Something is stirring in the land, something more ominous than the rising threat of hostile nations. The events that follow propel Aedan on a journey that only the foolhardy or desperate would risk, leading him to the gate of the nation’s royal academy – a whole world of secrets in itself.īut this is only the beginning of his discoveries. But for Aedan, a scruffy young adventurer with veins full of fire and a head full of ideas, this officer is not what he seems. He leaves plenty of mysteries to be solved in future volumes while including a good deal of action, intrigue, and growth for his protagonist.When a high-ranking officer gallops into the quiet Mistyvales, he brings a warning that shakes the countryfolk to their roots.
Renshaw mixes a school tale with dungeon crawls and political intrigue, then adds unexplained events and the well-depicted struggles of an abuse victim surprisingly, all these threads are woven together at the end. Then Aedan is summoned by Prince Burkhart to take part in an expedition back to Kultûhm. Friends, attractive girls, and bullies all appear in due course, as do adventures into the academy’s forbidden areas. His father abandons the family, so Aedan enters the marshal’s academy, hoping to learn enough to avenge himself on the Lekrans.
When others living nearby accuse Aedan of abetting the slavers, he and his family leave home and make a lengthy journey past the abandoned fortress of Kultûhm to the southern city of Castath.
None of this enables Aedan to save his friend, Kalry, when Lekran slavers raid the isolated farmstead where both of them live. Aedan is a precocious lad barely out of boyhood, but he has a knack for strategy that’s far beyond his years, and his abusive father taught him the skills of a forester. Renshaw’s enjoyable debut, set in a low-tech fantasy world, ably combines some standard fantasy tropes with more unusual plot elements.
0 kommentar(er)
