The Faded Sun
Trilogy Omnibus
(inlcudes: Kesrith (1978), Shon'jir (1979), Kutah (1979)
C. J. Cherryh
DAW Books, January 2000
ISBN:0-88677-869-7 (paperback)
The Classic Nebula-Nominated Trilogy
They were the mri—tall, secretive, bound by honor and the rigid dictates of their striated society. This golden-skinned, golden-eyes race had provided the universe with mercenary soldiers of almost unimaginable ability. For aeons, the kel—the mri's warrior caste—had fought battles on a myriad of worlds against uncountable foes. Sometimes they had even fought others of their own kind. And even then the mri had prospered—honing their skills in proper and traditional combat. Eliminating the weak and unfit, and giving honor to the strong.
But for four decades now they have faced an enemy unlike any other. IN defending the merchant ships and protecting the intergalactic commerce of the elephantine regul, the kel have met the deadliest enemy any mri has every faced—an enemy who does not honor single combat, an enemy whose only way of war is widespread destruction. These "humans" are mass fighters, creatures of the herd, and the mri have been slaughtered like animals.
Now, in the aftermath of war, the mri face extinction. It will be up to three individuals to save whatever remains of this devastated race: a kel—one of the last survivors of his kind; a sen—the priestess and spiritual leader of this honorable people; and a lone human—a man sworn to aid this enemy of his own kind. Can they retrace the galaxy-wide path of this nomadic race back through millennia to reclaim the ancient world which first gave them life?
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