A Fantasy Epic
The UnseenAlliance
On the continent of Gor'tharak, orcs and goblins are not monsters. They are peoples with histories stretching back ten thousand years, fighting a war they cannot afford to lose.
Webleedthesamegreen.Wewillnotforgetthatagain.
— Grukk Ironjaw, at the signing of the Accord of Ashes
The Story
When the accord breaks,
everything burns.
For over a century, the Greenblood Accord has held the seven orc clans and twelve goblin warrens together — a fragile alliance forged in desperation against a human empire that wants them extinct.
Every generation, they gather at the Moot of Bones to renew it. This time, the Moot erupts into murder.
Warchief Draghur — the only leader everyone trusted — is dead. The goblins are blamed. The Accord shatters. And as the greenskin peoples tear themselves apart, the human empire marches.
In the wreckage, three unlikely allies must build something new. A warrior who hates war. A spymaster forged in shadow. And an alchemist who descends into lightless caverns and finds something that has been waiting for ten thousand years.
Three Fragments of One People
Before there were names,
there was only the One Folk.
Pushed to the surface
The Orc Clans
Seven great clans with five millennia of warrior tradition. Their skin hardened, their tusks grew, as if the stone they'd lost was trying to grow back within them. War-poets, bone-carvers, and smiths whose ironwork humans wouldn't match for millennia.
Caught in the tunnels
The Goblin Warrens
Twelve underground cities connected by tunnel-roads spanning the continent. They discovered black powder three thousand years before humans. Their culture is meritocratic: status earned by what you've made, not who you were born.
Merged with the stone
The Underthings
They sank deeper, merged with the living rock, became something no longer quite flesh. Their consciousness pooled around the surviving heartstones. Forgotten for millennia. Now they are waking. And they remember everything.
The hatred between them is learned, not innate. The Unseen Alliance is the first step toward remembering what was lost.
The Peoples of Gor'tharak
No one is simply good or evil.
Grukk Ironjaw
The Reluctant Leader
“A warrior who would rather talk than fight.”
Skitter Quickfang
The Spymaster
“No more shadows. We burn them all.”
Needle
The Scholar
“Goes where no one else will go.”
Brakkar
The Usurper
“A man with reasons that almost make sense.”
Mira
The Matriarch
“Fights a siege with her newborn on her back.”
King Aldhelm III
The Calculated King
“Faith is a tool. Like any tool, it serves the hand that wields it.”
What this book is about.
A story told from the other side of history — where the monsters have names, the heroes have blood on their hands, and peace costs everything.
Moral Complexity
Heroes commit atrocities. Villains love their children. The reader decides who deserves forgiveness.
Political Intrigue
Seven clans. Twelve warrens. One dying accord. Everyone has an agenda, and the wrong handshake starts a war.
Perspective Shift
Humans are the invaders. The story belongs to the peoples that history usually writes as monsters.
The Cost of Peace
Peace is not a reward. It is a price. And someone will pay it in full.
Ancient Secrets
Beneath the world, something vast remembers a time before the races were divided. It is waking up.
Found Family
A warrior, a spy, and a scholar who should be enemies. They build something worth dying for.
What Readers Are Saying
Early reactions.
“Genuinely gripping. The political intrigue rivals Abercrombie, but the heart of it is entirely its own. I couldn’t put it down.”
“I’ve never rooted for orcs before. Now I can’t imagine reading fantasy without them. Grukk Ironjaw is one of the best protagonists I’ve read in years.”
“The worldbuilding is staggering. It feels like Tolkien if Tolkien had let the orcs tell their own story. Absolutely brilliant.”
About the Author
David Walsh
David Walsh writes fantasy fiction that puts the so-called monsters centre stage. A lifelong fan of epic fantasy, he spent years building the world of Gor'tharak before writing the first word of The Unseen Alliance.
When he's not writing, he's reading Abercrombie, Erikson, or Martin — and arguing that orcs deserve better. The Unseen Alliance is his debut novel and the first book in a planned five-book series.
Buildsomething,boy.Don'tjustholdtheline.
— Warchief Draghur to Grukk Ironjaw