A Tale of Heroic Promise

by Jason M. Waltz 
(forward to Return of the Sword)

      I am excited about this book you hold. It is my belief no finer compilation of heroic tales of action and adventure exists.

      Herein lie sensational records of legends old and new, myths forgotten and freshly spun. Here be tellings of the spectacular and the supernatural – and the grotesque and the grim. For alongside the glories and triumphs of heroics come acts desperate and mundane. It is not all fanfare and beauty.

      Return of the Sword contains adventure at its most basic. Heroic tales of adventure. Heroic persons do not plan heroics. They simply react and do those things that need being done, sometimes despite their own goals, most often in conjunction with those basest of all desires – the pursuit of women, wine and wealth enough to procure more of both.

      True heroes are usually found in the grit. In the muck and grime of the battlefield; in the commonplace of the tedious. They are the everyday people pounding out survival who inadvertently protect the welfare of others in spite of disgruntled disclaimers they but protect their own interests. They are dirty. They suffer domestic in-tranquility and shortened life spans. They do not seek praise, though it often comes as a by-product of their deeds – it is less desirable than coin. What heroes do is simple to describe and hard to live: Heroes continue to do the ordinary in extraordinary times and do the extraordinary in ordinary times.

      Being heroic does not make one fearless. On the contrary, it is fear that makes one act heroically. Fear demands a choice be made, an intent declared. Fear is to heroics what light is to darkness: there is no such thing as the latter – just less of the former. Heroes are those courageous enough to act despite their fear.

      Whether that means standing up to a horde of marauding Vikings . . . to an army of jackbooted thugs . . . or to a gang of schoolyard bullies. Whether it means denouncing slave markets and gladiator combats . . . or racism, censorship, and public malfeasance. Heroes are those who choose to face their fears, to struggle through them, fight through them, and finally triumph over them. Sometimes triumph.

      Winning isn’t a requirement for being a hero. Many a hero has fallen mid-combat, often without anyone knowing until the battle is over. The result is not necessarily important, though the more successful the victory the more beautiful the heroics, the louder the praise. But not every hero wins public accolades or even bears a famous name.

      Who witnesses the personal struggles through soul-searching gut-checks that require immediate action? Who is there to see the silent triumphs . . . followed by the shattering failures? For that’s the other part of this heroic equation. Heroes aren’t always ‘heroic.’ It’s not a default title. At any given moment they face the same choices those less heroic – those more fearful – do. Both must decide to be brave, to move forward, to do an action regardless of the potential cost . . . or not.

      Heroes are those who continue to do the ordinary in extraordinary times, and to do the extraordinary in ordinary times.

 ~ ~ ~

      Return of the Sword is the flagship of the new “Rogue Blades Presents” series of anthologies and collections published by Rogue Blades Entertainment. Our mission is to meet the continuous need for quality adventure entertainment. Yes, the need.

      Society has a deeply rooted want for tales of the heroic. Heroic adventure enables readers to vicariously triumph over not just ‘the bad guy,’ but over the guy who’s holding us back, keeping us down. Over the guy who is us – but ‘worse’ than we are. Heroic literature is clearly not about life’s elites, nor is it about the very well-defined war between good and evil, white and black. It is about battles in the gray and the people in the middle. About the common people performing the uncommon: surviving.

      Humans need to be reminded such possibilities endure. The storytellers who once orally passed along generations of these tales no longer exist. Yet there are still storytellers in the world – twenty-four of them right here inside this book.

      Our storytellers have shared the tales and art that burned within their souls and coursed within their veins, demanding to be heard. These stories aren’t just strings of words accumulated for the sheer production of it. This art isn’t just pixels and hues randomly combined. All are exclamations of discourse designed to reveal passionate meaning and force each reader, every viewer, to lay claim to a heritage of heroism.

      Looking for heroic adventure? Turn the page for twenty opportunities to relive your life without once leaving your easy chair, without once risking it all like each of the following protagonists. If you’re not drenched in the sweat of fear and battle lust, panting for breath in the aftermath of survival, exhausted from the never-ending slinging of steel, and flushed with the adrenaline of victory upon finally closing the back cover – well, then, you haven’t learned how to really live!

      I dare you to bare steel and stride forward. I promise you will not be disappointed.

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