The Court of Broken Knives Is a Fantasy Debut Grimmer Than Grimdark

The corruption in the former Yellow Empire is evident in the worship of its goddess, who requires human sacrifice performed by a chosen orphan, who is then trained for a decade to become the embodiment of the goddess. Thalia, the latest High Priestess, has never left the environs of her Temple, nor known any other life, putting aside qualms about performing human sacrifices because they are what the goddess requires. In her time, she has killed men, women, and children in worship the goddess, since the day of the ceremony that confirmed her, at just 5 years old.
I bowed my head and said the words after her. My voice was very loud. I had been afraid that it would stick in my throat. Bitter in my mouth when I drank, salt water mixed with the tang of blood. The face stared at me, a multitude of the faces black and brown and white, bright eyes and golden jewelry. I rose and stood tall before the altar, in my robes and my crown, and I was the High Priestess, the Chosen of God, the Beloved of Great Tanis and the Lord of LIving and Dying, she who gives light and darkness and life and death and mercy and pain.
Into this mess walks Marith, the newest member of a mercenary company traveling to Sorlost, an adventure that at first seems unconnected to Orhan’s plotting—much as Marith seems to be an unimportant member of the company, just one of many (he isn’t even the point of view character in the company; that would be Tobias, one of the squad leaders). Only slowly does Marith’s importance come to light, though his confrontation with a dragon at the start of the novel is a clue that makes Tobias ponder.
Marith, on the other hand….Yes, Well. The boy had a charisma of some kind. More than just his obvious high breeding, though that was part of it. But it went deeper, something in him that you couldn’t put into words. … He’d sat quiet last night, hardly speaking. Nose down in his drink and those big sad eyes. The barmaid had pawed over him, not surprising, really, since the boy was considerably prettier than she was, and he’d ignored her completely. Not because he was shy of her, or not interested in her, he’d given the girl a through looking over at first … but as though she had stopped meaning anything to him. As though nothing meant anything to him.
This is a book in which the gods are real, and not benevolent. Marith is the proof of that: a man descended from a warmongering god who inspired worship of death. It’s implied the reason Marith fell on the hard times—resulting in his placement in a low-level mercenary company—is that he feels the death god within him, and is trying to resist its siren call. But those who struggle against gods don’t fare well. Even Tobias, the ordinary mercenary, senses that, and is afraid.
This is not an escapist fantasy.
In her epilogue, Sparks says she loves reading grimdark fantasy (her twitter handle is @queenofgrimdark, after all), and she’s certainly written a good representation of the genre. Indeed, she could probably give George R.R. Martin lessons in how to kill people in distressinf ways. Her book requires patience in the beginning, as it takes time for the plot to unfold, especially amid interludes to Amrath, the God of Death, and because there are multiple points of view.
Without spoiling too much, I’ll say that in any other book, the big climax would be the culmination of Orhan’s plans to assassinate his king. Here, that happens at the halfway point. By the final chapter, it’s clear chaos and death are coming, or have already arrived, and that life in this world is only going to get worse for everyone. It’s an ending that fulfills the promise of the end of the first chapter:
The shining figure turns. Looks at the men watching. Looks at him. Screams. Things shriek back that make the world tremble. The silver sword rises and falls. Five men. Ten. Twenty. A pile of corpses. He stares mesmerized at the dying. The beauty of it. The most beautiful thing in the world. Killing and killing and such perfect joy. His heart overflowing. His heart singing. This, oh, indeed, oh, for this, all men are born. He scream in answer, dying, throws himself against his god’s enemies with knife and sword and nails and teeth.
Why we march and why we die
And what life means…it’s all a lie
Death! Death! Death!
This book may not make you worship death like its characters do, but it weaves a spell that will consume you all the same.
The Court of Broken Knives is available now.