The Black Mausoleum

Two years have passed since the events of THE ORDER OF THE SCALES. Across the realms, dragons are still hatching. Hatching, and hatching free.

Skorl is an Ember, a soldier trained from birth to fight dragons. He is a living weapon, one-shot only, saturated with enough dragon-poison to bring down a monster all on his own. Misanthrope, violent and a drunk, to fulfil his purpose and slay a dragon, means to be eaten. Now Skorl has a choice: he can hang for his crimes, or he can go with the last of the Adamantine Men, fighting against an enemy he was born to face.

Rat is an Outsider. He's on the run and he's stumbled onto something that's going to make him rich beyond all his dreams. It's just a shame that the end of the world has started without him.

Kataros is an alchemist, one of the order responsible for keeping the dragons in check. One of the order that has just failed, and disastrously so.

Two men, one woman. One chance to save the world from a storm of dragons ...

Stephen Deas was born in 1968. He once set fire to Wales. Well one bit of Wales. Twice. When not burning principalities, he played too much D&D. Despite this he managed to study theoretical physics at Cambridge, get a job at BAE, marry and have two children. He now lives in Essex. With THE ADAMANTINE PALACE he returned to his first love; that of setting fire to things.