A GOOD RUNNING AWAY

Pettway’s debut fantasy novel sees an odd couple of mercenaries flee their bloodthirsty fellows and take refuge by posing as royalty.

Keane and Sarah are members of Wallace’s Company, a band of mercenaries who engage in peripatetic looting, pillaging, and extortion throughout the Thirteen Kingdoms. Keane is a wisecracking rogue, and Sarah is the most formidable swordfighter among her 400-odd colleagues. The two have been inseparable since childhood. When Keane earns the ire of Harden Grayspring, the mercenaries’ lord marshal, he and Sarah take to their heels, pausing only to purloin the company’s wage box. Harden, a ruthless and unforgiving man, pursues them and brings the rest of the company along. While running for their lives, Keane and Sarah stumble upon an opportunity to do something foolhardy but, to Keane, irresistible—to take the place of the recently deceased Prince Despin Swifthart of Tyrrane, who had been traveling to the city of Treaty Hill and Forest Castle to meet and marry Princess Rance when he died. Unfortunately for Keane and Sarah, the deception leads them to be trapped in the royal household and held there by an unseen power. Also, King Rance despises Keane, as does the princess. Can he and Sarah survive to make their escape before their true identities are exposed—and before Harden brings the might of Wallace’s Company down upon the city? Pettway tells the tale in the third person from multiple viewpoints, devoting time not only to Keane and Sarah, but also to Harden and his right-hand man, Eli Whister. The antagonists are uncommonly complex characters, as a result, adding further realism to the convincing setting. The author sketches and hints at elaborate multiracial and multicultural societies without subjecting the reader to boundless exposition. The story moves at a good pace, helped along by characters’ banter, which can be a tad too glib at times but employs inventive (and vulgar) curses and insults. Readers’ enjoyment of this book will depend heavily on their appreciation of Keane as a lovable scoundrel, but it will likely appeal to connoisseurs of lighthearted fantasy.

A well-realized and lively caper.