The Fell Sword By Miles Cameron

The Fell Sword 

By Miles Cameron

It was only in March that I covered The Red Knight, the first novel in The Traitor Son Cycle. So I don't think we need to retread ground on who Miles Cameron is or on the subject of Orbit books. So let me just say that The Fell Sword was published in 2013 and move on.

The Fell Sword opens with our merry company of sell-swords heading into the Empire of Morea, an ancient state that has fallen on hard times. To make things even more complicated, their employer the Emperor is taken hostage by the most powerful noblemen before they get there. Which means their new job is to rescue the guy who hired them and win a civil war against the best army the Morean Empire has to offer. As a cherry on top? The Empire is broke and most of its soldiers haven't been paid in years. So if they want any native support they'll have to pay for it out of their own pockets and hope to make good later. That said, you can't win high stakes if you don't play high stakes and Gabriel, aka the Red Knight and leader of our crew of cutthroats intends to win big. He's not without resources, after all, he is flush with coin after winning a legendary siege in the last book and has the loyalty of a crew of veteran and highly trained killers with a wide variety of skills, is himself a skilled fighter and spellcaster and has a powerful wizard riding along in the back of his head. To counter this, the Imperial Princess they're supposedly working for might be plotting against him, the loyalty of mercenaries is prone to fickleness and he has a powerful wizard riding along in the back of his head (Faust! WAAAAAH You’ve doomed every one of us! Yes that was in the tune of a certain song by Queen.). Why is that an asset and a problem? Well, imagine you have someone who lost their body in your head. They have decades of experience and skill on you and they're perfectly willing to help but they always want to be in the driver's seat. It's not that they don't trust you but they've done this so many times before so why not just get out of the way and let them do it? How long before it's their body and you're the passenger in the back of your own head? That’s something that Gabriel has to balance against the fact that his passenger is literally the most skilled wizard for hundreds of miles around and the only one who can outstrip him for sure isn't human anymore (He is so screwed).

Which leads me to story-line number two in this book, Thorn, the antagonist from the last book has survived and is rebuilding his forces. What he's rebuilding his forces for and why isn't entirely clear because Thorn isn't who he was in the last book. While his power is growing, it's coming at the cost of him coming under the influence of an unknown outside power (I need to sing the Faust song again…). What this power wants is somewhat vague but it's clear that one of its intermediate goals is the end of human civilization as we know it (Well it’s good to have goals. I mean, if that’s its mid-term goal I’d be interested to learn what its long-term goals are.), so it's likely that it's ultimate goal isn't anything good (Are you sure about that? I mean, maybe this human civilization just needs to go, or needs to change somehow? What if their magic feeds off the lifeforce of another universe?{The bad guy uses human souls to power some of his magic. I’m pretty sure he’s not doing this for sustainability reasons}Oh. Never mind. Standard Faustian Bargain then, pretty sure the demonic underworld has standard forms for the contracts...). Along the way though Thorn would like to punish the allies that deserted him which leads us to the third and fourth story-line in this book. Both of them having to do with former allies of Thorn realizing that they aren't done yet with this former man turned demi-god. The first one revolves around an escaped slave who joined a tribe of humans who live in the Wild, the Sossag. The Wild is a land outside of human civilization inhabited by various races, some monstrous and others less so but most willing to hunt and eat humans the same way we do deer. Despite that, some human clans and tribes live very well in the wild. One such example the Sossag are very similar to some tribes of American natives who lived in the Northeast. They live in fortified villages, farm and hunt; and have governing power divided between male and female assemblies. Born with the name Peter, he instead takes on a Sossag name, marries a Sossag woman and works to blend into the tribe and live in peace. However, thanks to Thorn he isn't getting his wish and may just lose his best friend and adopted brother to this new storm. Meanwhile the Jacks, a band of anti-monarchy radicals who barely escaped the end of the last book with their lives find themselves trapped in the Wild (Be strong comrades! Be strong!). With their supplies running out and surrounded by creatures that view them the same way most of us view Thanksgiving turkeys, they're forced to make their own bargains with the powers of the Wild. However, Thorn hasn't forgotten the Jacks either and is preparing to target them along with the Sossag for his revenge.

Meanwhile, back in Alba, the north of the realm struggles to rebuild, central to this is Sir John and Amicia. Sir John was an older knight who had let himself go a bit before the events of the first book but got himself back into fighting trim real fast. He's left as the ranking knight in the North and pushes himself and everyone else to try and keep the lands clear of creatures of the Wild and protect the survivors and new settlers coming in. Amicia is a nun, who is also in love with our main character the Red Knight and is loved by him but won't let herself do anything about it because of her vows. Which is a plot point I like, most modern stories would have Amicia just toss her vows out the window but Amicia means her vows and intents to keep them (Your reviewer and the editor have somewhat different ideas about such things, clearly.). It helps that she's also a sorceress of massive power and growing skill so there aren't many people who can force her to do anything she doesn't want to (You go girl!). Unfortunately, the keeping of her vows leads to one of the people that could bend her, The Red Knight's mother. The woman who wanted her eldest boy to become the bane of humanity but was such an awful person that he decided to become a somewhat heroic figure out of spite. She's also one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world, a politically powerful noblewoman and her husband is one of the greatest warlords in North Alba. I bet you thought your in-laws were tough right? Both Amicia and Sir John are going to have to walk into the heart of their power however to keep the trade lanes alive, because if they don't their town and home withers on the vine.

