Title: Redoubt
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Series: The Collegium Chronicles #4, Valdemar #10
Rating Out of 5:  5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Fantasy
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: Daw fantasy
Year: 2012
5th sentence, 74th page: Without the armor, without helmets, without the padding, this was just a romp.

CAPTURED!

Life at the Heralds’ Collegium in Haven has definitely improved for Mags. He’s even become something of a hero since risking his life to rescue his girlfriend Amily – daughter of Nikolas, the King’s Own Herald – from Karsite kidnappers. His training as an undercover agent for the crown is progressing. he is no longer the “foreigner” so many students distrusted. Life is good.

But Mags still doesn’t know who his parents were, and though he knows there are skilled, determined assassins hunting for him, hired by Karse, Valdemar’s longstanding enemy, he doesn’t know why. So it is necessary for mags to be always on his guard.

Mags has grown extremely strong, agile, and remarkably adept at running across rooftops, slipping down drain pipes, and sneaking unseen along dark alleyways. But now it is time for Mags to graduate to a new role: Nikolas’ partner and information broker. And Mags discovers that he’s quite good at his new job. So good, in fact, that Nikolas decides to let him run the undercover operation in town along one hot summer night.

Mags has barely unlocked the shop when everything goes black in a blinding flash of pain.

He wakes with an agonizing headache, bound, blind-folded, in a conveyance of some kind. But worst of all, he’s head-blind. No Mindspeech – he can’t even sense his Companion Dallen. And if he can’t sense or hear Dallen, then no one can sense him. And if no one can sense him, then this may well be his demise.

We all have a past, and no matter how hard we run from it, it will come back to haunt us. It’s true that the past has shaped us and all of those wonderful clichés, and Lackey reminds us beautifully of this in Redoubt. Mags doesn’t remember his past, but it constantly reappears in his life to torture and harass himself and his friends. It’s a fact that both fascinated and frustrated me throughout the story – it was easy to understand that Mags’ biological family had some amount of importance, but that was it. I like to know things, so not knowing drove me a little crazy. So, it was wonderful to finally find out more about his family and past.

Not only is Mags forced to confront his past in Redoubt, but it also takes him hostage – quite literally. He is taken, drugged and enforced to relive moments that he never knew existed. Although I know that my past won’t literally turn up out of nowhere and take me into the woods, it is a strong reminder that ignoring what has been before can bite you in the ass.

Mags’ horrifying upbringing is a bi-story throughout the series, and his innate toughness is really bought to the fore in this story. It is such a strong reminder that we can survive whatever is thrown at us, as long as we are strong (or stubborn) enough. He is in the worst of situations, but his physical and mental stubbornness allows him to survive and eventually return to his people.

<- Changes

Bastion ->

Image source: Pinterest