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i_read_whatSo we're entering into the last third of the book! And you know what? It hasn't been a bad trip so far. Obviously I've had a few complaints here and there about certain plot inconsistencies and illogic, and I'm annoyed that Donal is still alive, but having likable protagonists who aren't rapists* or idiots goes a long way.
(* I mean, okay, it IS pretty questionable as to how much Gisella can consent to anything, but I'm willing to give Niall something of a value dissonance pass here. I can buy that the folks of this setting probably don't have the best understanding of legal capacity.)
I could wish the plot was a little less busy: we have a plague, a war in Solinde against Strahan, Alaric/Lillith's machinations in Atvia, a bastard claimant causing a potential civil war, and Cheysuli extremists all in the same story. That's a bit much. But we'll see how it shakes out.
So we start in media res. Someone is telling their "rujho" to get down, so we can guess that we're dealing with Ian and Niall here. They're in Solinde and almost got shot with arrows. Roberson has definitely gotten better at describing archery since that time Finn apparently grew a third arm in Shapechangers:
Ian, peering westward through the screen of grass, shook his head. He pulled his war bow out from under a hip, rolled sideways to take an arrow from his quiver, nocked it. Slowly he rose, hunching behind the thigh-high grass. He blended perfectly with the stalks and scrubby vegetation: amber, ivory, sienna; no greens, no browns, no richness, only the dull saffron of banished fall. The land was made bland in brassy sunlight as it burned through the flat light of a winter’s day.
Tasha and Serri are here too. Serri warns of Ihlini. And I realize that I keep trying to refer to Serri as female, but he's male.
Anyway, Ian and Niall are grimly aware that, after two months engaged in time-wasting skirmishes, they're about to face their true enemy. Which means they'll be powerless. Theoretically the Ihlini will be too, but that's always been somewhat inconsistent, even leaving aside the way Strahan and Lillith used bits of Duncan's lir to fuck with our heroes.
It does raise the interesting question of whether or not the Cheysuli could use an Ihlini's lifestone to fuck with THEM. It kind of seemed like Finn had managed to do that before. But anyway, Niall muses on how disconcerting it is to be stripped of their greatest weapons when they confront their greatest enemies.
Ian thinks it's not just Ihlini though. There were arrows, and Ihlini aren't archers. Niall guesses Atvian, which proves how utterly idiotically sad and useless the marriage to Gisella actually was. To be fair, Niall never really had the opportunity to get away before he got mind-whammied. But I still blame Donal.
Anyway, Ian and Niall are alone and not really equipped to deal with a force of Atvians and Ihlini. Niall sends Serri back to the Homanan encampment for reinforcements. We're told that they're about three weeks away from the border and it'd take about two months to get to Hondarth, where Donal is still fighting.
Those distances will be useful to remember when I read the fifth book. (There are three protagonists, whose story primarily takes place in three different lands, so the sequence of events is worth keeping track of.)
Apparently the Solindishmen have been using Carillon's own guerilla tactics against them, and Niall wonders how many more times Solinde and Homana will be at war. Gosh, it's almost like the unnecessary war retaliating against an assassin that wasn't even from Solinde turned out to be a bad thing!
And then our heroes do something bizarre.
Ian darted upward, loosed an arrow, crouched down almost at once. I heard a shout from the enemy—it was of discovery, not of pain—and realized what Ian had meant to do. They marked our position very well now…and it was time we left it.
Ian caught my eye, pointed toward the horses. It was unlikely we could mount and escape without detection, but we could use the stallions for a distraction. Also a living screen. Much as I disliked the thought of sacrificing my horse, I disliked more the thought of sacrificing myself.
...why did you tell the enemy where you were, again? Niall seems to understand why Ian did it, but I don't. And I'm annoyed because Ian is my favorite in this book, because he tends not to do stupid things. (Actually Isolde is my favorite, but she's not here right now. Or maybe Alaric and Lillith because I do love competent slimy villains.)
They start creeping toward the horses only to be stopped when the grass in front of them bursts into flame. So MAYBE you shouldn't have announced your location? Our boys can barely breathe or see because of the smoke.
