Part of Series
There is more than one history of the world... "In a barbarous age in a world now forgotten, an extraordinary figure stood formidable on the European battlefield—a remarkable female warrior and strategist without equal...save one." Dijon, the once-proud capital of Burgundy, has been pounded into near submission. The merciless soldiers of the Visigoth Empire stand hungrily at the gate, and at their fore, the beautiful, deadly Faris, unwittingly bred to tbe the instrument of a machine intelligence that seeks the end of humanity. The sun gutters weakly overhead like a dying candle, as the Wild Machines once again flex their dark, demonic power. Ash, like her warrior twin, hears the Wild Machines' call—but unlike the Faris, Ash will not be their tool. For within Dijon's crumbling walls a fragile hope has bloomed: one who bears in her royal blood the ability to hold the dread Machines at bay. But defeating their dark plans will take a miracle—and ultimately, only Ash herself stands between Burgundy's implacable enemies and all humanity.
Author
This author also writes under the pseudonym of Roxanne Morgan Excerpted from Wikipedia: Mary Gentle's first published novel was Hawk in Silver (1977), a young-adult fantasy. She came to prominence with the Orthe duology, which consists of Golden Witchbreed (1983) and Ancient Light (1987). The novels Rats and Gargoyles (1990), The Architecture of Desire (1991), and Left to His Own Devices (1994), together with several short stories, form a loosely linked series (collected in White Crow in 2003). As with Michael Moorcock's series about his anti-heroic Jerry Cornelius, Gentle's sequence retains some basic facts about her two protagonists Valentine (also known as the White Crow) and Casaubon while changing much else about them, including what world they inhabit. Several take place in an alternate-history version of 17th century and later England, where a form of Renaissance Hermetic magic has taken over the role of science. Another, Left To His Own Devices, takes place in a cyberpunk-tinged version of our own near future. The sequence is informed by historically existing ideas about esotericism and alchemy and is rife with obscure allusions to real history and literature. Grunts! (1992) is a grand guignol parody of mass-market high fantasy novels, with orcs as heroes, murderous halflings, and racist elves.
