Seven stories about hunters, mages, and honored guards of multiple species, as dark times seem to be encroaching on the lands.

Seven stories that show several characters going through their daily life wasn’t enough to get me hooked on this series, though I still plan to give it a shot. I wonder if it would have been better to read about them after the first book in the trilogy, to already have an idea of what the world is like. I realize that these are day-in-the-life stories and that because they are short it’s hard to give much depth to the story, but I wish the author had taken more chances with the characters. There is a lot of history given in large chunks, which I found awkward, as was much of the dialog. I was a bit worried after the first story, which had a lot of that, but fortunately the next one was more interesting. Only Ralowyn’s could be called exciting, and I enjoyed her interior voice and concerns even before the action. The others were small snippets that didn’t swing me one way or the other. The author’s style is very casual, which takes a bit of getting used to. Like other prelude stories I’ve recently read, it isn’t drawing me rushing into the main trilogy. However, I’m still looking forward to seeing more about this world, due to other things I’ve read about it  - and of course the phenomenal cover!

Merrick and Rora covers the hunter Merrick and his hawk Rora, and how they came to be together. It’s a short story that didn’t enthrall me to the writer’s style, especially when citing dialog. It was a typical tale of Merrick wanting to train a hawk, and not realizing their potential together. The flashbacks were not as engaging as I think they were intended to be. In the present, Merrick watches a battle between the Gryffon Guard and the Orc Legions, in which both sides are nearly wiped out. His sister is taking care of the sole Gryffon Guard survivor, and the tale ends with him wondering how a battle came so close to his home. Neither the character nor the situation made me want to read further, and if this was all, I would have unfortunately given up.

Fortunately, the story of Kaelor was a bit better. I could sympathize with this elf who serves a useless king. He is the power behind the throne, but I didn’t get the sense that he loved the power. It was still a job to him, and he did it because it was his duty. I don’t yet have a sense of how the different races mingle or don’t mingle. I think the king is human, so it appears that humans and elves mix, though Merrick said they were rarely seen in human lands when he was trained in teaching Rora. There is a tie-in to that story, in that Merrick’s father comes to court to report on the surviving Gryffon Guard, who has awakened. Kaelor also takes note of the unrest in the outer provinces before the story ends.

Smarlo’s story takes us in a different direction, and one which I enjoyed more than the previous two. Again, the dialog was a little to modern and casual for my tastes, but after the first couple of pages, Smarlo is on his own, and the introspection is well-written. He’s an orc mage, and is tasked with investigating a dangerous predator in the mines. He does his research, which was a bit too much exposition, but gave us his thoughts on it, too. When he enters the mines, he almost immediately gets lost, but finds the predator and her nest, which the orcs destroy. It’s unfortunate that the only magic Smarlo does is some minor explosions to keep the creature at bay. The knowledge gained, though was worth it. He finds writing on the walls in the Dark language, and knows that there are tunnels down to the underrock, a dangerous place full of unnamed evil. I suspect he’ll have to read that forbidden book he dropped, and that the tunnels will come unblocked at some point.

The fourth story is a quiet one for Nera, a member of the Griffin Guard. It’s hard to fit the timeline into this story, as they talk about an entire unit being destroyed, as in the first two, but then they say the king is dead, and the surviving member of the battle against the orcs is now king. Why weren’t the king and Kaelor more excited if it was the prince being healed? How could they not know? Regardless, this story is about how Nera interacts with her family, teasing her mother and encouraging her little brother to get ready to apply to the Guard when he’s a little older. When she returns to her unit, she spars with another prince, but it’s obviously not the brother to the new king, so who is this guy? He and Nera are flirting, and nearly kiss, which is of course interrupted by a call for the prince to attend a summons. Nothing much happens, and we don’t learn much about Nera, except that she is happy to be where she is.

Ralowyn’s story is the most exciting of them all. Strangely, she spends most of her time alone. I could have done without the memories which doubles as exposition and backstory, and which slowed the story down. But I loved the elven connection to nature, and the way she could spend forty years walking the forest, learning about herself –elves being so long-lived that it was a blink of the eye to her. I also loved the way she used her staff, to light the fire, and bring her into balance. After all the backstory, the present story focuses on a hideously loud creature that is barreling through the forest, scaring even a bear that she’s telepathically linked to (after it scared her). This was also very well written. She and the bear follow the creature, which turns out to be a man, shocking both of them, as humans don’t come into this area. The story ends on a cliff-hanger that is well-deserved.

When we get to Tobin, it’s more of a day-in-the-life story. He’s a Halfling, and I was surprised to find that he’d married and had a child with a dwarf, Lenor. It’s a different world from Tolkien. He runs a transport business, taking passengers and goods from one village to another, or the central depot where he can charter out to the manager. He’s kind-hearted, and caravans with the old dwarf Georl. Georl is funny, in that he never says anything, just grunting, as Tobin is full of talk, lots of words to say not much. They meet up with other wagonriders, where Tobin finally gets to speak with somebody. When he arrives at the depot, he’s disappointed to learn that there are no passenger commissions, so he waits until morning and hears of people who just sold their boat, and have no means of transportation. The story ends with him arriving to pick them up. Presumably, this is where we’ll find him in the first novel.

The final story is about a dwarf named Lotmaeg, ready to join the hunt for a garvawk so that a new member of their warriors can fly. Lotmaeg chases down a wizard for the hunt, who will put the garvawk to sleep, and Felton will have to wake him for bonding. They know exactly where to find the garvawk and how it hunts, so they climb into its cave and everything goes according to plan. This was another of the interesting stories, but the author isn’t taking any chances with his characters, which made it tiring after a while. The characters talk to each other, explaining history that they probably already know, and the author gives us a lot of infodumps, fortunately in small chunks, but they feel awkward.

I feel that these stories would be better read after knowing more about the characters and their world, so I understood better the dangers they might face. As it is, only two of the characters face even a tiny bit of danger, and one of them turns out to be a false threat. I hope the trilogy of books is more exciting than this, because while interesting, the short stories had more trouble keeping me hooked.