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Mr Gemmell's third novel marks a bit of a change in direction for him. He is still telling ridiculously entertaining stories about impossible deeds performed by incredibly competent people who are remarkably dangerous to be around and who also hold themselves to unbelievably high standards of behaviour. But this time, he's managed to add a little more depth to the story - it's almost literary in quality.
Now, I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. Far from it. But here we have a swing in a direction that I don't remember him deviating far from for the rest of his career.
It's a bog-standard city-under-siege, hero-performs-impossible-quest tale but the characters feel as though they have more shading to them than in his previous novels (which I love, by the way). It also takes place earlier than the two previous novels and we see the appearance of characters mentioned in previous novels, as well as the creation and development of several aspects of the world of the Drenai.
The standout is, of course, Waylander, the soldier-turned-assassin who undergoes redemption when he saves the life of a priest being tortured by mercenaries. In fact, the encounter changes them both, which creates ripples outward into the world around them and into the history that Gemmell was creating. Waylander was a different type of hero to those he had written before: he is much darker than Druss or Rek or Tenaka Khan and has a more ruthless streak than anyone in his books to date. He kills without a snarky rejoinder or even a warning and he seems to rationalise the deaths he causes far more calmly than any other character so far.
Being a Gemmell novel there are many conversations about the morality of war and violence and how effective or even ethical it can be, even in the service of protecting the innocent. Gemmell, once again, comes to no real conclusion - or doesn't allow one onto the page - because it isn't a debate that can ever end or have a proper answer. Dardalion, the priest saved by Waylander, forms the Thirty, the warrior mystics beloved by fans and begins the endless cycle of debates about whether or not violence in the name of higher purposes is ever right or valid.
What is really interesting here are the questions raised by situations, questions we get explored further in later novels: can a life of violence ever be properly redeemed by a person's actions? Are there any causes that are worth giving your life for? What role do politics and cynicism play in heroics?
But there's a great yarn buried under the musings on life and purpose. As I said, it's a fairly standard tale but Gemmell infuses everything he writes with an urgency and tension that leaps off the page. It's also the first time that I noticed how much like a western Waylander's quest in the second half of the novel is. Given the plot of the next novel by Gemmell, I wonder how much of that was influenced by this.