SOLVED. Fantasy, a prince is given a quest by the gods to defeat evil [s]

[Sarah]

I am looking for a trilogy I think. It is Fantasy. I read it in the 90s. A prince is given a quest by a forest god to recover a magical book. He is a poorly regarded prince, second son or something, I think his name starts with C. He has 2 or possibly 3 companions. At one point they get taken prisoner by a group who are going to sacrifice them to a water god by drowning in the tide. The water god rescues them. They go to the homeland of one of the companions, where he is under sentence of death for refusing to marry someone important. He is suposed to be executed by being nailed to a tree, but the nails don't penetrate, thus aquitting him. When they get to where the book is being kept, they discover that they must all hold onto each other in order to fight the force protecting the book

[Michele]

Was this YA or aimed more at adults? Do you remember anything about the cover? Do you recall the purpose of the book, what was magic about it -- like, was it magic itself, or did it just contain magic spells? Anything about his companions (male, female, ages)? When you read it, do you recall if it was new at the time or older?

[Sarah]

I read this in high school so it was probably adult fantasy. I think it was a trilogy, and I read them in paperback, probably early/mid 90s. I don't remember what they looked like, but this type of story has a fairly generic cover anyway. The prince was late teens, I think, and there was an older male companion. There was also a female companion but I don't remember age. The gods needed them to recover the book so it could be used to defeat the evil, but I don't remember how.

[Arielle]

bumping - Sarah, any luck?

[Sarah]

Hooray, I found it. The Godwars trilogy, Angus Wells

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

That's great. Thanks for letting us know.