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The shadow of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II hangs over the shattered Holy Roman Church as the cardinals remain deadlocked, unable to choose a new pope. Only the Binders and a mad priest have a hope of uniting the Church against the invading Mongol host. An untested band of young warriors stands against the dissolute Khan, fighting for glory and freedom in the Khan’s sadistic circus of swords, and the brave band of Shield-Brethren who set out to stop the Mongol threat single-handedly race against their nemesis before he can raise the entire empire against them. Veteran knight Feronantus, haunted by his life in exile, leads the dwindling company of Shield-Brethren to their final battle, molding them into a team that will outlast him. No good hero lives forever. Or fights alone.

I’ve finally finished “The Mongoliad: Book Three“, the collaborative effort by Neal Stephenson, Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, Mark Teppo, and Cooper Moo, and (what I thought was) the last book of the Foreworld Saga. At the end of my last post I was hoping that the myriad of storylines of “The Mongoliad” would start to come together. In some ways I was rewarded, but in others left wanting.

Again, chapter 1 picks up right where Book Two ended but as the book progresses, finally some of the disparate storylines begin to merge: the Shield-Bretheren have finally caught up with Ögedei Khan and his royal caravan which has travelled to Burquan-qaldun so Ögedei can slay the Great Bear. Alchiq, however, the Mongol whom the knights know as Graymane, has beaten them to the Khan and warned him of the impending danger from the West. Cnán, the binder leading the Shield-Bretheren into the East, finds Haakon still a prisoner in the Khan’s caravan after being separated from the company back in Book One and ends up helping him escape, along with Lian, the Chinese slave who is now in posession of the strange living twig given to her by Gansukh (and presumably cut from the Khan’s Spirit Banner).

Back in the city of Hünern, the remaning Shield-Bretheren are still dealing with Onghwe Khan’s Circus of Swords and the treachery of the Livonian Knights. As the city explodes into riot and all-out war against the Mongols encamped there, the slave uprising, led by Kim the Flower Knight and Zug the ronin finally achieves its goal of fighting for their freedom against their oppressors and joining forces with the knights of the West.

Finally, in Rome, a new Pope has been elected much to the surprise of Ocyrhoe, Ferenc, and even the college of Cardinals themselves. In the scramble to prevent a Church scandal, the new Pope slips out of the city in possession of a powerful artifact (spoiler: the Holy Grail?), intending to use it to raise the peoples of the West against the inevitable Mongol invasion from the East.

With all of the plotlines so spread out geographically, it was hard to tell if everything going on was simultaneous or separated by weeks or months. The biggest surprise, for me? It didn’t wrap up … the Foreworld Saga will continue in “Katabasis,” the next book to be published this fall! In the meantime I’ll have to brush up on the details over on foreworld.com.