By the Mountain Bound

By the Mountain Bound is the second book in Elizabeth Bear's The Edda of Burdens series. It is set before the events of All the Windracked Stars (post) so you could read them in either order, but I think it works best as I've done it this time (tho obviously as this is my first read of this book I haven't tried out the other way round yet!).

The three protagonists of the story are the Wolf (Mingan), the Historian (Muire) and the Warrior (Strifbjorn) - the same three as in All the Windracked Stars, although Strifbjorn is reborn as the mortal Cathoair in that book. Muire was central in the first book, this book is the Wolf's. Strifbjorn and Muire are both immortal Children of the Light, waelcyrge. The Wolf is... not quite the same as them, he is also a survivor from the world before there's, and was already there when the Children first came into being. When the story opens superficially all is well in the world - we see where the cracks are but there's nothing threatening about them. The opening chapters establish the world with a wedding between two waelcyrge, where we learn (amongst other things) that Strifbjorn is their war leader and they have no Cynge and no Lady despite setting chairs out for both. Into this good-enough world comes Heythe, who quickly establishes herself as the Lady returned. All is, of course, not quite what it seems and Heythe is soon manipulating the warlcyrge into their seemingly inevitable slide towards apocalypse.

Read the rest of my review by clicking the link below