Elpis: Terico's Revenge

Elpis: Terico's Revenge, Aaron McGowan, Lulu, 2011

This is a fantasy story about a young man who has lost everything in his life. It's also about the lengths to which he will go to exact revenge.

Terico is your average young man, living with his parents in the village of Edellerston. Suddenly, the village is under attack by warriors of the Shire Brotherhood, the sort of people who seem to enjoy killing. Everyone in the village is murdered, including Terico's parents. Terico's best friend, Turan, is taken prisoner by the Brotherhood, and Suran, Terico's girlfriend, is missing. After Terico single-handedly buries everyone in the village, he meets Jujor, who is a lot more than just the town drunk.

Jujor tells Terico that Delkol Shire, the leader of the Brotherhood, and the man who killed his parents, is looking for pieces of the Elpis stone. It's a stone of immeasurable power. A millennia ago, it was broken into four pieces, specifically to keep any one person from having that much power. Jujor leads Terico to one of the pieces, in an underground city under Edellerston. Terico gathers a rather interesting group of people around him in his quest for the rest of the stone. Areo is a teenage vampire, Borely is a ship's captain without a ship and Kitoh, a young boy, is able to turn into a giant dragon. Terico acquires another piece of the stone, and is informed that Delkol Shire has the other two pieces.

By the thousands, Brotherhood forces mass for an attack on Setar, the capital of the Fiefs Kingdom (the good guys). Shire says that he just wants the rest of the Elpis stone, and will not attack Setar. Even if he gets it, everyone knows that Setar will be wiped off the map. Terico is the only one, with his half of the stone, with any chance of stopping Delkol Shire. Is he successful? What happened to Turan and Suran?

This is an excellent piece of storytelling. It has plenty of action (maybe a little too much action), it also has heart, and intelligence, and some first-rate writing. (And the author is only 23 years old!) First of a series, this one deserves a much wider exposure.