Tales from the world of the Noble Dead Saga [ T · N · D · S ]

• About the “Tales”
• Release Schedule
• Tales Timeline

“Homeward”

• The Game Piece
• The Feral Path
• The Sapphire
• The Keepers
• The Reluctant Guardian
• Captives

“Bones of the Earth”

• Karras the Kitten
• Karras the Cat

“Tales of Misbelief”

• The Forgotten Lord

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Links below are for vendors currently carrying “Tales”; for other vendors with free apps that carry the Noble Dead Saga, see “Books.”

No knowledge of the Noble Dead Saga or other related works by us is necessary to read and enjoy any of these stories. Any reader new to this world can step right into it through any one of these short works.

Tales are organized into “collections” where all stories therein share a theme and/or premise. Most tales are not sequential and can be read in any order. When one or more link together, subsequent stories will mention “sequel to…” on their covers to guide you.

These short works can be your first adventure into our world or something to tide you over in the wait for the next of our novels to be released.

—Barb & J.C.

Release Schedule

All titles are released by the end of the listed month/year and are ebook only (AZW/Kindle and EPUB) from selected major vendors. Schedules for pending works are tentative and exact day of release depends on production around novel work. Should a release be rescheduled, an update will appear here along with a news item posted and propagate through our site(s) and social networking.

Title	Collection	Release
Captives	Homeward	2013-04
The Forgotten Lord	Tales of Misbelief	2013-02
Karras the Cat	Bones of the Earth	2012-10
The Reluctant Guardian	Homeward	2012-09
The Keepers	Homeward	2012-08
The Sapphire	Homeward	2012-07
The Feral Path	Homeward	2012-06
Karras the Kitten	Bones of the Earth	2012-05
The Game Piece	Homeward	2012-04

Tales Timeline

For curious readers of the Noble Dead Saga, the following table provides a [very] rough guide to the time frame of events in “Tales” as compare to the saga's events to date. Finite timing of events is not possible here, so keep that in mind.

The Saga	“Homeward”	“Tales of    Misbelief”	“Bones of the    Earth”
	The Game Piece
	The Feral Path
	The Keepers
Dhampir
	The Sapphire
Thief of Lives
Sister of the    Dead
Traitor to the    Blood
			Karras the    Kitten
Rebel Fay	The Reluctant    Guardian		Karras the    Cat
	Captives
Child of a    Dead God
		The Forgotten    Lord
In Shade and    Shadow
Through Stone    and Sea
Of Truth and    Beasts
Between Their    Worlds
The Dog in    the Dark

Purchase At:

The Game Piece

Barb Hendee

$2.99 USD

Short story, 14k+ words
ISBN-13: 9780985561604
ISBN-10: 0985561602
ASIN: B007XK17WA
English Only; purchase outside the USA available at most vendors directly or through their regional subsites.

In his youth, Loni never felt that he fit in anywhere, even among his family or his people — the Lhoin’na or the elves of the central continent. As he dwells on tales told to him by a doting grandmother, he begins to believe he might have been born in the wrong time.

One scant tale of a past age hints that the legendary Sorhkafâré led some of Loni’s people to the east at the end of the great mythical war. Loni dreams of those forgotten Departed ones, wondering if their descendants still exist. The answer may be more and less than he hoped in his quest to find where he belongs.

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The Feral Path

Barb Hendee

$2.99 USD

Short Story, ~12k Words
ISBN-13: 9780985561628
ISBN-10: 0985561629
ASIN: B0088CP3CW
English Only; purchase outside the USA available at most vendors directly or through their regional subsites.

Rashed, one of the Noble Dead and a vampire, has killed his maker and master, Lord Corische. Fleeing his master’s keep in Stravina, he takes with him Teesha, Ratboy, and his brother, Parko. At first, all four relish freedom in their separate ways, but they soon learn that freedom has its dangers for their kind.

Without a master, Parko quickly loses himself to the Feral Path, that seductive sensuality of being unrestrained in the hunt and the kill. Ratboy feels this call as well but is caught between this desire and his need for companionship and safety. Teesha, reeling much more than she expected at being “homeless,” wants only a new place in the world of their own making.

