Shadow Chaser by Alexey Pehov – review

With Shadow Chaser, Alexey Pehov once again delivers the goods. His sequel to Shadow Prowler is a fantasy novel full of action, adventure, swords and sorcery, and the peerless thievery of the hero of The Chronicles of Siala series, Shadow Harold. This time, though he likes to work alone, the only way he can fulfill his promised Commission to the king and bring back the Rainbow Horn is to rely on the help of the small retinue of warriors (the Wild Hearts) and magic users that the king has assigned him. To accomplish his goal, he must use the Crimson Key and journey to the underground palaces and labyrinths of Hrad Spein, where ogres, orcs, elves, and men have buried their fallen warriors. Easier said than done, when the Key has been wrested from his control by men working for the Nameless One, who is stirring after centuries of relative peace, ready to ruthlessly slay, conquer, and dominate all before him.

Shadow Harold, whom the king’s jester, the goblin Kli-Kli, believes is the Dancer in the Shadows written about in the prophecies of the crazy goblin Tre-Tre, just wants to satisfy the terms of the Commission so he can get back to his old way of life of living by his wits and skills as a master thief. Drawn reluctantly into the quest to retrieve the Rainbow Horn, the only talisman that would be powerful enough to defeat the Nameless One, Harold is forced to become the hero spoken of in Kli-Kli’s Book of Prophecies.

Ordinarily, a thief’s life is a solitary one, and a friendless one, but Harold discovers over the course of Shadow Chaser that his traveling companions are becoming friends of his. He muses about this change in his thinking:

A thief, if he is a good thief, has to be alone. No family, no attachments, nothing that would affect his work or his safety. And that was how it had been until just recently. I was astonished to realize that I could call those constant squabblers Deler and Halla, that tiresome pest Kli-Kli, Miralissa, Lamplighter, and all the others my friends, and without the slightest hesitation.

Shadow Harold also shares his mind with that of a centuries-old archmagician, Valder. He can sometimes communicate with Valder, who has saved him at various times in the past, but Valder often won’t respond to Harold. Valder generally only makes himself known in desperate situations, and Harold has very mixed feelings about Valder taking up his abode in Harold’s mind:

It’s a very unpleasant feeling, being able to sense someone else inside yourself and remembering things that never happened in your life. Although I can’t deny that if the archmagician hadn’t been with me, my eyes would have been eaten away by death-worms long ago.

No great fantasy series would be complete without numerous bloody battle scenes, and Shadow Chaser has these in spades. “On the Border,” one of my favorite chapters in the novel, is about one of the bloodiest and goriest battles I’ve read about in fantasy literature, that takes place in a town called the Crossroads. The First People, the orcs, have slaughtered everyone, cutting off their ears, nailing corpses to the walls of a tavern, and herding some of them into a barn, setting it on fire, and burning them to ashes. Harold, the Wild Heart men with him, Kli-Kli, and the rest of his retinue fight fearlessly against the orcs.

Shadow Chaser borrows from the best authors of fantasy and sword & sorcery literature, like J.R.R. Tolkein, Michael Moorcock, and Fritz Leiber; and Alexey Pehov adds his own flair and magic to the mix. I have no doubt he will join the short list of the all-time masters at writing fantasy epics when The Chronicles of Siala are completed. Shadow Harold is an unlikely hero, but one who it is easy to identify with. He survives by his wits and his skills as a master thief, and he’s an expert with the crossbow. Andrew Bromfield (of Night Watch fame) is again the translator from the Russian, and does another excellent job of bringing this internationally best-selling series to the attention of the West. I highly recommend Shadow Chaser and Shadow Prowler to anyone who loves the Fantasy and Sword & Sorcery genres.