Every volume of The Legendary opens with the same cast page. The layout never changes. Who is pictured does. Some faces disappear between volumes, and some show up for the first time, and that page reveals a lot about the story before you read a word of it.

Volume 2 adds three. Well, two and a half. One of them already walked through Volume 1.

OX

If you read Volume 1, you met him in Part 3, coming off arm day with a beach towel over his shoulder and a bout approaching. Ten feet of Minotaur in black and brown fur, and about as subtle as a freight train.

In Volume 2 you finally get a close look. OX is a Legionnaire on Gunny’s strike team, and he is also the Legion’s CFO, which tells you a little bit about how the Legion runs. On weekends he fights in the sanctioned Titan Class circuit, in public, and he wins. The press loves him. So do his fans, who are known as OX’s herd.

One thing to know before you meet him: you will never read his face. Bulls look the same angry or calm. Watch his hands. He is older than he looks. A lot older. How he got here is in the book.

Bladeline & Trekarn

Two swordsmen in long black coats who have been fighting side by side for four hundred years. They were in France when the musketeers were still riding. They do talk about it on occasion.

Bladeline is the quiet one. Dry wit, reserved, and a gallows sense of humor that will make you laugh at the worst possible moment.

Trekarn is the opposite. Theatrical, charming, always the first to yell out a greeting across the room.

They finish each other’s sentences. They answer in unison. They arrive together, decide together, and leave together, and if you ask them why, you won’t get an answer. They keep a low profile, which for two four-hundred-year-old duelists is its own kind of skill. They are also the first people in the Legion to treat Frank and Take like brothers in arms.

Like everyone else on the cast page, they are based upon real people. The men behind these characters are old friends from the original Legion, and they have read every line their characters say.

Coming up

The full cover reveal is October 24. The Legendary: Volume 2 is out October 31 on Amazon and Kindle.