Elbert finds himself in a precarious position. After stealing the throne from his brother, he finds himself crippled and low on friends. The nobles want to undermine him, while the populace wants to depose him. In an attempt to keep his power, he launches a campaign against the islanders to the north, something that no king has ever done.
In the forest to the south of the capital, lives Anna and her father. She is taught how to hunt and kill the monsters that live in the forest. However, her life is torn apart when a group of visitors pay her father a visit. Forced to flee to the city, she must find her aunt, all while fighting to protect herself and socializing with other teenagers for the first time.
Grimm White-Eyes, a legendary warrior, is accused of murdering the Islander High King’s brother. With a price on his head, he must flee his homeland and find refuge on the continent. Yet no ship will risk carrying someone of his notoriety. Unable to leave, he is forced to ally himself with the enemy, in hopes that he can continue to live his life as the gods intended, free.
Elbert finds himself in a precarious position. After stealing the throne from his brother, he finds himself crippled and low on friends. The nobles want to undermine him, while the populace wants to depose him. In an attempt to keep his power, he launches a campaign against the islanders to the north, something that no king has ever done.
In the forest to the south of the capital, lives Anna and her father. She is taught how to hunt and kill the monsters that live in the forest. However, her life is torn apart when a group of visitors pay her father a visit. Forced to flee to the city, she must find her aunt, all while fighting to protect herself and socializing with other teenagers for the first time.
Grimm White-Eyes, a legendary warrior, is accused of murdering the Islander High King’s brother. With a price on his head, he must flee his homeland and find refuge on the continent. Yet no ship will risk carrying someone of his notoriety. Unable to leave, he is forced to ally himself with the enemy, in hopes that he can continue to live his life as the gods intended, free.
Snow crunched beneath his boots as he continued to run through the waist-high powder. The bark of the war hounds slowly closed in.
The forest was only a hundred feet away; he knew if he could reach the treeline, he’d be able to lose his pursuers with ease. The cold air burned his lungs as he sprinted across the frozen ground, desperately trying to outrun the vicious men and dogs that were chasing him. Blood slowly seeped from the arrow wound on the top of his left shoulder, leaving a fresh, easy trail for his hunters to follow.
Suddenly, his footing gave way as he sunk deeper into the snow. He cursed under his breath as he looked behind him and saw that the war hounds were right on his heels.
He looked at the treeline and rose to his feet. He knew that the time for running was over.
The first hound lunged at him; teeth bared. The man stuck out his forearm to block the attack. The dog’s teeth sank into his arm, and blood spurted out from the puncture wounds.
The man gritted his teeth in pain and began relentlessly punching the top of the dog’s head with his meaty fist. Every blow forced the hound’s bite to tighten around his arm, causing more blood to leave his body.
The second dog attacked his legs, as they were trained to do; the man quickly sidestepped and kicked as hard as he could at the war hound’s jaw.
The sound of bones shattering pleased his ears. He turned his attention back to the dog that was hanging from his arm. He plunged two of his calloused, sausage-like fingers into the beast’s eyes until the muscular jaws around his forearm slackened.
The third dog, unaffected by the brutality that it just witnessed, rushed the man, lunging at his midsection. The man caught the dog by the mouth with both his hands and began prying the two jaws apart until he ripped the bottom lip free of the war hound’s head.
The man stood in the snow, his chest heaving, and looked at the three dogs lying motionless on the ground. A sickening smile spread across the man’s lips as he started to walk back towards the forest. Looks like we’re having dog tonight.
Suddenly, he heard the soft whimpering of an injured dog. He turned his head and realized that the second dog was not dead, but just badly injured. He sat in the snow and watched the beast try to comprehend what had just happened.
The dog pawed its face, as if trying to rub the broken bones in its face better. The man let out an exhausted sigh as he rose to his feet and approached the injured war hound. He ran a hand across the beast’s body, feeling the creature’s soft fur between his fingers.
Without uttering a word, the man picked up the dog by the throat and, with a quick flick of the wrists, snapped its neck.
***
The fire danced atop the thin pieces of wood he had gathered, a white plume of smoke rising in the air as a giant marker of his whereabouts. Even they should be able to find that.
