“What do you think a hero is? It’s just the right person in the right place making the right choice at the right time. Heroes aren’t born. They’re made.” A demonic assassin. A half-orc boxer. A ratman necromancer. Though they take many different shapes and forms, there are heroes all around us. Bravery can be found in the most unexpected places: a subterranean dwarven city; the sands of a temple courtyard in Ancient Egypt; a besieged castle, a Victorian brothel, a goblin warren, the post-apocalyptic ruins of a demon-infested village. Heroes dwell in the shadows as well as the light; you just have to look a little harder to find them. Who do they fight? Some heroes challenge injustice in all its numerous guises, while others hunt monsters both human and bestial. Others battle inner demons, the ghosts of their past, their deepest nightmares – or even the gods themselves. Why do they fight? For glory? Sometimes. For honor? Perhaps. There are those who instinctively strive to protect those weaker than themselves, and there are others emboldened only by a sense of obligation, or the promise of wealth. Whether by the blade or other means, they endeavor to take down all who threaten what is good and right in their world. By hook or by crook, through cunning or combat, with tooth and claw or iron and steel, they are all united in one goal, willingly or not: to live – and die, if necessary – a hero. Choose your weapon. Fight for what you believe in. Never give up. Nineteen fantasy writers gather to bring nineteen tales to life, each one a unique glimpse into a wholly original world.

Hidden pasts. Secrets untold. Legends half-remembered. Fifteen fantasy writers gather to bring fifteen tales to life, each one a unique glimpse into a wholly original world. On the Emerald Road, a dead Sage triggers a brutal trial beneath the forest floor. There, a young man must fight—and kill—both friends and enemies to become the next wielder of the fabled Emerald Blade. In Midgard, a priestess of humble birth forges a strange bond with an ancient being as she searches for justice in a land that often rewards cruelty, betrayal, and bloodshed. And in the Yarnsworld, the Magpie King teaches two brothers a dangerous lesson about the power of stories. Sticks and stones may indeed break bones . . . but they cannot hurt the Bramble Man. In worlds ravaged by flood, fire, and frost, mere mortals strive to make their own legends amidst demons and deities alike. And in lands racked with human strife—where evil endures and no one is ever safe—scarred heroes fight forces even darker than their own personal demons. Why do they fight? Some seek to better the world, or themselves. Others are out to right old wrongs. But whatever their goal - reward, redemption, or just respite - the truth will out eventually. For no story is ever truly lost so long as there exists one to tell it.

What Remains of Heroes, Book One of A Requiem for Heroes, begins a dark fantasy epic of broken heroes battling old evils both within and without.

"Gritty, exciting and utterly brutal." -Laura Hughes, The Fantasy Hive The High King is dead. The Necrists and the Spider King wage war upon the kingdom while a mad general casts Rune's soldiers to their deaths like stones to the sea. Desperation weighs heavily upon those few heroes who remain. Lannick and Brugan ride to rally an army of deserters. Zandrachus Bale seeks a banished Sentinel upon the dangerous steppes of Arranan. And Fencress Fallcrow watches in horror as Karnag succumbs to the demon possessing him. What faith survives in the absence of hope?