Ian still manages to shoot Solindish soldiers, because he's got the Cheysuli Marty Stu archery skillz. But more men appear, and then...so does an Ihlini. Niall ends up fighting some dude with a rusted sword and no actual sword ability so maybe it isn't so much that we're dealing with Marty Stu skills as an incompetent enemy.
So Niall recognizes but doesn't recognize this new Ihlini dude:
I knew him at once. Somehow, I knew him, though I had never seen him.
Blood calling to blood? No. That was Strahan’s weapon, to make me think we were linked through blood and heritage. And yet, it made me wonder.
When the guy comes closer, Niall sees that he has black hair and blue eyes. It makes him think of his baby son, Hart.
But this is weird:
“My lord,” he said, “a message from Strahan.” The Ihlini was calm, quiet-spoken. And he smiled. I judged him only a year or two older than myself. Young, strong, powerful. Filled with the confidence of his mission. Consumed by his dedication. “He says: ‘Tell Donal’s cub he should never have wed Gisella. Tell Donal’s cub one day he will come to me.’”
Now Strahan has been pretty consistently against Niall and Gisella's marriage from the start. But Alaric and Lillith were very much about making it happen. Are they at cross purposes after all? Or is Roberson just being remarkably inconsistent?
Interestingly though, when Niall boasts about his sons, the Ihlini looks like he might be afraid. Niall admits that he himself is afraid of the Ihlini. He decides to talk:
I faced him. “Strahan has said Ihlini and Cheysuli are kin. Children of the Firstborn.”
He smiled a little. “It is said we are.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I know better than to disbelieve a thing that may be true.” He shrugged; ash spilled down his shoulders.
“Is it repugnant to you?”
His black brows rose a little. “That the races may be linked? No. Not repugnant. Perhaps—unappreciated.” Again, he smiled. “Why do you ask, my lord?”
Niall notes the politeness and points out that if the races are linked, he and this man are kin. The Ihlini laughs at what he thinks is a plea for leniency, and we perhaps get a hint of how the Ihlini view things:
He laughed. “The beginnings of a plea for leniency? You require mercy of me, my lord? Well, do not waste your breath. I intend to do to you what you desire to do to me.” He tilted his head a little, as if he listened to a thing I could not hear. “Even were we brothers, it would not alter the melody.” He began to smile even as I began to frown. “Can you not hear it? It is played, my lord, for us; because we will dance the dance of death.”
Is this musical metaphor common to the Ihlini, or unique to this guy. I wonder, because we'll meet another character with both Ihlini and musical elements. But I don't remember it coming up in Tapestry of the Lions, when we get the best look at the Ihlini from within. But that's spoilers for much later, sorry.
Anyway, the dude is misdirection, as Niall discovers, when he drops dead and Niall himself ends up with an arrow through the top of his left shoulder. OW. The smoke that had been blocking their vision disappears with the Ihlini dude's death and Niall starts throwing up and calling for Ian.
The chapter ends with a line that does NOT sound good:
I put out my hand and touched the face of death.
Well, with that for a cliffhanger, we end the chapter. And I'll give Roberson this much: her action sequences have definitely improved.
(* I mean, okay, it IS pretty questionable as to how much Gisella can consent to anything, but I'm willing to give Niall something of a value dissonance pass here. I can buy that the folks of this setting probably don't have the best understanding of legal capacity.)
I could wish the plot was a little less busy: we have a plague, a war in Solinde against Strahan, Alaric/Lillith's machinations in Atvia, a bastard claimant causing a potential civil war, and Cheysuli extremists all in the same story. That's a bit much. But we'll see how it shakes out.
So we start in media res. Someone is telling their "rujho" to get down, so we can guess that we're dealing with Ian and Niall here. They're in Solinde and almost got shot with arrows. Roberson has definitely gotten better at describing archery since that time Finn apparently grew a third arm in Shapechangers:
Ian, peering westward through the screen of grass, shook his head. He pulled his war bow out from under a hip, rolled sideways to take an arrow from his quiver, nocked it. Slowly he rose, hunching behind the thigh-high grass. He blended perfectly with the stalks and scrubby vegetation: amber, ivory, sienna; no greens, no browns, no richness, only the dull saffron of banished fall. The land was made bland in brassy sunlight as it burned through the flat light of a winter’s day.