The man laughed to himself as he tore another piece of meat free from the dog’s corpse and tossed it onto the fire. He had never grown accustomed to eating dog meat. Even during the harsh winter months when food was scarce, he always found it too chewy and bland for his liking. But he knew that when his pursuers arrived and saw him eating their beloved war hounds, they would be shaking in their boots with fear.
The sun was just starting to set when he heard the distinct sound of snow crunching beneath footsteps. The man didn’t raise his head to acknowledge his visitors, but instead popped another piece of chewy meat into his mouth.
He knew that they would want to talk to him first and try to convince him to surrender, so they wouldn’t have to fight. He would indulge them in conversation, but they were fools if they truly believed he wouldn’t fight to his last breath.
He pressed the heated tip of his knife blade against his shoulder where the arrow went in. He looked down at his arm and saw blood seeping through the wounds left behind by the dog’s sharp fangs. He was about to tear a piece of sleeve off of his shirt when he heard the distinct crunch of snow under a man’s weight.
“White-Eyes, is that you?” a familiar voice called from behind a snowdrift.
“Of course,” the man answered plainly. “Is that Halfdan the Jackal I hear?”
The stranger rose from his hiding place and began chuckling maniacally. “You always did have a good ear for voices,” he said, as he approached the campfire.
“Care for some meat?” White-Eyes taunted, extending a piece of cooked dog out to the laughing man.
“Tssk, tssk,” Halfdan clicked. “Kjottun won’t be very happy once he sees what you’ve done to his pets.”
“They fought well, gave me a nasty bite on my arm.”
Halfdan laughed again. “My, how you’ve fallen. The great Grimm White-Eyes, right-hand man to High King Uthredd, now on the run for something as simple as murder. Tell me, was she worth the fuck?”
Grimm didn’t answer. Instead, he just popped another piece of the disgusting meat into his mouth, before changing the subject. “Where are the others?”
Halfdan sat down at the fire across from him; the flames illuminating his features. He had an aquiline nose, bent and disfigured ears, and menacing blue eyes. Tattoos covered his face, but the most prominent one was the image of a broken tooth below his left eye. “You know, I never liked your eyes,” Halfdan chuckled. “They’re white like a blind man’s, and yet, you can still see.”
“And I never liked your laugh. Does that mean you came alone?”
“No, the others are around,” Halfdan answered, sweeping his long red hair out of his eyes. “But, they sent me here to try to talk you into surrendering.”
“You waste your breath,” Grimm responded.
“See!” Halfdan called out. “I told you he would not give up.”
Three more men emerged from behind the snowdrift and approached the campfire. One, who was clearly the leader, Grimm recognized as the revered warrior Hafthør the Wise. He had a grey beard and a long, silvery-grey mane that went halfway down his back. Despite his age, Grimm still knew that he was in peak fighting condition.
The second man he recognized was Kjottun, Master of Hounds. His brown beard was braided into a single knot, and his head was completely shaven, save for a short strip down the middle. An expression of utter disgust was glued on his face as he approached the fire.
The third was a man Grimm did not know. It looked like he had barely seen seventeen winters and he was clearly intimidated in front of such a great warrior. Probably trying to make a name for himself, Grimm thought, shaking his head silently, as the men sat down beside Halfdan.
“What did you do to my dogs?” Kjottun growled.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be joining them soon,” Grimm replied menacingly.
“White-Eyes, please listen to reason,” Hafthør pleaded. “You are accused of rape and murder. The honourable thing to do is to come back to Skotheim and accept your judgement.”
“I didn’t rape her.”
“That is for the lawmaker to decide,” Hafthør retorted.
“Enough of this!” Halfdan exclaimed. “Let’s just gut the bastard. He doesn’t even have a weapon.”
Halfthør waved a dismissive hand and looked deeply into Grimm’s eyes. “Will you truly not concede, old friend? We’ve been on many raids to the mainland together, do not make me do this.”
“I’m tired of killing, brother, but you give me no choice. Ready your axe,” Grimm replied as he rose to his feet, trying to ignore the pain that was throbbing in his arm.
“Finally! Some action!” Halfdan laughed, as he pulled his sword free from its scabbard.
