A land under occupation. A legendary sword. A young man's journey to find his destiny.
A fantasy novel by Chris Wooding, author of the The Braided Path series, the Broken Sky series and The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray. It is the first of a planned trilogy called The Darkwater Legacy.
Aren has lived by the rules all his life. He has never questioned it; that is just the way things are. But then his father is executed for treason, and he and his best friend Cade are thrown into a prison mine, doomed to work until they drop. Unless they can somehow break free . . .
But what lies beyond the prison walls is more terrifying still. Rescued by a man who hates him yet is oath-bound to protect him, pursued by inhuman forces, Aren slowly accepts that everything he knew about his world was a lie. The rules are not there to protect him, or his people, but to enslave them. A revolution is brewing, and Aren is being drawn into it, whether he likes it or not.
The key to the revolution is the Ember Blade. The sword of kings, the Excalibur of his people. Only with the Ember Blade in hand can their people be inspired to rise up . . . but it's locked in an impenetrable vault in the most heavily guarded fortress in the land.
All they have to do now is steal it . . .
Tropes featured include:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Cade's impersonations of various Krodan guards manage a chuckle out of the guards themselves.
- The Caper: The entire third act of the novel features the implementation of the plan to steal the Ember Blade from the fortress of Hammerholt on the eve of a Royal Wedding.
- Caper Crew: The team brought together by fate to attempt to steal the Ember Blade:
- Aren and Mara together are The Mastermind.
- Grub is both The Burglar and The Pickpocket.
- Orica is The Distraction.
- Harod is The Muscle.
- Chekhov's Skill: Cade's ability to impersonate the prison guards enables him to persuade those on watch that nothing is wrong.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Krodan religion worships a single monotheistic deity called The Primus, which has many cosmetic similarities to Christianity, if of a more martial flavor.
- Grub worships the Skull God who seems to be a Crystal Dragon Odin; especially given he's seen as a judge of the dead and crows are sacred to him.
- Death of the Hypotenuse: Aren and Cade both begin to develop feelings for Fen. This triangle is resolved when Cade dies during the escape from Hammerholt.
- The Dreaded: The aptly named dreadknights are the Krodan Empire's most feared weapon, to the point that some people believe that their existence is a ruse to keep people in line. But they're all too real.
- Driven to Suicide: While Keel was never all that stable to begin with and is implied to have had suicidal feelings all his life, his betrayal of Garric is enough to push him over the edge and hang himself.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Beast of Skavengard, and unholy mass of tentacles, eyes and mouths that is trapped on the island-palace of Skavengard. It was summoned from another dimension and slaughtered everyone on the palace centuries ago. Just a glimpse of it is enough to pretty much break Keel's mind.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Both Aren and Keel betray Garric to Klyssen. Aren wants to return home with Cade while Keel has a sick son who can only be healed with an expensive Krodan medicine. The difference is Garric expected Aren's betrayal but not Keel's. As such, Aren's betrayal allows Garric to evade capture a while longer, as Garric gave Aren false information, while Keel's betrayal is what results in Garric's capture.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Overwatchman Klyssen is a ruthless high ranking officer in the Krodan Secret Police who pursues our heroes relentlessly... but he is also a devoted family man who loves his wife and daughters dearly.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Overwatchman Lyssen has no scruples about using torture or employing Humanoid Abominations to hunt his prey, but he scrupulously keeps his promises and firmly believes that he is fighting on the side of law and order. He also consider Harte's bloodthirstiness appalling.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: If the fate of the Sorcerer King Azh Mat Jaal is any indication, the Sorcerer Kings and Queens of Old Ossia brought about their own destruction by tinkering with forces from the Shadowlands that they couldn't fully control.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
- The Krodan Empire is a fantasy Expy of Nazi Germany, with an stereotypical Aryan phenotype, an obsession with rules and regulations, a brutal secret police, and is rounding up an ethnic minority into concentration camps and carrying out a genocide against them.
- The Sards are a combination of Gypsies (traditionally nomadic life, work as entertainers, are despised as thieves) and Jews (ethnic minority living in ghettos on major cities).
- Ossia seems to be based partly on various Celtic cultures with a tradition or irreverent oral stories and druids who travel from place to place serving their gods.
- Fantasy Gun Control: Partially averted. Even though firearms don't exist in the setting, Xulan military engineers have been known to dabble in explosives as siege weapons and Garric's true plan revolves around using a dozen barrels of elarite oil (a dangerous byproduct of elarite mining) as a make-shift bomb to destroy the fortress of Hammerholt.
- Fantastic Nuke: Elarite oil is a highly unstable substance produced as a byproduct of elarite mining operations that can be detonated by any spark and emits fumes capable of igniting the air itself. Eight wine barrels worth of the substancenote can produce an explosion powerful enough to demolish an entire fortress and burn down what is left in a blaze that can be seen hundreds of miles away.
