Challenger's Call

A sports injury robs Wes Malcolm of his scholarship and his future. When every treatment fails, he falls asleep — and wakes in another world governed by its own rules, where he can grow and thrive. But this world and its sister planets are under assault from nightmare creatures. The world's steward offers him a deal: save her worlds and earn power he can bring back to heal himself on Earth.

A cry for Wes Malcolm's death — as a traitor-prince — follows him across worlds, and a new breed of Hordebeast has taken up the call. Wolf-men now hunt him as an escaped convict and false teacher, while he fights not just for his own freedom but for prisoners he has rescued from a dungeon on a ruined world. To survive, he must unearth explosive secrets from another age.

Wes Malcolm has wrested Avalon back from men, monsters, and false gods. His next battle takes him to the Woadlands, a planet besieged by two simultaneous cataclysms: winter fey seeking to smother it in eternal frost and an alien cancer gnawing at the ancient trees that power the world's magic. His earthly enemies have spent decades sabotaging the natives' every chance at survival — but the Challenger of Avalon refuses to accept defeat.

Wes Malcolm arrives at the world of the Sun-Jeweled Seas, but the cataclysm has already passed. Darkness blankets the waters, nearly all the people have vanished, and something dark and burning hunts the survivors. Having rescued two worlds and received the power of cosmic dragons, the Challenger refuses to accept this as a loss — not while there is still a shore left to fight for.

The darkness fell, but Wes broke through it. Now an ancient power demands he accept his victories and turn back — go no further. But his people, his throne, and the woman he loves are still on the other side. Wes chooses war against the powers reigning in the supposed heavens.

War and assassination come to the Golden Sands — and Wes Malcolm brings them. Having slain the mage responsible for arcane storms across three worlds, he now moves to drive the remaining tyrants out of the desert world. His foes have finally recognized him as a true threat and created hunters designed specifically to end him. What follows will be a matter of knives in the night.

Wes Malcolm has put an entire age of terror to rest, but the Golden Sands harbors older nightmares. A lord from a lost age — where dragons and fiends vied for dominion — has arisen, wielding an authority akin to Malcolm's own. There can be only one crown over Avalon's worlds, and the Challenger will not share it. As he rises to this new challenge, a vision from the past offers him the history of how these wars began — and how they might end.

Three worlds still remain in the hands of madmen and monsters. Wes Malcolm descends again into Avalon's depths, where an ancient rite of power corrupted by forgotten nightmares puts his authority to the ultimate test. He and his retinue must venture into the territories of giant creatures who would rule Avalon with iron claws — and wrestle away the power he needs to save the remaining worlds.

Wes Malcolm arrives on Pangea, the fourth world he has sworn to save, and finds that ancient beings long dormant have awakened — powerful enough to compel the planet herself to grant them audience. To save Pangea, the Challenger must first prove himself stronger than its former tyrants. And so he enters the Trial of Horns.

Wes Malcolm has conquered the Trial of Horns and expelled the Malus Order from Pangea, but the ancient king of the Beastlands has awakened: a giant with command over the elements, beasts, and even the dead. The Challenger and Lord of Avalon must now pit his might, magic, and allies against the first lord ever to conquer Pangea. Throne shall battle Throne.