What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. YA(?) Fantasy trilogy. Farm boy travels to capital to attend merchant school, ambushed on the way by bandits and later is taught to use a sword by a sword master. Read 2013-2015. Spoilers ahead.
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found it! wielder's awakening (and subsequent books) by t.b. christensen :) it was self-published in 2011 so that's probably why it took me so long to find
almost certain it is a trilogy. title escapes me but might have been along the lines of "the x magician"/"xyz's magician"/"x sorcerer" etc. may have mentioned magic, a magician or something similar. feels like it was probably written somewhere between the late 90s and early 2010s, i believe the author is male and has an english name. sword & sorcery style fantasy. possibly a similar writing style to christopher paolini's inheritance cycle, john flanagan's ranger's apprentice and m. l. forman's adventurers wanted....i read them roughly around the same time
spoilers past this point :)
set in cliche west european-inspired medieval fantasy world, no elves or dwarves just humans. later on however there's a race of humanoids who live in the mountains in caves (might have been red-skinned and similar to goblins or orcs?) who form an army. i think there's a town called 'three bridges' or 'five bridges'--it has bridges in the name and it's set on a lake or river.
protag/pov is a farm boy who lives with either his parents, aunt & uncle or grandparents on their family farm. it's his birthday, he's going to leave home and head on a journey to the capital where he will attend a merchant school. this is a huge opportunity for him and his family. he looks around his room as he's packing to leave and realises that he owns barely anything at all. i think he might have gotten a horse for his birthday, or new tack/a sword as equipment to help him on his way.
he leaves home and begins his journey, eventually reaching a tavern where he meets a young woman (i think she had fiery red hair, it was mentioned a lot) and immediately develops a crush on her. they dance together that evening and the protag enjoys himself a lot, he's convinced that he's in love with her. she asks him about the sword at his side and he gets himself a job escorting her merchant caravan part of the way to the capital.
in the morning they head out and begin the journey together to the capital. there have been rumours of bandits in the area (hence why they hired extra muscle). at some point the bandits attack and end up killing everyone except the protag, who is knocked unconscious--he doesn't know how to use his sword and is pretty ineffectual in the fight. when he wakes up he sees the woman dead (an image he remembers and has nightmares about) as well as everyone else.
he comes across a man (who might be called blase/blaise/etc), i can't remember if he was also travelling with the caravan but they meet very soon after. he is a sword master(?) or at least very skilled. he takes in the protag and fills a mentor role, teaching him how to use his sword (specifically forms and unarmed combat first) as they travel together toward the capital. at some point they eat a hearty stew with bread at an inn.
when they finally reach the capital the protag doesn't attend merchant school (they may have been late for the admission date) so his mentor guides him to the barracks of the militia, where at least one of them joins the military.
the climax of the first book (i think) has them fighting a giant serpent (potentially basilisk) which lives near a tower/castle, in a cave i think? the protag and his mentor fight two of the bandits who ransacked the caravan, i think one of them was very thin. the protagonist learns he can do magic. i can't remember where in the timeline this fits though.
in the second book the protag learns how to use his magic and grows stronger. this might be where the bad guy is introduced (i think his name begins with K or C), he's a really powerful magic user and he's gathering the red-skinned humanoids together in a huge army. one of these humanoids is like a priest or advisor and he has a point of view in one of the books. he doesn't like the bad guy but serves him for his own gain. i think the bad guy's backstory is that he burned his house down with his parents inside.
in the third book the human army goes to fight against the bad guy's army and the battles take up a lot of the book. the protag and the bad guy have a magic duel where one of them drops a fireball on the other. later one drops a massive ice chunk on the other. the bad guy refuses to believe that he's not the most powerful magic user in the world.
i don't remember the ending but hopefully this is cohesive enough! i think this is all one book/series but it might actually be two that i mashed up in my mind....if i think of anything i'll update! :) feel free to ask questions though