Falcon 4: The King’s Treasure by Mark Ramsay

Falcon 4: The King’s Treasure
by Mark Ramsay
1983 Signet

Draco Falcon and crew are hired to transport a royal treasure and a betrothed princess through bandit territory. Some more flashbacks to Falcon’s time in the Middle East. Well written but a lesser effort - strictly small scale, low stakes.

Ends with an excerpt from the next installment Greek Fire, which was never published, and something I’ve never seen before, a marketing survey.

Available from Amazon

The Falcon 3: The Bloody Cross by Mark Ramsay

The Falcon 3
The Bloody Cross
by Mark Ramsay (John Maddox Roberts)

Draco Falcon travels to Paris, participates in a jousting tournament, and becomes King Philip's bodyguard. A lot of exposition on Templars, papal power, and currency. Like Renegade, this series has a good balance of pulp action and historical verisimilitude, but this one is a bit heavy on the explainy side.

Paperback from AbeBooks

The Falcon 2: The Black Pope by Mark Ramsay

The Falcon 2
The Black Pope
by Mark Ramsay (Jon Maddox Roberts)
1982, Signet

Draco Falcon and his mercenary band stumble across the Black Pope in the pagan backwoods, one of the murderers of Falcon's father now runs an unholy order of knights who worship Baphomet. The order terrorizes small villages, gang raping boys in blasphemous sacrifices before eating their flesh.

Falcon is captured, escapes, hooks up with a pagan priestess, organizes a village defense, and leads a castle siege. We also get some flashbacks to Falcon's time as a galley slave where he endured years of sexual abuse. Between the PTSD, malaria, and being struck by lightning, Falcon regularly snaps into a berserker rage until he his calmed down.

Excellent, but too short. Each segment could be three times longer, especially the siege.

Paperback from Amazon