Bronze Age Sword and Sorcery meets Military Fantasy in a lost world of long ago… Flying Ace Mason “Mace” Dickson was once a legend among fighter pilots. Now, in his middle years, that storied life is a distant memory—until NASA drafts Mace for a black book flight test. He’s transported to a strange world forgotten by time, where he wakes on the desert sands of a bloody battlefield. In this land, warfare isn’t fought from the skies at a distance. It’s vicious and hand-to-hand, and arcane spells can kill a man just as quickly as spear or sword. Mace is pressed into service as a slave for the Black Legion, a renowned company of mercenaries under the banner of the splendid Atlantian Army of the West, currently besieging the fabled City of Serpents. The Legion is the tip of the Atlantian spear aimed straight at the heart of the power-mad Thuman Evol, who marshals red sorcerers, armored war-dinosaurs, and a host of grim fighting men to oppose them. Out of his depth, Mace is trapped in a no-holds-barred contest of gritty grunt infantry, massive war machines, and strange sorcery, where the soldiers, NCOs, and battle captains of glorious Atlantis fight the enemy and sometimes one another for eternal honor, glory, and ultimate power. In this brutal world, ruthless circumstances force Mace to face at long last his inner demons. Inspiring him to persevere is the burning desire to return to his family for one more second chance at redeeming a life he once surrendered to fading glory and the bottle. But first he must survive the crucible of deadly magicks, backstabbing intrigues, and the utter savagery that is the lost world of Atlantea... First, Mace must live through hell... Chapter 1. Banners, Blades, and Bodies "Bury the bastards!" Beater struck the drum once, twice. "Bury the bastards!" He pounded the head made of tanned goatskin twice more. Mace flinched at the sound. It meant more battle soon. He dragged the body of the dead man to the top of the hill where the captain of the Drummers stood, shouting and striking his drumhead. Lifting together, Mace and another slave stacked the corpse like cordwood on the pile of other bodies and equipment. He wiped his hands on the short chiton covering him from waist to thigh, slathered now with the putrid mixture of sand, blood, and dung soaking the hillside. His thin sandals were caked with it, every step like lifting feet cast in drying, stinking mortar. The rest of his body, naked to the sun and bronzed by it, was slick with sweat and reeking of the same. "You'll need 'em a little closer first, Beater!" The scratchy, cynical bug-eyed senior sorcerer of the Black Legion leered at the fat Drummer. "Not to mention dead, though I suppose that ain't required to bury 'em. Reckon they'll be close enough soon though, eh?" Beater turned his spiteful gaze on Bugeye, so named for obvious reasons. Two of them, in fact. Soldiers aren't known for their subtlety. Mercenaries, less so. "I was attempting to inspire the men, old man," Beater said. He hit the drum twice more to make his point. "I would say try harder," Bugeye said, "but then you just might, and my Seeing Eye's pounding already. Not sure who you're inspiring. Only thing inspires mercenaries comes in little rounds of gold. And those slaves on the slope are stacking, not burying. As usual, you've missed your mark." "Bah," Beater said, with spit to carry the scorn. "You ain't got no artistry in you, magicker. No appreciation for rhythm nor resonation." The two were pecking at one another as usual. Like roosters in a yard. "We best get back to it," the other slave said to Mace. "Best not tarry." He didn't wait for Mace and slipped back down the slope, feet squelching in the bloody clumps of sand. Instead of following, Mace hesitated. He took every chance he could get to hear the language spoken, its nuances, its many accents vying for supremacy among the landless legionaries. The men called it Mongrel for its cobbled-together lexicon. The harshness of Thracian verbs softened by the smooth sibilants of Lyran—an empire built on trade with a need for subtlety in bargaining—and sutured together with the vibrant descriptors of Atlantian high speech. It was the closest thing to a common tongue for the men who made up the Black Legion. In a month, he had come a long way in learning to speak it, but he still had far to go. So he did tarry, though not from laziness. He was hearkening to the two men's banter. "They ain't coming today anyway," Bugeye said. Mace followed the old wizard's gaze down from the hilltop and across the enemy camp, spread wide on the Plain of Glass below. "Look at them clouds. Rain soon." "Bah," Beater spat again. "It's the Desert of the Dead, you old coot. Ain't no rain today." "Bet?" Beater thought about it. "It don't rain, you teach me something new." Bugeye thought about it. He cast the buggier of his two worldly eyes, the monstrous orb he called his Seeing Eye, on Beater. "You're a bit old for me to teach yo