The One True King

By AJ Cooper

An invasion of the Big People threatens the Kingdom of Kalamar with destruction and the norgish people with ruin. Hither comes Pirosha Shortsprout, King of Kalamar, who will be called the greatest norg that ever lived.

The seventh and final volume of Enchanted Forest, which began with The Halfling King.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Realms of Varda
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215826768

AJ Cooper

Cursed at birth with a wild imagination, AJ Cooper spent his youth dreaming of worlds more exciting than Earth. He is a native Midwesterner and loves writing fantasy, especially epic fantasy set in his own created worlds. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and the author of numerous fantasy novels and novellas. His short stories have appeared in Morpheus Tales, Fear and Trembling, Residential Aliens and Mindflights, among others.

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The One True King: Enchanted Forest, Volume Seven

Copyright © 2023 Andrew James Cooper

Published by Realms of Varda

www.vardabooks.com

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Episode 1: The Fate of Kalamar

Episode 2 A New King

Episode 3: Dreams

Episode 4: True Love

Episode 5: Shortsprout

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The One True King

Enchanted Forest, Volume Seven

AJ Cooper

Episode 1: The Fate of Kalamar

I.

In the autumn light, the forest of Kalamar was painted in ghostly colors. As news of the invasion and the invasion itself swept over Kalamar, Pirosha had been riding furiously from place to place with his retinue, fortifying this city and summoning his warriors from another. Amid the gloomy tidings, one thing and one thing alone cheered his heart: that the magisters of the Chief Towns were united behind his rule, and were operating as one unit. Every part of the forest, save for the Breakaway Kingdom led by Insha, was acting in concert to repel the invaders.

They had broken through the forest’s perimeter just weeks ago, Big People carrying purple banners and hacking the undergrowth freely as they went. Pirosha had recognized their skull sigils as the kingdom of the Necro-Lords, and the name of their general, Maester Janus, was like a half-remembered dream.

Pirosha was riding amid the sun-maples and fairy-oaks of Summervine, with a hundred at his side, intending to relay news of the invasion to the Magister at Honeymead, when his Spymaster Garrin called out: Pirosha, my king! Look above you!

Pirosha peered upwards toward the sky, toward the canopy that covered all Kalamar, and noted to his alarm that the leaves of the sun-maples, normally red in autumn, had faded to shades of deep purple. When he looked to the grass in the clearing, ahead, he saw that it was not green but instead blue. What devilry is this? Pirosha cried. Everything it seemed was dying, changing. The leaves… the leaves…

No! Further! Garrin said. Further, up above.

Pirosha peered beyond the transformed trees and caught sight of a pair of yellow eyes, and a dark shape darting away.

~

Janus had arrived in the Kalamar to claim what was his. In the forward camp, amid the vines and the green-growing bushes and oaks, he felt the forest’s enmity. The Children of the Forest had ruled over their kingdom for countless centuries, unbothered, but they possessed in their cities a number of treasures that belonged to the Necro-Lords. For one, they had killed Janus’s nephew and former Maester, Leopold, and taken from him his mighty weapon, the Gutting Spear that eviscerated whatever it touched. For another, the Stone of Kings, the Cauldron of Plenty, the Sword of Fire — dwarfish wonder-works that the ancient dwarf-lord Bayne, and progenitor of the Children of the Forest, had been promised the Necro-Lords in an ancient, forgotten alliance against the harpies of the west. It was Janus’s purpose to uncover these artifacts, and bring them back to the king’s house at Middenmark-on-Sea. Nothing would stand in his way, and though the Children of the Forest’s leader, Pirosha, had thwarted Janus once, they would not do so again. The terms of Bayne’s alliance would be honored, at the end of sword or spear. The four wonders, crafted by ancient dwarfish ingenuity, would be brought back safe and pristine to the Necro-Lords. That was Janus’s vow, and he did not intend to fail.

There was