She was right. I loved it!

"This isn't a brutal story about death and slavery." I told her. "Well it is, …BUT… It's so much more than that! It's a love story."

The Book was about a violent vicious woman warlord who begins to change after meeting a small dark woman who practices magic.

(Sound familiar? The book was written more than ten years before a certain television program ever aired.)

(Familiar image again, no? <grin>)

I didn't have to think twice about buying the book. My love affair with Shkai'ra and Megan had begun.

In this book a jaded and embittered Shkai'ra has been exiled from her nomadic home for several years. Working as mercenary, she is between battles and relaxing in a public bath, when she meets Megan, a runaway slave from across the mysterious Lannic Ocean. As luck would have it they are in adjoining rooms in the same inn. In the middle of a stormy night Shkai'ra hears a scream from the next room and breaks down the door only to find her friend from the baths in the grips of a violent nightmare.

I couldn't put it down. It was wonderful. Strong female characters that made their own destiny and fell in love in the process. I felt like Mr. Stirling and Ms. Meier had written it just for me.

I was in the public library a few years later when I happened to find a book in a rack of paperbacks, written by Shirley Meier, called "Shadow's Daughter"*. I hunted every bookstore in town until I found a copy of my very own. (Cover art by Larry Elmore)

This book was by a different publisher, but I knew the main character like the back of my hand. It was the story of Megan 'before' becoming a slave and her adventures with Shkai'ra. It chronicled her life growing up in the streets of a large city and the hardships that lay there, eventually leading to her betrayal by her Aunt and the fight to be her own woman only to be betrayed again.

The series of the Fifth Millennium had begun in earnest.

While the main story remained the same, the subtle differences I found made the book a richer and more believable experience. In "…Edge" the characters were intimate from the outset. In "Saber and Shadow" the romance was allowed mature slowly, in keeping with the character I knew from "Shadow's Daughter" who had been sold into slavery, raped, beaten and betrayed, who had to learn to trust someone enough to allow them touch her.

It was like looking at the same picture only painted with slightly different colors.

If I thought the first books were good, I was pleasantly surprised that this one was ten-fold better. The imagery and the action was real in my mind as I tagged along behind Shkia'ra and Megan in their quest to bring to justice the man who had betrayed the smaller woman and sold her into slavery. I got to meet with Megan's family and her extended circle of friends that grew to become and army for the greater good.

The Cage is a double metaphor. Megan builds a cage of iron, and one of hate, all designed for a man who had stolen everything from her. To say less or more to someone who hasn't read the book would be criminal. You simply have to read it to know how bloody terrific it is.

*A clip from the book "The Cage" by S.M. Stirling & Shirley Meier. Baen books.

(Shkai'ra and Megan are the last to leave a celebration…)

...Shkai'ra drew on the pipe; Megan looked up to see the quick glow of the ember outline the eagle profile.

"Thank you, my love," she said. "The winter river and F'talezon will be easier, with this to remember." She let her head roll back. "It's time to leave... Didn't I see Sova being carried out around an hour ago? Rilla and Shyll are gone, and Annike and..."

"If you think it's time to sleep, kh'eeredo," Shkai'ra said gently, with only a trace of slurring to her voice.

She had near twice the body mass to absorb it, after all, Megan thought. "No, lifemate mine. In a few hours. Right now I have a very strong desire to make you very happy--" she wiggled her shoulders against her companion "--and luckily, I know a way."

Shkai'ra chuckled and touched her on the tip of the nose. "This was supposed to be your treat, kh'eeredo. And you usually get too sensitive to be touched after the first few."

Tonight isn't usual. Tonight I'm going to do what I want, everything I want and nobody's going to stop me, even myself."

She smiled openly, a slow grin like a wicked child's. "You can carry me upstairs, for starters."

In "Shadow's Son Megan and Shkai'ra go in search of Megan's son, who was taken as a baby from his mother while she was still enslaved. News comes to Megan that her son is still alive in a land embroiled in the middle of a bitter Dispute with two great armies clashing together in devastating war. In order to reach their son, the two women sell their services to the Great General and King, 'Chevenga', a mysterious man of great gifts, leader of the Yeoli. (Cover art by Darrell Sweet)

…Spoiler alert…

The aspects I liked best about this novel were the relationship between Shkai'ra, Megan and their adopted daughter 'Sova' who has followed them into battle against the will of her mothers, and the selfless heroism of Shkai'ra in risking her life to find a son she has never met.

Book II continues in "Lion's Soul"* chronicles the continued fight for the Yeoli. There is some mention of the characters in the first books but it is brief. (Both Books, cover art by Larry Elmore)

Both of these books are well written and encompass the entire life of the main character, his birth, his capture and subsequent slavery where he endures torture and ring fighting. (I will never think about wisdom teeth in quite the same way ever again.) I was endeared to the main character's capacity to love both the lovers in his short life and his people as a whole. Karen Wehrstein has created a totally human hero with talents and flaws in the setting of the Fifth Millennium, who lives and breathes as each page is turned.

(In retrospect, I could see Karen's influence throughout the entire series, after reading these books.)

**

I only wish I could say there are more books…

…But who knows, nothing is impossible.