The Eye of Strife

By Dave Duncan

A group of strangers share tales of epic fantasy adventures as they confess what they know about a missing gem—or else risk the wrath of an angry god.

Legend has it that Quarn Axeswinger led a rebellion against the king but lost his sight in battle. The god Strife appeared and bestowed upon Quarn a jewel that gave him a mysterious new power. The man only had to promise to destroy any who defied him and spare those who submit. Quarn did . . . and went on to build a massive empire that continued to grow until after his death. 

However, this jewel, the Eye of Strife, disappeared a thousand years ago, and now Strife would like it back . . .

Someone has committed a terrible crime. To find out who, the high priest of Strife summons a group of strangers to the temple to share everything they know about the jewel. What follows is an evening of tales full of adventure, romance, and danger. Of course, not all the suspects are telling the truth, and at least one of them is guilty—and they will be punished.

Praise for Dave Duncan 

“Dave Duncan knows how to spin a ripping good yarn.” —SFReviews.net

“Duncan is an exceedingly finished stylist and a master of world building and characterizations.” —Booklist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Jul 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781504086042

Dave Duncan

Dave Duncan is an award-winning author whose fantasy trilogy, The Seventh Sword, is considered a sword-and-sorcery classic. His numerous novels include three Tales of the King's Blades -- The Gilded Chain, Lord of the Fire Lands, and Sky of Swords; Paragon Lost, a previous Chronicle of the King’s Blades; Strings, Hero; the popular tetralogies A Man of His Word and A Handful of Men; and the remarkable, critically acclaimed fantasy trilogy The Great Game.

Book preview

Prologue: The Legend

The story of Quarn and the Eye is more than a thousand years old, older even than the Vasquian Empire. Some versions say he was Quarn son of Quern, and others that he was Quarn of Obstord, a place he later wiped off the map. More likely he was just Quarn, a native of the Headwaters, that wild country where the great Trium River rises. In his day its hills were heavily forested, and from earliest times he was known as Quarn Axeswinger, so most likely he began as a forester.

With good reason, he considered himself to be stronger, fiercer, and braver than other men, and therefore well qualified to lead them to war. Being firmly of the opinion that might matters more than right, and being also a distant relative of the local headman, who styled himself King Sleen of Obstord, Quarn raised a rebellion to depose him.

The poets sing of him standing proudly at the head of his army, defiant in his armour, staring across the meadow at foes lined up and ready for him. Both forces are lauded as great hosts, but in reality were probably only a few dozen on either side. That his troop was heavily outnumbered seems reasonable. That they had the river at their backs suggests that Quarn may have planned it so, to keep them from running away.

As the story goes, he had never spurned a battle since he was old enough to clench a chubby fist, and was never to do so in all the long and bloody life ahead of him. Although the Quistirians of the Headwaters are generally a tall and slender people, Quarn was broad, with shoulders like an ox yoke and a wide face wrought of heavy beams: broad brow, broad cheekbones, broad chin. His hair was brown, the colour of well-tanned leather, and jaggedly cut. His gaze was deadly, even then.

He turned his back on the enemy to inspect his men and saw terror in every eye, but they saw no fear in his.

There are four of them for every one of us! he declaimed, and his great lungs made the words audible to the entire force, such as it was. That means four women for each of us tonight! The required cheer was not convincing, and he knew he must move soon, or some coward would throw down his weapon and grovel for mercy before the first arrow flew. Then the rest would follow. They would all be sent to the silver mines, which would serve them right, but could not help his cause, because he would be dead. And I’m not even counting their daughters—virgins all! Tonight in Obstord, I promise you all the trophies you can stuff! Trumpeter, sound the charge and if you ever blow the retreat, you will eat my axe.

Then mighty Quarn spun around and began to run. He did not look back to see if his men were following. If they were not, then he would die soon, for all the royal arrows would be directed at him. The sources all agree that his own force included no archers. Many of his ragtag band lacked even helmets, let alone decent shields or breastplates. He carried no shield, for he needed both hands to wield his great axe.

The bugle cry faded. Feathered messengers of death began to fly, but Quarn ignored them. All he saw was the line of pikemen ahead, waiting for him, waiting to die.

Then battle was joined and there was no more time to think. Swing, recover, swing again. He was wounded, felt nothing. Men were screaming and cursing all around him and he heard nothing. He saw weapons and he saw eyes. He swung and slew and swung again. He stumbled over corpses. He had to run to catch more men to kill.

Which meant the scum were running away. The enemy was in flight. He had won!

And then it happened. One man was on his feet and facing him—just a youth, wounded in the leg so he could not go with the rest. He teetered there, precariously balanced, defiantly clutching his pike. Quarn read his terror and swung to split his skull and put him out of his misery, but the boy toppled and somehow pike and axe clashed, and the edge of the pike caught Quarn in the face—blood and darkness and his own voice screaming. And pain, pain such as he had never imagined. Blinded, he fell to his knees and waited to die.