Rashed is tangled in all of this by his sense of responsibility for his companions. Most of all, he’s determined that Teesha never feel lost again. He’ll do anything to create a home for her—anything.

Ratboy continues to struggle against his longing to be free of self-restraint, to hunt and kill at will. Sometimes he succeeds against his baser instincts, and sometimes he doesn’t. Then one night, when he loses the battle, his actions threaten everything that Rashed has managed to achieve… including Teesha’s safety.

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The Sapphire

Barb Hendee

$2.99 USD

Short story, 12k+ words
ISBN-13: 9780985561635
ISBN-10: 0985561637
ASIN: B008GTTD9G
English Only; purchase outside the USA available at most vendors directly or through their regional subsites.

After fleeing from the small port town of Miiska—and the threat of a vampire hunter’s blade—Ratboy finds himself alone in the king’s city of Bela, having left his two companions, Rashed and Teesha behind. Lost and lonely at first, he soon realizes that he has a chance to reinvent himself, to take on a new name and a new identity. Then… he sees a young woman with bright blue eyes, and he falls in love for the first time.

Unfortunately, he can’t quite see that she’s a gold-digging prostitute. But love is blind. He’s determined to make her his own, make her immortal, give her anything she wants, and make her happy. However, keeping her happy soon proves a daunting task, one that will require desperate measures and all his cunning.

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The Keepers

Barb Hendee

$2.99 USD

Short story, 12k+ words
ISBN-13: 9780985561642
ISBN-10: 0985561645
ASIN: B008UDGK8U
English Only; purchase outside the USA available at most vendors directly or through their regional subsites.

Young Jan is stunned when his father, Cadell, the “zupan” and leader of the region’s villages, is offered the vassal lordship of the local keep. His father is about as far from nobility as anyone could be. For some reason, the nobles of the house of Äntes, the rulers of Jan’s province, have been unable to keep a vassal there for twenty years—as those appointed have fled the place in the night—and the Äntes may have grown desperate enough to throw the position at Jan’s father.

The last place Jan wants to live is a decrepit, dark little fortress above a village of superstitious peasants. But when his father accepts the position, Jan finds himself swept off to the abandoned keep above the village of Chemestúk. The situation there is darker and more serious than he, his mother, or his father bargained for.

The local peasants won’t go near the keep; something terrible happened up there twenty years ago. Soon enough, Jan and his mother begin to learn why no vassal has ever remained in that place for more than a moon. And the darkness upon the keep is greater than mere superstition.

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The Reluctant Guardian

Barb Hendee

$2.99 USD

Short story, 12k+ words
ISBN-13: 9780985561659
ISBN-10: 0985561653
ASIN:
English Only; purchase outside the USA available at most vendors directly or through their regional subsites.

After Bieja flees her home in the village of Chemestúk, burned to the ground in a civil war, she soon realizes she has only one place left to go. Her niece, Magiere, owns a little tavern in the port town of Miiska—which is unfortunately a long journey away on the west coast. Bieja has never traveled more than a few leagues from her hut in all of her life.

Undaunted all the same, she sets off through her war-torn homeland with what she could scavenge from the blackened remains of her village. All too soon, she finds herself on unfamiliar paths and facing the risk of both deserters and conscripted soldiers who are as desperate as she is. She has always been independent, but she might not survive this journey alone… until happenstance trips her up with a most unusual guardian.

The problem is, this guardian might be as dangerous as anything else Bieja will have to face.

Purchase At:

Captives

Sequel to The Keepers

Barb Hendee

$2.99 USD

Short story, 12k+ words
ISBN-13: 9780985561680
ISBN-10: 0985561688
ASIN: [pending]
English Only; purchase outside the USA available at most vendors directly or through their regional subsites.

Jan, son of Nadia and Cadell, is conscripted along with every able male in Chemestúk by one faction in a rising civil war. Soon after, another faction burns the village to the ground, leaving Jan’s parents and other survivors to seek refuge in an aging keep.

Inside the worn and crumbling stronghold, young and long-ago orphaned Julianna hides away with the survivors and Jan’s parents. Left to wonder if he or any others of their men will survive to return home, all she can do is help those around her.

When armed deserters come to raid the keep, Julianna is lost in how to best help Nadia and Cadell, the village elders, keep everyone alive. Soon, she faces choices and actions she never would have even considered in better days.

