The Shadow Prince

How can it be that a person of flesh and blood should lack a shadow? And why does the enigmatic blind old man known as the Talantine seem to be following him? These are the questions confronting Tupilu, a minor prince of the royal family of Hatti, who, at the age of nine, confronts a shocking discovery about himself. The answers to those questions lie in the astonishing truth about Tupilu's mysterious mother, who died shortly after his birth. But he must wait a further ten years before the Talantine will reveal the whole truth; of the unique and terrifying destiny that he was born to; of the peril facing the world; and of the existence of talkative daemon, Pellilu, whose task is to keep Tupilu safe. Firmly rooted in the richly-detailed history of the Late Bronze Age, The Shadow Prince is an epic fantasy, charting the journey of Tupilu and his most trusted friends, as they attempt to avert catastrophe. It is a path that will entangle him in the cosmological struggle of warring gods and duplicitous daemons, and with conniving politicians and murderous agents of foreign powers. Leaving his home in the Hittite Empire, his journey takes him to the damaged Oracle of Haleb, the court of the powerful King Solomon, and on to an explosive confrontation with Pharaoh Horemheb and his ruthless Visier, Paramessu, and an apocalyptic reckoning amid the exotic grandeur of Kemet (Egypt), in a bid to prevent Sutekh, God of Chaos and Destruction, escaping his Netherworld prison and destroying the fabric of reality itself. 'The Shadow Prince' is he first volume of an epic historical fantasy series, 'The Chronicles of Tupiluliuma'. "Armstrong combines fantasy elements with the stunningly realized real world history of Bronze Age Anatolia and Egypt in the opening chapter of a sweeping narrative that is thrilling, moving and at times funny."