
• Release date: Apr 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9783956810374

William L. Hahn

Will Hahn has been in love with heroic tales since age four, when his father read him the Lays of Ancient Rome and the Tales of King Arthur. He taught Ancient-Medieval History for years, but the line between this world and others has always been thin; the far reaches of fantasy, like the distant past, still bring him face to face with people like us, who have choices to make. Will didn't always make the right choices when he was young. Any stick or vaguely-sticklike object became a sword in his hands, to the great dismay of his five sisters. Everyone survived, in part by virtue of a rule forbidding him from handling umbrellas, ski poles, curtain rods and more. Will has written about the Lands of Hope since his college days (which by now are also part of ancient history). His first tales include "Three Minutes to Midnight" a slightly-dark sword and sorcery novelette, as well as “The Ring and the Flag” and "Fencing Reputation", the first stories in the ongoing Shards of Light series. The first novel-length tale of Hope, "The Plane of Dreams" was published in September 2012. You can find much more about the Lands of Hope at the links below, including a Compendium of information about the Lands and a Facebook page on the History of the Lands. Check out other online authors at Independent Bookworm, where you can also find The Maps of Hope, a free resource for readers about the Lands.

Book preview

Strength of Conviction

Judgement's Tale II

William L. Hahn

Smashwords Edition

To my good friend, colleague and supporter Katharina Gerlach

Who has always shown such conviction about my efforts

As the central kingdom of the Lands of Hope languishes without rule or reason under a worsening pall of chaos, most Children of Hope stand by and do nothing. The few who would dare are outcasts, strangers, or still too young to help. Worse, all their scattered mysteries seem unconnected.

Treaman the Woodsman struggles to guide his companions through ensorcelled wildlands to safety. The poorest knight in the city prays by Conar’s statue for weeks without ceasing, as though his life depended on it. The young scribe Anteris copies histories for his master by day, dreams of adventure till sunset and searches the stars by night for the riddle of his future. A noble Conarian heir seeks to join a lost legendary Order, putting his duty before his life; a gentle Elvish sage confronts the greatest of puzzles, the closed door barring the way to friendship with his greatest, and most dangerous pupil.

For Solemn Judgement, the Man in Grey, is learning that names are indeed important when he shows… Strength of Conviction

Follow these links for the Table of Contents and the Map of the Lands of Hope

Dear reader,

This e-book is for your personal enjoyment only. Please do not re-sell it or give it away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you suspect this book has been pirated, consider going to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. That way, you will make it possible for me to write more books, because I'll have to worry less about how to make ends meet.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Now, have fun with the story.

I strongly advise reading this series from the first part on. This is one big Epic Fantasy book, released in short installments. The story will not make sense without the first books in the series.

Games of Chance, Judgement's Tale Book One

For twenty centuries the Lands of Hope prospered from their Heroes’ peace, but suffer now from their absence. Chaos slowly grows in the central kingdom of the Lands of Hope known as the Percentalion. It no longer permits safe or reliable travel in or out. Even the bravest adventurers, who for centuries made a living foraying into its midst after lore and treasure, seem unable to do so anymore. The sundered populations of the Percentalion are trapped there, beyond communication and without hope. Worse yet, the liche Wolga Vrule plots escape from his extra-worldly prison to unleash a tide of undeath, and enlists the Earth Demon Kog, who ruled the Percentalion millennia ago, as an uneasy ally.

On the western coast of the Lands of Hope, Solemn Judgement comes ashore, having journeyed with his father for two years across an ocean. His father died in bringing him here; Solemn Judgement steps onto these Lands both a stranger and an orphan, driven to complete the lore his father died to give him.

In a world beset with increasing chaos, the bravest Children of Hope must take mortal risks. A young woodsman's spear-cast, a desperate bid to save his comrades; the Healers Guildmistress' cheery smile, hiding a grim secret and a heavy burden of guilt; the prince of Shilar's speech in a foreign tongue, a gambit to avoid bloodshed or even war. As a new generation of heroes, scattered across the kingdoms, bets their lives and more, Solemn Judgement — soon to be known as The Man in Grey — must learn to play… Games of Chance.

You can get Games of Chance from many retailers.

Strength of Conviction

The weather had been foul in the vale of Maladon for nearly a fortnight, sticky and hot even in darkness, the dispiriting summer season where air hangs heavy and even lovers argue. More precisely, lovers in Maladon would have argued, had there been any. The planted fields around town, and the clear-cut copses beyond, lay still. By day the humans took cover behind walls of stone and fire; most of the animal life had been hunted out by the vale's scaly ruler. Only five beings moved across the ground, far from the town and near the heart of peril.

The scree up the valley's southern side offered scarce cover, a litter of sharp-edged, broken rocks that slipped underfoot and shaved skin off the hands. The drifting eldritch smoke, dark and choking, carried a stench of smelted bugs enough to make a strong man gag, much less an Elf with instinctive racial fear of any giant insectoid. But for once Mhoral held his peace, for no one is well advised to make much noise within fifty paces of a dragon's cave.

