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THEY ARE FOUR - the scribe, the outcast, the stranger and one only half human.

But the storm-lashed little band in its pathetic wooden boat is the last hope of a dying people devastated by plague and famine and ravaged by a desperate army of marauding cutthroats.

Delticos, Kadrik, Bantius and the Man Half Made battle tyranny and lies, epidemic and dark superstition armed with only raw courage and the wisdom of ages to save a doomed race from extinction.

Peter Tomlinson throws us back into the mists of memory when the earth was young, yet old; simple, yet complex; gentle, yet violent, in a satisfyingly self-contained novel that is also the pinnacle of his acclaimed Petronicus Legacy series.

The Voyages of Delticos closes a circle of a ten-generation saga in which sages and warriors stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a war against ignorance and savagery to save the ancient world from an eternal dark age.

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The land is ravaged by plague and famine, savaged by desperate, starving renegades, terrorised by the mysterious race of Men Half-Made, and in the grip of crippling superstition.

Here, fatherless Kadrik grows to manhood and to the chilling realisation that he - armed only with ancient stories he has committed to memory and a few shards of strangely marked broken pottery - holds the clue to salvation.

In this self-contained sequel to his acclaimed THE STONES OF PETRONICUS, Peter Tomlinson sets his second tale in the saga ten lifetimes on when, after a long, dark age of stagnation, the land is in its death throes and Kadrik must break the hold of a powerful but backward brotherhood of scribes to save it.

Tomlinson follows Kadrik, with his insatiable thirst for knowledge, through a troubled young adulthood as precocious apprentice to the wise men of his community to the discovery of jealously guarded secrets … and on a perilous mission to reveal the hidden truths that are his people's only slim chance of survival; secrets sealed by the death of his mysterious and legendary ancestor in the mists of tribal memory.

THE TIME OF KADRIK is an unforgettable journey of profound wisdom, rare courage and breathtaking adventure from a world class story teller whose magical pen leaves a memory on each and every page.

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A new-born baby is left naked and exposed to die on a city wall while his father is hanged for petty theft a few feet away amid the cheers and hoots of a crazed mob.

Petronicus, an itinerant healer and man of wisdom, takes the babe to heart and together they begin a quest for knowledge, groping through a maze of magic and madness to find answers in the cruel and mysterious ancient world.

The boy grows to manhood in strange lands where a chosen few risk death in their search for truth, bitterly opposed by ruthless rulers and puppet priests who strive to enslave their subjects in a perpetual Dark Age of superstition and suspicion.

The heart-warming, honest but complex simplicity Petronicus and his adopted son share leave the reader wiser than when he joined them on their remarkable journey.

Not since the Fables of Aesop has a book like this been written. And Tomlinson wraps the sage advices in the tales Petronicus tells in a story as intriguing and exciting as any high-octane thriller - with characters so real you'll meet them time and again in your dreams … and your nightmares.

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