Swordfighters Tiger and Del return in this all-new swashbuckling adventure — filled with all the dramatic action, danger, magic, and the crackling repartee and verbal fireworks that characterize the national bestselling Sword series. Sword-Born is the latest book in this continuing tale of a powerful friendship that transforms into something stronger, as two strong, opinionated people from very different societies live and fight alongside each other… even as their views of themselves and the world around them change and grow.

Accused of murdering a man the Southern tribes believe to be their messiah, but who is actually the slayer of Del's family, Tiger and Del flee across the deadly Punja desert, hunted by religious zealots and sword-dancer assassins. But evading death by assassins' blades is only one of the challenges they face. For Tiger's sword, Samiel, has been possessed by the spirit of the deadly sorcerer, Chosa Dei—a wizard out of legend with the power to unmake the entire world, a master of evil who seeks to mold Tiger into his ultimate weapon of destruction. Tiger and Del have only one hope left—to find and gain the help of Chosa Dei's equally powerful counterpart and sworn enemy, Shaka Obre. But Shaka Obre has not bee nseen in the world for hundreds of years, and it may be beyond even the combined magical abilities of Tiger and Del to find this wizard who is their only chance for salvation...

For the first time in years, life seems settled for Tiger and Del. They run a school for sword-dancers in the South. They're raising a two-year-old daughter. They collect income from their interest in a thriving cantina. Occasionally Tiger must dance against sword-dancers bent on killing him for forsaking the oaths and vows of the circle, but for the most part it's an idyllic life. Until Tiger's twenty-five-year-old son accuses him of being "domesticated."Thus challenged by his own flesh-and-blood to reclaim his legendary status, Tiger, accompanied by Del and his son, embarks on a journey northwards that will test his sword skill and resolve, and lead him and Del into danger from an old enemy. Though Tiger had forsaken his magic years before, he now faces the choice to reclaim it, and to wield it, in order to save those he loves.

For five long years the land of Homana had been strangling in the grasp of a ursurper king—its people ravaged by strife, poverty and despair; its magical race, the Cheysuli, forced to flee or face extermination at the hands of their evil counterparts, the sorcerous Ilhini. The time had come for Prince Carillon, Homana's rightful ruler, to return from exile with his Cheysuli liege man, free his land from the evil dominantion of the tyrant Bellam and his villainous magicians, restore the Cheysuli to their rightful position of grace, and claim his birthright. To do this, he would not only have to raise an army, but overcome the fear and prejudice of an ignorant population and answer the call of a prophecy he never chose to serve!

He was Tige, born of the desert winds, raised as a slave and winning his freedom by weaving a special kind of magic with a warrior's skill. Now he was an almost legendary sword-dancer, ready to take on any challenge—if the price was right...or if the woman pretty enough. She was Del, born of ice and storm, trained by the greatest of Northern sword masters. Now, her ritual training completed and steeped in the special magic of her own runesword, she had come South in search of the young brother stolen five years before. But even Del could not master all the dangers of the deadly Punja alone. And meeting Del, Tiger could not turn back from the most intriguing challenge he'd ever faced—the challenge of a magical, mysterious sword-dancer of the North...