Today I am excited to welcome back fantasy author John Marco, who will be releasing the fourth novel in his Lukien series, The Forever Knight.
Lukien is the Bronze Knight, beloved by his kingdom and renowned in battle throughout his world. After betraying his king and losing his beloved, he wishes only for death, but rather than die, Lukien is given a chance for redemption: to be the protector of the Inhumans—those fragile mortals who live deep in the desert, far from the prying eyes of their world. These remarkable individuals have been granted magical powers in exchange for the hardships and handicaps life has handed them. And Lukien, now immortal himself, must be their champion. But how can one man, even an immortal warrior, protect hundreds from a world of potential enemies?
Make sure you stick around to the end. We’ll be giving away a shiny new Kindle ereader to one lucky winner!
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Exclusive Excerpt from The Forever Knight
“The Forever Knight is the tale of a magical Bronze Knight named Lukien and his quest to help his young squire Cricket regain her lost memories. In this scene, Lukien and Cricket are crossing the Desert of Tears and have stopped for the night at a serene oasis…”
It was easy to lose track of time at the oasis. We unburdened the animals, rolled out our sleeping blankets to flatten the tall grass, and soaked our feet in the spring water. Cricket was careful to pay attention to the mounts, making sure they were settled and comfortable. She even went through our supplies to give me an accounting of what we brought with us. But when she came to the case carrying my bronze armor, she paused.
I watched her as I leaned back, opening a fruit with my dagger. The leather case had traveled with me from Liiria to Norvor and then to Jador. It contained the only precious things I owned, save for the Sword of Angels. The case wasn’t locked and I could tell Cricket wanted to look inside.
“Go on,” I told her. “You’re my squire. You should check it from time to time.”
Cricket knelt over the case like it was a treasure chest. As she opened it, the bronze armor reflected yellow on her face. Unlike my sword, there was nothing magical about my armor. Still, people who saw it always got a strange look in their eyes, like they were seeing something priceless. I pried open my fruit and drank its sweet nectar.
“Here,” I said, offering her the bigger half. “Sit with me and talk.”
Cricket softly closed the case. “Will you wear it when we get to Akyre?” she asked. “You should. You should announce to everyone that a hero has come.”
Her adoration made me uncomfortable. “That armor’s for fighting, not for showing off. I’ll wear it if I need to. Otherwise it stays in the box.”
“Oh, there’ll be fighting,” she said. She scraped her top teeth over the fruit meat. Her brown eyes darted up toward the moon.
“What makes you so certain?”
“’Cause we’re heading to the Bitter Kingdoms.”
“Are you remembering something, Cricket?”
She shook her head. “Nothing new. I just know it, is all. Trouble made me lose my memory. That I know for sure.”
I didn’t know much about the Bitter Kingdoms back then, but I knew Cricket was right. They were little kingdoms, ruled—if you could call it that—by blood-soaked barons. Mostly folks just passed on through the Bitter Kingdoms on their way east for spices. That made the Bitter Kingdoms poor, and that made them covetous. Cricket was lucky to have escaped.
“Tell me what you do remember,” I said.
“What? Nothing’s changed.”
“They found you wandering around Akyre, Borlis and the others. You were alone. Starving, they said.”
“I remember,” said Cricket sharply. “Before that’s the problem.”
For a long moment I didn’t say anything. I hoped the peace of the night would loosen her tongue, and maybe her memory too. “Look at that moon. You ever see one so big? They say the heat here makes it look like that, all pink and shimmery. I like to watch it.”
I stared at the moon, and Cricket stared too. Then she let out a big, relaxing sigh.
“What will we do when we get to Akyre, Lukien?” she asked. “How are we going to find out about me?”
“I’m not really sure,” I told her honestly. “Look around. See if you recognize anyone, or anyone recognizes you. Ask some questions. First we have to find out what’s going on in Akyre. The things I hear don’t make me happy.”
Cricket nodded, because she knew the stories too. War stories, mostly. Atrocities and all the things that come with war. Cricket gazed blankly at the moon.
“Cricket…” I said it softly. “How do you know your name’s Cricket? How can you remember that if you can’t remember anything else?”
She shrugged. “How do you know your name’s Lukien? I just do is all. I haven’t forgotten how to talk or walk either. It’s just some things I can’t remember. Sometimes it’s on the tip of my tongue and I can’t get it out…” She closed her eyes and grumbled, “It makes me crazy! I try to remember. I have dreams sometimes and can’t remember them.”
