By Christoper Buehlman.
he year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village.
An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm-that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict.
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfil her mission: to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.
As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.
I’d seen a lot of talk about this book online. I’m not much of a reader of fantasy but have read a few but I thought I would give this a try, mainly as the setting is historical France I’d see what the fuss was about.
It reminded me of The Witcher series with a grizzled warrior, and horrific monsters, some men and some disguised as men.
Set in France, just after the Battle of Crecy, plague stalks the land and Thomas, ‘our hero, has to take a very young girl across France to something. He doesn’ know what but it is all leading to a battle between good and Evil, Heaven and Hell.
Some of the themes are very dark and whilst it is not strictly historical narrative it refers to events in history, such as the Comet of the Black Death.
it was OK. Hard to follow in some parts as it blends the normal horrors of the plague with monsters. An interesting idea though.
