the Twenty Blades of Rajah

June 1565. Twenty men enter the Ghats. Thirteen come out.One hundred thirty-five days after the Battle of Talikota-the end of Vijayanagara, the end of the world as it was-a sect has formed in the monsoon forests. The Rakshasas burn villages, take captives, and terrorize the people of the ridges. At their head: Nagendra, former guru of a Shiva temple, who has concluded since the destruction that the gods of light are dead.Captain Rana Singh and twenty Rajputs are on a mission to enter the Ghats, find the sanctuary, and free the captives.What they do not yet know: there is a traitor among them. That the bridges will be sabotaged. That the torrents kill just as surely as blades. And that a woman who emerged from a ruined temple, who has never held a weapon, will be the person on whom everything depends.Kamala spent seven days as the Guru's prisoner. She knows his weaknesses. She knows the geography of the cave. And she has a reason to enter Raktakunda that no one else can have.The Rajah's Twenty Blades is a novel of adventure and psychological tension set in 16th-century India-twenty-two days' march, seven deaths, a final decision on the edge of a limestone precipice.Phil Morrison