History Literature / TheTraitorSonCycle

The Red Knight might not have a name he'd wish to share, but he has much more - good birth, money, tactical brilliance, skill with magic, experience, loyalty of his men and hideous amounts of luck. But what should have been a routine monster hunt turns into something far more dangerous, and the wyvern is far from the only - or the most dangerous - monster plaguing the woods of Lissen Carak. Somebody's pulling the strings...

** [[spoiler: The Wyrm of Erch]] interacts with people in human form, under the name of "Master Smythe."

** Father Ricard, sent as a chaplain to Red Knight's company, is a brilliant knight and sorcerer himself - in fact, he belongs to a militant order.

* BarbarianTribe: The hill men are a more heroic barbarian tribe of Scottish highlander expies. The Outwallers on the other hand encompass some of the primitive traits of this trope, including fighting in little more than loincloths and body-paint and the odd bout of cannibalism - although they're mostly based on American Indians.

* BizarreAlienSenses: Dragons have some sort of echolocation-like magic sense - their roars resonate through the ethereal, letting them home in on their prey.

* CharmPerson: The Powers of the Wild - the most powerful magic users - can bend the minds of Wild creatures to their will.

** Pavalo Payal's weapon is a double whammy - it's both an AbsurdlySharpBlade and a Fell Sword.

* DarkSecret: The Lissen Carak abbey is this for the church - all women there are hermeticists, and they have an [[spoiler:interdimensional gate]] under the convent. By book two, though, it's pretty much an OpenSecret.

* GoKartingWithBowser: The King tells Desiderata at one point a story of how, on Christmas Eve, Harndon was visited by a group of Faery knights - with whom Alba was at war at this point - and rather than have a battle, the king and Tapio had a tourney on a frozen lake.
* GodsHandsAreTied: The Wyrm of Erch has very little influence and power outside his Circle around Inn of Dorling - not to mention his policy of non-interference, though that goes out of the window once [[spoiler:Ash starts to plot mankind's destruction]].

* GreenEyedMonster: Sir Jerent resents the Red Knight's captaincy for two reasons - the Red Knight being a nobleman and Sir Jerent has over a decade of experience as a mercenary while the Red Knight has only five years under his belt. Bad Tom points out, though, that Jerent lacks the charisma and money to be a respectable military captain.

* HappyPlace: The hermeticists' mind palaces work this way - they're ethereal locations, usually based on the place the sorcerer feels the most comfortable, where memories, power and spells are stored. Time in them flows much more slowly than in the real world, so the Red Knight often uses his mind palace to think, relax or simply back away to when a difficult situation comes up.

* HumansAreBastards: Both Thorn and [[spoiler:Ash]] believe this, though for a different reason - the former considers humans to be a pest infesting the perfection that is the Wild, while the latter is convinced that men are little more than animals, and it takes only a slightest push for them to turn into monsters.
* HumansAreWarriors: Of the "Humans are Soldiers" variety - at one point, Thorn argues that humans shouldn't be underestimated, because they're experts at making war. [[spoiler:Ash]] scoffs at that, but Thorn is later proven right.

** The armor used by many characters - the coat of plates, the intermediate armor between mail and full plate - is also rarely depicted in fiction.

* {{Knighting}}: Starting with Sauce, at least OncePerEpisode, some members of the Red Company are knighted - Red Knight has a habit of making knights of people before or after bigger battles. The formula is always the same, and always wrapped up with someone smacking the newly-made knight on the back and advising them to never take another blow without retribution.

* LovableRogue: Bad Tom is very deserving of his nickname - he's a scroundel and a man you ''definitely'' don't want to meet in a dark alley - but he's unflinchingly loyal to the Red Knight and saves the day more than once.

** The Red Knight is initially a mid-level practitioner of magic of the Wild, but an expert warrior. However, he has been deliberately neglecting his magic in the hopes that his powers would atrophy from disuse, and the rare times he uses magic it's done in secret - although by book three, circumstances force him to be more open with it, turning him into a good example of this trope.

* MagneticHero: The Red Knight is almost superhumanly good at commanding loyalty and making friends - Gavin notes at one point that after being with the company for merely a year, he already feels like he's belonged with it since its inception.

** The Sossag have names that are meaningful in their language - for example, Ota Qwan means "Take Life", and he's a warrior, while Nita Qwan is "Gives Life", in memory of how he made a DealWithTheDevil to save Ota Qwan's life.