Then came familiar voices, excited and triumphant. Bloody, sweaty, exhausted men rushed to tend their leader.

We’ve won, lord! Thrap said, offering wine. They fled the field. We slaughtered them.

Simik was shouting for a litter.

Quarn moaned. He could hear, but he was blind, helpless, useless. His dreams of glory were ended. He would sit at a sunlit corner all his days, crying out for alms. Or else his cousin the king would catch him and put him to death as nastily as possible, which must be a better option.

His men bore him to the nearest building, away from the screams of the wounded. They washed away the blood and bandaged his wounds as best they could; and then they hurried away to tend to themselves and their friends and find food and set up pickets in case the king’s men returned. The king probably still had more men than Quarn did, and Quarn was blind and useless.

But perhaps not quite stone-blind. His right eye was destroyed, a seething pulp of agony under its bandage. His left eye had not been touched, and gradually it began to distinguish light and shadow. So it had just taken fright and run away, had it? He forced himself to sit up and willed his left eye back to work. Blurred images formed.

The shed had been a shepherd’s hut, but the roof had long gone, as had whatever door or gate had blocked the entrance to keep wind out and lambs in. All that remained was a low clay platform at the far end, where the herder and his dog would sleep. And that was where Quarn had been left.

A man stood above him, looking down at him with open contempt. He was huge and naked, his head looming up where the roof would have been. His skin gleamed like polished bronze; his hair and beard were curls of pure gold.

Who by the gods are you? Quarn demanded. The poets say he felt real fear for the first and last time in his life. We may agree that it is a likely assumption, for the visitor could only be the Father of All.

You know who we are, the god growled, a voice deeper and more terrible than thunder.

I would kneel if I felt stronger, Lord.

Kneel or die.

Quarn struggled to his knees and bowed his head. Blood dripped warm onto his thighs.

You haven’t finished your battle, the Father said. We had better hopes of you than this.

I can’t see properly yet.

We shall let you see as you have never seen, and grant you certain victory also, if you will promise us two things.

Then, surely, Quarn felt a great surge of joy. Name them, Mighty One.

First, whoever defies you must be destroyed utterly. Second, any who submit must be spared.

Quarn could not doubt that he was dealing with the Father in the greatest of his aspects, Strife, the god of battle. I so swear, Holy One.

Then watch! the Father said, and plucked out his own right eye. The hole remaining glowed with holy ichor like rubies, and the eye itself on his palm shone like a scarlet sun. Take off that bandage and make room for this; clean out the cavity.

So Quarn stuffed his thumb in the socket and scraped out the blood and jelly. The agony was unbelievable.

More! the Father commanded. Dig deeper, down to the bone.

When at last the Father was satisfied, he gripped Quarn’s head in one great hand and thrust the Eye into the vacant cavity. The Eye was too big for it, but he made it fit. The pain was beyond imagining, but now that did not matter. Quarn saw. He saw better than he had ever seen, and he knew very clearly what was needed.

Strife laughed, a sound to strike terror into any man’s heart. Well done! We were not mistaken. We can make something of you, boy. Go now and spread terror in my name.

So Quarn strode out into the twilight, and saw what remained of his tiny army crouched around fires, chewing the last of their rations. They had won, but they did not see it. They probably expected to die in another battle the next day, as they would have done, had they continued to sit there like berries on a bush. But they were going to fight another battle tonight. Even from where he was, Quarn could see with the Eye what must be done, and how he could lead his band into the town to open the gate for the rest.

Simik! Bring me my axe. Thrap! Get these lazy dogs on their feet. We haven’t finished yet. Leave the wounded to fend for themselves. Form up! Tonight we sleep in the palace.

Men scrambled to their feet, gazing in horror at their gory leader with the blazing eye of a god. They saw and believed, they heard and obeyed. Around midnight the rebels swarmed into Obstord and systematically began the slaughter.

Mindful of the god’s orders, Quarn left nobody and nothing alive. Men, children, and livestock were slain on sight; women were raped first. Two days later, he burned the town and departed. Now even its location is forgotten.

He marched on Garzains and dealt it the same fate.

Vasque was a larger place, even then, but it opened its gate to him and he spared it. Even the king was allowed to live, once he had abdicated in Quarn’s favour and sworn fealty. With the loot from Obstord and Garzains and promises of much more to come, Quarn conscripted the young men of Vasque and led his larger army on to greater things. Year by year his power grew.

Quarn made Vasque his capital, and named his growing domain the Vasquian Empire. By the time of his death, he ruled all the Headwaters, as far south as Syboarsh, the gateway to the Plains. After his death, his successors took the Eye and continued the conquest, extending their rule all the way to the Trium delta in the south, from the barren Goat Hills in the west, eastward into the Cloudy Range.

