Written by David Weber
Read by Oliver Wyman
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 96 Kbps
Unabridged

For centuries, the world of Safehold, last redoubt of the human race,
lay under the unchallenged rule of the Church of God Awaiting. The Church
permitted nothing new - no new inventions, no new understandings of
the world.

What no one knew was that the Church was an elaborate fraud - a high-tech
system established by a rebel faction of Safehold's founders, meant
to keep humanity hidden from the powerful alien race that had destroyed
old Earth.

Then awoke Merlyn Athrawes, cybvernetic avatar of a warrior a thousand
years dead, felled in the war in which Earth was lost. Monk, warrior,
counselor to princes and kings, Merlyn has one purpose: to restart the
history of the too-long-hidden human race.

And now the fight is thoroughly underway. The island empire of Charis
has declared its independence from the Church, and with Merlyn's help
has vaulted forward into a new age of steam-powered efficiency. Fending
off the wounded Church, Charis has drawn more and more of the countries
of Safehold to the cause of independence and self-determination. But
at a heavy cost in bloodshed and loss - a cost felt by nobody more keenly
that Merlyn Athrawes.