“Don’t force it. You have to come at this thing from the side, not head on. It’ll all fall in place eventually. Maybe when we get to Akyre.”
Cricket put down the fruit and drew her rass skin cape around her shoulders. She looked tired, but restless too, like she wanted to keep talking.
“There’s one thing I remember,” she said. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the memory. “A waterfall. Maybe a river, but I think it’s a waterfall. I can see myself there.”
“In Akyre?” I asked.
She closed her eyes completely. “Yes. Definitely Akyre. I can see it, kind of.”
“What else do you see? Are you alone?”
“I’m…”
She struggled, holding her breath. And then she opened her eyes and looked at me.
“Can we go there, Lukien?”
“Where? You don’t even know if it’s a river or a waterfall.”
“We can find it. Akyre’s not a big country. We could ask around. We could do that, right?”
She was fixated suddenly and I didn’t understand it. “Sure,” I told her. “We could do that.”
Like a charm, the promise calmed her. She leaned back against the ridge. “Now it’s your turn,” she said. “Tell me something you remember.”
“You’re an imp. It’s late. I don’t feel like talking.”
“Ah, you’re always making excuses. You have as many secrets as I do, Lukien.” Cricket smiled at me. “I just want to know about you, that’s all. Not just the stories everybody says about you. Not just how you lost your eye. Before that.”
“Oh. When I was your age, you mean.”
Her brown eyes blinked at me. I couldn’t escape. So I settled back and told her what life was like for me before becoming “the Bronze Knight.” I told her about growing up in the streets of Liiria, about how I lived by stealing food and keeping warm at night by breaking into stores. My mother had died before I was old enough to have memories of her. But when it came time to tell her about my father, I had to stop. What could I say about a man who left me to fend for myself? Who one day decided that life was too tough for him?
“There’s only one way a man should leave his family,” I said finally. “By dying.”
Cricket looked baffled. “He just left you? Out there on the street?”
I couldn’t look at her. I stared at the moon. “Right.”
“Didn’t you wonder what happened to him? Didn’t you try to find him?”
“You mean beg? You can’t beg someone to love you, Cricket. I decided it was easier to hate him. Now…” I stood up and brushed the sand from my trousers. “It’s late and I’m tired. More next time, all right?”
As I walked toward my bedroll, Cricket said, “Lukien? You think I’ll ever be able to remember stuff like that?”
All of a sudden she sounded like a little girl. And I was the closest thing she had to a father.
“Yes, I do,” I told her. “When you’re in a stronger, safer place, you’ll be able to remember. That’s why I’m here. So we can find that place together.”
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Meet John Marco!
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer. I have early memories of pounding the keys of my sister’s typewriter, writing my first stories and dreaming of the day I’d be published. I managed to reach that goal back in 1999 with the publication of my first book, The Jackal of Nar. Since then I’ve had six additional books published, and more are on the way.
Contact Info
Website: website
Social Media: Facebook | Twitter
Want to purchase John’s novels?
Eyes of God
Skylords
Tyrants and Kings
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Contest Time!
Thank you John for taking the time to stop by Literary Escapism!
John is giving away a shiny new Kindle ereader to one lucky winner!. To enter, all you have to do is answer this one question: What do you think happened to Cricket’s memory? How do you think she lost it? Remember, you must answer the question in order to be entered.
Even though I’m not giving the additional entries any more, you can still help support the author by sharing their article, and this contest, on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere you can. After all, the more people who are aware of this fabulous author ensures we get more fabulous stories.
The winner must post a review of the novel someplace. Whether it is on their own blog, Amazon, GoodReads, LibraryThing or wherever, it doesn’t matter. Just help get the word out.
The contest will stay open until April 8th at which time I’ll determine the winner with help from this snazzy plug-in that I have.
Sounds like she lost it to a bit of post traumatic stress disorder to me.
I think “trouble” was/is a person. I think she knew something about why the area is called “bitter”, and maybe something that could have saved it. Or she will have the ability to save it, and they had to take her memory and leave her with only enough to get her to the waterfall…
I think that Tommy-Lee Jones wiped Cricket’s memory clean with his memory stick.
Cricket may have lost her memory from a traumatic event or maybe even from something magical. I can’t wait to find out!
