Today, I am ecstatic to announce the release of an accompanying short story to Shield of Secunda called, Shedding the Grey.

It’s a free download from www.adriancollins.com in the ‘Secunda’ section so please hop on and check it out! Here is an exerpt to whet your appetite:

The last thing Kael felt was his inner voice screaming as he lost control of his conscious, reduced to watching a dream through eyes that were his to own but not to master.

Battle raged around him, men screaming, dying, taking glorious pleasure in the death of others. Axes bit through metal and smashed through both flesh and bone. Houses burnt, the acrid smell of roasted human flesh filling the air. Women ran, babes wrapped tightly to their heaving, fear filled chests, only to be chased down by men clad in leather and fur in an orgy of rape and murder.

Children were slaughtered as they screamed for salvation. One of them was even looking right at him, reaching out for a saviour with his blue eyes the youthful mirror of Kael’s own, as the axe, already dulled and matted with the blood of hundreds, slammed down and caved in the back of his black haired head.

Beyond the carnage a city burned. Not any city, Kael thought, his city. Secunda. The city Armenius Faramon built upon the site where his mens’ sacrifice ended four centuries ago. Towers toppled, sapped walls lay in ruins and the main road was choked with the slain. Groups of barbarians ran amok, slaying all they could find, wading through the gruesome carpet of bodies like knee-deep snow.

It was an impossible scene. Secunda could not fall! Sword in hand Kael took a step forward.

He looked down as his foot bumped in to something. The ground was covered in bodies, sometimes three or four deep. Many armoured as he in thick plate, many more dressed in the mail of the army or the simple coloured cloth of the city folk. One figure caught his gaze. One golden figure, speckled with his own blood, unseeing eyes staring upwards as his soul flew to the shield wall in the sky. The King.

In that moment Kael knew his people were doomed. With the mountains at their back there was nowhere for them to run. No hiding place they would survive this wholesale slaughter. No haven from the carnage. With the upmost certainty, Kael knew this would be the end of the Secundan race.

A roar. Guttural and feral and impossibly loud. A challenge. Something Kael could understand from this horrible nightmare. Something he could recognise. Something that made sense. He searched the cacophony around him. There. Seven foot tall. Immense with a massive axe in each hand. He is their leader. Has to be. He was the biggest warrior Kael had ever seen.

Kael smiled. Here is his opportunity. Kael the Slayer. The man who killed the beast in the Grey Wolves last stand before the cathedral of Armenius. The last warrior of Secunda slaying the first warrior of the horde. His name would live on forever. He would become legend, then hundreds of years on he would become myth; immortality beyond death in the stories of men explaining the angle of his very sword to their sons, who would then tell their sons. Kael took a step forward, his arrogant smile and swagger complemented by his battle damaged but glorious plate.

Shedding the Grey – a FREE accompaniment to Shield of Secunda.