Second Rain

the woman’s would-be abductors claim to be soldiers from the capital, arresting a witch. Thing is, though, witchcraft hasn’t been seen as a problem for centuries, and capital soldiers are forbidden in the rural provinces. So the soldiers wind up arrested themselves, and shipped off to the nearest city for prosecution. They never arrive. Their bodies are found later, mangled as if by some superhuman force. Things get stranger from there.

The witch-hunters won’t stop. Lifelong friends from the local militia and frontier rangers set out to investigate. What they find doesn’t add up: smugglers running poison, women going missing all across the borderlands, and a public witch trial in the capital city arena.

Nothing makes any sense, least of all the presence of a half-giant in the arena dungeon, guarding the accused. His kind were last seen fifteen hundred years ago, serving the devils who plunged the world into the chaos of the Long Rain, a time of unceasing storm, flood, and war.

The trail of the witch-hunters leads across states and seas, through archives, asylums and apothecaries, to corrupt officials seeking power from a source they cannot control.

Something tracks the investigators on their long journey. Friend or foe, they cannot tell, but it doesn’t seem human. Their greatest fear is that whatever’s happening is somehow a prelude to something worse.

Could the devils of the Long Rain have returned? Last time, it took more than humans to stop them.

So what hope is there for a small group of friends?