Hmmm, I think it’s a game she’s playing and she really hasn’t lost her memory at all. A darker plot of a sinister mastermind, perhaps…? Or maybe the desert fried her brain, either or. Preordered and ready to rock!
I love John Marco, awesome guy and wish him the best for his new Novel.
I believe cricket lost her memory due to the trauma experienced after of a gang of youths tried drowning her in the river she is now trying to seek.
Can not wait to continue the story of Lukien!
That being said, I think Cricket knows more than she is letting on, but luring Lukien to the Bitter Kingdoms for some unknown reason to Lukien.
I think she was molested by either a person or a group of people and lost her memory to cope
Big fan of this series, love how epic and grand the stories are told… One of my top series and excited to see it continued!
Anyway, like others have said, a traumatic experience left her with memory, and maybe she saw the death of her family, like she was a feuding baron’s daughter, and an opposing warlord came along and murdered them all, save for her, and in her escape (over a waterfall or in a river?), she falls unconscious and loses those memories.
-Russ
Someone was trying to kill her and in escaping, hit her head on a rock, fell in the waterfall and got carried downstream.
I would lean towards traumatic experience, but things are never quite so simple around Mr Marco… She saw something that she should not have, is actually a much more important person in the Bitter Kingdoms, or elsewhere and was kidnapped and memory wiped to keep the plot from unraveling too quickly
I think she lost her memory is a poker game.
I think She lost it due to a magical battle
I’m guessing Cricket might have lost her memory in a fight, maybe she was hit by a bad spell or maybe just hit on the head.
I think Cricket saw something she wasn’t suppose to, perhaps something illegal/ or someone being murdered in Akyre and she lost her memory by hitting her head on rocks near the waterfall when trying to escape.
She witnessed the slaying of her family, maybe at or near the waterfall. She escaped by going over or maybe even thrown by her mother or sibling to try and save her, but there is definetly more to her then anyone realizes, even herself.
I think she lost her memory by a bad event that was caused by a spell…
I think she’s faking it to spy on the others.
It may be a third party is involved. They somehow (magically, maybe) caused her memory loss. Intentionally planting her for Lukien to find and help, to bring him to them. Wether she is aware of it or not, is another question all togeather, but either way, the intentions are of ill.
I think that she may have stole/saw something and was caught by one of the barons from the Bitter Kingdoms. They tried to kill her, but she was only seriously injured and lost her memory.
Trouble
I think Cricket lost her memory due to stress, of a traumatic experience. Since it’s told she was found starving in Akyre, which are close to the Bitter Kingdoms she might have been imprisoned there by one of the blood-soaked barons. She might have known important stuff and they imprisoned her as well as tortured her. Cricket seems reluctant to talk, and that might be of the stress and the remembrance that if she talked back and/or slipped any of the information she would get hurt. Thus the stress and the need of survival, of keeping quiet, made her forget and the words to just be there on the tongue but never clear enough to be spoken.
Okay, let’s try this: She didn’t lose her memory because she never created memories prior. She, in that form, didn’t exist prior.
I don’t know enough of the story to tell if she ever suffered severe physical trauma, or the type of magic in this world that might make some form of ensorcelment possible. Emotional trauma is certainly possible if a somewhat common explanation. If that’s the case, then getting her memories back should be very bad.
I think Cricket witnessed something horrific. Maybe her Parents or Guardians murder because of the way she reacted to Lukien’s father abandoning him. Her Parents/ Guardian/ Family didn’t willingly leave her, they were taken from her. Whoever took them must not have known about her witnessing it because she’s still here. I think her magical powers are linked to her memory and the moon but maybe she ddn’t get a chance to develop or learn them from her family, parents or guardian. Her memory might have started to take some hits there with the loss of those close to her. I also think Trouble might be a person or a group of people or animals, I don’t know but more than your basic definition of mischief but they are troublesome, bully like. I’m leaning towards bully. She probably got into a lot of fights if they were scrounging for food in these bitter kingdoms, although I don’t think she initiated them. Wouldn’t she have gotten knocked around a time or two over a scrap of bread? I think that’s how Cricket lost her memory , getting her head slammed into something probably over food. I wonder if her last happy memory was at the waterfall or if someone in the past had taught her that the waterfall was a meeting place, a safe place, a place to do with her powers. She sees someone/thing in her dreams there, someone/thing she doesn’t want Lukien to know about. I know I wrote way more than I needed to but you’ve got me hooked and now have to go find that book…