Age of Swords
The Legends of the First Empire series, Book 2
Michael J. Sullivan
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, the humans of Rhuneland looked to the Fhrey as gods, and godlike indeed they seemed to be: tall, elegant, often living three thousand years, masters of all manner of unknowable arts, and bearing both unstoppable metal blades and unbeatable magicks. That was before the coming of the God Killer, the young man Raithe who, helped by an escaping slave, killed a Fhrey lord. He fled to the walled hilltop village of Dhal Rhen, and it was here that humans, a band of renegade outcast Fhrey, a friendly giant, and a young mystic girl who had somehow learned the trick of elven magic threw back the forces of Fane Lothian of the Forest Throne.
That insult will not be allowed to stand unchallenged.
When the fane's reprisal levels the village and calls for genocide against the whole human race, Raithe, newly risen clan leader Persephone, and the rest of Dhal Rhen's surviving citizens flee southward. There, Persephone means to do something no chieftain has managed before: unite all the human clans, even the wild northern warriors, under one keening. It's their only chance against the coming war. But they'll need more than numbers and a leader to win against Fhrey magic and Fhrey weapons. There's not much they can do about the former - only the wildborn girl Suri has ever managed Fhrey-like magic - but the latter may have a solution, across the waters in the stony halls of the dwarfs. But they are a mistrustful race that already lost a war with the elven Fhrey, and handing over armaments to humans will almost certainly bring the wrath of the fane down upon them again. It will take daring, cleverness, bravery, and more than a little deception to get them to part with their treasures.
Meanwhile, back in the Fhrey capital, Prince Manwyndule, the spoiled son of Lothian, chafes under the thumb of a father who still sees him as a child. He longs to exact revenge upon the whole of the human race for striking down his friend and mentor at the battle of Dhal Rhen, even as he seethes over how his former teacher turned traitor to help the upstarts. When he encounters a secret society of other young men and women of his kind who feel, as he does, that the magic-wielding Miralyith tribe are truly the superior of all the Fhrey, akin to the gods themselves, and should be worshiped as such, he faces choices and temptations that could deliver everything he dreams of - or turn into his worst nightmare.
REVIEW: This year, I'm making a conscious effort to follow through on some series I keep telling myself I'll get back to "someday". Having enjoyed Sullivan's Age of Myth (despite not having previously read any of his Riyria books, which this series is evidently a prequel to), I figured this is one of those "get back to it" series worth following up on. I was also in the mood for a nice epic fantasy. Fortunately, this book both scratched that epic itch and lived up to the first volume, making for an enjoyable read (or listen, this being another audiobook).
It picks up more or less where the previous book left off - just as Fhrey magic (and attacking giants) deliver the fane's answer to the battle in the previous book, with lightning and hail and tornadoes. In the aftermath, with barely one stone left atop another in what was Dhal Rhen, chieftain Persephone - who, by chance, encountered a trio of dwarfs while fleeing for her life - only grows more determined that the only way to save her people is to rally the rest of her species against the Fhrey. Several familiar faces return, with a few new ones picked up along the way, as the clan treks southward to the coastal village of Dhal Tirre... but what they find is not the welcome they had hoped, and uniting the clans seems almost impossible from the start, even without the fractious northern clans involved (yet). It doesn't help that most won't take her seriously as a chieftain because of her gender. They'd rather have the God Killer, Raithe, as their keening... but he still rejects all efforts to drop big responsibilities onto his shoulders. As far as he's concerned, the war is already as good as lost: few among the humans even have so much as copper blades, no match at all for the bronze of the Fhrey, even disregarding the problems presented by Fhrey magic. Persephone, however, refuses to give up, a drive that leads her into the forbidden stronghold of the dwarfs with a group of young women, the Fhrey woman Arion (still endeavoring to teach the young mystic Suri how to use her unexpected abilities), and the trio she met earlier, who were not as honest as perhaps they should have been about what awaits the humans. Meanwhile, back among the Fhrey, the spoiled young princeling seethes at still being treated like the child he so often behaves like, making him the perfect patsy when targeted by schemers with their own ideas on the future of the ancient race.
As before, the story doesn't have too much down time, moving along almost from the first page with plenty of action and intrigue, punctuated by moments of emotion and humor and wonder. As in the first volume, there are familiar tropes at play, but for the most part they're interesting and work here, though some of the side characters can feel a bit flat. Overall, though, it makes for a solid continuation of the series, retaining that nice, old-school epic fantasy feel and sense of wonder without feeling at all stale. I'll be looking forward to the third installment.
You Might Also Enjoy:
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Age of Myth (Michael J. Sullivan) - My Review
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