Here is the Donato Giancola painting for Tor's upcoming David Drake book, A World of Mirrors, due out next July. I asked Donato to tell us a little about his intentions with this painting: "Selecting the precise moment to freeze in order to illustrate the tensions of conflict is one of the most difficult jobs in narrative illustration. Rewind the moment too far back and you’ve lost the posturing of battle. Fast forward too much and you've provided the viewer with the resolution. Ambiguity is the essence of what I am after within this context, the placement of the viewer and characters at that pivotal moment when there is no winner or loser. This unknown state allows the viewer to project their own assessment of the variables and guess at a possible future; the image engages and creates a dialog with the viewer. It also propels them to discover the ‘real’ outcome of the narrative, especially if there is an implied resolution as within the pages of a novel, for which this image actually illustrates. Want to know what happens?...I suggest you read the book."