Meanwhile, Jan has only his wit and trickery, his charming appeal to women and his violin, all of which he has leaned upon too often in a lazy life. To his shock, he realizes these limited skills are not enough to save him as he is pressed into a forced march toward the front line of a battle.

Neither Jan nor Julianna had ever given serious thought to their feelings for each other. Now separated, they both realize they’ve lost someone important. How far are they willing to go and what can they live with, to stay alive and find each other again?

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Karras the Kitten

J.C. Hendee

$2.99 USD

Short story, 26k+ words
ISBN-10: 0985561610
ISBN-13: 9780985561611
ASIN: B0083CWTKQ
English Only; purchase outside the USA available at most vendors directly or through their regional subsites.

Karras, who humans mistakenly call “Carrow,” is not a typical Rughìr’thai’âch, “Earth-Born,” or dwarf. In fact, in serving his family’s shipping and trading business, he has taken on too many human ways in place of those of his people. No wonder that, in attempting to “barter” for marriage with the fiery and dour Skirra—“Sliver”—of the fallen family of Yêarclág, he has bungled the deal for years. Dismissed once more by her to salve his heart’s wounds, this time those wounds get salted with the unwanted assistance of a blustery clan-kin—Fiáh’our, or the great “Hammer-Stag.”

The old honored warrior has his own notion of what Karras needs. To Fiáh’our, honorable barter for love and marriage is akin to one battle after another. And only the way of their people’s warriors can see Karras to victory… over himself, first of all.

May their people’s eternal ancestors, the Bäynæ, watch over them—especially to keep them from each other’s throats.

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Karras the Cat

Sequel to Karras the Kitten

J.C. Hendee

$2.99 USD

Novella, 40k+ words
ISBN-10: 0985561661
ISBN-13: 9780985561666
ASIN: B00A03F12Y
English Only; purchase outside the USA available at most vendors directly or through their regional subsites.

The old and honored dwarven thänæ, Fiáh’our, is convinced that he is honorbound to take young Karras as an “apprentice” and force the wayward young clan-kin to learn the ways of their people’s warriors. Poor Fiáh’our has no idea what he is in for.

Karras has no intention of doing anything more than necessary to fulfill his part of an unwilling apprenticeship arranged by his father. Worse, in being from a family of seatraders, a way of life baffling to most rughìr—the “Earth-Born” or dwarves—Karras is pitifully unsuited to the calling of a warrior. As a result, his training rapidly turns into futility. But Fiáh’our is determined to continue.

Karras also suffers from unrequited love, which interferes with his concentration. He has repeatedly asked Skirra, of the fallen family of Yêarclág, to marry him; for reasons inexplicable to him, she has refused him, perhaps for the last time. Fiáh’our has an inkling about why Skirra rejected Karras, but the thänæ believes he can make his new apprentice worthy of her. For that, Fiáh’our has a notion that might even give Karras a little hope of her acceptance. That is, if Karras can survive his first battle.

Out on the northern frontier, where Fiáh’our goes each summer for good service, a threat to the villages there has returned with greater force. The longer Fiáh’our delays in failed training with Karras, the greater his guilt for not defending those in need. Between these two duties, the risk for Fiáh’our—and Karras—may reach a breaking point that could cost one or both of their lives.

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The Forgotten Lord

Barb Hendee

$2.99 USD

Short story, 15k+ words
ISBN-13: 9780985561673
ISBN-10: 098556167X
ASIN: B00BCP0M64
English Only; purchase outside the USA available at most vendors directly or through their regional subsites.

Lord Stefan Korbori is trapped inside his own manor, kept there by the curse of an undead sorcerer. In endlessly wandering the same rooms and passages for several years, he has begun sinking into madness. Although abandoned or forgotten by other nobles of his class, he still has the love of his young mistress to anchor him against the darkness.

Elena would do anything to help her lord. When three sages from the Bela Annex of the Guild of Sagecraft pass through her village of Pudúrlatsat, she sees a glint of hope. As scholars, they might have knowledge of sorcery — or rather how to counter it. A plan begins to form out of the past and how her lord first became imprisoned by the curse.

Elena sees one chance for Stefan that even he would never allow — that might not work — if he learned of it.