Book excerpt: Having dispatched the recent threat to the ancient city of Hardened with a steel toe-cap up the rear end and the pointy bit of a dagger in its eye, the Wielder Tan Skulks finds himself promoted to high office. With new responsibilities come new opportunities and Skulks finds himself challenged by mad wizards, a master thief and on top of that, someone is most definitely trying to kill him. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s a top-secret mission which only a man of Skulks’ calibre has any hope of completing. Dastardly miscreants are everywhere and it’s a good job Skulks is one of them, because it’s going to take all his powers of cunning, guile, stealth and outright thievery to emerge from this one moderately unscathed. Can he face the Demon King and come up smelling of roses and stolen coins? This book was originally published under the author name Max Anthony.