David Niemitz

Guild Mage 241

Chapter 241: The Battle of the Pass IX: Scoured Clean

Keri circled, placing his body between the dowager queen of Lucania and Liv.  Now that her cane was gone, he didn’t see much of a chance the old woman would launch a lightning bolt horizontally, instead of calling one down from the clouds above, but the last thing he was going to do was take the chance she could take Liv in the back.  He widened his stance, settling down, and raised his Næv’bel into a high guard, with ...

Alt Book 4 Sketch concept

Our cover artist has a second concept for book four! Let me know what you think, and which you prefer

Guild Mage 240

Update: I added a bit at the beginning of 239 to show more of what the Eld are doing on screen. As always, I value constructive criticism that helps to improve the story!

Chapter 240: The Battle of the Pass VIII: The Bolt in Flight

Wren shifted nervously atop the saddle of the horse she’d been lent by the Falkenraths.  For most of her long life, in the jungles and mountains of Varuna, she’d gotten where she needed to go by flying.  While she’d had occasion to ride ...

Book 3 cover Sketch

Again, any feedback you have I can consolidate and pass on to the artist! This is Liv and Rose fighting a Storm Eel

Guild Mage 239

Chapter 239: The Battle of the Pass VII: Wing and Blood

Around Liv, the battlements descended into a swirl of chaos.

Spells lit the faces of fighting men and women with the glow of shining blue mana, the white glow of concentrated sunlight, or the ruddy orange cast of flames.  Incantations, half-heard, rose above the screams of the wounded and dying.  For a hundred feet in either direction from where Baron Henry held command, the stones grew slick with blood, and struggl...

Book Four Cover Concept Sketch

Feel free to leave feedback here, or on discord!

Guild Mage 238

I wanted to get my writing done early today, so that I can do as much social media as I can for launch day. Before 10am est is pretty good, I think.

If you're on Facebook, and you could head over my author page to share the announcement post, that would be wonderful!

There's also a post on my bluesky, and reposting that would be another way to help! @davidniemitz.bsky.social‬

...

Launch Day is Here!

Today is Release Day!

I've scheduled this as a special announcement, set to go off just after midnight, and hopefully it works :)

Our regular chapter will go off at 7am EST, and both these spaces will contain the following information, which will be updated over the course of release day.

Without all of your support, this story would never have made it to the point of being published by Mango and Podium. Now, of course, we have a new hill to climb. If we ...

Guild Mage 237

Today is stub day! I'll start by going through the early chapters here on Patreon first and removing them, and then I'll head over to RR.

Chapter 237: The Eyes of an Owl

A day of roosting among the rafters in the great hall at the Falcon’s Roost to no result had left Wren mired in an equal mixture of boredom and anxiety.  While the princess and her ladies in waiting had descended for a morning meal, the old dowager queen hadn’t left her room once - and there had been no s...

Guild Mage 236

If you know anyone who is still catching up on RR, be sure to remind them that we're stubbing book one tomorrow! I don't want anyone caught by surprise.

Chapter 236: The Battle of the Pass V: Assault

Liv dashed forward in an attempt to catch Miina before she fell.  “Arjun!” It was difficult to imagine how even a talented healer could save someone with their throat torn open, but perhaps if they could get to her in time...

But where Liv had expected to see gouts of s...

Book two ebook available for preorder!

With five days until the release of book one, Mango now has the preorder up for book two in ebook form!

Guild Mage 235

I did a bit of rewriting in yesterday's chapter, because a reader correctly pointed out that Liv had asked Ghveris to accompany her on to the parley. There might be a bit more work done with it to come, but he's definitely there, now! This is the 33rd chapter of book six, and there are nine left a minimum. I suspect this will be our longest volume, when it's done.

Chapter 235: The Battle of the Pass IV: And the Wind Began to Howl

No sooner had the riders from each army returned to...

Guild Mage 234

Chapter 234: The Battle of the Pass III: What Might Have Been

The morning of Liv’s second day at the pass came clear and warm.

She rode out under a sky of endless blue, with only a few scattered wisps of cloud, in the golden sunlight.  Steria, having had a night’s rest and a generous helping of oats, tossed her mane playfully, and Liv knew that if she gave the northern mare her head, she would have dashed off across the shockingly green spring grass.

Instead, she he...

Guild Mage 233

Chapter 233: Among the Rafters

Wren hung upside down from the rafters above the great hall at Falcon’s Roost, the immense castle of the Falkenraths.  The voices of those at the high table, beneath her, echoed up into the darkness.  Wren’s delicate ears twitched, angling toward the conversation, as she shut out the murmur of the knights at the lower tables.

“-take a carriage to the pass as soon as word comes it’s fallen,” Princess Milisant was nattering on.&nb...

Ebook Preorder Up!

The ebook of book one is now available for preorder on Amazon! Paperback copies need to be ordered on release day, unfortunately.

https://a.co/d/9QMQ2le

Guild Mage 232

Chapter 232: The Battle of the Pass II: Return to the Terrapin

Liv squeezed her eyes shut, but the bars of light connecting twenty Mountain Home soldiers to the exposed archers below the wall were so bright that she could still see them.  Even when the light died away, she had to blink away the glare, and after-images of the magical strike lingered across her field of vision.

