The Key to Darbas

All the empires of the Western World covet the iron in the highland mines of Gwynyr. If they were wiser, they would desire the ancient knowledge safeguarded by the Lady of Gwynyr and the holy women of the Beltain orders instead.

This series of novels (comprised of an anticipated five books) tells the story of the treacherous path  that Rialta, the Lady of Gwynyr, must walk as she attempts to lead Darbas to global prominence at the height of the Western Wars.

Part One of the series — the two novels A Madness and Siobeth — tells the story of Lady Rialta’s improbable partnership with Gheraldic General Barney Alt and the Darbas-born soldiers of his 2nd Clydish Regimental Group. Facing genocidal intrigues engineered to split the people of Darbas into warring ethnic factions, Alt’s ad hoc army of liberation fights as much against distrust and old grudges as it does against imperial legions.

Part Two (imagined as the third and fourth books in the series) is about the complex unveiling of the secret Rialta holds. The series, and the worst moment of the Western Wars, reaches its climax in Book Five.

Will those books be written? It depends on whether readers of the first two books want the rest of the series. A Madness and Siobeth tell a complete story, and if there’s no demand for more, The Key to Darbas can end there. But if the five-volume story is completed, the past and future of The Western World will be opened for exploration by a new generation of storytellers.