Further south and deeper in Alba life is still not a bed of roses. The Queen Desiderata is coming under increasing political and social attack. You see, in the last book a small army of knights from Galle - a nation across the sea on the continent where the Wild is but a fading memory - came to Alba under the leadership of Jean de Vrailly. Jean de Vrailly considers himself the greatest knight alive, something a lot of people would dispute but Jean is definitely in the top 1% of best killers alive so disagreeing with him is hazardous. While Thorn might be more dangerous, I honestly loath Jean de Vrailly a lot more. Mr. Cameron is very effective at writing him as a heavy-handed bully armored in a sense of self-righteousness that makes you just beg to have someone slam a hammer into his face (That is what a spike and a hammer are for while he sleeps. Killing someone while their back is turned or they are asleep is the safest way. Such sayeth anti-saint Elim Garak). The Gallish knights were certainly useful when the armies of the Wild were kicking in the gates but now, there's no enemy to point them at and they're ambitious. Jean believes that the crown of Alba has been promised to him by the Lord Almighty and the Queen is one of the obstacles in his path. So he spreads rumors that the Queen has been incredibly unfaithful to the King. Now historically a lot of Queens have been less than faithful to the Kings they've been wed to, but it's incredibly dangerous for that to become a public accusation. Part of this is because bearing the royal heir is a large part of her political duties. Which is an issue because most of the kingdom believes that the King was cursed to be sterile (and he deserved that curse and more bluntly) and the Queen is pregnant. The Queen isn't without friends or powers of her own though, her own magical abilities are growing stronger by the day and that strength has attracted the attention of something old and vast but at least somewhat benevolent. The King, however, instead of standing with the wife who has given him no cause to complain has sent most of the native knights who would defend her off on various missions giving the Galles a freer hand then they would have otherwise. The Queen and her ladies aren't the only ones feeling this, however, nor is Jean de Vrailly acting on his own. The common people of the realm find themselves beset by toughs who ape the Galles, which in this case means going around armed and trying to bully people into letting them do whatever they want via threats of violence. Facing off against them are the armed bands of the various Guilds and the apprentices of various trades as they find themselves under pressure to be more accommodating to the foreign knights.

Jean de Vrailly is just the tip of the wedge here. The King of Galle and his ministers see the chance to reduce Alba to a puppet state or colony and are prepared to pull out all the stops to make it happen. Whether it be through economic warfare by making counterfeit Alban coins that are made from debased metal or hiring their own mercenary army to head into the North of the Wilds and build a base from which to assault North Alba. They have a mercenary army led by a man with his own colorful nickname, the Black Knight: a man whose earned his nickname by having no level he won't stoop to win and now he's loose on the same continent as all the characters we already know and love and looking to make life harder for them. It's like we don't even need Thorn to burn down half of human civilization here. I should note that there are plenty of sympathetic characters from Galle, such as Jean's cousin who is constantly trying to restrain his worse impulses to Clarisse de Sarte, a young woman who has the misfortune to catch the eye of the King of Galle, a man whose gifts do not match his ambitions, to put it mildly. Actually I do have to note that we run into three male monarchs here, the Emperor of Morea, the King of Alba and the King of Galle and all of them are men who are not up to the task of ruling in a time of crisis, and are at the helm of nations experiencing several crises all at once (Such is the peril of hereditary monarchy). Which leaves me wondering... Just how long has whatever is using Thorn been active and just what the hell has it been up to? Because, gentle readers, once is an accident, twice is happenstance but three times is enemy action and we have a wealth of enemies here. That said there is hope in the fact that each of these monarchs has a more capable Queen or Princess around and we’ve got one hell of a bastard aiming himself at all of the enemies of man.

I enjoyed The Fell Sword a lot but was also somewhat frustrated with it. As you guessed from this review there is a lot going on in this book, to the point that 600 pages barely feels like enough and I'm left feeling that there wasn't enough space given to the Morean plot. There was a lot of intrigue and scheming that was left off panel so to speak, and the relationship between the Morean characters and the Alban characters really could have used more space and attention. Those relations aren’t badly written just feeling a bit sparse. Additionally a lot of the plots in these books feel more like set up for the next book (or the one after that) which I don't mind as Mr. Cameron does make an effort to put a good amount of pay off in this book for at least half the storylines, but when the book is this crowded I am left asking if this was the best use of pages? For example, I feel like the story-line featuring the Gallish court could have been moved to the next book and I was left unsure what the point of the story-line featuring Amicia and Sir John was; it didn't feel connected to much of anything going on in this book. Additionally, I'm not sure the story-line with the Jacks was necessary at all. Granted, Mr. Cameron is the writer and I’m just the reviewer but we’re still staring at 600 plus pages here. All the story-lines are well written and honestly, a less talented writer would have been thrilled to have just one of them to hang a good novel off of. I suppose it's telling that my biggest complaint is that it feels like Mr. Cameron is trying to cram three really good novels into a single one but there is it. I do feel that it hampered the pace and robbed space from all the story-lines. I suppose I'll just have to hope that Mr. Cameron starts merging plotlines soon because he does seem to be building up to something amazing and he certainly does have the talent and skill to pull it off in my opinion. However, this continues the problems I had with The Red Knight (although I still recommend both books). So I am giving The Fell Sword by Miles Cameron a B+. I remain hopeful that this series will break into A territory though.

Join us next week as we finally wrap up the Acts of Caine series with Caine's Law by Matthew Stover.  Keep Reading!

If you enjoyed this review and would like to suggest a book for me to review, or just want to show your support.  Consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where as little as a 1$ a month will get you voting rights on what books get reviewed, with a new poll each month.  3$ a month lets you see the raw drafts of the reviews and the full blast of my editor.  Please keep in mind that this review series takes no responsibly for any emotional and or mental damage that results from that.  Thank you.

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders