the Penitent – Part I by A. Keith Carreiro

A baby is born and placed in his dead mother’s arms. As the funeral shroud is placed over her, his father names him Pall. It soon becomes a name that brings a shudder to those who hear it in combat.

A lone survivor on a battlefield many years later, and despite the dead scattered about him, everything he sees is unfamiliar. He eventually encounters John Savage, a giant of a man who puts Pall within the sight of Savage’s seven-foot, nocked longbow.

What ensues from the deadly encounter is an elusive journey for truth. Yet, it is haunted not just by a ravening demon out to destroy Pall and John, but by the vision of a startling, beautiful young woman protecting Pall from afar.