Mercy Giver is a character driven fantasy novel, the first of the series, From the East. Playing on action and consequence rather than good or evil, characters find their way through a world of cohesion and discrimination; forced into war by society for society, they try their best to find their place in the world amongst it’s battlefields.

The events of the From the East series take place on Runéa a continent in the Southern Hemisphere of its planet, where ancient Elven Kingdoms have strived for an eternity practicing the magics, the sciences and the arts. However their downfall began when humans were introduced to them as house slaves who cooked cleaned and performed other menial tasks that the Elves had no interest doing, allowing them to further their abilities in any craft they practiced. This was when some in the first few generations of slaves managed to flee from their masters who did not care particularly, since slaves were plentiful and cheap.

Generations later there are countless numbers of Human Kingdoms set up in the uninhabited regions of Runéa, from the Western Deserts to the frozen wastes of the South, their inhabitants strictly against human slavery (while the house slaves known as O’lva wouldn’t care nonetheless). So as two of the Major factions of elves; the Que’denian Empire and the Kressen Kingdoms, enter a major war with each other, lasting thousands of years, humans began making plans to smash the weakened victor…

After a long war of attrition, Que’denians emerged the victors and most of the Kressen Kingdoms fell under the Que’denian Empire, sharing knowledge and cultures while the few more prominent Kressen kingdoms became independent states. This was when an inter-racial war started, humans banding together for a common cause of freeing their O’lvaian brethren launching attacks on Que’denian cities. However, Elven Magic and Combat Expertise honed over millennia crushed them, and continued to do so for dozens of, what the elves would call, ‘rebellions’ or ‘skirmishes’, which would last an average of a year. The elves did not crush them due to their tradition of not taking cities, keeping wars away from scholars and non-combatants. Thus humans would replenish their numbers in a few decades and try again, which ultimately led to the Last War of Elfdom, an 84 year long war against a human leader who understood Elven Tactics and used his knowledge against them. Setting up the New Human Imperial Empire when he took the capitol, he ordered all non-combatant elves into exile so that they may re-pay him for his mercy, then proceeded to systematically exterminate all others of the Que’denian Empire.

Mercy Giver takes place 45 years after that 84 year long war. Elves are now in exiled in the ghost infested jungles of Fleydara, despised and hated by their new human rulers. In this oppressive atmosphere, Gevein, a young elf trained in the ways of an ancient deadly Elven martial art, finds himself drafted into military service as ‘repayment to the Emperor’. Leaving his lover and his home behind, he is drafted with his best friend and ends up with three other draftees, all whom are sent off westward to fight a war beside humans who’d rather see them dead, against an exotic enemy who are just as despised as they are, for a cause that none of them believe in.

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