Ghosts of the Conqueered

Kane was a Del Carpio—an honor-bound wandering swordsman sworn to protect the innocent—until the night his brotherhood was butchered in a devastating massacre. Now the last survivor haunts the frozen wastelands, hunting the traitor who orchestrated the slaughter while his murdered sword-brothers pursue him as undead Hounds of Dominion. Broken, guilt-ridden, and hunted by supernatural assassins, Kane fights to survive long enough to avenge the family that death itself couldn't keep buried.

Jenn was once a legendary warrior of the Del Carpio until one terrible mistake cost an innocent life. Now she's the Beggar King's puppet assassin, forced to murder on command or face her own execution. Each kill damns her soul further, but when ordered to slaughter a nobleman's infant daughter, Jenn must choose between a child's life and her own freedom. The price of rebellion is death. The cost of obedience is damnation.

Neither Kane nor Jenn understands they're pawns in a conspiracy that reaches into the highest levels of power. In the eastern territories, the sorcerer Ishakar Hadrada has mastered forbidden necromancy, raising armies of the dead and creating abominations that blend man and beast. His ambition threatens to drown the continent of Sankarra in blood, corruption, and the walking dead. The massacre of the Del Carpio was only the beginning—a calculated move to eliminate the one brotherhood capable of stopping his ascent to godlike power.

As undead warriors stalk the living, political machinations tear kingdoms apart, and the boundaries between life and death dissolve, Kane and Jenn's paths converge in a world where honor is a death sentence and survival demands becoming the monster you once hunted. To stop Ishakar's apocalyptic plans, they must infiltrate underground assassin cults, navigate treacherous beggar kingdoms, and confront the supernatural horrors their dead mentor warned them would one day rise.

But the greatest threat isn't the necromancer's army of revenants or his grotesque crossbreed killing machines—it's the traitor who walks among the living wearing the face of a trusted brother. Someone betrayed the Del Carpio to their deaths. Someone orchestrated the trap that slaughtered forty-eight legendary warriors. And that someone is still hunting the survivors.

This is grimdark epic fantasy where broken heroes fight impossible odds, political intrigue intertwines with dark sorcery, and the dead refuse to rest. This is sword and sorcery steeped in betrayal, vengeance, and the terrible costs of redemption. This is a tale of warrior brotherhoods destroyed, necromantic conspiracies unleashed, and the thin line between justice and murder.

Can two shattered survivors remember what once made them heroes? Or will guilt, vengeance, and the machinations of a mad sorcerer transform them into the very darkness they swore to fight?

This is the story of mad gods and beggar kings. This is the story of the Ghosts of the Conquered.

Perfect for readers who crave: dark epic fantasy with morally complex antiheroes, sword and sorcery with political intrigue, necromancy and undead armies, assassin protagonists and warrior brotherhoods, grimdark worlds where honor is tested and broken, epic revenge quests against overwhelming odds, and fantasy noir where the line between hero and villain blurs into blood-soaked gray.