Stricken Field, The (Dave Duncan) - [Handful of Men, A 03]

Paranoid but almighty, the sorcerer Xinixo had seized control of the Impire. But ruling the imps and most of the world was not enough. He would never feel safe until he was universally loved, so he would smash everything and then rebuild the whole world in his own insane image. Who could resist him?

King Rap of Krasnegar and Shandie, the rightful imperor, were still at large and determined to resist the evil, however slender their chances. Their one, faint hope was to enlist the help of the remaining free sorcerers of the world, those not already spellbound by Xinixo. Their quest soon ran into disaster. Their messengers were betrayed or ensnared. A rampaging goblin army had captured Shandie and was about to torture him to death. Rap was mired in a tropical jungle, hoping his wife and children were safe back home in Krasnegar. They were not in Krasnegar and certainly not safe.

As the flames of war raged across Pandemia, news of the disasters penetrated even into Thume, the Accursed Land. Outsiders believed that the pixies had been extinct for a thousand years, but they still lived there, hoarding their magic. Their ruler, the Keeper, adamantly refused to meddle in events outside her borders, but one young pixie girl was prepared to rebel against the ancient order . . . 

From Publishers Weekly

The future appears increasingly bleak for those few still free to oppose the secret rule of Warlock Zinixo in this sequel to Upland Outlaws . Emshandar V, Imperor of Pandemia, and Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar, along with her twin teenaged children, Kadie and Gath, have been taken by the goblins, led by charismatic Death Bird. Inos and Shandie convince the goblin sorcerers of the danger posed by Zinixo, but then must persuade their captors to let them get the dwarves to join the new protocol that bans votarism--the virtual enslavement of sorcerers by those more powerful--doing away with Zinixo's power base. Far away, the faun King Rap, Inosolan's husband and once a demi-god, convinces the trolls' most powerful magic makers, as well as those of the cannibal anthropophagus, to join the fight against Zinixo's powerful concentration of sorcerers, the Covin. But the real weapon is revealed in the slowly unfolding tale of the pixie Thaile. Duncan's tale is laden with gloom and premonitions of doom, but the reader is irresistibly drawn further into the lives, loves and travails of appealing--and unappealing--protagonists.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

While a false ruler sits upon the Opal Throne as the puppet of a mad sorcerer, the real Imperor, Shandie, and his allies roam the land in search of magical support. Four separate story lines carry the protagonists closer to their goal in this sequel to The Cutting Edge ( LJ 9/1/92) and Upland Outlaws ( LJ 4/15/93). Duncan's talent for storytelling grows with each tale he tells. Most fantasy collections will want this title.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.