** Upon joining the Sossag, Peter is given - and eventually adopts - name Nita Qwan to mark his new allegiance.

* MonstrousCannibalism: Many predatory creatures of the Wild are known to eat members of their own kind - it's not uncommon to find bodies after the battle eaten by the boglis even while the fight was still raging around them.

* TheMultiverse: The world the story takes place in is apparently one of many "spheres", as the Wyrm of Erch calls them, with various creatures of the Wild - and possibly humans - having arrived on it from other spheres. [[spoiler:The main conflict of the series is revealed to be for control over interdimensional gates that lead to seven other spheres.]]

* PetTheDog: In the first book, when de Vrailly's angel orders him to [[spoiler:let the King of Alba die in an ambush]], de Vrailly's horrified and instead [[spoiler:acts as the King's body double, almost dying in his place.]] Unfortunately, the angels spins it as a SecretTestOfCharacter, thus further securing de Vrailly's loyalty.

* PortalDoor: There are seven interdimensional gates in the world, leading to other spheres. The two we've seen directly so far - in Lissen Carak and Daar As Salam - look like large and ornate door.

* PunchClockVillain: When he's introduced, Kronmir works for the duke of Thrake, but doesn't have anything against the Red Knight, and doesn't go any further than what his boss orders him to - in fact, he eventually bails out and sells his services to the Knight.

** Master Smythe is introduced as very promicious, only to reveal in the final book that [[spoiler:every human magister is blood-related to him after a thousand years of sleeping with as many women in almost every part of the women in order to breed magical abilities into the human race to make them better able to fight Ash.]]

** Double-subverted with Bad Tom. He's outwardly very Christian, but eventually reveals that it's mostly just to avoid annoyance - because he's actually a devoted follower of Outwaller goddess Tara.

** The newly-appointed Gallish archbishop of Alba, who's more evil - and less ideologically motivated - than Jean de Vrailly, and who's not-so-subtly implied to be [[spoiler:cooperating with Ash, without the "angel" facade the dragon has put up for de Vrailly]].

* ToServeMan: Much like they have no taboo against MonstrousCannibalism, the creatures of the Wild will often eat humans - sometimes while the battle said humans have been killed in is still raging around them.

* UnresolvedSexualTension: Between the Captain and Amica. Both have an obvious attraction to each other - which they acknowledge - but the nun remains true to her vows.
* UnwittingPawn: Jean de Vrailly eventually turns out to be this - while he's trying to save Alba, his "angel" is playing him like a fiddle for his own ends.

* VillainousFriendship: The King of Alba (who's on the darker end of the grayscale) and Jean de Vrailly are very good friends - in fact, as de Vrailly laments [[spoiler:after the King is killed (he's the only person to honestly mourn the King, too)]], they might be each other's {{Only Friend}}s.

** Thorn eventually learns to do this, [[spoiler:thanks to Ash powering him up.]] He can turn into both made-up creatures and real animals, but seems unable (or unwilling) to mimick appearance of others.
** Dragons can take on variety of forms, with the "natural" one being a giant lizard - the Wyrm of Erch takes on a form of human most of the time, and [[spoiler:Ash]] loves him some humanoid BodyHorror.

** A male version of this - the Emperor of Morea is the most beautiful man in the world on account of being a product of generations of intermarriage between beautiful princesses and princes from different countries around the world. Sadly, he appears to be as dumb as he is beautiful.

* EnemyMine: On several occassions, forces of Man and Wild side with one another against Thorn's forces. Eventually, [[spoiler:it turns into a full alliance, and they stop being enemies.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Jean de Vrailly is horrified when his companions kill a group of enemy knights from afar with crossbows, givng them no chance to defend themselves and thus denying them an honorable death. He also curbs a lot of the archbishop's more horrifying ideas.

And so begins the story of The Traitor Son Cycle, an epic fantasy series by Miles Cameron (a pseudonym for Christian Cameron) which has four books so far, with the fifth and final one forthcoming:

* ZergRush: What the Wild lacks in tactical expertise, they make up for with superior numbers.

* AnyoneCanDie: Numerous well-established PointOfView characters can be killed in a single sentence and most aren't even mentioned anymore. [[spoiler:Including the Red Knight himself in the final chapter of the last book.]]

* AnyoneCanDie: Numerous well-established PointOfView characters can be killed in a single sentence and most aren't even mentioned anymore.

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: At the end of ''The Plague of Swords'', [[spoiler:Amicia]] overexerts herself magically and Ascends, vanishing into the athereal. It's unclear whether she becomes some kind of a ghost or is simply absorbed into the flow of magic. [[spoiler:And in ''The Fall of Dragons'', Gabriel himself.]]

