The Traitor's Son (Book 1)

Cover of The Traitor's Son

## Description

A kingdom in danger, a great betrayal, a boy seeking to redeem his father's honor. Will he succeed in exonerating him and saving the realm from an enemy in the shadows before it is too late for the whole North?

By the age of fifteen, Lasgol has endured a hard childhood and lives, cornered and hated, in a small village in the North. He is the son of the traitor, the man who betrayed the kingdom and tried to kill the King. His only companions are the mountains and the snow, ever-present in the region. Yet he refuses to believe that his father is guilty, even though the King himself was a witness to the betrayal.

Lasgol is determined to clear his father's name and to do this he has only a single option: the School of Rangers, a secret place where the respected and feared defenders of the lands of the kingdom are trained for four years. Going there is insane, hate and death await him. But as the son of a Ranger, he is entitled to attend.

At the Camp he will find himself involved in political intrigues, disloyalties and fights. He will encounter hatred and fearsome enemies, but also a handful of friends, novices as much out of place as he is himself, determined to do whatever is necessary to pass the first year... without dying in the attempt.

Will Lasgol survive the first year of instruction at the Rangers' Camp? Will he find out what happened to his father? Will he be able to clear his name?

## Plot

Lasgol's father, Dakon Eklund, is considered a traitor to Norghana. Most of the people in Skad, his home village, hate Lasgol because of this. After a village festival a Ranger arrives at Ulf's house to recruit Lasgol into the Rangers. Lasgol investigates his father's belongings, which Ulf hid in a chest, and finds a strange egg. After a fight with Volgar and his friends in which Lasgol is beaten so badly he loses consciousness, he travels to the Rangers meeting place with Daven. They meet the other Ranger initiates there and row assault boats up to the Camp, where initiates are trained to become Rangers. On the way there a Ranger tells the initiates about Lasgol's identity and they begin to shun him as the son of a traitor.

At their arrival at the Gorge of No Return, Isgord, another initiate, confronts Lasgol and tells him he has an account to settle. When they arrive at the Camp, the initiates meet Dolbarar and the four Master Rangers. After a feast, they are assigned to teams in cabins and sleep for the night. The next day, they pick team names. Lasgol's team, who choose Ingrid for their captain, get the Snow Panthers. One night, Lasgol starts playing with the egg in their cabin. It starts spinning and forms the letters of his name on the outside of the shell, then it emits a gold flash which knocks him unconscious. His teammates discover him lying on the floor and he tells them about the egg. While the initiates are out at Wildlife training, a pack of wolves approach the Snow Panthers team while they are with Ben, an instructor in the School of Wildlife. He shows his School of Wildlife medallion to the alpha wolf, and Lasgol sees a green flash emit from the medallion, then the wolves go away. This must have been caused by magic, and Nilsa deduces this afterwards, saying that she hates magic. Later Lasgol touches the egg again and it knocks him unconscious.

At a meeting of all the Ranger initiates, Dolbarar tells them that the Rangers have been summoned to search for Darthor, so there will be less Rangers around the Camp. After Expertise training, in which the Snow Panthers have a very difficult time, Nilsa tells them that her father was killed by a Mage and that she wants to become a Mage Hunter to avenge him, since she hates magic/mages. One night near the end of the spring, the strange egg hatches. The animal that comes out looks like a small lizard, and can camouflage itself to become invisible. Most of the Snow Panthers are scared of it, although Egil is very interested in it. Nilsa and Gerd are terrified by it since it is magical.

The Spring Test arrives, and the Panthers have a difficult time with the individual tests on the first day. That night, Viggo tells finally them about his background. Then comes the Test of Teams. During the last part of the test, Lasgol is hit in the arm by an arrow and almost dies. Edwina heals Lasgol and Dolbarar questions him about the incident so he can investigate it. Dolbarar also tells Lasgol about the circumstances of his father's betrayal and death. During the Test by Teams at the Summer Test, a bear approaches the Snow Panthers, and Lasgol has to use his Gift of Animal Communication to command the bear to leave to save his teammates from being killed. All of his teammates feel betrayed that Lasgol didn't tell them about his Gift, and Nilsa tells him to stay away from her and never use magic around him again. They ostracize Lasgol somewhat and one day while he is playing with the animal that came out  of the egg, he decides to name it Camu.

Later someone breaks into the Snow Panthers cabin, knocks out Gerd, and goes through all their belongings, taking the box that the egg was in. Ingrid, Egil and Viggo decide that it has something to do with Lasgol, and Ingrid tells him to stay away from the rest of the Snow Panthers. After this they only talk to Lasgol when necessary. The only person who talks to him normally is Astrid. During the Autumn Test by Teams, Viggo and Nilsa accuse Lasgol of having used his Gift to help during the tests. They get into an argument, and then as part of the test, the team are required to make an antidote. They collect the ingredients and then leave Lasgol behind to finish making the antidote, while the rest of the team moves onto the next part of the test. As he finishes making the antidote, Lasgol is attacked by Nistrom, who has been stalking him and carried out the previous attack on him. Lasgol fights him using his Gift but is overpowered and about to die when Gerd grabs Nistrom from behind. It takes the rest of the Snow Panthers coming to help to finally kill Nistrom. They search him and find the box that the egg was in.

When the Snow Panthers arrive back at the Camp, after being healed from the wounds they received in the fight, they are summoned by Dolbarar. He asks them what happened and admits that, based on the evidence gathered so far there seems to be a traitor in the Camp, though he has no idea who it is. Afterwards they continue training. Lasgol's teammates are slightly more friendly to him, though some are deeply affected by having killed Nistrom. Astrid tells Lasgol about Darthor's army of Wild Ones of the Ice and describes them to him. She also tells him she thinks he is special. Then comes the Winter Test. Oden tells them that it will only be a team test and that only the three best teams will be rewarded. The Snow Panthers make it to the final round, when King Uthar will be watching the test. When the King arrives in the Camp he has a military parade.

That night, Nilsa tricks Lasgol into meeting with Isgord in a large firewood storage building. Isgord had pretended to be Nilsa's boyfriend but he was just using her to get to Lasgol. Isgord knocks Nilsa unconscious and then fights Lasgol. Isgord reveals that his father was killed in the ambush in which Dakon was revealed to be a traitor, and his father was also the messenger who warned the King about the ambush. Isgord eventually overpowers Lasgol and is about to cut his Achilles tendon but Haakon comes into the building, causing Isgord to run out. Haakon tells Lasgol that Dolbarar has ordered him to keep an eye on Lasgol because of the incidents with Nistrom.

During the end of the Winter Test, Lasgol and Isgord are fighting when Lasgol receives a magical communication from Camu warning him of danger. Lasgol manages to save the King by stepping into the path of an arrow shot at him, which was fired by Daven. Daven and Lasgol are brought to Edwina so she can heal them. While she is healing Daven, Edwina finds a strange rune on his chest. When he wakes up, they find out that Daven is possessed by Darthor. Edwina cures him of the Domination magic used by Darthor, and the King states that the Norghanian military will attack Darthor's army after the spring thaw. After the Camp is searched for any trace of Darthor, the Rangers continue with the Ceremony of Acceptance to determine who has passed. Gerd and Egil fail, but are saved by the Snow Panthers using their leaves of prestige.