Ritual of the Stones (Ballad of Frindoth) (40 page)

Marybeth
stood frozen, paralysed by fear.

“You
must flee,” Iskandar said. She could barely hear him over the din.

The
others did not need prompting. The mobile knights had already grabbed their
fallen friends and were making their way down the mountainside, with the king
leading the way.

Janna
seemed to have not noticed any of the commotion around her. She sat against the
table, her arms wrapped around her body, rocking back and forth. Mondorlous
grabbed her and cast her over his shoulder as if she was an infant. Janna made
no move to stop him. He tugged Marybeth’s arm.

“I
suggest you obey Iskandar this time,” he said. Marybeth allowed herself to be
led away, too frightened to register whether he was angry at her or was being
his usual pragmatic self.

As
they left the plateau, she looked over her shoulder at the dying leader of the
Order. He smiled faintly at her and then closed his eyes. She descended the
mountain in a trance, Iskandar’s screams of agony echoing in her ears.

Acknowledgements
:

For a self-published
novel I have an awful lot of people to thank. Firstly I wish to extend my
heartfelt gratitude to Richard Barker. Richard came up with the concept of the
original cover that enticed so many people into purchasing the novel. Richard
your enthusiasm ,  generosity and devotion have been extraordinary. Whiskey is
truly the new fuel of the Gods!

To GX at
Graphiczxdesigns.zenfolio.com I thank you for really grasping my vision and
capturing the overall tone of the novel. You have produced a fantastic design
that can be used as part of a series.

Secondly, I wish to
thank my proof-reader Diana Cox. Your professional eyes caught so many errors
that had been missed by myself and countless others. Diana you were highly
recommended and worth every penny.

Huge gratitude to my
beta readers: Simon Tweedie, Jacqui Slaney, Paul Smith and David Siska. Your
critiques (and in some cases written reports!) were brutally honest and made
this novel stronger than it would have been. The fact that all your reports
conflicted gave me a further headache that was not needed!

My thanks also to
Anthony Ryan and Mark Charan Newton. Both of you have been in my position and
are now successfully carving a definitive path for yourselves. It is a
testament to both of your generosity that you still found the time to provide
swift responses and sound advice to an aspiring author. Thanks also to Niall
Alexander – the first “big name” to support my blog. I hope one day you will
read this book.

I would like to show my
appreciation of all the support and encouragement demonstrated by my friends
and family. To list you all would double the size of this novel (okay, so I am
prone to exaggeration, I am definitely not that popular) but special mention to
my sister Denise, to “my second pair of eyes” Kay, Rachel, Hajrah and to
Valerie and Stuart Merrill. Stuart your assistance with the formatting has been
invaluable.

Finally my thanks to
you dear reader for taking a chance on this book, I hoped you liked it.

Rob Donovan was born in
1979 and lives in Kent. He obtained a degree in Ancient History before
embarking in a career as a civil servant. He regularly maintains a blog where
he shares the trials and tribulations of writing his first novels and reviews
other books.
Ritual of the Stones
is the first book in the Ballad of
Frindoth series. Rob is roughly half way through writing the second book.

To find out more visit
his blog over at: Ritualofthestones.blogspot.co.uk