Mordred Soulis

L.G. Burbank presents Lords of Darkness Vol. 1: The Soulless (2004)

Illustrated by Adam Mock

This novel is the chronicles of Mordred Soulis, a mercenary in the employ of King Conrad during the Second Crusade.

The story begins in 1147 AD.

The author uses actual historical events as a basis for the story. For example, there is the disaster at Dorylaeum, where the incompetent Conrad gets almost his entire army wiped out.

Mordred is one of the few survivors of the debacle. For Mordred, it gets worse from there when he is bitten by an unnatural creature, and becomes a weird sort of half-vampire himself.

He then meets Templars who nurse him back to health and send him on his way to confront evil.

In this story, the Templars are the good guys, and elements of the Roman Catholic Church are the villains (sort of like real life?). The chief villain is an ancient evil pseudo-vampire named Vlad who was resurrected by Catholics in a misguided search for immortality.

Saladin has a cameo.

It is an entertaining story, but ends in mid-story after Mordred teams up with a werewolf from Scotland and an ancient vampire who lives beneath The Great Pyramid in Egypt.

I would very much like to read the second book in the series, but even though there are over a million volumes in the Milwaukee County Federated Library System, the second book (Vol 2: The Ruthless) is not one of them.