Heir to the Sand

by John F.D. Taff

The sequel to The Cloud Gatherer begins several years after that book. Haran, now Sultan of Oas and Entana, has married Qeemah and they are expecting a son. But pressing problems vex his reign. The water problem in Entana, the reason for that city's attack on Oas that resulted in Haran's ascendancy to Sultan, has grown worse. And there seems to be nothing to correct it. There simply aren't enough Gatherers to go around. Then, tragedy strikes. Qeemah and Haran's infant son is kidnapped soon after his birth and spirited from the city. Haran, distraught, assembles a group of his best men to find the boy, led by the dour wizard, Thepses. What they learn chills their blood. For the baby has been kidnapped by the Sen, a mysterious and crafty race far to the south of Oas, across the desert Stormground, the huge alkali flats of the Anvil and the tangled swamp known as the Morass. There, strange magics are worked on the child, for he is to serve a purpose.an evil purpose. Haran and his men must travel this dangerous route, seeking allies and fending off enemies. While he approaches Sen, though, they send their own armies north, seeking battle with Entana and Oas. Qeemah and her advisors, outnumbered by a vastly superior army, are forced to contemplate the unthinkable.abandonment of their desert home and defeat by an unstoppable foe.

500 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

John F.D. Taff is a multi-Bram Stoker Award short-listed dark fiction author with more than 30 years experience, and more than 100 short stories and seven novels in print.

He has appeared in Cemetery Dance, Eldritch Tales, Unnerving, Deathrealm, Big Pulp and One Buck Horror, as well as anthologies such as Hot Blood: Seeds of Fear, Hot Blood: Fear the Fever, Shock Rock II, Lullabies for Suffering, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Behold!, Shadows Over Main Street 2, Horror Library V, Best of Horror Library, Dark Visions Vol. 1, Ominous Realities, Death's Realm, I Can Taste the Blood and Savage Beasts. His work will appear soon in The Seven Deadliest and I Can Hear the Shadows.

His novels include The Bell Witch, Kill-Off and the serialized apocalyptic epic The Fearing. Thunderstorm Books and Grey Matter Press will release a one-volume version of The Fearing in 2021, in limited edition hardcover, soft cover and digital. Short fiction collections include Little Deaths: The Definitive Collection and Little Black Spots, both published by Grey Matter Press.

Taff's novella collection, The End in All Beginnings, was called one of the best novella collections by Jack Ketchum and was a Stoker Award Finalist. His short "A Winter's Tale" was also a Stoker Finalist.

His upcoming anthology Dark Stars, a tribute to that seminal '80s work Dark Forces, will be published by Tor/Nightfire 11/2/21.

His website is at johnfdtaff.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnfdtaff.