Heart of Vengeance & Other Tales of Azatlán

by Gregory D. Mele

Tehanuwak is a beautiful, diverse land, but it is not a gentle place. These are the lands of feathered serpents and ancient ruins long reclaimed by jungle vines. War is everywhere, both within and without human civilization. The bones of fallen cities litter the land, decaying monuments to forgotten greatness. Monsters created by vengeful powers hunt those who wander alone. Far to the north, the Great Ice grinds south, strange creatures migrating southward out of its path, including beasts not entirely mortal. Demons dwell in the Dark Between the Stars, ever pressing against the barriers erected by the Sun and His sister the Moon long ago. Should they ever pierce it, they will descend on the mortal world like locusts upon a field. The gods defend Their creation, but They grow weary and hungry in Their eternal vigilance, and that hunger can only be satiated with mortal blood.

In this collection of sword & sorcery, dark fantasy, occult detectives and weird fiction readers are given a panorama of a lost Bronze Age world, inspired by the legends and civilizations of Mesoamerica, the American Southwest and the ancient Near-East. Readers of Robert E. Howard, David Gemmel, and Miles Cameron will find something to love.

280 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2026

About the author

Gregory D. Mele has had a passion for sword & sorcery and historical fiction for most of his life. An early love of dinosaurs led him to dragons, and from dragons…well, the rest should be obvious. If there were swords being swung, he was probably reading it.

While a student at the University of Illinois in the early 1990s, he discovered that there was a vast collection of surviving technical works on fighting with the sword, rapier, lance and axe. Sword in one hand, book in the other, he never looked back. Since the late 90s, his passion has been the reconstruction and preservation of armizare, a martial art developed over 600 years ago by the famed Italian master-at-arms Fiore dei Liberi, via his work with the Chicago Swordplay Guild and Freelance Academy Press, a publisher in the fields of martial arts, arms and armour, chivalry, historical arts and crafts. Greg lives with his very tolerant family in the Chicago suburbs.