We Burn Our Dead

Led by the fearless yet weary Sturmund, known as the Captain, a brutal band of warriors spends their days fighting in exchange for coin: Patch, a smart aleck; Culp, a master of the long blade; Hull, an aging but dangerous fighter; Ghost, who “knew the ways of the shadows” and “could speak to the forest”; Marney, a map reader and “scholar”; and Bitch, the group’s lone woman and arguably the group’s fiercest fighter, who gave herself her name. Years into the never-ending parade of violence that keeps them crisscrossing the land, the group stops for some much-needed rest on an isolated hillside. When Hull and Ghost are sent out hunting, they encounter a mysterious beast that unleashes unspeakable violence: “The earth quaked. The beast came crashing through trees, its head bending into moss-covered trunks, a shattering spray of splinters filling the air as it burst through the wood.” And now that the creature has caught the group’s scent, it will stop at nothing until they’re all dead. The warriors are determined to hunt it down, but the nature of predator and prey becomes confused in the dark forest. When Marney’s maps take them as far as they can go, they decide to embark on uncharted paths to “knock on that monster’s door.” Readers learn how each member of the company came to join Sturmund. Shocking twists and turns prove that no one is safe, complete with an ending that will force readers to reconsider all that came before.Laughton crafts a world reminiscent of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones in its brutality. Instead of fighting others to gain and keep political power, however, his characters fight others as an extension of the battles they face within. However, one can only avoid personal pain for so long, as the novel’s shocking (and cinematic) finale demonstrates. Although the book’s events are unapologetically violent, Laughton balances the bloodshed with a poetic narrative voice that marries beauty and pain with a haunting vividness: “What Sturmund saw in that lightless void, none would ever ask…It would seem to Marney…that some of the shadows had come away with him, pulled from the forest depths like corrupted cotton, clinging to his eyes and lashes, in his sight and on his mind from that moment on.” The main question, of course, is what the beast in the story really is. Readers are told that “for all its countless years, the beast was but a child compared to the ancient things with which it shared the world.” But as is often the case in stories such as this, the monster is so much more than it seems, taking on mythic proportions yet remaining somewhat a mystery. Along with naturalistic dialogue and brisk pacing, this epic warrior tale contains many strands that readers will enjoy unraveling.

Mar 1, 2025 - 07:20

Led by the fearless yet weary Sturmund, known as the Captain, a brutal band of warriors spends their days fighting in exchange for coin: Patch, a smart aleck; Culp, a master of the long blade; Hull, an aging but dangerous fighter; Ghost, who “knew the ways of the shadows” and “could speak to the forest”; Marney, a map reader and “scholar”; and Bitch, the group’s lone woman and arguably the group’s fiercest fighter, who gave herself her name. Years into the never-ending parade of violence that keeps them crisscrossing the land, the group stops for some much-needed rest on an isolated hillside. When Hull and Ghost are sent out hunting, they encounter a mysterious beast that unleashes unspeakable violence: “The earth quaked. The beast came crashing through trees, its head bending into moss-covered trunks, a shattering spray of splinters filling the air as it burst through the wood.” And now that the creature has caught the group’s scent, it will stop at nothing until they’re all dead. The warriors are determined to hunt it down, but the nature of predator and prey becomes confused in the dark forest. When Marney’s maps take them as far as they can go, they decide to embark on uncharted paths to “knock on that monster’s door.” Readers learn how each member of the company came to join Sturmund. Shocking twists and turns prove that no one is safe, complete with an ending that will force readers to reconsider all that came before.

Laughton crafts a world reminiscent of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones in its brutality. Instead of fighting others to gain and keep political power, however, his characters fight others as an extension of the battles they face within. However, one can only avoid personal pain for so long, as the novel’s shocking (and cinematic) finale demonstrates. Although the book’s events are unapologetically violent, Laughton balances the bloodshed with a poetic narrative voice that marries beauty and pain with a haunting vividness: “What Sturmund saw in that lightless void, none would ever ask…It would seem to Marney…that some of the shadows had come away with him, pulled from the forest depths like corrupted cotton, clinging to his eyes and lashes, in his sight and on his mind from that moment on.” The main question, of course, is what the beast in the story really is. Readers are told that “for all its countless years, the beast was but a child compared to the ancient things with which it shared the world.” But as is often the case in stories such as this, the monster is so much more than it seems, taking on mythic proportions yet remaining somewhat a mystery. Along with naturalistic dialogue and brisk pacing, this epic warrior tale contains many strands that readers will enjoy unraveling.