The Untamed Lands

By Clint Westgard

Mejk the Unharnessed is a spirit walker, who can traverse the lands of the dead and bind the souls there. Chosen by his people to restore them to greatness, he will take any risk to claim the spirits in the Untamed Lands.

Harni the Cleaved travels with Mejk, his guide and protector. She will stay at his side, no matter how arrogant he might be, for her people have chosen her as well. More than Mejk, she understands just how unforgiving the Untamed Lands are.

Neither of them is prepared for what they will face when they come across an ancient skull. Mejk will find himself facing a greater power than he knew existed, while Harni tries to defend them against impossible odds.

Mejk and Harni will be pushed beyond their limits in a desperate struggle to save their people and themselves. For in the Untamed Lands the living and the dead offer no quarter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lost Quarter Books
• Release date: Feb 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781928035428

Clint Westgard

Clint Westgard is the author of The Shadow Men Trilogy and the science fiction epic The Sojourner Cycle, the first volume of which, The Forgotten, was published in 2015. In addition, he has published a work of historical fantasy set in colonial Peru, The Masks of Honor, and a retelling of the Minotaur legend, The Trials of the Minotaur. Clint Westgard lives in Calgary, Alberta.

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THE UNTAMED LANDS

CLINT WESTGARD

The Untamed Lands

Published by Lost Quarter Books

January 2018

The Untamed Lands by Clint Westgard is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.  

ISBN: 978-1-928035-42-8

Cover image: ©  Ba-mi | Dreamstime.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE BONES HAD...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY CLINT WESTGARD

THE BONES HAD been bleached dry by the sun and were a gleaming white amidst a sea of green grass that stretched on for miles in any direction. The sun glimmered off them, catching the eye of Harni the Cleaved, one of two riders making their way across the plain. She brought her horse to an abrupt halt, wordlessly pointing at the distant speck of white. The other rider, Mejk the Unharnessed, grunted in response and they both turned their horses toward the bones.

They came across the rest of the body in their search for the skull—a femur here, a rib there—the body obviously having been torn apart by whatever carrion hunters inhabited these parts. Mejk was forced to dismount from his horse to find the skull, which was hidden beneath an especially thick swirl of the lengthy grass. He knelt on the ground, picking it up gingerly to study it, while Harni kept her eyes watchful upon the horizon.

The skull was whole and unbroken, except for a small hole at its base where an arrow had obviously struck and killed the warrior. Mejk turned it over in his hands, counting the teeth and looking at the form of the skull with a skeptical eye. Harni interrupted his study with a grunt.

Be quick, she said. Someone's approaching.

You know this can't be rushed, Mejk said, not taking his eyes from the skull.

It may have to be, Harni said.

Hearing the urgency in her voice, Mejk looked up from the skull and cast his eyes along the horizon. Who is it?

Who else, was her whispered reply.

Who else indeed. These were the Untamed Lands, which no one had claim to. But that would not stop some of the Great Tribes from doing so, especially to two warriors from the Fastarl traveling far from their lands. These plains had once been theirs in more glorious times, but that was many lifetimes ago, long before