*** Warning: This review contains spoilers!! ***
From the very beginning, this book didn't sit well with me. I realize there's a whole world out there to explore, but I wasn't ready to leave Araluen yet. Already we're off to Skandia and Gallica, but I still wanted to read more about Celtica, the fiefs of Araluen, and even this Hibernia that was mentioned a time or two. And after Will received his hero's welcome for his role in taking down the Kalkara, I was looking forward to reading about what kind of honor and praise Horace would get for taking down Lord Morgarath himself! Alas, any recognition he may have gotten went completely unmentioned in this book.
I spent the first several chapters increasingly annoyed that Halt had to go to so much trouble to get himself banished in order to be free to search for Will. You're telling me that King Duncan was perfectly content to let his daughter suffer in the hands of the Skandians, safe in the assumption that she would be treated well and that the King would only have to pay a ransom to get her released!!? So he's just going to sit around for months and months and wait for a ransom message?! He didn't think it was worth sparing ONE RANGER to go in search of his kidnapped daughter!?
Even after I got over those two hurdles, the book just keep veering farther and farther away from what I had come to enjoy about the first two books, which were safely in the upper elementary reading range. Now, suddenly, this book jumped into the upper middle school range, with all kinds of more mature content. The Skandians keep slaves, the Gallic warlord tortured and murdered those who "displeased" him, wanton drunkenness is portrayed more than once, and there's even a case of drug addiction! It's a bit shocking - even though the addict is never truly at fault. I do have to give the author credit, though, for depicting all of the above as negative, contemptuous things that clearly contrasted with the disciplined and honorable ways of Rangers and knights.
Anyway, I kept holding out, figuring that surely the book would be redeemed when Will and Halt are reunited in the end! Alas, again, I was disappointed.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy this book at all. I liked the drama of Halt's banishment - though it seemed unbelievable that it wasn't automatically clear to everyone why Halt did what he did. And I liked that when they said their farewells, Halt, Gilan, and Crowley - hardened Rangers as they were - all teared up.
Evanlyn also grew on me, while Jarl Erak remains a conflicted character. Am I supposed to like him because he helped Will and Evanlyn escape, even though it's ALL HIS FAULT that they were enslaved in the first place!?
Well, I'll just have to read book 4, and see where all this goes...
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