Archon's Gate

by Scott Gamboe

Six years have passed since the end of the Third Necromancer War. But the lands have not known peace in the interim. With the king of Palimdom in failing health, and no clear heir, a brutal struggle for the throne has ripped the nation apart. And in recent months, a series of raids by Kobold soldiers is threatening to bring open warfare back to the entire continent.


The Unity Counsel has sent Elac and his friends to stop the raids and bring order back to the lands. Their task is made more difficult by encounters with strange, deadly creatures straight out of ancient mythology, which adds to the growing chaos on the Pelacian Continent.


Elac, Jayrne, Rilen, and the others race to solve the enigma of these incidents, a quest that will lead to a confrontation with a vile, evil power from a distant land. If they cannot shut down Archon's Gate, the sinister forces that struggle against them will destroy their world.

ebook

First published December 24, 2011

About the author

I was born and raised in Peoria, Illinois, the youngest of four children. My mother, who passed away in 2002, was a nurse. My father recently retired from being principal of a local high school, and he is a veteran of the Viet Nam War. I graduated from Richwoods High School in 1986, then attended Illinois Central College for a year, where I studied Police Science. In November of 1987, I went on active duty in the United States Army. After going through basic training, infantry training, and Airborne School (that's jumping out of planes, not flying them!) at Fort Benning, I was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC. My home for the next 3 1/2 years was Bravo Company, 4th Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment.



The early morning hours of December 19, 1989, found me (with about 2,000 other paratroopers) parachuting into Omar Torrijos International Airport in Panama as a part of Operation Just Cause. The three weeks that followed shaped many of the combat scenes in my novels. On Christmas morning, my company awoke on a bed of rocks and broken glass in downtown Panama City, climbed onto trucks, and rode through town to the Papal Nuncio, where Manuel Noriega was hiding. We learned later that there were over 1,000,000 people in the streets that day, cheering us on and waving American flags. On January 10, we parachuted back to Fort Bragg on national TV and with over 10,000 spectators in attendance.



I managed to stay out of trouble until August 2 of that year, when Saddam Hussein's forces invaded Kuwait. Less than 24 hours later, my battalion was flying to Saudi Arabia to be America's "line in the sand." In fact, we were the first planeload of troops on the ground. We spent the next 8 months in the Middle East, not quite the 12 month tour our soldiers are doing now, and nowhere near as dangerous. At any rate, our time there was made interesting by the constant threat of attack from a little-known terrorist named Osama Bin Laden. His organization was casing our positions, and we were warned to keep an eye out for him. On more than one occasion, our reactionary forces went after suspect vehicles, but on the open road, a HUMVEE is no match for a BMW. Later, as part of the ground invasion, we drove due north toward Baghdad before turning east and cutting off the retreat of the Republican Guard. After solidly defeating Saddam's 1,000,000 man army in the "mother of all battles," we returned home on August 8, 1991. I'd like to take this time to thank the people of Bangor, Maine, for the tremendous reception they gave us when we landed to refuel. Fire trucks, police cars, cheering spectators, and 300 pizzas nearly overwhelmed us.



I returned to civilian life in September of 1991, and finished my Associate's Degree at Illinois Central College. I received my B.A. in Criminal Justice in 1995 from the University of Illinois. The next year, I met Jill, and at that point I had to stop laughing at people who talked about love at first sight. After two dates, we knew we would be married. We were engaged 6 months later, and married the following July. Oddly, a friend of hers from Texas had saved her horoscope from her birthday the year we met. It said she would meet someone in the spring, be in love by the fall, and marry the next summer. There was also a mention made that her husband would have something to do with books...



This brings us to current events. I work for the Peoria County Sheriff's Department, where I am serving as a crime scene investigator and a Traffic Accident Reconstructionist. Although I have now been part of the investigation of a serial killer, this had no bearing on the serial killings in The Killing Frost. The book was finished long before the killings started. As for my family, we have a beautiful daughter named Erica, who is in the seventh grade and doing well. Five years ago, when we found out Medallion Press was going to publish my book, Erica wanted to know i