Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Robert Adams
• Battle at Kahlkopolis by Robert Adams (aka Battle of Kahlkhopolis)
• A Vision of Honor by Sharon Green
• Rider on a Mountain by Andre Norton
• Maureen Birnbaum on the Art of War (as told to Bitsy Spiegelman Fein) by George Alec Effinger
• The Last Time by Joel Rosenberg
• High Road of Lost Men by Brad Linaweaver
• Yelloweye by Steven Barnes
• Ties of Faith by Gillian Fitzgerald
• The Courage of Friends by Paul Edwards
• The Swordsman Smada by John Steakley
• Sister of Midnight by Shariann Lewitt
• Nightfriend by John F. Carr and Roland J. Green

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Robert Adams
• Precious Treasure by Harry Turtledove
• Damnation by Sharon Green
• The Swordsman's Place by John Steakley
• Traitors by Susan Shwartz
• Dirt Brother by Roland J. Green and John F. Carr
• Seek a Clan Sword by Paul Edwards
• The Fear-Beast by Sharon Green
• Killsister by Steven Barnes
• The Enemy of My Enemy by Mercedes Lackey

Prophecy Written in Blood!

After two hundred years of searching for other immortals, the Undying High Lord Milo Morai has returned to the Horseclans to fulfill an ancient prophecy and lead them to their destined homeland by the sea.

But in their path wait the armed might of the Ehleenee and an enemy even more treacherous--the Witchmen--pre-Holocaust scientists who have survived the centuries by stealing other men's bodies to house their evil minds and who have in their hidden stronghold the means of destroying all who will not become their willing slaves.

Can even Milo save the Horseclans from the bloodthirsty Ehleenee and the malevolent Witchmen who would rip him to shreds to discover his secret of immortality?

The blood-soaked blade of war.

For seven hundred years, the Undying High Lord Milo has been building his Confederation, leading the Horseclans slowly across the lands once known as the United States, absorbing city-states and nomadic tribes alike, some by peaceful means, some by the sword.

But now his enemies have banded together into an army far larger than Milo can muster. Led by an ancient and evil intelligence, this wave of unstoppable destruction is thundering swiftly down upon the Confederation forces.

And Milo has no choice but to call upon all his allies, from the smallest troop of mountain warriors to the notorious pirate ships of the Lord of the Sea Isles, in a final desperate attempt to save the Confederation from seemingly certain doom...

The rebel army is marching to war, bent on destroying Thoheeks Bili, his kinsmen, and the power of Morguhn...

Call to Arms

Bili of Morguhn has been summoned home to claim his inheritance after years of soldiering in the Middle Kingdoms. But the Ehleen nobility and the priests of the Old Religion are planting the seeds of rebellion, swearing to wrest back from Bili and his fellow Horseclansmen the lands and wealth which once were theirs. And the stench of war rises once again over the land...

But what Bili does not know is that both his troops and those of his enemy are pawns in a larger game, a deadly game of bloody intrigue; and the stakes are as big as the survival of the Confederation--and the Horseclans themselves...

Time Conquers All...

Led by Lord Milo the Undying One, the men of the Horseclans are slowly reuniting the continent once known as the United States of America using the strength of their swords and their very special mental talents. But the Ehleenee, too, have dreams of power--dreams that have led them into a full-scale religious war of conquest.

Lord Milo must enlist the help of men like Bili Morguhn, whose skill with axe, sword, and mind control makes him a natural clan leader, if he is to contain the menace of the Ehleenee rebels and save civilization from destruction...

The Army of the Confederation is on the move again. For the Undying High Lord Milo Morai is ready to take th enext step in his master plan to reunite all the tribes which centuries ago formed a single, powerful nation known as the United States of America.

Before the Confederation forces lie the Armehnee Mountains, the home of the savage tribes that constantly raid the lowlands, bringing with them destruction and death. But Milo's forces are about to face an even more dangerous enemy than the Armehnee.

For the Witchmen -- twentieth-century scientists who have achieved a kind of immortality by stealing the living bodies of men while destroying their souls -- have long been at work in the mountains.

And unbeknownst to Milo, his troops are marching into much more trouble than they bargained for -- trouble that could spell the end of the Confederation!

Long live the new Thoheeks!

But who will this new leader of Sanderz-Vawn be? For although young, Horseclansman Tim Sanderez, exiled long years ago has come to reclaim his rightful inheritance. But his stepmother has other plans...

Before Tim's half-brother and the Undying High Lord Milo can send aid, Sanderz Hall has become an armed camp where Ehleen battles Horseclansman with cunning, treachery and sword-swinging might. And there is far more at stake than just the leadership of Sanderz-Vawn.

For the Confederation's deadliest enemy is once again at work, using its inhuman science to plant the seeds of Lord Milo's destruction at Sanderz Hall...

The call has gone out and the clans are gathering to hear the words of their war chief, Milo of Morai -- words of prophecy that promise an end to wandering and a land of their own, the legendary homeland from which their ancestors had come ages ago.

Yet before they can abandon their present hunting grounds, the Horseclansmen have one last debt to settle. They must rescue several of their children from kidnappers and teach their enemies the price of harming any people of the clans.

But the path to both vengeance and their long-lost home will lead them down a treacherous road and straight into a sword-swinging battle with two powerful armies -- a war in which there can be only one victor left alive...

Out of the jaws of destruction...

When the Witchmen caused the earth to move and called forth the fires from the mountain's inner depths, the Moon Maidens, Ahrmehnee, and Thoheeks Bili's troops barely escaped with their lives.

