Power & Empire — L.J. Hutton

Boxed set containing all four of the books in the series
Priced at 3 for 4! [$19.96 bought individually, $14.95 set]

For thirty years an unofficial truce has existed between the Islanders and their would-be conquerors, the DeÁine, but that's collapsed. The DeÁine plans to retrieve weapons of war �" objects which magnify the DeÁine war-mages' power and make them near invincible, and which the Islanders captured centuries ago �" are more advanced than anyone realised until now, leaving the Islanders to play a perilous game of catch-up.

The DeÁine being already in the Islands is bad enough, but the Islanders belatedly discover that weapons of their own, also not used in centuries and which helped them defeat the DeÁine the last time they came to conquer, have vanished into the mists of time except in legends.

Commander Ruari MacBeth, finds himself faced with a war-mage intent on reducing his soldiers to ashes by the summoning of an arcane spirit. Those who escape are reduced to powerless renegades, but resolve to fight on, including Ruari's old friends Matti and Will. Independent and feisty, Matti has no intention of playing the victim until Ruari and Will can rescue her, and when a young boy whose life is in great danger crosses her path she resolves to save him by whatever means she can find.

For Cwen the immediate danger comes from mad and dangerous King Edward, for whom murder is a sport and power a drug. When she finds Swein, one of Edward's many male lovers, she realises that she is not alone in her suffering and together they must stand up to the king. What do the Knights know of Edward's murky past and will they help get justice for those Edward has killed? Can Cwen trust Berengar, another Knight, and what is the story behind the tormented squire Jacinto and Esclados who watches over him who seem to offer help? As civilians, Cwen and Swein cannot sit back and let others do the fighting and soon they too must find the courage to help save their people.

From across the Islands, disparate groups of friends and uneasy allies journey to the headquarters of the old military order on Ergardia, all feeling the call to act to save their people. Only together do they stand a chance of preventing the DeÁine enslaving all of the Islands, yet soon they are off again on quests to retrieve their own lost weapons of war, and across the Islands it's a race against time to reach them. Can they reverse the tide of events, or are the DeÁine forever one step ahead of them?