I Read What?!

I must be a masochist, because even after the hellish experience that is Legacy of the Sword, I've come back to try to review the next book in this god forsaken series.

To be fair, I don't remember hating Track of the White Wolf. I definitely don't remember hating Niall nearly as much as I hated Donal, so there is that. And there are minor characters that I really like.

We're not quite halfway through the series yet, but this is the book that I think sets the tone for how the series continues from here. It's a generational epic, and we saw what that means in Legacy. All four of our original lead characters are dead. We're going to see a lot more familiar faces meet their end as the series continues. There's a much heavier focus on the "prophecy" from now on. No more ambiguity there. There's a specific goal that our characters are working toward, and we're going to see that develop.

And that means there's going to be a whole lot of cousin fucking. Also this book begins the tradition of the spoiler-family tree.

Basically, after the ever present map (no major changes), we get a lovely little family tree that traces the generations so far. We're still pretty early on, no actual cousin fucking has happened yet. But it will. In fact, the family tree even tells us what Niall and Gisela's children's names will be.

And apparently, Niall, like Donal, will have a second partner at some point. (Marriages are denoted with an "m." while unmarried partners are listed like so:

Carillon m. Electra x (Tynstar)

So, from this tree, we know Niall will have a wife and a partner (god willing he'll be less of a dick about it than Donal was), his half-brother Ian, who briefly appeared in Legacy as an adorable but traumatized four year old, will also have a partner, and their sister Isolde will marry and have a child.

It might be worth noting that the tree doesn't distinguish between rape and a consensual partnership.

You can take that as the not-so-subtle warning that it is. This is the Chronicles of the Cheysuli, and there is, as always, rape. Ya-fucking-hoo.

There is one nice point though, which I've already told you about in my Legacy reviews. Finn's daughter Meghan has indeed married Evan. I'm happy about this. Evan was one of the few tolerable characters in Legacy of the Sword. And I like the thought that his courtship (in which he proved he can actually take no for an answer) eventually became successful.

I'm also happy that Meghan and any descendants will have happily escaped the cesspool of rape and cousin-fucking that will result from this.

Anyway, we do have a prologue, so let's begin.



So immediately we can see that this book, like Song of Homana, is in first person. I'm actually okay with this. In general, I'm not much of a fan of first person narratives, but I think they suit Roberson. Those patented Roberson tangents seem less gratuitous in first person, as they feel instead like the viewpoint character's naturally wandering thoughts. And she's good at bringing emotional intensity.

Anyway, our viewpoint character is Niall, son of Donal and Aislinn, heir to the throne of Homana. He's kneeling in the woods. For some reason. He also is thinking about his grandfather.

How many times did Carillon kneel as I kneel, lying in wait for the enemy?

My grandsire’s name slipped easily into mouth or mind. Perhaps for another man, perhaps for another grandson, it would not. But for me, it was a legacy I did not always desire.

—Carillon would keep still for hours—Carillon would never speak—Carillon would know best how to do the job—

Niall maybe has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. A little bit.

Anyway, his vigil is interrupted as he is knocked flat by a mountain cat.

A female. Full-fleshed and in prime condition. Her lush red coat was a dappled chestnut at shoulders and haunches. The tail lashed in short, vicious arcs as she crouched. Dark-tipped ears flattened against wedge-shaped head as she snarled, displaying an awesome assemblage of curving teeth.

This actually is not so dire as it seems. Niall gets up, looks back, and sees a king stag dead with an arrow through its ribs.

“Ian?” I looked suspiciously at the cat a moment. “No—Tasha.” Still there was no answer. It was all I could do not to fill the trees with my shout. “Ian, the stag was mine—do you hear?” I waited. Wiggled my foot inside my boot; the cramp, thank the gods, was fading. “Ian,” I said menacingly; giving up, I bellowed it. “The stag was mine not yours!”

“But you were much too slow.” The answering voice was human, not feline. “Much too slow; did you think the king would wait on a prince forever?”

It's actually brotherly hijinx at work. See, the cat (Tasha) is the lir of Niall's brother, Ian. And when Tasha distracted Niall, Ian stole his brother's kill. Tsk. Tsk.

