book cover of Heretic\'s Forge
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Heretic's Forge

(2021)
(The first book in the Warrior Blacksmith series)
A novel by

 
 
When he returns home, after spending near a decade on the battlefield, fighting and crafting weapons for the enemy, Senshi must assume a new identity. Son of a renowned blacksmith, he must pose as a deaf-mute to hide the fact that he’s a “returned one”—a Nipponese, soiled by the outside world.

Now working back at his father’s forge, Senshi attempts to resume his former life in peace, refine his art and forget about the horrors of war. But all those years spent in enslavement have deeply changed him. Not only is his accent different, but the way he sees things too, as he can’t help but compare the many contradictions plaguing his native country with what he witnessed in the west.

Eager to move forward, he shows his father the techniques he learned, rubbing shoulders with foreign smiths. He demonstrates the exact procedure to craft vessel blades—formidable weapons which can accept their wielder’s will and respond to their every command. In truth, Senshi wants to combine that secret knowledge with the ancestral technique of his father for forging living swords, in an effort to create the ultimate weapon. A ravenous sword. An awakened blade with a mind of its own that could also enhance its owner’s power and prowess.

However, those profane techniques coming from abroad are akin to heresy. And Senshi’s father urges him to stop using such barbarous methods before he’s found out. The sudden appearance of a stranger in this calm village has already raised many an eyebrow, and Senshi soon comes under the scrutiny of a ruthless samurai working for the local daimyo. The samurai suspects him of being a returned one, a heretic. Which, in and of itself, can be cause for execution. Because when one is conscripted into the army and sent to the front, like Senshi was, your duty is to die for the Emperor. There is no coming back for those who have been sullied by the vile ideas of the west.

And so, as Senshi struggles to perfect his craft in secret and master the art of bonding with a weapon, he might need to resort to a more deadly set of skills he learned on the battlefield…


Genre: Science Fiction

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