To Brave The End (Tales of the Blackshield Dogs 1)

To Brave The End (Tales of the Blackshield Dogs 1) by Frank Dorrian. A Blackshield Dogs novella, originally published by Impaled Monarch Publishing, February 2017. Approx. 142 pages.

On a recent meandering through Amazon searching for some good, dark reads, I came across The Shadow of the High King by Frank Dorrian. I was instantly intrigued: fantastic cover, loads of legit-sounding reviews, and what I read in the Look Inside sample was engaging, descriptive, and grim. Alas, I have not had time to budget to reading it just yet, but I also noticed something. Dorrian has a pair of novellas, which take place in the same world as High King. These novellas center around a mercenary group known as The Blackshield Dogs. I love good mercenary tales, so I figured; what better way to sample the work of this new (for me) author?

First, here's the blurb:

Many faces, many names, have passed through the ranks of the Blackshield Dogs. But few of them ever surpassed the bloody reputation of the man known and feared on Caermark's battlefields as Red Harry.

But before he was Red Harry, before he was anything, he was Harruvard of Werrewood, a man-at-arms sworn in service to Lord Gadrin Strael.

Injured and left for dead during a bitter conflict along Lord Gadrin’s borders, his life was saved by the kindness of a stranger. But as Harruvard's past refused to let him go, that same kindness soon would be stained red.

In the deep of winter, beneath creeping snows and biting ice, the black seeds of the monster Harruvard would become were sown by the hands of men, and nurtured by their cruelty.

Again, I went into this story not yet knowing the "Red Harry" of High King notoriety, so, I was introduced to the man in his former iteration of Harruvard, man-at-arms in the service of Lord Gadrin, and, at the point the story opens, a deserter with murderous soldiers and hounds on his tale.

Left for dead in an icy river, Harruvard is saved and nursed back to health by Daina, a widowed mother struggling to get by in Larkrun, a local logging town. Driven by her own innate kindness to assist Harry, Daina is still leery of his potential past baggage, and hesitant to allow her young son, Cenrid, to bond with him. The loss of a father to Lord Gadrin ill-planned gambits against fellow Lord Algar have left a huge vacuum in the boy's heart; and a potential father figure and competent soldier gives him two things to idolize. However, over the course of his convalescence, tensions ease, and the impromptu 'family' begins to form bonds.

Unfortunately, there are always obstacles. Every step Harry has to take is one where he must look over his shoulder, checking to see if his past has caught up to him yet. And before him lies the ugliest of small-town politics; the smarmy alderman who lords over his small demesne, bullying its residents. 

Well, I am loathe to engage in spoilers, but it isn't hard to venture a guess as to what transpires at the confluence of these various factors. Again, this is a fairly dark story.

So, how does it all stack up?

Well, the template of appearance of mysterious stranger/chipping through the tough woman's exterior to get to the gooey bits/bonding of a cool man with a sword and a boy who needs a father figure is not a new one by any means. But how many times have I reiterated that tropes are fine so long as the writing is good, the action is good, and/or the characters are compelling? Well, in To Brave The End, you get all three.

Dorrian's writing is, simply put, fantastic. His world-building is vibrant and harsh. You feel and hear the snow crunching under your feet. You suffer as your vitality is sucked away in the throes of the Sothorin River.

The characters; well, the main characters, are well done. They are flawed, they are hurting, and, in their own ways, they are fumbling desperately in the dark for the connection that they need. It lends to a palpable tension when you realize that, once the connections are made, a world such as this would never allow them to last.

Harruvard is a strong, sympathetic character. He carries the shame of being a deserter, although anyone in their right mind could see legitimate cause in the impetus of his egress. On top of that; he fights a constant battle to contain the voices which perennially jockey for control of his mind: Sorrow, Death, and The Thirst. It will be the Thirst which solidifies his legend as Red Harry.

Once we get to the antagonists, I won't say that they are one-note. They're not. But they are brutally irredeemable, making them frightfully effective in their work.

And finally, we have the action. Action scenes are simply wonderful here. They are brutal, bone-crunching, and real. There's no ballet. There's no gratuitous splatter. We get the urgent, violent clashes of those who've had everything stripped away and refuse to surrender what little bit of livelihood they have left. There's dirty, malicious fighting by men for whom killing is rote work solidified by years of practice. We get hardcore, one on one, duels to the death. And we also get grand spectacles of unrelenting violence.

There you have it. All in all, a great, quick read, and you can get it for only 99 cents over at Amazon. Highly recommended.

Cover:
While I love the gritty, grimy, realistic cover for Shadow of the High King, I must say, this trash polka inspired cover is really eye-catching.

Getting an awesome tale, with an awesome cover, for a rockbottom price, is always a good thing.