But the Holy Parents let nothing mortal last forever, and lack of foes makes emperors lazy. Vasque grew greedy. Revolts began. The empire collapsed. Plains and Headwaters crumbled into a multitude of petty kingdoms. Even Vasque itself fell, and thereafter its rulers were content to style themselves merely royal.

1: Unusual Suspects

Late in the year 1369, a curious meeting was held in one of the two holiest places on the Continent. Although the House of the Father in Vasque was used only on state occasions, at twilight a diverse assortment of eight people made their separate ways there up the hill from the town.

Vasque had been little more than a village in Quarn’s day, and he had been too busy fighting to spend great effort on improving it. He had begun the imperial palace, of course, and he had built a huge temple to the Father on the rocky hill that overlooked the town. By the time of the later emperors, Vasque had grown to become the greatest city on the Continent, a sprawl of slum tenements for the poor and grandiose palaces for the rich. After the empire fell, the town’s state dwindled. Granite pillars and marble statues were looted away, the tenements burned or collapsed, and little shanty farmsteads took their place. The late King Haluj had done much to improve his realm, and his son was continuing the work.

The monument on the hill remained. Although every village or hamlet possessed at least one temple or chapel dedicated to the Holy Parents, and large cities had many, yet history and politics had hallowed the great temple in Vasque as the paramount Home of the Father. The corresponding Home of the Mother lay somewhere far away, in the lands of the Eastern Shores.

It was an eyesore of a building, too huge and inconvenient for everyday use. Other temples down in the valley served better for most purposes, so the Home of the Father was reserved for royal funerals, or whipping up an army heading out to war. The meeting held there that blustery autumnal evening was perhaps the strangest it had known in its thirteen centuries.

At dawn, a team of novices and junior priests had been sent up from the town to sweep out the leaves and rubbish that had blown in, to fill the lamps with oil, and even to set up seating, a most unusual provision in the Father’s temples, because real men worshipped their god standing up or kneeling. Now the juniors had been dismissed and senior priests in scarlet robes stood ready to welcome the visitors.

The first arrivals were a couple on foot, a young priestess of the Maiden in ice-blue robes escorted by a heavy-set swordsman of thirty-nine, although he looked older. She stepped daintily, he strode. She was a beauty, while he had the battered features and damaged knuckles of a professional brawler. His nose had been flattened, half of his left ear had been bitten away, and one side of his face had caved in where teeth had been lost. Such injuries were evidence of ancient battles, but the right side of his face had met with serious damage very recently, for it was scabbed, swollen, and heavily bruised. His left arm was in a sling.

An uninformed observer might well conclude that he was there as the girl’s bodyguard, yet no servant was ever dressed as well as he was. His muscular legs were displayed in silken hose, while his ermine cloak and jerkin of finest kidskin could not disguise shoulders as massive as a smith’s anvil. He wore a wide cap with an osprey plume.

An elderly priest greeted him with a gracious nod and an outstretched hand. If you please, my son, I will see your sword is taken care of during the meeting.

The swordsman’s face was hideous at the best of times. When he glowered, it became a nightmare. I thought only the Mother banned weapons in her temples. I always understood that the Father encouraged them.

Normally he does, the old man said calmly. But tonight there are to be ladies present.

Then the priestess bristled. Indeed? I never knew women were forbidden.

Not forbidden, although not encouraged either. But the palace has requested that no weapons be brought into this evening’s meeting.

I can fight well enough without it, the swordsman said believably, surrendering his sword.

Another priest, a dry stick of a man, scrawny and already stooped, stepped forward and asked them to follow him inside.

A third visitor was just descending from a one-horse fly. He was a short man of middle age with the arrogant air and meaty jowls of a prosperous burgher. He stepped down carefully, balancing a notable paunch and steadying himself on a silver-handled ivory cane. His garments were at least as expensive as the swordsman’s, probably more so, and his fingers sparkled with jewels.

I shall be some time, he informed the driver. See that the horse is taken care of. I shall send word when I need you.

An observer might have considered that the horse must deserve a long rest, having hauled such a bulk up the hill. The burgher accepted another priest’s offer to guide him, and made a stately progression into the House, leaning backward for balance and letting his chins rest on his cravat.

Then came a party of three. The man in the middle was another swordsman in his late thirties, well-dressed and showing none of the damage displayed by the first one. Indeed, he had a pleasant, cheerful face, with the sort of smile that wins friends easily. The lady on his arm was a priestess of the Matron, the aspect of the Mother associated with motherhood. Her robes were a darker blue.

The third member of the trio was a blind man, resting one hand on the swordsman’s shoulder, and waving a thin cane before him. He was decently but cheaply clad, and his ravaged features and spidery limbs showed that his life had not been easy. The swordsman yielded his sword without protest, and the threesome were guided into the House.

