Brian Ruckley’s unremittingly bleak Godless World trilogy finds its conclusion with Fall of Thanes, and it’s increasingly obvious that this trilogy was well-named indeed. The descent of a recognisable if basic human civilisation in to barbarity and madness, when higher functions are stripped away by the increasing power of Aeglyss, the half-human, half-kyrinin hybrid, is shown in brutal clarity by Ruckley. Having co-opted the armies of the Black Road and given them a victory over the True Bloods, the power flowing through Aeglyss is corrupting both him and all those around him – random acts of senseless violence abound, and base instincts seem to be overtaking all of the people’s of Ruckley’s wintery world. His taking the rotted city of Kan Avor, reclaimed from the floodwaters, as his base, is a clear symbol of his relationship with decay.

Orisian, the Thane of what is left of the Lannis Blood, continues his mission to defeat Aeglyss by delivering the woman Krina to him – he alone has the vision that she is the key to the half-breed’s defeat. Although there is a touch of Frodo about Orisian, in that he is central to the defeat of the darkness, yet is somehow not as sympathetic as he ought to be, his mission in this volume feels more purposeful and central than it did in the last, and you feel for his ever dwindling retinue as they are gradually picked off by enemies or driven insane by the madness sweeping across the land.

Meanwhile, Kanin, Thane of the Black Road’s Horin Blood, is only prevented from falling in to madness by his overwhelming need for vengeance over Aeglyss, who killed his sister Wain in the previous volume, Bloodheir. Gathering a force of men around him by sheer force of will, his fate is tied up with that of Aeglyss right to the end. As a character who started out firmly on the side of bad, back in Winterbirth, Kanin has become, if not likeable, then at least sympathetic, caught up in a train of events that he helped to start, events that he has not been in control of for quite some time.

We also follow the fate of Orisian’s sister, Anyara, as she is taken south to the capital of the True Bloods as a hostage. There she encounters the High Thane’s chancellor, the Shadowhand, now a puppet of Aeglyss, and his wife. There is a touch of Macbeth about the High Thane, Lheanor, and the havoc wrought by Aeglyss through his proxy is of a different kind to that happening to the north. It is here that we meet again possibly Ruckley’s best creation in terms of sheer force of character, the morbidly obese criminal mastermind Torquentine, who does his bit for the forces of good, even if it is in the name of self-preservation.

Ruckley drives the story along nicely, with a mounting sense of chaos pervading everything, that only the strongest characters are able to resist for any length of time,with a denouement that is violent while perhaps not being quite as dramatic as I had expected. The presentation of Aeglyss as a kind of Christ-figure, suffering on behalf of the people of the world in order to deliver a changed reality, is much more explicit in this volume (at one point he actually has himself crucified to enhance his powers), and the counterpoint between his physical deterioration and his burgeoning power is well handled. Despite the fact that he is the root of the carnage sweeping across the land, it’s possible to see him as a victim of these events too.

If things took a slight dip in the middle volume, Fall of Thanes was for me a strong conclusion to a very enjoyable trilogy, a sequence of books that embodies everything I enjoy about traditional epic fantasy, and I look forward to seeing what Brian Ruckley does next.

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