Hero in the Shadows (Drenai Series) » (Reissue)

David Gemmell was born in London, England, in the summer of 1948. Expelled from school at sixteen, he became a bouncer by night, working nightclubs in Soho. Born with a silver tongue, Gemmell rarely needed to bounce customers, relying on his gift of gab to talk his way out of trouble. This talent eventually led to a job as freelancer for the London Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, and Daily Express. His first novel, Legend, was published in 1984 and has remained in print ever since. He became a full-time writer in 1986.

The ruined city of Kuan Hador reeks of dark mystery. Shunned by brigands and merchants alike, it is home to fearsome wild things and legends that freeze the blood—tales that speak of slavering white beasts, locked behind a powerful wall of spells, who possess an insatiable appetite for death. Millennia have passed since they were bound, and the spell of imprisonment has begun to fade. Soon the foul minions will be free to wreak a horrible vengeance against all that lives.

But no army waits to oppose them, only a ragtag group of unlikely heroes. Leading them is the mysterious Gray Man, an enigmatic figure with a blood-drenched past who has killed for principle and for payment—a man of destiny known throughout the lands of the Drenai as Waylander the Slayer . . .