Moonscatter

Warrior woman Serroi finds herself at the center of a deadly magical contest between a goddess and a dark wizard in this thrilling sequel to Moongather.
 
Moonscatter is the second volume of prolific American fantasist Jo Clayton’s Duel of Sorcery Trilogy, carrying readers back into the richly imagined fantasy world of Moongather*,***and into the heat of a warrior woman’s desperate battle to save it from annihilation by the most terrible wizard of the realm.
 
As a young child, Serroi was held in thrall to Ser Noris, the powerful and villainous mage who saved her from certain death only to exploit her as a tool in his unholy experiments in necromancy and demonic possession. After being cast aside, she became a chosen warrior of the meie, though nightmarish memories continue to haunt her. As for the dark sorcerer, his power and malevolence have since increased a thousandfold. Having achieved eternal life, no evil in this world can compare with his, and now Ser Noris, bored with a lack of worthy opponents, has challenged the Goddess herself, She who lives at the center of all things.
 
Only Serroi can truly recognize the terrible depth of the darkness that is overtaking her world. And as she sets forth on a desperate quest to locate the last remaining power capable of defeating Ser Noris’s insidious plot—the enigmatic and wildly unpredictable hermit Coyote—a young girl in a faraway village, whose fate will soon be intertwined with Serroi’s, is coming of age in a time of violence and fear.
 
But what chance do mere mortal heroes have when faced with malevolence so powerful and brazen that it dares to take on a goddess, and would obliterate an entire world on a whim?
 
An enthralling epic tale of courage, destiny, swords, and sorcery, Moonscatter stands at the center of an unsung classic high fantasy trilogy that proves Clayton once again to be the artistic and imaginative equal of revered contemporaries Andre Norton, Jane Yolen, C. J. Cherryh, and other greats in the field of speculative fiction.