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: At the end of ''The Plague of Swords'', [[spoiler:Amicia]] overexerts herself magically and Ascends, vanishing into the athereal. It's unclear whether she becomes some kind of a ghost or is simply absorbed into the flow of magic.*[[spoiler:And in ''The Fall of Dragons'', Gabriel himself.]]

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: At the end of ''The Plague of Swords'', [[spoiler:Amicia]] overexerts herself magically and Ascends, vanishing into the athereal. It's unclear whether she becomes some kind of a ghost or is simply absorbed into the flow of magic.[*[spoiler:And in ''The Fall of Dragons'', Gabriel himself.]]

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: At the end of ''The Plague of Swords'', [[spoiler:Amicia]] overexerts herself magically and Ascends, vanishing into the athereal. It's unclear whether she becomes some kind of a ghost or is simply absorbed into the flow of magic.
[[spoiler:And in ''The Fall of Dragons'', Gabriel himself.]]

# ''The Red Knight'' (2013)
# ''The Fell Sword'' (2014)

* CourtMage: Harmodius fills this role, as did his mentor and predecessor Richard Plangere [[spoiler: before he became Thorn.]]

** Hoek is the Netherlands, specifically the Dutch Republic with them known primairly for being [[ProudMerchantRace merchants.]]

** Ifriquya clearly resembles Northern Africa. Even its name is based on an Arabic spelling of Africa.

# ''The Fall of Dragons'' (TBR in 2017)

* TheHeavy: Despite [[spoiler:the Odine]] being the main antagonists of ''The Plague of Swords'', the biggest obstacle in the heroes' path is [[spoiler:their pet undead dragon]].

* HeroKiller: After [[spoiler:Ash manifest fully in his dragon form]], he kills more of the named cast within the first fifteen minutes than all other villains over the previous three books.

* TautologicalTemplar: The archbishop's justification for employing one of the hermeticists (whom he considers evil), is that he's a man of God, and God has used Judas to advance the cause of good before.

** Nita Qwan and his wife are a happy couple despite being married pretty much by accident and not knowing each other's language for the first few months of their marriage.
* HairTriggerTemper: Thorn is an incredibly powerful magician, but he's also easily provoked and prone to sudden emotional outbursts, resulting in a number of serious tactical blunders during his siege of Lissen Carrak. He seems to learn from his mistakes, though, as he's notably more composed in his later appearances.

* VillainousFriendship: The King of Alba (who's on the darker end of the grayscale) and Jean de Vrailly are very good friends - in fact, as de Vrailly lamnets [[spoiler:after the King is killed (he's the only person to honestly mourn the King, too)]], they might be each other's {{Only Friend}}s.

* TheSiege: The main plot of ''The Red Knight'' centers around a pair of sieges. One takes place in the barely-defended city of Albinkirk, the other in the heavily fortified nunnery of Lissen Carrak.
* {{Sssssnaketalk}}: Tapio Haltija talks like this.
* TheSpymaster: Kronmir, an expert spy and owner of a fairly extensive network of spies and assassins, provided he has time to build it first.

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: The Qwethnethog, who serve as the guardians of the Wild, are called demons by most humans, but seem to resemble large [[RaptorAttack dromaeosaurids]] more than anything else.

* TheMarvelousDeer: The cream of the crop of Irk cavalry rides deer to battle.

* MagicKnight: The Red Knight is initially a mid-level practitioner of magic of the Wild, as well as an expert warrior. However, he has been deliberately neglecting his magic in the hopes that his powers would atrophy from disuse, and the rare times he uses magic it's done in secret - although by book three, circumstances force him to be more open with it.

* ImAHumanitarian: Many predatory creatures of the Wild are known to eat not only humans, but also members of their own kind - it's not uncommon to find bodies after the battle eaten by the boglis even while the fight was still raging around them.

* MonsterKnight: Tapio Haltija, also known as the Faerie Knight, is a powerful and famed Irk warrior who rides a giant white stag into battle.

* HeroicBastard: The Red Knight is the illegitimate child of [[spoiler: Ghause Murien and her brother, the current King of Alba.]] While he despises the idea of God and is highly blasphemous, he has deeply held morals and works to restrain the worst inclinations of his mercenary band.

* Foreshadowing: The tournament the King wants to organize is mentioned since early in book one, when the Queen convinces him to make one. It's mentioned time and time again thorughout book one and two, and eventually comes to fruition in book three.