‘Reiksguard’ – Richard Williams (Black Library)

I’ve been working my way through a number of the Warhammer 40K tie-in books just recently and figured it was about time I gave their fantasy books a go as well, just to be fair you understand :o) Where to start though? There are loads of these books and it’s not exactly clear where the best place to start reading is... At least that’s what I thought until I saw ‘Reiksguard’, the first book in the new ‘Empire Army’ series. Here’s a series where the aim is to introduce the reader to all the separate elements of the Empire army and show them in battle, just the thing for a newcomer like me!
As it turned out, I got a whole lot more than this and enjoyed the book immensely...

The Reiksguard knights are entrusted with the protection of the Emperor from foes both within and without his Empire; living under a strict code of loyalty and honour. Young novice Delmar von Reinhardt joins the order to follow in the footsteps of his father, a courageous knight who died in battle, but will find that there is more to the order than meets the eye. An alliance between a goblin warlord and an ogre tyrant is the obvious threat but Reinhardt must also contend with internal rivalries, within the order, and the dark secrets that lie beneath them...

What better way to introduce someone to the workings of a monastic order of knights than to follow the progress of a novice from his first day up to his becoming a knight? I don’t think there is a better way but it has to be done just right otherwise you’re in trouble... Richard Williams gets it right more often not, giving the reader a good overview of the order’s workings and setting these against the backdrop of an Empire that is not only reeling in the aftermath of a particularly brutal war but pick itself up for more fighting to come.

Training a prospective knight for war is a slow and involved business and Williams treads a fine line between capturing all the detail and giving the reader just that little bit too much detail; sometimes the overabundance of information interrupts the flow of the story and makes the pace a little bit choppy in places. The book is staying true to its original aim but sometimes it feels like the story itself takes second place and I’m not sure this is a good thing...

I also wasn’t sure that portraying the Reiksguard order as a ‘microcosm’ of the wider world worked in the way that it was meant to, at least not for me. The rivalry between nation states is played out between the young nobles and this does make for some exciting duels and confrontations. The only problem here is that the novices are essentially at school (for their training) and once I got that image in my head their arguments seemed petty when placed against the wider conflict.

While these are issues that I had with the book, ‘Reiksguard’ was still a lot of fun to read. Williams is a man who knows how to write a good charge on horseback, one where you can feel the hooves pounding on the ground and you get that claustrophobic feeling from being encased in a suit of armour. He’s also not afraid to get up close and personal when the charge breaks up into a morass of men and monsters hacking away at each other. It’s packed with adrenaline and leaves you in no doubt what it feels like to go head to head with an ogre...

It’s not just about the fights though. Williams takes a good long look at the ulterior motives behind the purest of motives and shows us what men must do to survive in troubled times such as these. The plotting, and counter plotting, at court shows us that not all combat is fought using steel (maybe it is though, just a different type of steel...) and is a refreshing source of intrigue that gets you asking all the right questions.

Above all though, knights in armour have always been about honour and heroism (for me) and Williams pushes the boat out in some style here. ‘Reiksguard’ is full of enough desperate last stands, last minute rescues and other heroic exploits to keep an old romantic like me very happy.

‘Reiksguard’ is slow to start off with (and perhaps a little difficult to get into) but I stuck with it and came out all the better with it. Warhammer fans should get a lot out of it and I’d say that it casual readers will enjoy it as well.

Eight out of Ten