Coming, March 2010

Del Rey Books

Oath of Fealty

When the paladin Paksenarrion saved Kieri Phelan from traitorous attack on his way to the throne of Lyonya, it seemed her work was done. Lyonya would once more have a healthy king whose taig-sense would sustain the alliance of elves and humans in this strange land. But a paladin's intervention always means change--and change sweeps through the world in the wake of her great deeds. Who will take over Kieri's former realm? What will happen to those who opposed him? From Girdish yeoman to mercenary veteran, from peasant to king, from the Eight Kingdoms of the north to the Guild League cities of the south, no one escapes the challenges--and opportunities--of this tumultuous period. Those who expected to spend the rest of their lives in the same familiar place or position must cope with these changes, or in failure contribute to the chaos.

Books in Print

Sheepfarmer's Daughter. Baen Books. June, 1988. ISBN 0-671-65416-0

Divided Allegiance. Baen Books. October, 1988. ISBN 0-671-69786-2

Oath of Gold. Baen Books. January 1989. ISBN 0-671-69798-6

Surrender None. Baen Books. June, 1990. ISBN 0-671-69878-8

Liar's Oath. Baen Books. May, 1992. ISBN 0-671-72117-8

Omnibus edition: The Deed of Paksenarrion. Baen Books. February, 1992. (combines Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold).
ISBN 0-671-72104-6

Omnibus edition: The Legacy of Gird. Baen Books 1996 (combines Surrender None and Liar's Oath).
ISBN 0-671-87747-X

Links to Elizabeth Moon books:
Amazon.com
Borders
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Indiebound
Baen Books

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Paksenarrion

Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter, headstrong daughter of a sheep farmer on the north edge of the kingdom, dreams of being a hero out of legend, of fame and magic swords and great deeds. When her father tells her she must marry the neighbor's son, she runs away from home to join the mercenary company her cousin told her about. But military life and warfare aren't anything like her daydreams...yet she holds to both her duty and her dreams. In the end, she pays the price that heroism demands and becomes the paladin who saves a kingdom...but the journey is longer and darker than she ever imagined. She has to confront and overcome her strengths as well as her weaknesses...and her triumph redeems more than herself.

Originally written as one long story, it was broken into three for practical reasons when first published. Sheepfarmer's Daughter takes her from the farm through three fighting seasons as a mercenary in Duke Phelan's Company. Divided Allegiance describes her departure from Phelan and her training to become a paladin of Gird....a journey that ends in disaster. Oath of Gold finishes her story of recovery and redemption.

UK Edition coming early 2010

Sheepfarmer's Daughter was the 1989 Compton Crook Award winner.

The Legacy of Gird

Gird, the patron saint of warriors in The Deed of Paksenarrion, was once a man around whom legends grew. Poverty, hunger, fear, and anger shaped this future leader, whose weakness for drink almost ended his cause--and his life. But his love for "his" people and his innate hunger for justice make him worthy of the legends.

Two books, Surrender None and Liar's Oath, chronicle the life of the founder of the Fellowship of Gird--the dominant religion in Tsaia and Fintha in Paksenarrion's day, and the early days of that fellowship.

Surrender None
The hero-saint Gird, patron of the Fellowship of Gird, was known only through scattered texts and traditions by Paksenarrion's day. In those stories, Gird was an honest, brave, kind, hardworking peasant who had stood up to cruel magelords and freed his people from oppression. He had written the Code of Gird, eliminating injustice, and had given up his life for his people by fighting off a magical monster, dying even as it died. The real Gird was indeed a peasant who led his people to freedom from oppression--but he was also a fallible and complicated man whose great virtues were paired with great weaknesses.

Liar's Oath
During the war, Gird took in a refugee who soon became known as "Gird's luap" (luap being the word for assistant, or an army officer who was not in the chain of command.) Luap, as he was finally called, was in fact the bastard son of a former king. Though he had been cast aside when his father sired a legitimate heir, Luap believed that he had inherited the ability to rule...if not his father's kingdom, then one of his own, somewhere. But his essential dishonesty, his inability to face the truth about himself, doomed him and his followers, and set the Fellowship of Gird on a path very different from that Gird would have chosen.

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