Tasha and Serri are here too. Serri warns of Ihlini. And I realize that I keep trying to refer to Serri as female, but he's male.
Anyway, Ian and Niall are grimly aware that, after two months engaged in time-wasting skirmishes, they're about to face their true enemy. Which means they'll be powerless. Theoretically the Ihlini will be too, but that's always been somewhat inconsistent, even leaving aside the way Strahan and Lillith used bits of Duncan's lir to fuck with our heroes.
It does raise the interesting question of whether or not the Cheysuli could use an Ihlini's lifestone to fuck with THEM. It kind of seemed like Finn had managed to do that before. But anyway, Niall muses on how disconcerting it is to be stripped of their greatest weapons when they confront their greatest enemies.
Ian thinks it's not just Ihlini though. There were arrows, and Ihlini aren't archers. Niall guesses Atvian, which proves how utterly idiotically sad and useless the marriage to Gisella actually was. To be fair, Niall never really had the opportunity to get away before he got mind-whammied. But I still blame Donal.
Anyway, Ian and Niall are alone and not really equipped to deal with a force of Atvians and Ihlini. Niall sends Serri back to the Homanan encampment for reinforcements. We're told that they're about three weeks away from the border and it'd take about two months to get to Hondarth, where Donal is still fighting.
Those distances will be useful to remember when I read the fifth book. (There are three protagonists, whose story primarily takes place in three different lands, so the sequence of events is worth keeping track of.)
Apparently the Solindishmen have been using Carillon's own guerilla tactics against them, and Niall wonders how many more times Solinde and Homana will be at war. Gosh, it's almost like the unnecessary war retaliating against an assassin that wasn't even from Solinde turned out to be a bad thing!
And then our heroes do something bizarre.
Ian darted upward, loosed an arrow, crouched down almost at once. I heard a shout from the enemy—it was of discovery, not of pain—and realized what Ian had meant to do. They marked our position very well now…and it was time we left it.
Ian caught my eye, pointed toward the horses. It was unlikely we could mount and escape without detection, but we could use the stallions for a distraction. Also a living screen. Much as I disliked the thought of sacrificing my horse, I disliked more the thought of sacrificing myself.
...why did you tell the enemy where you were, again? Niall seems to understand why Ian did it, but I don't. And I'm annoyed because Ian is my favorite in this book, because he tends not to do stupid things. (Actually Isolde is my favorite, but she's not here right now. Or maybe Alaric and Lillith because I do love competent slimy villains.)
They start creeping toward the horses only to be stopped when the grass in front of them bursts into flame. So MAYBE you shouldn't have announced your location? Our boys can barely breathe or see because of the smoke.
Ian still manages to shoot Solindish soldiers, because he's got the Cheysuli Marty Stu archery skillz. But more men appear, and then...so does an Ihlini. Niall ends up fighting some dude with a rusted sword and no actual sword ability so maybe it isn't so much that we're dealing with Marty Stu skills as an incompetent enemy.
So Niall recognizes but doesn't recognize this new Ihlini dude:
I knew him at once. Somehow, I knew him, though I had never seen him.
Blood calling to blood? No. That was Strahan’s weapon, to make me think we were linked through blood and heritage. And yet, it made me wonder.
When the guy comes closer, Niall sees that he has black hair and blue eyes. It makes him think of his baby son, Hart.
But this is weird:
“My lord,” he said, “a message from Strahan.” The Ihlini was calm, quiet-spoken. And he smiled. I judged him only a year or two older than myself. Young, strong, powerful. Filled with the confidence of his mission. Consumed by his dedication. “He says: ‘Tell Donal’s cub he should never have wed Gisella. Tell Donal’s cub one day he will come to me.’”
Now Strahan has been pretty consistently against Niall and Gisella's marriage from the start. But Alaric and Lillith were very much about making it happen. Are they at cross purposes after all? Or is Roberson just being remarkably inconsistent?
Interestingly though, when Niall boasts about his sons, the Ihlini looks like he might be afraid. Niall admits that he himself is afraid of the Ihlini. He decides to talk:
I faced him. “Strahan has said Ihlini and Cheysuli are kin. Children of the Firstborn.”
