Parno's Company (The Black Sheep of Soulan Book 1)

The world died long ago, leaving only a few here and there to rebuild. Their world had once been grand and magnificent, but too much was lost in the years after the time known as the Dying. Knowledge that had been gained over centuries disappeared from the world, lost when those who carried that knowledge died with it.

The population has grown again over the last centuries, but the world has not regained its lost knowledge or former glory. A few things survive, here and there, and scholars seek to uncover more of their Ancients lost technology. But in the midst of that comes the threat of war with a rival nation. The latest in a long line of such wars for the Kingdom of Soulan.

Parno McLeod, third son of King Tammon McLeod, is unloved by his family and laughed at by the nobility. A brawling, drinking, womanizing playboy still in his teens, the common soldiers and people love Parno because he doesn't preen and pretend. And Parno loves his people, and his Land, even though he doesn't love his family.

But now Parno had been given command of a regiment of soldiers who were once prisoners. Sent out of the Capital to keep him away from his father, Parno sees a chance to live outside the shadow of his family. Then he begins to see a threat to his homeland. One that his father and older brothers seem determined to ignore.

It will lead Parno to defy his father, and lead his men on a mission that's just short of suicide, trying to stop an invading army that looks to attack through a small pass in Soulan's eastern mountains while the Soulan Army is occupied with a larger invading army on the western plains. Faced with staggering odds, it looks hopeless.

But Parno has a trick or two of his own, and the terrain is on his side. And there's no way he'll let the invading Nor army through into his nation's heartland without one hell of a fight first.