Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga by Wolraad J.Kirsten/Historical Fantasy Fiction

[byzantumsaga2]

Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga

Author: Wolraad J.Kirsten
Print Length: 360 pages
Publication Date: March 19, 2019
ASIN: B07PYKKHS6
ISBN-13: 978-1091087095
Genre: Historical Fantasy Fiction

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PYKKHS6/

(99cents promotion is available during Sep16~Sep18,2019)



BYZANTUM—the once crown jewel of the civilized world is now a mere hedonist’s playground. Her most able general and statesman, Almuric Agricola, discovers this terminal decadence is engineered by a near-omnipotent shadow group having infiltrated the corridors of power and bent on the slaughter of the citizenry before seizing the Capitol. Almuric attempts to oust this indomitable evil, yet is branded a madman and exiled by a traitorous bureaucracy to a mountain fortress in the desert. Whispers reach the Capitol that Almuric is harboring a mysterious princess of tremendous interest to the clandestine group and that he also employed the services of an infamous Varangian guardsman—a giant Northman mercenary. Like moths to the flame their forces coalesce upon his desolate fortress. Almuric and his barbarian axe-man are waiting—and the desert shall be awash with blood to determine who gets to keep the jewel that is Byzantum.

Book trailer:


More quotes and artwork regarding this novel is available on my website: http://www.byzantumsaga.net

[byzantumsaga2]

Quote:

"Hail Hyperborean!- sired by Mars, mothered by frigid strife, suckled on the teats of war and sustained by the golden mead of conquest. Harken!- the thumder and clanging steel as he comes from atop his glacial fastness. Woe!- red runs his marauding, rapine path; ever southward the unstoppable scourge, and onto gleaming cities- trampling underfoot the flower of their soldiery. Behold!- his heal on the throads of their champion elite. Hence he stands astride the vanquished and wailing land to be crowned the supreme fighting-man of the earth"

- Boudewyn de Carlamagna

Excerpt from
Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga

[byzantumsaga2]

Quote:

"Their greatest folly is that they don't understand you or your kinfolk. They cannot imagine that you would refuse being their vassal on the throne. They have no inkling that there are races of man that value sovereignty above the air they breathe. Like a puppet they expect you to approve and sign whatever policy put before you, bulking as they presume and barbarian would confronted with the daily administrative minutiae of rulership- along with the flowery jargon they'll use to disguise their schemes. And soon, drowning in woman and wine, your senses dulled from that stuporous escape- they'll have you unwittingly dismantle the Varangian guard before burying a dagger in your back"

- Almuric Agricola

Excerpt from
Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga

[byzantumsaga2]

Quote:

"We are the sons of that beast, Almuric, we are but spruced up- urbane predators. What else, if not a talent for violence separates the aristocracy from the peasantry? We are the nobility for the very fact that we are able to visit more violence upon them than they can upon us. History is written by nations with superior violence. The greatest civilizations to ever have existed were allowed such lofty cultivations only because of their divine brutality- their ability to vanquish those nations standing in the path of their destiny"

- Grand Champion, Count Húracan

Excerpt from
Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga

[byzantumsaga2]

Quotes:

"How is it that after war and conquest the spoils are split evenly between the Emperor, the treasury and his Varangian Guard? True they are an unmatched commodity in war, but servants nonetheless, not so?Not so. They are tigers. Wild things we have allowed into our lands, our cities and our homes. They stand over our sleeping forms with their terrible axes poised. They have come to know all our secrets and entrenched themselves so deeply within the bosom of the Empire that it begs the question: are we paying them to guard us, or are we bribing them not to kill us?"

- Justrudd Valusarian

Excerpt from
Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga

[byzantumsaga2]

Quote:

The prince remembers his father's words- "Steal a loaf of bread, son, and they will cut your hands off, but steal an entire country and they will proclaim you their king. Humanity can never forgive mediocrity, but when audacity and brilliance combine in the right individual it can luster godlike- and they will forgive you anything, even a whole generation of boys sent off to battle for the interests of that lustrous-one".

Excerpt from
Varangian: Book One of the Byzantum Saga

[byzantumsaga2]

Read more of my quotes and artwork on my website:
www.byzantumsaga.net