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Dragon's Tongue (Book 1 of the Demon-Bound Duology) By Laura J. Underwood. Cover art by Mitchell Bentley. Perfect-bound Trade Paperback - 436 pages $16.00 + Shipping Also available in e-book format: Amazon: Kindle

The first in the Tales of Ard-Taebh

Alaric Braidwine, young mageborn bard in training, has no idea that he’s about to become part of a legend. Traveling to Dun Gealach to learn magecraft under the Council of Mageborn, he finds himself drawn into a fiendish plot by a blood mage who wants to be a god.

Alaric gets into more trouble than he ever dreamed possible for when he is accused of smuggling a demon into Dun Gealach, he becomes the target of the High Mage’s wrath. His only friends are the audacious and roguish Fenelon Greenfyn, the mystical Etienne Savala, and her apprentice Shona. Yet even these powerful friends are not enough when Alaric is kidnapped and taken hostage by Tane Doran and his musically-inclined demon, Vagner.

It seems that Alaric has something Tane wants…a key song learned from the famous bard Ronan Tey that tells where the legendary Dragon’s Tongue lies, and Tane will stop at nothing to have it. Suddenly Alaric finds himself playing reluctant hero, for within him is more than the secret of a single song and he wears the mark of the demon.

Now he is hunted by mageborn all over the known world, and unless he can stop Tane Doran and figure a way to free himself from the “gift” he carries, Alaric may not live long enough to write his own ballad….

Laura J. Underwood's Ard Magister is an entertaining story with vivid characters and a refreshing touch of wit.

— Elizabeth Moon, Author of Rules of Engagement, Change of Command, and The Speed of Dark

Other Books in the The Chronology of the Tales of Ard-Taebh series

Novels

• Dragon’s Tongue
• Wandering Lark
• The Black Hunter (electronic edition from Embiid, 2002 / print edition included in Chronicles of the Last War)
• Willowherb (novella in Chronicles of the Last War)
• Ard Magister
• Tales from Keltora
• The Green Women
• Demon in the Bones

Short Fiction and Novellas

• "Shadow Hart" (novella in Keltora, Land Of Myth, an electronic collection of short fiction from Embiid Publishing, 2001)
• "Wyrd" (novella in Chronicles of the Last War)
• Gather My Bones (electronic novella, Jintsu E-Books, 2003)
• "The Dancing Stones of Nevermhor" (novella in Tangled Webs and Other Imaginary Weaving from Dark Regions Press, 2002)