Search Worlds Without End

Stephen Leigh's epic trilogy of vast empires and dangerous politics, compiled in one thrilling volume

Neweden is a world whose gods are death and fate, and it's here that the Hoorka have arisen: a guild of assassins, whose single law is that the victim must always retain a tiny but finite chance of escape. If the victim can survive until dawn, they may go free.

But the rich and powerful don't care to have their will thwarted, and so the Hoorka must deal with the consequences of their own ethics. Gyll, the leader of the Hoorka, also has dreams of taking the guild offworld into the growing society of the Alliance, which is trying to reconstruct a shattered, worlds-spanning empire. Is that dream a genuine possibility, or will exposure to other cultures doom the Hoorka entirely?

Gyll must confront internal struggles within his own people, the dangerous politics of Neweden, and the twinned threat and promise of the Alliance. The Hag of Death dances around them, mockingly. Can the Hoorka survive to see the dawn of their own success, an Assassins' Dawn?

The Hoorka, a guild of skilled assassins, maintain their existence in the turbulent society of Neweden through strict obedience to a stern code of neutrality: Kill only when hired. Reveal your client only if successful. If the victim survives until dawn, he goes free. Through years of harsh training and iron discipline, the Thane of Hoorka Guild has molded a group of men and women without kinship, lassari outcasts, into a lethal force separate from the blood feuds and intricate alliances of other clans.

The Alliance of Worlds has been watching the Hoorka closely with an eye to allowing them to operate offworld. But now an important target has eluded the Hoorka's weapons--the leader of the opposition party. And the Rule of Neweden, maker of the contract, suspects them of treachery. Beset with suspicion and fear, and challenged by a young usurper within the Guild, the aging Thane faces a day of reckoning: He can abide by the code he created, or break it in the name of expediency. His fateful decision could mean a new future for the Hoorka--or its end for all time.

The Assassins' Code

On the bloodsoaked feudal world of Neweden, the Hoorka assassins' guild has survived by adherence to a strict code of honor. Lethal killers, shadowy black-robed agents of destruction, they are pledged to give Fate a chance to free their victims from the claws of Hag Death.

But now the Alliance has allowed Hoorka to operate offworld, the assassins' code is breaking down, and Ulthane Gyll. founder and former leader of the Hoorka, finds the deadly fighting force he created turning against him....

Gyll Hermond was spawned in the dark streets of Neweden, a world torn apart by intrigue and blood-feud. He'd molded a ragged band of kinless outcasts into a trained killing force -- the Hoorka Assassins' Guild -- only to be deposed as leader in a bitter struggle for power. Now Fate brings Gyll back to Neweden as military commander of a powerful Trading Family.