He smiled a little. “It is said we are.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I know better than to disbelieve a thing that may be true.” He shrugged; ash spilled down his shoulders.
“Is it repugnant to you?”
His black brows rose a little. “That the races may be linked? No. Not repugnant. Perhaps—unappreciated.” Again, he smiled. “Why do you ask, my lord?”
Niall notes the politeness and points out that if the races are linked, he and this man are kin. The Ihlini laughs at what he thinks is a plea for leniency, and we perhaps get a hint of how the Ihlini view things:
He laughed. “The beginnings of a plea for leniency? You require mercy of me, my lord? Well, do not waste your breath. I intend to do to you what you desire to do to me.” He tilted his head a little, as if he listened to a thing I could not hear. “Even were we brothers, it would not alter the melody.” He began to smile even as I began to frown. “Can you not hear it? It is played, my lord, for us; because we will dance the dance of death.”
Is this musical metaphor common to the Ihlini, or unique to this guy. I wonder, because we'll meet another character with both Ihlini and musical elements. But I don't remember it coming up in Tapestry of the Lions, when we get the best look at the Ihlini from within. But that's spoilers for much later, sorry.
Anyway, the dude is misdirection, as Niall discovers, when he drops dead and Niall himself ends up with an arrow through the top of his left shoulder. OW. The smoke that had been blocking their vision disappears with the Ihlini dude's death and Niall starts throwing up and calling for Ian.
The chapter ends with a line that does NOT sound good:
I put out my hand and touched the face of death.
Well, with that for a cliffhanger, we end the chapter. And I'll give Roberson this much: her action sequences have definitely improved.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-03 07:36 am (UTC)Finn: Did you summon me?
Pan: Not talking about you, I am talking about the former asshole from the Chronicles of the Cheysuli.
So we start in media res. Someone is telling their "rujho" to get down, so we can guess that we're dealing with Ian and Niall here. They're in Solinde and almost got shot with arrows. Roberson has definitely gotten better at describing archery since that time Finn apparently grew a third arm in Shapechangers:
Finn: I think I could use more arms if it helps me save more people.
Ian, peering westward through the screen of grass, shook his head. He pulled his war bow out from under a hip, rolled sideways to take an arrow from his quiver, nocked it. Slowly he rose, hunching behind the thigh-high grass. He blended perfectly with the stalks and scrubby vegetation: amber, ivory, sienna; no greens, no browns, no richness, only the dull saffron of banished fall. The land was made bland in brassy sunlight as it burned through the flat light of a winter’s day.
Pan: That's a good description and can't mean anything good.
Those distances will be useful to remember when I read the fifth book. (There are three protagonists, whose story primarily takes place in three different lands, so the sequence of events is worth keeping track of.)
Pan: Unpopular opinion: I like that idea of storytelling, it allows the world to feel bigger if you don't just focus on one group.
Ian still manages to shoot Solindish soldiers, because he's got the Cheysuli Marty Stu archery skillz. But more men appear, and then...so does an Ihlini. Niall ends up fighting some dude with a rusted sword and no actual sword ability so maybe it isn't so much that we're dealing with Marty Stu skills as an incompetent enemy.
Finn: Don't underestimate mooks.
Ian darted upward, loosed an arrow, crouched down almost at once. I heard a shout from the enemy—it was of discovery, not of pain—and realized what Ian had meant to do. They marked our position very well now…and it was time we left it.
Ian caught my eye, pointed toward the horses. It was unlikely we could mount and escape without detection, but we could use the stallions for a distraction. Also a living screen. Much as I disliked the thought of sacrificing my horse, I disliked more the thought of sacrificing myself.
Finn: And now you got spotted.
“My lord,” he said, “a message from Strahan.” The Ihlini was calm, quiet-spoken. And he smiled. I judged him only a year or two older than myself. Young, strong, powerful. Filled with the confidence of his mission. Consumed by his dedication. “He says: ‘Tell Donal’s cub he should never have wed Gisella. Tell Donal’s cub one day he will come to me.’”
Pan: "Also, he says: Lilith, you brainwashed Gisella and she was obsessed with Niall because of you. You are fired."
no subject
Date: 2022-09-03 11:54 pm (UTC)