The genesis of A Duel of Evils came from a historical anecdote related at one point in Tower Lord, Book 2 of the Raven’s Shadow trilogy. Lord Verniers, a historian of some repute, briefly describes the fall of the city state of Kethia as an example of heroic leadership. I had originally wanted this section to be a bit longer but kept it short for pacing reasons. With Tower Lord complete and off to my editor, I started thinking about how Verniers would have approached telling the tale of Kethia’s fall. History has been a passion of mine since childhood and it was a fun idea to present the imaginary history of the Raven’s Shadow world through the prism of an historical text rather than the conventions of prose fiction. In doing so I drew a great deal of inspiration from the Punic Wars, which climaxed in one of the first true city-battles in history when mighty Carthage was raised to the ground after a protracted street-to-street and house-to-house assault by Roman legionaries. I also wanted to convey the depth of the backstory that comes to fruition in the main trilogy, so fans of the series will surely find a few nods to future events in the tale of Kethia’s dark fate.