The Thousand Names
In a scorching desert colony at the edge of a crumbling empire, the Vordanai Colonials are a demoralized, forgotten regiment—until a religious uprising drives them to the coast and a mysterious new commander arrives to take charge. Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich is brilliant, unreadable, and rumored to be interested in far more than restoring order. Under his command, the ragged army must march back into hostile country against overwhelming numbers.
The story follows two soldiers caught in Janus's wake: Captain Marcus d'Ivoire, a dutiful officer who wants nothing more than to keep his men alive, and Winter Ihernglass, a ranker hiding a secret that could end her career and her life if discovered. As the campaign grinds through heat, blood, and mutiny, both begin to suspect that their commander is hunting something buried in the desert—an ancient power that the modern world believes is only legend.
The Thousand Names is the first book in Django Wexler's Shadow Campaigns series, a landmark of "flintlock fantasy" that fuses Napoleonic-era military adventure with slow-building sorcery. Meticulously plotted and grounded in the grit of soldiering, it launches an epic of politics, war, and magic.
A soldier hiding that she is a woman in the ranks, with secrets of her own.
A dutiful, cautious captain trying to keep his men alive.
The brilliant, inscrutable colonel with hidden aims.