Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell
Falcio is the first Cantor of the Greatcoats. Trained in the fighting arts and the laws of Tristia, the Greatcoats are travelling Magisters upholding King’s Law. They are heroes. Or at least they were, until they stood aside while the Dukes took the kingdom, and impaled their King’s head on a spike. Now Tristia is on the verge of collapse and the barbarians are sniffing at the borders. The Dukes bring chaos to the land, while the Greatcoats are scattered far and wide, reviled as traitors, their legendary coats in tatters. All they have left are the promises they made to King Paelis, to carry out one final mission. But if they have any hope of fulfilling the King’s dream, the divided Greatcoats must reunite, or they will also have to stand aside as they watch their world burn
It’s impossible not to love the Greatcoats. They represent everything good and just in a shitty world and are literally dressed to kill. They are hated, unfairly, and constantly accused of evil deeds by those that used to take shelter under the umbrella of security they provided. Despite never disobeying an order, they are branded ‘trattarri’, and disbanded after the death of the king that brought them back into society. There is a magnificent streak of injustice that really pissed me off and constantly had me wondering what it might take for these men of honour to actually snap and just kill someone who truly deserved it. You cannot help but cheer them on at every step and it creates a real bond between the reader and the characters.
The three Greatcoats we follow are close friends Falcio, Kest and Brasti and each of them is a clear, fully realised, multi faceted character that stands out from the other. Falcio is a young man with a tragic past who has found his heroic path. He has a touch of the ‘beserker’ in him but it is forged more through his experiences and inability to move forward than a condition he was born with. Kest is the greatest swordsman who ever lived, and whilst this does seem a simplistic attribute, it works and does not come off as a cheap or easy solution. Brasti is the archer, joker, self-described lover and a bit of a bandit. He is always the first to loot any sort of body and if betraying a fellow Greatcoat was a possibility he’d be the first suspect. They are a great team that will have you reminiscing about everything from The Three Musketeers to The Princess Bride and even Ghostbusters as the laugh out loud dialogue hits home again and again.
There is a nice magical element that really serves to propel the story forward without distracting from the amazing swordfights. I mean lets face it, if I can shoot lightning out of my fingers, your sword is not going to be particularly useful. As it is, the magic is more powders and potions and an old woman known as the Tailor, who can see the threads of life and how they wind together just as well as the stitching of the original coats she created. I really hope to see more of her in the second book.
There is also a great lightness to Traitor’s Blade and it never gets too dark even though there are some crazy and desperate situations that make your heart race and your reading speed increase. I don’t normally like to directly compare the works of different authors but I just read the second book in Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastard series and I felt like this book contained almost everything that was fun in Red Seas Under Red Skies but cut out all of the slow stuff. They both had a wonderful adventurous feel but this was far tighter, sleeker and more exciting and was a complete and entire book. I remember the exact moment that Falcio, and the book itself, won me over completely. He is approached by a smiling, heavily armoured and obviously skilled, opponent that he can see no way of defeating and finds himself smiling back. Hast says of the opponent, “I just wished he hadn’t of smiled”.
Grab a copy of the fantastic fantasy right now. Traitor's Blade is published by Joe Flethcher Books. The sequal, A Knights Shadow, is out now.