- Ghostly Goals: The ghosts that haunt Skavengard are very much of the Type B variety, given that they deliberately try to kill the protagonists or at least delay them enough that the Beast can get to them and devour them.
- Good is Not Nice: Garric is fighting for the freedom of his people against an evil expansionist empire. However he is very callous about how he goes about it and is willing to carry out a terrorist act that will trigger an all-out war against his own people in order to force them to fight the Krodans.
- Hellhole Prison: The work camp at Suller's Bluff is little better than a death sentence, since the prisoners are forced to work to exhaustion because the Krodans figure its cheaper to get fresh prisoners than it is to properly feed or rest the ones already there. And that doesn't go into the the fact that the mineral they're mining produces a highly combustible oil byproduct that can trigger massive explosions in the mines with little to no warning.
- Honor Before Reason: Garric will keep his oaths, no matter how impractical or dangerous to himself they might be. Case in point, since he once swore to protect Aren's father's family, he goes to rescue him from the prison camp, even though he later came to hate Aren's father fiercely. Overwatchman Klyssen was counting on this and was the only reason Aren was arrested in the first place.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Iron Hand's aptly named dreadknights might look like people, but it is clear from the get go that they're not really human. This is confirmed when the magical wards of Skavengard prevent them from following Garric's party into the valley.
- Implacable Man: Once a dreadknight has caught your scent, it will pursue you to the ends of the world without rest or mercy. Only some seriously powerful magic will be enough to prevent them from following you and make them lose the scent.
- Lady and Knight: Orica and Harod. She is the Bright Lady (albeit not an aristocat) but Harod has vowed to protect her. He takes her death hard.
- Last of His Kind: Garric’s true name is Cadrac of Darkwater and he is the last of the Dawnwardens.
- Les Collaborateurs: One of the main themes of the novel is an exploration of the choice between collaborating with a foreign power that conquers your country and continuing to resist. If the fight truly cannot be won, is it moral to continue fighting even though it will kill untold thousands of your own people? If your people have lost the will to fight, is it right to force their hand regardless?
- Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair: Ossia is positively littered with grandiose ruins from the days of the Second Empire, when the Sorcerer Kings of Ossia ruled the continent. Besides that there are other impressive but less beautiful ruins from the days of the First Empire, ruled by the urds.
- Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: Rapha the Carthanian pirate runs a gang inside the prison and has most of the guards in his pocket, getting special privileges and only working in the mines for the exercise. This clues Aren in to the fact that he could escape anytime he wanted, and only stays there because he must be hiding from someone on the outside.
- The Nicknamer: Grub comes up with nicknames for everyone else in the party, ranging from the mere descriptive (the Bittenbracker for Keel, Painted Lady for Vika, Freckles for Fen) to the offensive (Mudslug for Aren, Dumbface for Cade).
- Secret Police: The Iron Hand is the organization charged with stamping out all dissidence in the Krodan Empire, both among the conquered peoples and within its own population.
- Sequel Hook: As may be expected in the first book of a planned trilogy, the novel leaves several plot threads hanging to be resolved in sequels. To wit:
- The reason why the Divide between the world of the living and the Shadowlands is thinning and the Outsiders are threatening to return.
- The reason why the Krodans are conducting a secret genocide against the Sard people.
- The favor that Aren is oath-bound to perform for the pirate Rapha.
- Suicide Mission: Garric’s true plan is not to steal the Ember Blade (he thinks it is impossible) but instead to smuggle a dozen barrels full of elarite oil into Hammerholt on the eve of the royal wedding and detonate them, killing himself, the Krodan crown prince, the Krodan high command in Ossia, and most of the wedding guests. He succeeds.
- Stay in the Kitchen: The Krodan religion has very regimented gender roles, with women being considered not intelligent enough for scholarship or administration, let alone fighting.
- We ARE Struggling Together: In-Universe this is considered the Ossian hat, as they are constantly arguing with each other and are perceived as incapable of working together towards a common goal.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The various Ossian resistance groups opposed to the Krodan occupation have been known to go to some pretty nasty extremes in their pursuit of freedom, carrying out assassinations against collaborators and informers, as well as considering butchering their families to discourage collaboration with the Krodans. Garric's plan after the failure of open rebellion at Salt Fork is to smuggle a dozen wine barrels two thirds full of elarite oil into Hammerholt fortress on the eve of a royal wedding and detonate them. This would create an explosion powerful enough to destroy most of the fortress and burn the rest, killing crown prince Ottico, the entire Krodan high command in Ossia, and hundreds if not thousands of Krodan soldiers... but also hundreds of Ossian servants and wedding guests, including foreign dignitaries and children.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Fen is terrified of heights due to her father throwing her off a cliff when she was younger to see if she could survive by herself.