Treaman took a shallow breath and stood slowly to reconnoiter. The muggy weather made a haze of the far distance, but he could see back north across the vale nearly a league, to the central stream that meandered past the walled town where some two hundred women still survived. Only women; the stream fed a lake in the haze beyond the town, and on the main island there, less than eighty men desperately scraped for survival in a tiny wooden stockade. The valley sides were clear to the end of his vision — what the monster had not destroyed, the humans had cut for fuel, for walls, for weapons and for smoke-defense. The young woodsman saw the stump-meadows and felt a pang at the wasteful consumption: a generation would pass before there could be trees here again.

Turning back south, he wiped the sweat away and scanned the few remaining trunks and bushy copses nearby, mostly scraped of leaves, some twisted, broken and blackened by great force. From the cave ahead — a rip in the steepest section of the valley wall just higher than a man — smoke issued forth thickly but at intervals. Perhaps the winds inside the cave turned contrary, or perhaps it snored. The skies were clear, for now, but Treaman scanned them an extra moment to be sure. When he nodded to Haltar, the leader pointed the crouching party back along the trail to a rocky cut where they could confer.

Alive or dead? he interrogated the woodsman.

Yes, Treaman grinned back, absolutely one or the other.

The strapping warrior smirked in uncharacteristic frustration and hitched at his plate hauberk. Everyone sensed the difference in mood since the last few fights against the giant insects when the wood and fire ran low.

He's still alive, of course, snapped Mhoral. Nothing can kill a dragon.

Except brave adventurers, Bildon chimed in brightly from a small rock he had converted to a chair.

We're truly going in there? Linya asked with real concern.

These people need that dragon dead, Haltar said with his usual poker-face; and, as usual, Mhoral laughed in it.

Those people needed the bugs killed, he hissed with a shiver. We need the dragon, or its treasure, that's why you're leading us up there to get burned.

For a moment, it looked as if Haltar would rise to the bait of the helmeted Elf as he never had before. He shook his head sharply with drops of sweat spinning off his shoulder-length hair, and hitched his armor again, stiffly, powerfully flexing his arms. Treaman thought he'd never seen him so… impressive. He was concerned for Mhoral; perhaps today the back-talk would go too far. Something was definitely different, the woodsman thought even as his mind fled the idea of fighting a dragon. Their leader controlled himself and continued to plan an assault; Treaman looked him over closely, and… yes, he did seem larger than ever. His armor suit was tight, his shoulders even broader, his legs more defined. Wishful thinking, with a dragon-fight in the offing? The woodsman looked away before Bildon caught him staring; there'd be no end of the comments then.

The dragon will be bad enough, Haltar admitted, but the last thing we ask is to encounter more warnets while we're about it. Treaman, I need you to scout around above the cave mouth and see; the people of the town have never tried to clear this area.

For obvious reasons, Bildon observed.

Do you want any help? Haltar asked, and Treaman shook his head, putting down his small tight pack and hefting his spear before setting out.

Behind him Bildon quietly called, Less than a day this time, eh? Treaman grinned; in truth, he loved the solitude and a chance to explore new places.

Toe-stepping half-bent in a wide circle around the cave-mouth, he split his attention between the cleft and the skies overhead; the grinding buzz of the warnets usually came too late to avoid a skyborne attack. All around he could see the vague outlines of a good land, but the scarring was everywhere. Trees snapped off and charred, rock-slides broken and partially melted, the earth churned up and even the grass thinned by burning. Not all of it was fire, he realized — the smell and the character of the destruction told the woodsman there was something strongly acidic about the scaled monster who ruled the vale. None of the spoor indicated that it had passed here recently, however.

As he climbed beyond the level of the cave towards the valley-top, Treaman did see fresh animal signs, of a kind he had come to know since the party stumbled into this vale over a week ago. Quill-thin jabs in the earth, small piles of scentless fewmets, and another sort of odor wafted his way; he crouched behind some brush to scan more carefully. The warnets, whose sudden depredations had temporarily displaced the dragon in the fears of the vale's inhabitants, had always been present according to the tales they had heard in Maladon. Speaking to the women there — now undertaking all the tasks of guarding and fighting without their men — Linya had learned that the warnets always had a season, late fall, when they flew in greater frequency and attacked with less provocation. Winter killed off nearly all of them, it seemed, as well as another giant insect of the vale, a ground-crawling ant-like thing with thick hair and a powerful sting, that chewed crops and wood if not burned out.

Most years, the vale's people had set up a few traps or fire-lines to keep out the bug threats. But in the last three summers, things had gotten steadily worse, despite the lack of an appearance from the dragon. More warnets, more frequent attacks, and ever-more-angry arguments among the survivors — for now, the eagle-sized insects swooped down to attack and kill in all seasons.

These were the wings across the sky that Trainertown had heard rumor of from the merchant last year. The group had been relieved to learn it, until Haltar offered to help hunt for the bug-swarms in return for shelter and aid; they'd all known hard shifts since then. His master plan, of course, was to clear the plague away, then get a crack