The Longlight Legacy

The Longlight Legacy is a trilogy of fantasy/science fiction books by Dennis Foon, which consists of The Dirt Eaters, Freewalker, and The Keeper's Shadow.

The story takes place in the future, after a massive war that devastated the natural environment of (presumably) the Americas. The survivors, concentrated in tiny villages divided into clans, are ruled by the Cities, which control all commerce and trade.

The hero is a youth named Roan. He and his sister Stowe are the only survivors of the destruction of Longlight, a hidden and peaceful village on the side of Barren Mountain. Fleeing from the village during the attack, Stowe is taken from Roan by a masked rider on a horse. Roan returns after the massacre and discovers all people of Longlight had been killed and thrown in the Fire Hole. All that remains of his immediate family are his father's old shoe and his sister's trampled doll. Shaken, Roan returns to his ravaged home and finds the majority of his father's books are unscathed. A snow cricket sings to comfort him as he lies on his upturned bed, and he dreams of a brown rat urgently warning him to leave Longlight.

Roan wakes when he hears a motorbike, an object of immeasurable value after the wars, coming from the forest into the ruined Longlight.The rider enters his home and flips through his father's books, introducing himself as Saint. Roan runs from him but is caught and brought unconscious to the encampment of the Brothers, a religious group that worships the Friend led by Saint, called, by the other men, Prophet. Roan is introduced as a favourite of Saint's to the other men, who wishes to learn from him how to read. On his first day at the camp, Roan impresses the combat master Brother Wolf with his combat ability without training: as a citizen of Longlight, Roan was encouraged from infanthood never to use violence or physical force. As well, Roan befriends a low-class brother named Feeder and encounters Saint's drunk right hand, Brother Raven, who seems to enjoy following and spying on Roan, known in the camp as a novitiate.Though he at first plans to stay only a little while before going to look for his lost sister Stowe, Roan stays in the camp for months, training with Brother Wolf, learning meditation and focus techniques from Brother Stinger, and slowly accepting the faith of the Friends. During his evening reading sessions with Saint, Roan is made to again and again reread the conquests of Emperor Qin of China. Saint seems obsessed with the idea of conquering the neighbouring clans, often reenacting successful battles with rocks and playing strategy games with Roan, who finds he is as gifted a commander as a fighter. Roan finds his new training and life with the Brothers conflicts with the peaceful ideologies of his family and friends at Longlight and dreams every night of a mountain lion, a brown rat, and a goat woman, who answer his questions and guide him. A recurring dream is one of only the mountain lion, who attacks Roan and kills him, telling him again and again to fight back. After each death, Roan is revived but cannot seem to fight the lion for fear that he would kill it. Roan has passed the tests of initiation and is now about to be anointed by blood. He finds that Feeder becomes suddenly distant and bitter. During one reading session with Saint, Roan's white cricket leads him to Saint's bedchamber, where Roan discovers an ancient Roman book depicting Roman military religion: inside is a picture of a brilliant god emerging from stone, a dog, a scorpion, and a raven lying at his feet. Roan realizes Saint had created the religion of the Friend based upon the Roman religion. Roan is given a bottle of scorpion beer by Saint to celebrate his thirteenth birthday. That night, he dreams of the mountain-lion, who promises Roan's questions will be answered at a cave by the stream of Barren Mountain. The next day, Roan uses the beer to lure away Brother Raven so he could find the cave by following the stream. In the cave he finds a room full of masks, the largest one of all the red mask of the rider who took Stowe from him that day at Longlight. He also finds that the blood to be used in his anointing ceremony, which would mark him officially as a Brother, would not be from an ox but from a human, and that that human would be Brother Feeder. Roan begins to make preparations to run away from the camp, but, before he can finish, Saint brings to him the apparent 'killers' of Longlight: innocent men the Brothers caught from different clans. Handing Roan a crescent sword, Saint tells him to avenge him family. Instead, Roan runs him through and steals the motorbike, riding into the desert.

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