DORMARION

This fourth installment of a fantasy series finds a group of warriors engaged in battles and rescues while a menace looms.

A band of comrades has fought numerous evils. Now, she-elf X’andria, one of them, is missing, and Gnome and Boudreaux don’t plan on leaving the devastated village of Meriden until they find her. But Ruprecht has a vision of one of the group’s friends who’s somewhere in a sewer, suffering a wraith’s torment. Ruprecht, Ohlen, and Arden embark on a journey to save their cohort. While a sinister individual may be seeking revenge against someone in Ruprecht’s band, the warriors also separately face such dangers as skeletal assailants and giant bats. Meanwhile, Eleanor, a sorcerer who’s just lost her mentor, is curious about one of the last words he spoke: “Dormarion.” This happens to be the name of a long-dead cleric. With help from The High Cleric, Eleanor tracks down Dormarion’s book, which is a significant discovery if they can just locate the missing final page. As all of these events unfold, a diabolical being who’s been dormant for centuries may soon emerge. Hinsley packs this installment with intriguing characters and subplots. He nevertheless deftly concentrates on the series’ heroes as well as others returning from preceding books. The narrative moves quickly through its abundant subplots, from one starring a villain and his newfound “pet monster” to periodic flashbacks featuring a strange character whose relevance isn’t clear until late in the novel. Most of these storylines connect at the end and spawn another memorable cliffhanger. The author’s prose continually shines: “Night bathed the canyon in bluish black. The fall evening was chilly and clear, and…the first stars winked down.” Likewise, Garretsen’s stunning artwork provides a shadowy, surreal quality to images such as a man in chains and a figure reflected in a candle’s flame.

An otherworldly, briskly paced installment in a consistently exhilarating series.