Most of the wooden barricades behind which the crown forces had taken shelter were already little mor...

Guild Mage 231

Chapter 231: The Battle of the Pass I: Banners Before the Wall

By early afternoon, near seven hundred people marched south from Whitehill to Fairford.  

It turned out that only those within Castle Whitehill itself had been trapped in dreams, as Liv had been.  Outside of the castle, the rest of the city had instead been affected by a sort of widespread but less potent malaise.  Early risers found themselves sleeping in unexpectedly late; those who intended to ro...

Guild Mage 230

Chapter 230: Only In Dreams

“I assume that you’re responsible for the destruction of my nightmare stones,” Genevieve Arundell said.  Though she wore a mask to cover her face, she sounded just the same as when Liv had last seen her at Coral Bay.

“Indirectly.  We found one, and then set other people to hunt down the rest.”  There was no chair in front of the archmage’s desk, and when she looked down at herself, Liv saw that she was wearing the same white s...

Guild Mage 229

Chapter 229: The Road South

The snow at the summit of Bald Peak would linger well into flood season, Liv knew, but at the base of the mountain, every icicle was dripping, and patches of wet ground were growing between the remaining drifts.

By the time the last of the Elden forces came through the waypoint, she hadn’t slept in the same bed as Rosamund for nearly a week.  Though Rose had done her best with the Elden techniques for taming mana from a rift, Arjun had eventually...

A very pretty gif

Courtesy of Podium!

Guild Mage 228

Chapter 228: Falcon’s Roost

“How can one rusting woman cause this much trouble?”  

Millie couldn’t help but jump at the loud crash which accompanied her husband’s entrance into their suite of rooms at the Falcon’s Roost.  To either side of her, Cecily and Evangeline exchanged glances, their needles pausing in between stitches.  Millie put her needle through the linen shirt she was embroidering with blackwork, but didn’t pull it through, then set e...

Book 2 Paperback Spread Preview!

Guild Mage 227

Chapter 227: Bheuv

The ride back through the mountains into the Aspen River Valley was a quicker journey than tracking Baron Erskine’s raiders out had been.  For one thing, Keri and his warriors were free to make their own way, without having to bother with tracking a fleeing quarry.  Finally, though he hated to think in that way, it was a lot easier to move quickly without having to care for a sick woman along the way.

It wasn’t, Keri knew, a mark against the huntre...

Guild Mage 226

Chapter 226: Winter’s End

“How are you keeping the mechanisms from freezing up?” Matthew asked, running a single gloved hand over the wooden frame of a trebuchet, which had been carved with Vædic sigils up and down its length.  “Enchantments?”

Liv nodded from where she leaned against the crenellations which rimmed the curtain wall encircling the summit of Bald Peak.  With the mana of the shoal permeating everything around her, she had plenty of power to waste ...

Guild Mage 225

Chapter 225: Pyres on the Snow

When Liv, Sidonie, Kaija, Piers and the rest of the soldiers who’d accompanied her to Ashford appeared on the waystone beneath Bald Peak, it was clear at a glance just how unprepared they’d actually been to receive the refugees.

The wall around the stone was sufficient to give Whitehill guards a chance to launch a wave of crossbow bolts at any incoming enemies the moment they appeared, but there was a complete lack of outbuildings in which the wo...

Guild Mage 224

We're taking our son to the water park today, so I got up very early to write - which means an early chapter for you all!

Chapter 224: Among the Pines

The winter wind whistled through the pines, and Wren shivered despite the fact that she was wrapped in more than one layer of furs.  The steel plates of Ghveris’s armor were cold to the touch, if she was careless enough to make contact without something between them, but at least his bulk created a sort of windbreak for her.<...

Guild Mage 223

Chapter 223: The Battle of Ashford

The dark stillness of the place between the waystone shattered into light, smoke, and the screams of the wounded and dying.

Liv blinked away the glare of the waystone’s dying magic, and saw scores of castle servants, wounded soldiers, and a handful of nobles recoiling from her arrival.  The guards had formed two ranks facing the waystone, the first kneeling and the second standing, all with crossbows pointed directly at Liv and her compani...

Book two cover reveal!

Guild Mage 222

Chapter 222: Rock and Sky

“This isn’t exactly what the duchess thinks you’re doing,” Rose shouted over the whipping wind.  

The summit of Bald Peak was a bare expanse of rock where not even moss grew, and there were certainly no trees to provide them shelter from the weather.  If it hadn’t been for Liv using waste heat to keep the three women warm, and the enchanted armor that Liv and Rose wore, she doubted they’d be able to remain for long.  Than...

Guild Mage 221

Chapter 221: The Long Pursuit

Wren shivered and turned her face into the soft fur that tickled her face.  She shivered; Castle Whitehill wasn’t normally this cold, was it?  If there was one thing Liv’s adoptive family was good at - other than getting embroiled in all sorts of trouble - it was keeping warm during the winter.  

She hunched her shoulders against the chill, and the movement brought awareness of other motion: a rhythmic lifting and swaying, almo...