King's Shield

Indevan-Dal was the second son of the Prince and Princess of Choraed Elgaer. It had been Inda's fate, as second son, to be his family's Shield Arm and spend his adult life protecting the lands his brother would one day inherit - and since Inda was a true military prodigy, he enthusiastically embraced the fate that life seemed to have in store for him.
Although unequaled in military strategy among the boys his age, Inda was perilously naive regarding the intrigues and politics that surrounded the court of the king. And unfortunately for Inda, there were powerful factions in the royal court that were equally committed to seeing him fail, and his entire noble family fall to ruin.
So, by the time he was eleven years old, Inda found himself implicated in the death of a classmate - a classmate whose life he had actually tried to save - and forced to make an impossible choice. He could perjure himself and admit complicity where none existed, thus compromising his honor, and possibly sparking a civil war between his father and the king, or he could simply ... disappear.
Smuggled to the coast by allies of his family, Inda was thrust from his home and all he had known, exiled to sea, and warned not to reveal his identity or even his nationality.
For eight difficult years he had been at sea, using an assumed name, forcing himself never to think of all he had lost. And he had created a successful new life, for the military skills that had been trained into him and his inborn leadership ability could not be erased. Inda had eventually founded his own mercenary marine company, dedicated to protecting merchant vessels from the marauding bands of pirates that plundered the waters. And by the time he was nineteen, Inda had earned a reputation for defeating the most dangerous pirate fleet in history.
But when Inda discovered that his home country was about to be attacked from the sea by an ancient enemy, he threw his carefully guarded anonymity to the winds and returned home. Warning his homeland of an imminent attack was an honorable reason to end his exile, and he planned to throw himself on the king's mercy.
After nearly a decade at sea, Inda found his home utterly changed. The king, the crown prince, and most of the royal cabinet had been assassinated, and his old classmate Evred, the formerly powerless and harassed younger prince, was now king. Inda, overjoyed to see his good friend again, expected forgiveness and welcome - but Evred had bigger plans for Inda. For Evred had heard of Inda's martial accomplishments at sea, and was determined to make Inda his Royal Shield Arm - the person in charge of defending his entire kingdom.
Though Inda was an accomplished military leader, his experience was exclusively naval - and it had been eight long years since he was trained in ground combat. Could a former pirate captain alter his tactics to become a successful ground commander in time to save his endangered homeland?