A Window Into the World of Cildra

As work continues on my upcoming novels The Gift of the Trilune and The Crucible Knight, I wanted to create a place where readers can begin exploring the world long before the books arrive.

This blog will serve as a growing collection of short stories, myths, and fragments taken from the wider world in which these stories unfold. Some will be tales told by travellers around campfires. Others may be rumours whispered in taverns, records kept by scholars, or accounts of events that have passed quietly into legend.

Not every story will reveal the full truth — and some may only hint at it.

My aim is to release these pieces regularly, offering glimpses into the cultures, creatures, and folklore that inhabit the world behind the novels. In time, readers will come to recognise familiar places, figures, and events that echo through the pages of The Gift of the Trilune and The Crucible Knight.

Consider these stories a window into the world before the larger tales begin.

Welcome to the road.

The Hand Man

A roadside tale from the Freeholds

There are roads in Ilyria that merchants do not travel after dark.

Not because of wolves.

Not because of the cold.

But because of the things that walk when the moons are hidden.

Old Garreth the spice merchant learned this too late.

He had stayed longer than he should have in the market town of Vey Hollow, trying to squeeze a few more silvers from a stubborn baker who claimed saffron was worth less than salt. By the time Garreth finally set out, the last of the light had already fallen behind the hills.

The road was empty.

His mule’s hooves clopped quietly against the stones as the forest pressed in on either side. The wind whispered through the branches, and somewhere far off an owl called into the dark.

Garreth pulled his cloak tighter.

Then he heard it… a laugh from the darkness.

Not friendly laughter. The kind that slithers along the ground and attacks you from behind.

Three men stepped from the trees ahead of Garreth.

Bandits.

One carried a short spear, another a curved blade, and the third a club heavy enough to break bone.

“Well now,” the tallest of them said, grinning through broken teeth. “Looks like the road has been generous tonight.”

Garreth raised his hands slowly.

“I’m just a merchant,” he said. “Take the mule if you want it. Take the spices. Just let me pass.”

The bandits laughed again.

“Hands where we can see them,” the spear man said.

Garreth lifted them higher.

Then the forest went quiet.

So quiet that even the wind seemed to stop breathing.

One of the bandits frowned.

“Who’s that?”

Someone stood in the road behind them.

None of them had seen him arrive.

The figure was tall.

Broad across the shoulders but lean, like a wolf that had lived too long in the wild. A dark cloak hung from him in ragged folds, and beneath it leather armour creaked softly as he stepped forward.

His face was hidden beneath a deep hood. Long pale hair spilled from the shadow like strands of moonlight.

But it was the armour that made Garreth’s blood turn cold.

Hands.

Dozens of them.

Severed hands tied to leather cords across the man’s chest and belt.

Some were black with rot.

Some were little more than bone.

Some… were still fresh.

The bandits stared.

“What in the—”

The hooded man drew his sword.

The sound of steel leaving the scabbard was slow and quiet.

The spear man sneered.

“Just one man, I’ll take care of them.”

The spear man approached slowly then lunged suddenly.

The fight lasted less than a breath.

Steel flashed.

The spear man’s weapon fell first.

Then the spear man.

The other two rushed forward with curses and wild swings, but the hooded stranger moved like smoke slipping through fingers.

The curved blade clattered onto the road.

The club followed.

Then the screaming started.

Garreth pressed himself against his mule, trembling.

When the sounds stopped, the road was silent again.

The hooded man stood among the fallen bandits.

Without a word, he knelt beside the first body.

A knife appeared in his hand.

Garreth looked away.

Wet slicing sounds followed.

When he dared to look back, the stranger was tying something to the cords on his armour.

Fresh hands.

The man rose slowly.

For a moment, Garreth thought the hood might turn toward him.

But it never did.

The stranger simply stepped back into the road, wiped his blade clean on a dead man’s cloak, and sheathed it.

Then he walked into the forest.

The darkness swallowed him as if he had never been there at all.

Garreth waited a long time before moving again.

Even now, years later, he swears the severed hands on that armour swayed softly as the stranger walked away.

Like trophies.

Or warnings.

And whenever merchants gather at roadside fires, Garreth always ends the story the same way.

He raises his cup and says quietly:

“Best keep your hands where they belong on these roads.”

“Because if you draw steel…”

“The Hand Man might come walking.”