Kate Elliott’s Black Wolves launches a new series; a grand, sweeping epic featuring a fracturing dynasty beset by outside challenges and inside strife; committed honor-bound soldiers coming out of retirement; demons lurking behind the guises of humans; and maybe best of all, a force of protectors who bond with large eagles to protect the realm. At the center of this epic are Dannarah, princess and leader among those who bond to the eagles, and Kellas, a Black Wolf who has retired from his duty (mainly because the kings he protected are dead).
Cover illustration by Larry Rostant
Elliott begins her tale at the height of King Anjihosh’s reign, he has united the Hundred, has two wives (as is custom), loving children, and a devoted people over whom he reigns. His son is curious and being groomed for the throne and Anjihosh’s daughter wishes to become a reve, a scout bonded to the enormous eagles who soar above the empire carrying messages of import. Anjihosh takes a bold young man named Kellas under his employ when Kellas dares to climb the Tower of Law in defiance of the King’s edicts. Kellas becomes an integral part of Anjihosh’s power base as the highest ranking Black Wolf (the King’s elite force of spies and warriors). He learns a secret about the king and is presented with a fateful decision.
Then Elliott jumps the narrative 44 years, where much has transpired: both Anjihosh and his son Atani have passed and King Jehosh, Anjihosh’s grandson is ruling in the slimmest sense of the word. His mother Chorannah has other designs for who shall rule. With this time-jump, the focus slightly shifts to feature Dannarah a woman now and Marshall, the leader of the eagles. After this time-jump Elliott also shines the spotlight on the character of Sarai, a young woman who sees great potential in an arranged marriage with Gil, a roguish young nobleman. While Elliott focuses a great deal on Dannarah as the experienced reve, she introduces Lifka, a young woman seemingly from a poor family of carters (people who cart goods) as a reve in training.
Superficially, Elliott tells her story with the framework of Epic Fantasy tropes, but what she does with those tropes and her purely magnetic storytelling elevates Black Wolves to a higher level than readers have likely come to expect from Epic Fantasy. The characters come across as realistically drawn individuals and the standout without a doubt for me was Dannarah, I loved her straight-forward (almost blunt), unashamed, unapologetic, and uncompromising approach to situations, how Elliott depicted her frustrations and aspirations, and simply how she interacted with the other characters.
Black Wolves is a novel that is both remarkably dense (700+ pages), but deceptively fast paced and addictively readable. Elliott props societal structures either to polish them anew or dismantle them for their failings. Through Dannarah’s eyes, we see how problematic an organization can become when an inept organization can become when blind pride gets in the way. She is supremely devoted to the reves and sees power being unjustly pulled from underneath her and from what the eagles and the reves exemplify. When she is present for an injustice about to be perpetrated on Lifka, Dannarah does all in her power to save the girl and (literally) bring her under her wing.
Rounding out the five main players are Sarai and Gil; newlyweds in fairly unconventional relationship by today’s standards, it is an arranged marriage after all. Also somewhat unconventionally for this element in genre fiction, the two characters come to appreciate each other and enjoy each other, rather than loathe the company of each other because they were forced together. Sarai gets pulled around as a pawn in courtly machinations, but she holds onto as much agency as conceivably possible in her situation. Gil does too, and a true mark of what great characters these two are is how they shine together as a couple/unit and how well the shine apart from each other as the narrative forces a gulf between them.
The hardened and aged warrior, Kellas says very little, but we see much from his vantage as he comes into contact with several people of the royal family and the wider world through his work as a Black Wolf over many years. Even though he is a duty-bound character beholden to others, Kellas has a strength of resolve that makes him a powerful character in his own right.
So there we have an overview of some of the characters, the primary players are magnificently well-rounded and each of them have agency over their own actions. With three of the five primary protagonists being women, and women who are powerfully active, and two of the five characters being effectively senior citizens, Elliott is playing the pieces of the genre in her own powerfully unique fashion. Or in other words you don’t often see the gender imbalance favor women nor are older characters such primary players.
Through these characters, Elliott smoothly navigates sexual and gendered lines of power, the power of politics, the power of fables and belief, the power of secrets, and how ruler’s thoughts of “what’s best for the people” is often what is best for themselves and potentially short-sighted. The sexual power here in Black Wolves is remarkable for many reasons, the women who hold stature are not demeaned for their sexual relations, it is facet of their characters and past; it is empowering just as any other positive trait should be. One of the more brutal scenes in the novel is when a man is punished via sexual violence by other men. Admittedly, the blatant nature of the brutality arises perhaps because it is less common to see such “punishment” directed towards men, whereas women are more often the targets of such punishing violence.
I’ve barely mentioned the prevailing fantastical elements….well, the enormous eagles of course. There’s a bond between the reve (rider) and eagle that is not dissimilar to the dragon/rider relationship in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels. The eagles “jess” potential reves to choose their rider and the two form a powerful lifetime bond (also similar to Naomi Novik’s dragons and their riders in her Temeraire series). There are also demons in this fully realized world although their true nature demons is somewhat muddled as they are secretive, hide behind human guises and are initially presented as enemies of humanity, but the hints peppered throughout the novel have me very intrigued about their true nature.
While Black Wolves is set in the same milieu as Elliott’s earlier Crossroads trilogy (Spirit Gate, Shadow Gate, and Traitor’s Gate), the story is far enough removed that it stands on its own. Or, to put it another way, I’ve yet* to read the Crossroads trilogy, but Kate Elliott’s master storytelling made me feel perfectly comfortable and at home reading Black Wolves. A long novel for sure, but every page of it essential and consumed with great joy, Black Wolves is a hallmark of Epic Fantasy and one of the best books I read this year. I can’t wait for book 2.
* “Yet” is the operative word, perhaps I’ll bide my time for book two of Black Wolves by reading Crossroads.
© 2015 Rob H. Bedford
Orbit, November 2015
Trade Paperback, 782 Pages | ISBN: 978-0-316-36869-8
http://www.kateelliott.com/ | http://www.kateelliott.com/index.php?pageID=51
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Orbit Books
