Showing results by narrator "Mort Shelby" in All Categories

Years have passed since the great miracle atop Mount Aida—a miracle known as the Covenant of Avelyn. Corona is a different place. Avelyn is about to be elevated to sainthood by the very church that once proclaimed him a heretic. And King Danube has asked Jilseponie Wyndon—the outlaw hero of the Demon War—to become his queen. Jilseponie can never love any man as completely as she did the Ranger Elbryan, the father of the child she lost. But she cannot deny that she has feelings for the wise and kindly king. Yet danger looms.

Scream of Eagles is the fourth book in William W. Johnstone’s epic saga of the MacCallister clan, a family caught up in the vivid sweep of American history. Jamie Ian MacCallister has survived the bloodshed of the Alamo and the Civil War. Now the battle has gotten personal: Jamie is on a one-man vendetta against the Miles Nelson gang, the men responsible for the brutal murder of his wife Kate. His journey of revenge will take him from Atlantic City to the deadly landscape of the Colorado Rockies - and finally to the Battle of Little Big Horn.

They're hanging Bobby Lee Cabot in Cloverdale, Nevada on Friday. Or so they think. Thursday brings Smoke Jensen to town. In another life, Bobby Lee was almost kin to Smoke, and guilty or not, Smoke will blast Cloverdale sky high if that's what it takes to set his old friend free. By midnight, Smoke and Billy Ray are riding hell-for-leather out of Cloverdale, and into a war between cunning railroad robbers and the organization sworn to stop them. Bobby Lee was working for the railroads until he was betrayed. Now, both men are pursued by deadly enemies on either side of the law.

Sometimes when a man’s luck turns, it turns hard. Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are experienced drifters, but now the two trail pards are down to their last dime. So they accept the best job they can get, serving as deputies in a boomtown called Mankiller. Their boss is a drunken sheriff named Biscuits O'Brien, who would rather drink than work. Their tin stars are mighty pretty, but the job starts to get serious quickly, and soon the newly-minted lawmen are standing between a cunning clan of killers and the town's desperate citizens.

Notes from the author: The following is a short story I wrote in the Elantris world back in January of 2006. There were always a few holes in Elantris where I decided not to include viewpoints or sections of explanation in the name of streamlining, particularly at the end. In the back of my mind, I knew what happened. This story talks about one of those holes; it is meant to be heard after you’ve finished the novel and takes place during the events of the climax.

The Sante Fe Trail stretches from the Mississippi River to New Mexico Territory through the West's most savage lands. That's why a wealthy trader hires the mountain man called Preacher to keep his trade goods safe. But then, a towering, seemingly supernatural grizzly bear attacks. Both outlaws and Comanches ambush the wagon train. And the travelers find themselves surrounded by predators of every shape and stripe. For Preacher, there is only one way to go - straight into the heart of danger, to blaze a killing trail of his own....

The legendary members of the Jensen family gather together at the Sugarloaf Ranch for one Christmas homecoming they’ll never forget - if they live through it....Smoke Jensen looks forward to spending a quiet holiday with the family. But an unexpected arrival from south of the border has him reaching for his guns, defending his land - and risking everything he loves....

Sally has traveled to the silver-mining town of Goth, Colorado to open a restaurant with a friend. That's where she crosses paths with five bank robbers in a hurry to strike it rich. With the local sheriff lying dead in a pool of blood, Sally fights for her life while a frontier surgeon tries to work a miracle. Burning with fury, armed with a gun and a badge, Smoke Jenson goes on the hunt - a posse of one against a gang of outlaws more dangerous than he can know.

The game’s afoot once more as the long-suffering Dr. John Watson and a partially decomposed Warlock Holmes (though he’s getting better) face off against Moriarty’s gang, the Pinkertons, flesh-eating horses, a parliament of imps, boredom, Surrey, a succubus, an overly Canadian aristocrat, a tricycle-fight to the death and the dreaded Pumpcrow. Oh, and a hell-hound, one assumes.

