Blackwood Marauders

Plot Description
Set immediately after the events of the first few chapters of Jaeth's Eye, when Kefier flees the mercenaries at the wake of his friend Oji's death. Blackwood Marauders follows a farmboy, Luc, whose life is turned upside-down when he encounters some of the mercenaries whose own lives were ruined by what appeared to be Kefier's treachery.

Synopsis
Luc is a young man content with life at their farm. A foundling, he feels like he owes everything to the man who took him in as his own. When he realizes their farm is failing, he decides to take the test to join the Hafed military, and is crushed when he fails due to no fault of his own: the professor in charge believes his unknown status as possible Dageian property makes him too risky.

He drinks his sorrows away, and inadvertently stumbles on a crime that results in the death of at least one mercenary, new in town. The mercenary's companions force Luc to assist them. Troubles at home causes Luc to decide to take them all the way to the city of Blackwood, where Duke Iorwin Blackwood is calling for mercenaries to take care of mysterious attacks on some of the villages. The arguments between the mercenaries causes the naive, inexperienced Luc to sign himself up as their leader, which the mercenaries grudgingly agree to in order to keep each other at bay.

Luc manages to kill the creature terrorizing the town, all while encountering mysterious ka-eng and becoming lost in the forest. He returns to town in triumph. Duke Blackwood's daughter, Roena, takes charge of ensuring he gets his reward--which is much more than he bargained for. His success also seems to have reaped more jobs for his crew, who still don't fully accept him as their own.

However, with the client dealing exclusively with Luc, they have no choice but to follow him onto the next mission, which is to extract journals from a library in a lost city. Roena Blackwood follows them. They all manage to work together to get the journals, which is seized by the ka-eng and Luc's mysterious benefactor, who turns out to be Hertra Ylir yn Ferral.

The turmoil between the mercenaries finally break out, causing a rift that ends with Luc's father's death. As he tries to piece his life back together, he learns that the mercenaries' next target is Roena's father, Duke Blackwood. He and Roena fight back to prevent Blackwood's assassination, which is later revealed to be an elaborate ploy by Ylir to secure his company's partnership with Blackwood.

Luc takes the remaining members of the mercenary crew back under his wing and establishes a true group, which Roena later assumes half-ownership of. Together, they become leaders of the Blackwood Marauders.