Beneath A Thousand Skies

Summary:

A duel to the death in three parts. A conversation of sorts between the last two men left alive after a brutal battle.

One soldier from each side. Both want to survive. Neither can walk away.

The Last Gasp of Midnight is a surprisingly intimate exploration not of war, or dueling, although this novelette deals unflinchingly with the devastation of war and the frenzied chaos of a fight to the death. No, this book at its heart is an exploration of fatherhood and family, and the power of memory and personal grief. It would be so easy to be caught up in the conflict, because Riley captures both the wider scope of the fighting that led to the moments that are central to this story, and to the visceral, sprawling fight between our two characters, with both a fantastic attention to detail and a rise and fall to the action that keeps you entirely focused on the fact that this is a life and death duel.

Yet, the intertwined memories, and the conversation that occurs in the quiet moments. The back and forth from two cultural viewpoints mean that as arresting and consuming as the action is, those are the moments, when the blades slice deep into the reader. Riley captures fatherhood in both it’s delicate, fragile infancy through the son with the expectation and anticipation of the new generation; through the pain of failure, the love and devotion of a father determined to reunite with his son, and even through the paternal sympathy that the older warrior demonstrates towards the younger man as they find a place of mutual respect. To the point when grief becomes new and raw. It’s handled with a gentleness that is so at odds with the brutality of the setting, that it is like shining sunlight on that relationship.

In typical Riley fashion there is a lot of world packed into this novelette, yet it never gets in the way of the core of the story. This a world that stretches far beyond this story, both past and present, and we have glimpses of different societies, cultural history and habits, both in how it applies to our characters, but also in the world that has devoured them both and spat them out in this moment. Here is where we see the power of memory – the connections that remain even when details have faded with time; but also the weakness, and how time can errode these things, the realisation for Kersad of just how long had passed.

There’s also very much a sense of how war and conflict can consume everything, across the battlefield that these two men duel, we see how many lives have been devoured and churned out in shattered remains and remnants of lives that fought and failed. We see it in how the younger man has been swept up in the demands of soldiering, and the life he was forced into, to the point where he speaks the words of The Saffron as his own. And in Kersad himself, having lost track of time and the path he has walked, as long as much of who he was to get to where he needed to be. But, also how powerless that conflict can become in the face of life, and hope and the future, that light piercing through to the truth – in the most painful of way.

The Last Gasp of Midnight is a delightful delve into the best of Riley’s writing; and this novelette packs a punch far above its size. Gentle and brutal in equal measure, its takes a fascinating look at life and death and fatherhood.