Nightwatch on the Hinterlands

Book excerpt: The Templar: Lieutenant Iari discovers a murder with an impossible suspect. The Spy: officially, Gaer is an ambassador from the vakari. Unofficially, he's also a spy. As they both search for truth, they discover that the murderous riev, one of the battle-mecha decommissioned after the end of the last conflict and repurposed for manual labor - is just a weapon in the hands of a wielder with wider ambitions than homicide, including releasing horrors not seen since the war, that make a rampaging riev seem insignificant. Author of "How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse." Print run 12,000.