Aesperus, the King in Copper

He was a fearsome necromancer who ruled over this part of the Moonsea hundreds of years ago, and survives as an undead lich who commands the dead of the barrowfields as his slaves.

Too many things that should lie dead and buried under stone rise and walk the Highfells once their tombs are breached.

No one is to open a tomb anywhere within land claimed by Hulburg, and it is considered high treason to collect anything of value buried in a barrow.

It's one of the few laws the Harmachs enforce without mercy.

But someone is robbing them anyway.

Geran studied the Chainsmen surrounding them. Eight on the street and possibly more in the alehouse or another place nearby, and most looked like they knew how to use the cudgels at their belts. It would be easier to play their game and buy them off with a couple of silver pennies... but the thought of paying for safe passage in his own home town did not sit well with him. Besides, Geran told himself. They're probably not as reasonable as they say they are.

Geran, a swordmage exiled from the elven city of Myth Drannor, returns home to find the once peaceful Moonsea town of Hulburg under the thumb of greedy and ruthless merchants.

"I am here to offer you power, Warchief -- the power to make yourself the king of all Thar. Every tribe in this land will call you master and do as you bid them. They will call you lord, pay you tribute, and march as you command. I can arm your warriors with a thousand hauberks of good steel mail. I can give you ten Warlock Knights to wield their battle-magic in your service. And I have control over a number of strong monsters from the high mountains -- manticores, giants, chimeras, even a young dragon or two. They will be yours to command. Tell me, Warchief, what would you do with an army such as that?"

Kardhel, a Warlock Knight of Vaasa, stirs the violent passions of a tribe of brutal orcs, and sends them to Hulburg bent on pillage.

The lich laughed coldly. "What do I care for your lives?" he said. He stretched out his clawlike hand and made a small gesture, and the Infiernadex was wrenched out of Geran's grasp by some unseen force. The book soared to the lich's hand, and Aesperus twisted what remained of his face into a horrible smile. "Good-bye, Geran Hulmaster. I expect that you and I will speak again soon, when you have been laid under stone as your forefathers were."

And Aesperus, the King in Copper, rises from the dead once more to terrorize them all, and protect a secret beyond imagination.

The Spellplague -- and other things from horrifying disasters to monumental achievments -- has changed the face of the Forgotten Realms world, and this series is the first to plunge fully into a bold new era for the venerable line.

The first novel to fully embrace the exciting new elements from the next edition of the Dungeons & Dragons ® game, award-winning game designer and "New York Times" best-selling author Richard Baker's Swordmage goes where -- and when -- no Forgotten Realms novel has gone before.

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