Another carriage arrived, this one drawn by four horses and displaying the royal insignia. Priests hurried to open the door and pull down the steps so the occupants could descend. The arrival of royalty explained why swords had been forbidden.

Emperor Quarn had been a better fighter than an architect, and his great monument was an ugly box. Obviously he had intended it to represent the shepherd’s hut in which he had met the god, for it was a simple rectangle, with massive walls fifteen feet thick and over forty feet high in places. It was so wide that it had never been roofed. Since the empire had faded away, the tops of the walls had

Reviews for The Eye of Strife

[dabofdarkness · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I’ve been mulling over how best to review this book. I read some Dave Duncan when I was a kid and really enjoyed his work. This story is epic fantasy, one of my favorite genres. And yet this book didn’t do it for me.A group of seemingly unconnected people have been summoned to give testimony as to what they know about the Eye of Strife, a fantastical & powerful object that has been lost in history. So, we have to leap all the way back to the beginning as to how the Eye of Strife came into human hands. Rape and murder and war. That was pretty much the history of the Eye throughout the various stories.The characters were one-dimensional so I never felt connected to any of them. The ladies in general were romantic interests or victims. Even the few ladies with some power were cliches. I was left wanting more swords and sorcery, personal goals obtained through personal strife. Instead, it was much more of a grander, impersonal scale. War and rape were repeated themes.I had a hard time finishing this book. Nothing about it grabbed me. I had to to work at finishing it. I wasn’t in awe of the Eye. I didn’t love or hate any of the characters. The epic scale of things didn’t wow me. However, it is a complete story. It’s not my cup of tea, but it might be your cup of tea. 3/5 stars.The Narration: Anthony Lee has a bit of an accent and it took me a little while to get used to it. His pacing is a little slow but I could tell he was enjoying the story. He had distinct voices for some of the characters, but others were muddled together. There were no technical issues with the recording. 3.5/5 stars.I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Audiobookworm Promotions on behalf of various authors, narrators, and publishers. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

[gkarlives · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was my first book by Dave Duncan and, for the most part I enjoyed the characters; however, I found the plot forced and weak. The entire plot revolves around who actually has the Eye of Strife, which becomes clear is not the main protagonist or most of the heroes. The reveal and conclusion, for me, were anti-climatic.

[guide2_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyable novella with lots of interesting characters.

[nhlsecord · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Dave Duncan is one of my favourite authors. His characters are entertaining, his stories are surprising and imaginative. His specialty is bringing together a number of disparate characters seemingly by accident, but then the story reveals the history that binds them and the Gods who led them to this point. His wry sense of humour and his ability to drop his characters into ridiculous situations that can keep my interest is what I like best about his writing.The Eye of Strife is such a story but unfortunately it is thinly rendered without Mr. Duncan's usual depth and charm. Still, it reminded me how much I have missed his books and it has encouraged me to read them again.

[reading_fox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sword and Sorcery without much in the way of Sorcery, but active gods interfere in the lives of mortals. Back in the ages of Empire, it is recorded that the Emporer established his rule through the aegis of The Father who granted him His Eye to aid the ruler see the future and win his battles. The Eye was subsequently lost to the mists of time, but the latest king of the diminished territories is no such ruler. However his wife deeply wishes for his happiness and concocts a scheme to aid his abilities. Sometime later a motley crew gather in His Father's temple under the supervision of the High Priest to relate their histories and confound rumours of a second and false eye that had been threatening to besmirch His honour. This is their tales - the dowager Empress, a couple of swordsmen one much battle-worn and scarred, two priestesses of The Mother, a merchant and a beggar.The tales allinterlink thand the Dowager keeps interrupting. Quick easy reading and in that light easy enough to keep the somewhat high suspension of disbelief necessary for the story to make sense. I did like hte cynical explanation offered by one of the swordsmen at the end! Frequently contrived coincidences help the plot along and there's little to no effort made to engender any compassion for the various characters, although some are naturally more appealing than others. Brief and passes the time entertainingly but there's nothing particularly special about it, although refreshing to read a fantasy that isn't part of a series.

[landwaster_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Eye of Strife is a well-constructed secondary world fantasy story in a world with no human magic but some very active gods. A group of people each tell their own story, and the stories slowly interweave to join together into a cohesive whole. The overall story isn't epic or even particularly exciting, but it's interesting and engaging - an enjoyable mystery slowly coming together. Since each segment of the story is told by a different (unreliable) narrator, the pace never slows and the story never feels dull. Duncan's long experience as a storyteller really shows - exposition is practically invisible and yet does a great job of fleshing out the world, and the characters are unique and interesting. It could stand another round of proofreading, but I definitely recommend the book as an enjoyable read.