HATE ALWAYS HAS A BEGINNING
BUT RARELY EVER AN ENDING...

In an age long past, the folk of Whetchilowe Cleave, devotees of the Great Tree of Life, face an impossible choice: sacrifice their children, or die. And as fear and desperation take hold, another terror is born. A ruthless menace appears and stalks among them, committing unspeakable acts of cruelty. But this is no ordinary murderer, for this child-killer bears the burden of a prophecy that could change the fate of their world.

Now, the misery of this blighted land has drawn the attention of the realm’s most feared man: Walton the Slayer. A brutal enforcer of the new faith, his cruelty is legend, and his sense of mercy nonexistent. Whispers of blasphemy have reached his ears, and his shadow now falls heavy over the Cleave, threatening to extinguish the last flicker of the old ways.

A reckoning is coming. The old faith and the new cannot coexist — and only one will prevail.


(A prequel novella to The Dreadful Demise of Jake Walton).