The scar

Egert is a confident member of the elite guards, and he is also an egotistical philanderer. His arrogance has a price. In a duel he kills an innocent student, and the death sets the rest of the book in motion.

A mysterious man known as "The Wanderer" confronts Egert afterwards and cuts his face with a sword. The wound leaves a terrible scar. It also carries a curse of cowardice, which strips away the nerve his whole life was built on.

Egert sets out on a long odyssey to undo the curse. The road is painful and leads him down a dangerous path, and the man who began it is not the one who has to walk it.

This is fantasy that reaches past sword and sorcery. It follows two people broken by disaster, through despair and back toward love and courage. The tone is dark and ominous, and the question it turns on is whether a coward can earn his way back.