Two Blades

by Stuart Kurth

It’s been thirty years since the end of the Primrose War, thirty years since King Goring Saedren drank and whored and murdered his way to all points of the compass, delivering his right to rule to all who would listen, and ramming it down the throats of those who wouldn’t. He marched straight into the Great Desert and became the first to knock those sand-eating Shaadi princes off their golden perches and unite all of Varri-Mennyn under one banner. Thirty years on and he’s grown fat and soft, lost his thirst for the fight, and all along the margins of his shrinking Kingdom, his enemies swarm.

Kannath Meadowmere, exiled Mendran nobleman and one-legged warlord, has come south through the wall with an eye for plunder and an army in tow. While the king sleeps in the west, he marches upon the east swallowing one territory after the last, aided by a pack of very suspect allies.

Mercenary scum Pelt and Halling, two black-hearted murderers with red reputations and not enough common decency to deserve surnames, have been on the run from Saedren’s King’s Men for four years, spilling enough blood to drown a cow. With no code of honour and only the meanest grasp of the concept of morality, the brothers fight for the highest bidder and turn coat more often than a tailor. Their hands are red, their blades priceless, and their ambitions dark. But when they find themselves facing down Meadowmere’s relentless army, they begin to realise the storm they’ve landed themselves in, and that history, as well as a bleak future, are about to stab them both in the back.

Genres: Fantasy

596 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 11, 2017

About the author

I write grimdark fantasy. Drop me a message if you'd like an ARC to review.

Reviews

[H.R. Adel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Two Blades" is the tale of Pelt and Halling, a pair of mercenary brothers. Pelt, the elder of the two, is an enormous, axe-wielding butcher. To say that he’s morally dubious would be polite, but his heart is mostly in the right place. On the other hand, Halling, of shorter stature but a truly lethal swordsman, is an absolute psychopath. He has no heart whatsoever. Together their skills, cunning and magical weapons make them a force to be reckoned with as they go about their business… business that sees them bouncing from one employer to the next in a veritable orgy of destruction.

This book is more or less an experiment, an attempt to plumb the depths of grimdark, and as such it’s easily one of the most explicitly violent books I’ve ever read. If "Natural Born Killers" had a mediaeval fantasy equivalent, this would probably be it. It’s so raw that I swear I had more chest hair by the story’s end than I had at the beginning. This is for ultimate grimdark fans only – the faint of heart will need a bucket. The rest of us will also need a bucket. For the gore, that is, because this is an exceedingly bloody tale.

You’re barely a couple of pages into "Two Blades" and it’s already gruesome. If the author isn’t terribly kind to the protagonists – and trust me, he isn’t – he treats the lives of flat characters as if they’re nothing. Another thing that struck me from the outset was that, aside from a couple of notable exceptions, the men are men and the women are women. It’s pretty hard to get the two confused, and I’m definitely on board with this sort of thing. It's not just blood and manly men, though - there are plenty of great scenes and lots of delightfully descriptive prose as you move through the tale.

The story does have some shortcomings. One is that although told in omniscient third person, sometimes the perspective shifts to something closer to third person limited, and this results in some confusing narrative. It doesn’t happen all that much, but it’s there. I’m also going to be honest and say that some of the text could do with a little copy editing. The good news on this front, however, is that the author is in the process of re-working "Two Blades" and we can look forward to a snazzier version in the near future.

All in all, I enjoyed this story. The author is at his best when the pace is frenetic, and the pace is very often frenetic. I’m a big fan of explicit combat scenes, too, and there are some truly memorable ones to be had here. Will I be along for book 2? You can bet your arse end I will!

[Swagat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the arc last year and this is what I said at that time:

"Personally I liked it. But I think that it is not for everybody. The violence will probably be too much for some people."


The story is about 2 mercenaries, Pelt and Halling. They are bastards. They are not knights in shining armour. They are killers and murderers who most of the time only care about themselves.

The action scenes are good.

This book is not for the faint-hearted.

[Alec Mccallum · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dark and twisted tale of two brothers doing a bunch of evil stuff. An interesting look into the darker side of the human psyche. Exciting Stuff!