"Why are you fighting? For your king? For glory? You are not fighting for anything. You are fighting because you are fighting."
Lidae is an ex-soldier, married now with two young sons. When the reader first meets her, she is tending to her husband's funeral pyre. She struggles with caring for two toddlers alone, longing for the freedom of her soldier days. She is forced to confront her divided loyalties when the village is attacked and burned.
I loved Ms. Spark's Empires of Dust trilogy, and this book is also a great dark, militaristic fantasy. I've never really settled on a good definition of grimdark, though the trilogy definitely fits that label, and this book is dark with grimdark overtones. It's written from Lidae's POV in a stream-of-consciousness style which fits the visceral events of the book (though it took me a while to get used to).
It's the story of ordinary soldiers - no heroes, generals, or kings. Lidae fights for glory and booty and because she's good at it, but she never forgets the deaths, the muck, or the wretchedness that makes up a foot soldier's life. There's the dull acceptance that war will never end, but for Lidae, it's a better life than the women who become slaves or camp followers. And the reader never forgets that Lidae is also a mother.
The writing is sometimes raw but often lyrical: "All that lives on the face of the earth stops a moment, grieves a moment, when a dragon dies, they say." The reader feels every one of Lidae's emotions and complaints. It's a different type of fantasy with a different type of heroine, but I think this book will win a lot of accolades. ( )