Grimm stood there patiently as he sized up the four men. He had been in worse situations, but never without a weapon. This will be a challenge, he thought to himself, as he cracked his knuckles in preparation.
The first one to attack was Kjottun, presumably consumed by rage over the loss of his beloved hounds. The Master of the Hounds let out a ferocious battle cry as he swung his greataxe in a high overhead arc, but Grimm caught the haft midair with his uninjured arm and broke it in two.
Kjottun stood there dumbfounded as he looked at the broken weapon in awe. Grimm quickly cleaved him between the eyes, splitting his head in two.
Hafthør and Halfdan rushed simultaneously. Grimm blocked every blow, although shockwaves of pain surged through his arm with each parry.
The two men attacked him from either side, desperately trying to tire him out. With his left hand, Grimm caught Halfdan’s sword by the blade and quickly elbowed the Jackal in the face. Blood spurted on the ground as he staggered away from the fight.
Grimm then did a sharp pirouette and dodged Hafthør’s lunging jab and sank the axe head into the veteran’s throat. A mist of red covered his face as he ripped the weapon free from the old man’s throat.
“What’re you waiting for, boy? Kill him!” Halfdan shouted, as he stared at the young man frozen in fear.
While he was distracted, Grimm sauntered over and knocked the sword free from the Jackal’s hand. He then dropped his axe and picked up Halfdan by the head and squeezed with all his might.
The Jackal let out a blood-curdling scream as his eyes began to protrude from his head. Grimm took a sharp inhale and smashed the Jackal’s face against his own.
Then he did it again, and again, and again, until Halfdan was barely conscious. He then dropped the warrior on the snow-covered ground and grabbed the axe head.
He sliced Halfdan’s belly open and began ripping out the man’s innards and discarding them onto the snow. Halfdan howled in pain every time Grimm’s hand reached into his body.
The young boy quickly dropped his sword and began to run away from all the carnage. Grimm shot to his feet and threw the axe blade at the coward, burying it directly in his head.
Once again, Grimm turned his attention to Halfdan, who was somehow still alive. He leaned down and stared the dying man in the eyes.
“I always hated your laugh,” he whispered, as he plunged his fingers into the man’s neck and began tearing away at his throat.
Grimm White-Eyes is on the run after he killed King Uthredd's brother. He needs to get out of the Northern Islands, but with his former employment making his face and distinctive eyes well known, he's struggling to find anyone to take him. He's accompanied by a stubborn Dwarven girl, a slave he inadvertently rescued. But is he leading her to a much more dangerous life? Anna is 14, and lives deep in the forest surrounding Winterhelm, the capital of Artanzia. She's taught by her father how to survive in the frigid cold and how to kill the monsters who inhabit the forest. Except, one day, she accidentally leads her fathers old comrades to their secluded hut, and disaster falls. Now she must try to navigate the woods alone and reach the capital - except she has no idea how to act around many other humans, having been raised alone. Elbert is the second son of the King. He's spoilt, ambitious and will do everything in his power to ensure that he brings Artanzia back to its former glory. When his father dies, his brother is to be named King by the council; he's more palatable than Elbert. The night before he's due to be crowned, the prince mysteriously dies, falling from the battlements of the castle. Elbert is to be King - but he'll soon discover, it comes at a very high price. The three main characters in Season of Kings, all of whom are separated by either huge distances or experiences. Eventually they will come together in a climatic ending, that none of them would have ever seen coming.
If you're a fan of incredibly graphic violence and high, epic fantasy, then Season of Kings will most definitely appeal to you. Every single scene in this book is written in minute detail - not a single thing is left out of the gore fest. While I enjoyed it, for some, it might be a bit too graphic, and so for that I would suggest only those of strong constitutions read this book.
It's not all blood and guts, though. There are flashes of brilliant humour, especially with the epic tantrums thrown by Elbert. He's written in such a way that he's immediately unlikable and is on a path that seems it's unlikely there will be any redemption. It's refreshing to see a main character be so inherently awful; they're often given a slim lifeline to be better.
While Season of Kings is a very good read, the violence is somewhat stomach churning. Trigger Warnings should be taken into account; child abuse, animal abuse, graphic detail of violence, gore and death.
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