Other characters have somewhat less pronounced character arcs, save for Captain Braylor Killcoin himself, about whom we learn a great deal through the course of this novel, especially his interactions with Soffjan, the mind-witch Memoridon and Killcoin’s sister. The Arki at the beginning of this novel, and certainly the Arki at its conclusion, is far different than the Arki hired by the Syldoon at the beginning of Scourge of the Betrayer. One could characterize the Arki’s, the protagonist, character arc as being punctuated by these battle sequences, growing and adapting and shedding his naivete with each one. We get a variety of sequences as our protagonist and the Syldoons face different sorts of battles and enemies. And, of course, the brutal action and conflict work as set-pieces in and of themselves This is something the author is good at, and he continues to play that theme throughout this novel as well as its predecessor. The author pairs this with getting quickly to brutally sharp action and conflict, putting our protagonists in a jam and letting conflict do the heavy lifting of character development. Readers unfamiliar or having spent a while since reading the first novel are not coddled here there is an economy of bringing readers up to speed on characters or even the local situation on the ground. This second novel picks up not long after the events of Scourge of the Betrayer, leaving Arki and the Syldoonians reacting to the aftermath of the mess of things made at the end of that previous novel.
Veil of the Deserters is the second in Jeff Salyards’ Bloodsounder’s Arc series and is sequel to his debut novel Scourge of the Betrayer. He’s hired by the Syldoon for purposes only now becoming clear.
The completion of Killcoin’s task and the journey home to the capital is not going to be a straight road by any means.Īnd chronicling, witnessing, watching this all, an unlikely protagonist - a scribe, with little military skill, who is only slowly shedding his callowness. Trouble enough that one of the most dangerous people in the Empire has been fetched to bring him home - his sister. Its commander, Captain Killcoin, having lost one of the few people who can keep him all together with his dangerous mind-warping weapon Bloodsounder, is in a heap of trouble with higher ups in the Empire. In a border kingdom of the Syldoon Empire, a long-range military unit has gotten itself too tangled with local politics for its own good.
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