Driven by the flames into territory said to be peopled by monstrous half-humans, Bili was forced to choose between braving the dangers of nature gone mad or fighting the savage natives on their own ground. But before he could decide, his troops were spotted by the beings who claimed this eerie land as their own and would use powerful spells of magic and illusion to send any intruders to their doom...

Can Bili's warriors stand alone against the deadly menace of the Witchmen and the mountain savages?

Which is mightier--science or the sword?

Stranded in a land peopled by wild cannibal tribes and monstrous half-humans, Bili of Morguhn and his small band of warriors have sworn to aid the mysterious Prince Byruhn of Kuhmbuhluhn in his war against these savages. But even as they train for battle, another force is on the move--the Witchmen, evil scientists led by Dr. Erica Arenstein and armed with weapons far more lethal than any known to the men of the Horseclans.

Bent on recovering a twentieth-century technological treasure trove, the Witchmen will destroy anything that stands between them and their goal. And, if Dr. Arenstein can join the power of the Witchmen with fighting prowess of the cannibalistic Ganik tribes, even Bili's proven warriors may not long survive...

The gathering of the host

With the help of powerful inhuman allies, Prince Byruhn has persuaded Bili and his warriors to delay their return to Confederation lands and join in his campaign against the deadly invading army that threatens to destroy New Kuhmbuhluhn.

But even as Bili and his warriors rally to the Kuhmbuhluhners' aid, the forces of the Witchmen are on the move again. Are Bili and Prince Byruhn galloping straight into a steel-bladed trap from which death is the only release?

Only one thing stands between the Skohshuns and victory--the deadly challenge of Bili the Axe and his warrior band...

Besieged!

The day of prophecy has come at last--the time for Bili and Prince Byruhn to rally their troops for the final defense of New Kuhmbuhluhn.

But even as the people of the kingdom flock into their great stone city and Bili's warriors take up their posts on the walls, the Skohshuns are building new weapons of destruction to storm the fortress.

And within the very castle grounds stalks a creature of nightmare, striking down the defenders one by one in a reign of bloody terror that may prove far more deadly than the enemy at their gates...

She rode into legend...

Shunned by her own folk as a creature of Evil, Bettylou Hanson found an instant welcome among the people of the Horseclans. Young, healthy, intelligent, and gifted with powerful mindspeak potential, she was everything Milo Morai's people looked for in a clan member.

Bloodfeud!

In the evil time after civilization fell apart, the Undying High Lord Milo Morai gathered together as many children as he could save and set about teaching them the laws of survival.

Over the centuries, Milo's children wandered the Sea of Grass, fighting and prospering and adding to their numbers until they became the mighty force known as the Horseclans. With time, some of their laws changed or were forgotten but there remained one that must never be broken--"Kindred must not fight Kindred!"

Yet now, clans Linsee and Skaht were on the brink of a bloodfeud that could spread like prairie fire throughout the Horseclans. Could even Milo smother the sparks of hatred before they blazed up to destroy all of the Horseclans?

"Be reconciled, or be destroyed!"

For some time, trouble had been brewing between clans Linsee and Skaht.

Many men and women had been killed in raids, and the feud between them threatened to spill over and engulf all the Kindred clans.

Finally, the Council of Chiefs passed judgment: Linsee and Skaht must put aside their hatred or be scattered and enslaved.

In a last, desperate struggle to save the unity of the Kindred, Milo promises to intercede, taking the assembled sons and daughters on a journey of the mind to a strange and distant place... back to the twentieth century!

Ruins from the past, menace to the future

Milo Morai, the Undying High Lord of the Horseclans, secure in the knowledge that peace had once again come to the Kindred clans, now journeyed with a select band to explore unknown territory. Perhaps in the days or weeks ahead, Milo would discover an untouched ruin of the Old Ones, a veritable treasure-trove of rare metals and trade goods to enrich the Horseclans.

More than dead ruins awaited Milo and his valiant band of hunters. For on the trail they now rode lurked nightmare creatures hungering for the blood of man. And at the end of the road waited heirs to a legacy of violence which might claim the men and women of the Horseclans as the final victims in a war that should have ended hundreds of years ago...

A mad king slain, a realm to reclaim.

The High King Zastros and his evil witch queen had finally met their match when they'd challenged Milo Morai and his Confederation Army to battle. Yet with the menace of Zastros destroyed, the Confederation faced a still greater challenge--for in his mad campaign, Zastros had drained the very lifeblood from his kingdom of Southern Ehleenoee.

Only chaos now reigned there, as bandits, killers, and bands of renegade warriors roved the land, slaughtering all who opposed them. Milo had pledged to bring peace back to this devastated realm. But could his former enemies, now become allies, be trusted to live by Confederation law in their troubled lands? Or did traitors wait to betray Milo's warriors to a terrible doom?

When Milo's confederation forces defeated the army of the tyrannical King Zastros, the High Lord offered a peace settlement his defeated foes could scarce believe, welcoming them as full members of the newly formed Confederation of Easter Peoples...

Milo hoped to see the decimated kingdom rapidly reorganized into a thriving realm. but neither he nor any of his allies had bargained for the evil hidden within the very heart of the land's new government...

Battle to the Death!

When Milo Morai, the Undying High Lord, and his Horseclans warriors found the tower ruins, they welcomed it as the perfect citadel from which to hold off the packs of ravenous wolves eager for their blood.

But the ancient building hid a secret far more dangerous than either wolves or any human foe, for in its depths waited The Hunter--the penultimate product of genetic experimentation gone wild, one of the few descendants of a powerful breed that had long outlasted its human creators.

The Hunter--who, with fang, claw, and blood-chilling speed--would challenge the Undying Lord himself to a battle to the death.