A wagon train of pioneers is struggling Westward toward Oregon through the howling winter and a band of Arikara warriors are hot on their trail. Little do the Arikaras suspect that they're about to come face-to-face and gun-to-gun with a ferocious fight they never expected, courtesy of the wily mountain man called Preacher. As Preacher struggles to bring the settlers to safety, he learns the real reason they were attacked and begins to suspect that the secrets they've been keeping equal a worse kind of danger.

Life’s been pretty good for Cuno Massey since he went into the freight business with Wade Scanlon. Good, that is, until Scanlon stops in at a saloon and gets shot dead by a band of outlaws. When Massey comes upon his friend in a pine box with his freight wagon plundered and burned, he has one goal: to find the killers.

In a land of subzero temperatures and snow-covered vistas, survival is a challenge. But for the Araktak — an isolated and mysterious Inuit people — this harsh tundra is their heritage. Until now. A large mining company has purchased the land, and the sacred Araktak burial site with it. But more than diamond deposits await them under the dark, icy Earth....

Across the flat plains of the Dakotas, an iron horse shrieks and rumbles across refurbished tracks. Inside the boxcars, Ryan Cawdor and his companions face trouble unlike any other. Jak is missing, Krysty is dying, and the train is loaded with sec men, whitecoats, and a horrifying experiment — a baron with psionic abilities using stolen children to fuel his mad dream for mind control of every living soul in Deathlands.

The long struggle is over at last. The demon dactyl is no more, its dark sorceries shattered by the gemstone magic wielded by the woman known as Pony. But victory has not come easily. Many lives were lost, including Pony’s lover, the elf-trained ranger Elbryan Wynden. Despite the dactyl’s demise, the kingdom still seethes in the same cauldron of plots and machinations. But when a deadly sickness suddenly appears among the people of Corona, Pony must undertake a pilgrimage that will test her powers—and her faith—as never before.

Tanner Bland leaves his Virginia home on foot to fight for Dixie and rides back on a fine horse. Most folks would call that a profit - until they consider his loss. Thinking him dead, his intended marries his brother shortly before Tanner returns home. With no desire to remain in Virginia, Tanner heads west to join an old army pal. The two friends are destined for a world of trouble in the form of the Leach brothers in the untamed Montana Territory.

Framed for murder, Dewey “Mac” McKenzie is running for his life. Though Mac’s never even made a pot of coffee, he talks his way onto a cattle drive heading west — as a chuckwagon cook. Turns out he has a natural talent for turning salt pork and dried beans into culinary gold. He’s as good with a pot and pan as he is with a gun — which comes in handy on a dangerous trail drive beset with rustlers, hostile Indians, ornery weather, and deadly stampedes. Mac can hold his own with any cowboy twice his age. At least until the real showdown begins....

The Prince wants Dante. And he wants her now. And Dante and her lover, Japhrimel, have no choice but to answer the Prince's summons. And to fulfill a seemingly simple task: become the Devil's Right Hand, hunt down four demons that have escaped from Hell, and earn his gratitude. It's a shame that nothing is ever easy when it comes to the Devil. Because of course, he doesn't tell Dante the whole truth: There is a rebellion brewing in Hell. And there is a good chance that Lucifer is about to be pushed off the throne.

Sixkiller has come to Ringgold, Wyoming, on the trail of Bart Skillern, a vicious murderer he's been carefully stalking for weeks. But before Sixkiller can strike, Skillern takes a job with the town's duly elected mayor, a politician so corrupt that the only way to get near him is by being even more corrupt. So Sixkiller takes a job as a hired gun and sets out to destroy the mayor's gang from inside out.

Esmay Suiza and Brun Meager should be friends - they're both bright, brave, likable and adventurous. But true friendship doesn't run any smoother than true love. Brun thinks Esmay's a stuck-up prig, and Esmay thinks Brun's a spoiled rich brat who's making a play for Barin Serrano, Esmay's first love. So when Brun falls into the hands of a repressive religious militia movement, Esmay finds herself n disgrace, suspected of conniving at the capture.

Retired lawman Jason Storm sets up a new life for himself as a rancher in Paradise Valley. But when a gang of outlaws invade the town, Storm straps on his gunbelt one more time....