Ashes fitting end to Iron Elves series

Chris Evans has ended his military fantasy series, The Iron Elves, as strongly as he began it — in a harsh world of strange, powerful and bitter enemies where only courage and co-operation and honour can see one through.

Evans’s hero, Maj. Konowa Swift Dragon, has courage and honour to burn, but in this book he must learn to work with allies, many of them from outside the army world with which he is most familiar, and some of them downright strange. He will take them from the bloody battlefield where the book begins to the frozen mountains that hide the Shadow Monarch, to rid the world of that evil power.

What a world Evans has invented! And such amazing creatures, particularly the Shadow Monarch’s strange killers — from an army of blood trees that devour anything alive within reach of their roots, to the ferocious rakkes, large carnivores hunting in deadly hordes, to dragons that evolved out of some of the blood trees and take to battle. Fighting at Konowa’s side are some of the Iron Elves bonded to the regiment and to him, and some of their many dead. Also with him are a diplomat who has the only map and can’t figure out which way is up or down, a prince who seems to be afraid, and many others, more than he ever expected.

Best of all, and most interesting, is the mysterious Rallie, who is writing the story as it happens and whose pen has many talents, Pte. Renwar, who is struggling to be the link between the world and the shades of the dead, while not being pulled permanently into their death, and Visyna, weaver of weather, whose love holds out great promise for Konowa if he ever finds her again and rids him- self of the curse that haunts him.

Like all fantasy, there are many battles, but Konowa’s “army” isn’t armed just with swords. As well as magic — that comes and goes with the strength of its wielder — these soldiers have muskets, which brings this era much closer to modern times and epics like the Napoleonic wars.

And Evans has created characters real enough to have doubts and worries as they are fighting for their future and that of their world, people who change and grow as they come to appreciate what others can contribute.

Strong characters, strong plot, fascinating battles — this series has it all and Ashes of a Black Frost is a fitting conclusion.

ASHES OF A BLACK FROST

By Chris Evans Gallery Books, $29.99