As always, these creatures are found in the wild. No auctions, no Amazon. Only dingy shelves that smell of dust and dragons.
❝ Nothing ruins a nice castle staircase like seven armed men disagreeing about succession ❞
🦉 Author ➠ Katherine Kurtz
🎨 Cover Artist ➠ Darrell Sweet
🎭 Publisher ➠ Del Rey / Ballentine
❤️🔥 legend lore check
Darrell Sweet skips the dragon entirely and gives us something arguably more dangerous: medieval politics with swords drawn. The whole cover is one beautifully staged bottleneck with stone walls, banners, steel, bodies piling onto the staircase, and everyone apparently convinced that constitutional procedure is best handled at blade point. It fits Kurtz’s Deryni world perfectly, where magic matters but bloodlines, church power, royal legitimacy, and very human ambition can be every bit as lethal. Pure early-’80s fantasy intrigue: less dungeon crawl, more palace coup before breakfast.
✨ spell effect
Casts Hold the Landing. Duration: until somebody falls over the railing.
Love it - at least as much as I can any DK Sweet cover. This is the cover I first bought for this book - the first edition was picked up later second hand. I can’t remember if I kept both now …