Showing results for "Forest" in Fantasy

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Haunted Forest Tour! Sit back, and enjoy a smooth ride in air-conditioned comfort as your heavily armored tram takes you through nature's most astonishing creation. The forest is packed to capacity with dangerous and terrifying creatures of all shapes, sizes, and hunger levels, and you'll get to observe these wonders in complete safety.

Vireo Reinhold relishes collecting his monarch’s proper dues. Working hard to prolong and fund the king’s never-ending war, the self-centered official revels in the perks of luxury that come with his unorthodox role. But his world upends when he unearths an ancient spellbook that promises to unlock a shadowy, forgotten magic. Embroiled in a secret affair with a fellow noble’s wife, Vireo is mortified when he’s forced to commit an unthinkable act.

After ten thousand years of dreaming, locked in stasis at the heart of his shattered home world, Lion El'Jonson wakes to the nightmare of Imperium Nihilus. In this midnight age, the dying embers of humanity are threatened on all sides by the hungry darkness. Alone, even the Lion has no hope of prevailing against such evil – but there are those who would aid him in his quest. Hunted to the edge of endurance, many among his Fallen knights have long-awaited the day their liege would return to redeem them.

Success at last! Ahren and his companions have revived the alliance of the Jorathian peoples. But there is little time for celebration, for while the defensive ring around the Pall Cloud is being strengthened with Dwarfish assistance, Ahren and his friends are already on their way to answer the Wrath Elves' cry for help in the Forest of Ire, from within whose depths mysterious dangers are threatening to destroy the Elven forest and all life forms within it. Time is running out.

Lovely Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters. Bereft of a mother, she is comforted by her six brothers who love and protect her. Sorcha is the light in their lives, they are determined that she know only contentment. But Sorcha's joy is shattered when her father is bewitched by his new wife, an evil enchantress who binds her brothers with a terrible spell, a spell which only Sorcha can lift-by staying silent.

Rupert didn't especially want to be a prince. And he certainly never asked to be the second son of a royal line that really didn't need a spare. So he was sent out to slay a dragon and prove himself - a quest straight out of legend. But he also discovered the kinds of things legends tend to leave out, as well as the usual demons, goblins, the dreaded Night Witch - and even worse terrors hidden in the shadows of Darkwood. Rupert did find a fiery dragon - and a beautiful princess to rescue.

The second book in the brand-new trilogy from the author of the Tawny Man trilogy, following on from the best-selling Shaman’s Crossing. The King's Cavalla Academy has been ravaged by the Speck plague. The disease has decimated the ranks of both cadets and instructors, and even the survivors remain sickly. Many have been forced to relinquish their military ambitions and return to their families to face lives of dependency and disappointment. As the Academy infirmary empties, Cadet Nevare Burvelle also prepares to journey home, to attend his brother Rosse's wedding.

When Alex joins Gamemakers Online, she finds there are no newbie areas, no tutorials, and nothing but vicious critters hunting her down. This seems like an impossible task, but Alex is a veteran platinum achievement hunter who has solved previously unwinnable scenarios. She won't give up now. As she delves deeper into the game, she discovers it hides sinister secrets. If she can't survive the first year in Gamemakers Online, then she'll lose more than her own life.

Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their father and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war. Greta has a secret – the witch’s grimoire, secreted away and whispering in Greta’s ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you’ve ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.

Walking home late one night, burned-out barista Nell accidentally incinerates someone. Whoopsie! Now, if this tale began in a fantastic far-away land, or Nell was, perhaps, a wizard, such a mishap might make some kind of sense. But this is not a wondrous fantasy world. This is real life, and Nell just wanted to go home and eat macaroni. As Nell stares at the smoldering corpse, she realizes something with horrifying certainty: She's magic. And not the cute pulling-a-rabbit-from-a-hat kind of magic.

A classic tale featuring two of the most-memorable characters in sword and sorcery, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Over a span of 50 years, the late Fritz Leiber wrote dozens of adventures, set in the fictional city of Lankhmar, featuring the seven-foot-tall barbarian and the diminuitive thief. The stories were recognized with both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

When Vale Moonwing returns to Darkwood Forest, he discovers that her old friend, the wizard Yaztromo, has vanished...himself?

Alayiakal, who will one day be known by many names—not all of them flattering—has to climb the ranks of Cyador's Mirror Lancers, fighting against unforeseen weapons and ancient technology. Alayiakal, however, has secrets of his own to protect: his ties to the Great Forest and his magus abilities. He must silently pretend to be a conventional soldier favored by fate—until that very same fate forces him to choose.

I was young and naive when I fell hard for bad boy Grizz, a shifter who was hot enough to melt my good girl heart. Big mistake. Because when good girls are naughty, they end up pregnant. Now I’m back in Forest Heights to care for my aunt with my son Rainer — the son I’ve been raising on my own for nine years because gruff, tough Grizz didn’t believe our baby was possible.

The virtual world of Barliona is a place of rest and entertainment - but not for everyone. It has become a survival arena for Daniel Mahan after he was sentenced to eight years in its virtual jail. Mahan has been through it all: the back-breaking work in the mines, betrayal by other prisoners, and finally, the retrial which has released him into Barliona's common world. What more could one want? Mahan could have kept a low profile and enjoyed relative freedom while serving the rest of his time.

Deep in the dark forest, in a cottage that spins on birds’ legs behind a fence topped with human skulls, lives the baba yaga. A guardian of the water of life, she lives with her sisters and takes to the skies in a giant mortar and pestle, creating tempests as she goes. Those who come across the baba yaga may find help, or hinderance, or horror. She is wild, she is woman, she is witch—and these are her tales.

King Oberon and his brothers, Taranis and Mananan, have been separated from the rest of Faerie and their family, the Tuatha De Danann, for centuries. With Morrigan and her generals dead, they are finally free to roam both realms once more. Curses and rampaging goddesses have left their scars on both the human world and Faerie, and they are going to need not only their immense magic to repair the rifts; they are going to need family.

Ahren can hardly believe his luck. His normal life consists of being beaten up by his drunkard father or bullied by the village lads. But at the annual suitability tests for apprenticeships, the young boy finds himself selected by Falk, the guardian of the forest, to be his apprentice and his world is turned upside down. From his new master he learns the skills of archery and how to fight the Dark Ones. And then, on the day of the Spring Ceremony there is another unexpected turn of events. He touches the Stone of the Gods and it illuminates for the first time ever.

In the Old Country, they called them the Gentry: ancient spirits of the land, magical, amoral, and dangerous. When the Irish emigrated to North America, some of the Gentry followed...only to find that the New World already had spirits of its own, called manitou and other such names by the Native tribes. Now generations have passed, and the Irish have made homes in the new land, but the Gentry still wander homeless on the city streets. Gathering in the city shadows, they bide their time and dream of power.

Theodora Goss's first major short story collection showcases such stories as "The Rose in Twelve Petals," "The Rapid Advance of Sorrow," "Lily, With Clouds," "In the Forest of Forgetting," "Sleeping With Bears," and many more.