The three heroes decide to make a stand against the dwenda. They make preparations with Faileh Rakan and his men. Ringil uses krin to enhance his speed. During the fight, they kill many of the dwenda. Rakan and many of the men are killed. Ringil is injured with a scar across his face. Ringil battles Seethlaw and kills him. Losing Your Head: The Dwenda like to cut off the heads of those who displease them and graft the still-living heads to tree stumps as a warning to others.

Stealth Sequel: Has many tonal and thematic similarities to Morgan's Kovacs novels. Turns out it's set in the distant future of those books, and Kovacs himself makes an appearance, although in a somewhat different form. No knowledge of the prior books is required, though. At this point, Ringil sees human heads on tree stumps. Seethlaw explains that they are warnings to the slaves they are keeping if they try to escape. The heads remain alive forever so long as the roots have water. They are keeping the marsh-blood slaves to honor them and they plan to sacrifice them. Thousands of years ago, the Naom plain clans were favored retainers to the dwenda, with which they mingled their blood. Women who are unable to conceive have the strongest bloodline. It compels you to read on with its gritty, visceral writing and intelligent plot. It's tense and fascinatingly peopled and given that the follow ups will doubtless be tremendous, you're encouraged to jump on from the start. Just, ahem, steel yourself." There were however some fun moments (my favourite at the barricade leading to the slaving quarter), good fighting sequences, and a genius vision of how everything ends with no one remembering or caring or understanding and with the sword secured away behind a glass in a museum case (even if it peeves me that they should know a word “museum” in a civilisation clearly foreign to such concept). These occasional lapses into the beyond average did not stop the author to have his heroes miraculously saved by an unknown yet friendly higher power, miraculously bumping on each other in the heat of twisting plot or miraculously discovering or doing other things needed to propel the plot onward.

This trilogy provides examples of:

Ringil also knew that corpsemites moved in groups. As the slimy filigree of a tendril appendage touched his cheek, he was already spinning around to face the next one. The drops of secretion burned. Probably the noir crime tradition. That, coupled with an intense political rage at the way the world is run. Ringil Eskiath - A highly skilled human swordsman who led a now-legendary battle against the Scaled Folk and helped lift the siege of the city of Trelayne. A Straight Gay, which is something of a problem in the distinctly intolerant League, although as Ringil points out "You don't go queer baiting when your victim has a reputation of chopping trained swordsmen into dogmeat at the drop of a hat" En la historia seguimos a tres héroes. Tres historias paralelas que, ¿Terminarán de entrecruzarse o no? Estos personajes han logrado ganarme como lector porque son personajes con un realismo descreído, socarrón. Personajes que muestran crudeza. Es posible que este recurso ya este muy usado o no tenga la misma calidad que pueden mostrar otros como Abercrombie, David Gemmer pero me gustó. Creo que aún después de leer a ambos, diré que es aceptable. reached down to the fastenings of his jerkin, and tore them open with both hands. In the same motion he shrugged himself halfway out of the garment while the corpsemite was still finding out that the leather was not his real skin. The jerkin sagged under the creature's weight, helped him to pull clear. The tendrils around his waist and over his shoulders were still creeping toward each other and they didn't have time to tighten against the movement. His left arm came free and he whirled like a discus thrower, hurling the bundle of jerkin and mite off his right sleeve and away among the headstones. He heard it hit something solid.

The three of them played a pivotal role in saving the day against a global menace almost a decade prior, but now they’re just an inconvenient legacy.

LoveReading Says

During these events, there was a wisp-like girl who appeared to Ringil as a staff person of the house. She is the one who gave Ringil the flagon of tea that he threw at Kaad. He now learns from a young boy who works at the house that there is nobody of that description who works there. Ringil gives the young boy a message to send to Shalak. from a standing start. The corpsemite was still trying to disentangle itself from the leather and flapped confusedly at him as he approached. Its jaws were bared and it was hissing like a new sword in the cooling trough.