And it's pretty clear that pranks aside, the brothers have a pretty decent relationship:

Conversationally, I pointed out, “Using your lir to knock me half-silly was not within the rules of the competition.”

“There were no rules,” he countered immediately. “And what Tasha did was her own doing, no suggestion of mine—though, admittedly, she was looking after my interests.” I saw the maddening grin again; winged black brows rose up to disappear into equally raven hair. “And her own, naturally, as she shares in the kill.”

“Of course,” I agreed wryly. “You would never set her on me purposely—”

“Not for a liege man to do,” he agreed blandly, with an equally bland smile. Infuriating, is my older brother.

As much as I hate Donal, I'll give him credit for one thing. It is very clear from this exchange that he did what he set out to do, raising all of his children together. We haven't seen Isolde yet, but I think there's a pretty clear brotherly bond between these characters.

It does seem like Niall has a few inadequacy issues though:

I should have known. I should have expected it. All a man has to do is look at him to know he is the better hunter. Because a man, looking at my brother, will see a Cheysuli warrior.

But a man, looking at me, will see only a fellow Homanan. Or Carillon, until he looks again.

Niall goes a little deeper into his issues for us:

For all we share a Cheysuli father, Ian and I share not a whit of anything more. Certainly not in appearance. Ian is all Cheysuli: black-haired, dark-skinned, yellow-eyed. And I am all Homanan: tawny-haired, fair-skinned, blue-eyed.

It may be that in a certain gesture, a specific movement, Ian and I resemble one another. Perhaps in a turn of phrase. But even that seems unlikely. Ian was Keep-raised, brought up by the clan. I was born in the royal palace of Homana-Mujhar, reared by the aristocracy. Even our accents differ a little: he speaks Homanan with the underlying lilt of the Cheysuli Old Tongue, frequently slipping into the language altogether when forgetful of his surroundings; my speech is always Homanan, laced with the nuances of Mujhara, and almost never do I fall into the Old Tongue of my ancestors.

Not that I have no wish to. I am Cheysuli as much as Ian—well, nearly; he is half, I claim a quarter—and yet no man would name me so. No man would ever look into my face and name me, in anger or awe, a shapechanger, because I lack the yellow eyes. I lack the color entirely; the gold, and even the language.

No. No shapechanger, the Cheysuli Prince of Homana.

Because in addition to lacking Cheysuli looks, I also lack a lir.

So here we get to the crux of Niall's issues. He's culturally Cheysuli, but he has mixed ancestry, and has inherited very little by way of Cheysuli traits. He feels disconnected to that part of his heritage and inadequate when compared to his older brother.

And already, I'm more sympathetic to the guy than I was to either Jaxom, in White Dragon, or Donal.

Jaxom's whole "alas I was bullied by a peasant child" bullshit never made sense to me. But Roberson nicely dodges that here, because Ian isn't bullying Niall here. Or rather, he is, but only in the way that all older brothers must mistreat their younger siblings. We'll see more of Ian and Niall's relationship in chapter one, but there's already been some mention of Ian having taught Niall hunting skills that I didn't excerpt, so we're probably not dealing with an abusive sibling situation. It's not Ian's fault that he inherited more Cheysuli traits than his brother did. It was just random chance.

Donal's angst was poorly done because Roberson seemed to bypass all of the legitimately difficult aspects of a member of a formerly persecuted race now taking rulership over his oppressors and made it about how annoying the luxuries are. And yeah, I'm not feeling that. But I think Niall's issues are pretty relevant. He's not (so far at least) bitching about being a prince. That's not the problem. The disconnect from an important part of his heritage and culture is the problem.

And it's probably worth reminding ourselves of the significance of the lir to Cheysuli society. A lir represents manhood and maturity, as well as the covenant between a Cheysuli and his gods. We've seen how Rowan is treated for his lack of a lir. Niall will probably escape some of harsher treatment, because he looks Homanan. But it also means that he won't be fully accepted among the Cheysuli.

So per Niall's own culture, he's either a child or he's soulless. Or he's not a Cheysuli at all. And that's a rough position to be in. (And could be a tangible problem when he has to deal with the Cheysuli once he ascends the throne.)

Of course, the prologue ends here, but at least we're starting with a protagonist that actually does seem to have a legitimate problem so...good start! So far!