I was on a camping trip in
the wilds of Tennessee when the idea for Reckoning
came to me. I was foraging for firewood when I happened upon a broken-down
covered bridge by a wide and lazy river. The wood of the bridge was desiccated
and mottled with mold. A fractured, sun-bleached granite table and bench lay by
the riverbank.
It was a hot and pleasant
summer morning; lush foliage abounded and birds chirped overhead, but for all
that a shadow lay over the broken-down bridge and the stretch of river.
Goosebumps broke over my bare arms. I thought if ever there were a haunted
place this was it.
I found myself wondering what may have happened here. It
felt like the scene of some tragic misfortune, or worse.
As my imagination worked I saw in my mind's-eye a man in a
torn duster. Blood trickled from a wound in his shoulder. He had fallen to his
knees. His features were obscured by the shadow cast from a rancher hat, but I
could see his mouth was open in a silent scream. As the unfortunate soul
pressed himself to his feet I saw the glint of steel beneath his duster. This
cowboy carried a sword. I filed this curiosity away in my mind and then
high-tailed it out of the seemingly cursed patch of earth.
My thoughts kept on returning to the man in the duster: who
was he and what was his story? I soon discovered he went by the name of Elias
Duana, and was a lawman of sorts, or maybe a knight would be a better word,
only he wasn't from here. No, he was from somewhere else entirely.
I've taken to writing down Elias Duana's tale. Reckoning is the first novel in his saga,
The Empyrean Chronicle, and Wayfarer the second. The third title, Nameless, will be out for the 2014 holiday
season. I hope that you enjoy discovering Elias's story as much as I have.