THE GRIM COMPANY by Luke Scull

Five hundred years ago, the world was sundered in the celestial Godswar. Seeking to throw off the shackles of the deities who created them, a cabal of mages and ancient loremasters rose up and made war upon the Gods. Though they won out, it was at a great cost: the ensuing cataclysm brought forth the Age of Ruin to the world, and the fallout of the disaster tainted the mages themselves.

Five hundred years later, the world limps on, fraying around the edges, seemingly winding down to an inevitable end. Into this blighted world, steps Davarus Cole, a hero - or, perhaps, a boy too young to really understand what being a hero means. Obsessed with notions of heroism and adventuring, Cole burns to do great deeds, while the men around him jeer at his boyish stupidity.

With the blackest sense of humour, THE GRIM COMPANY revels in the dark side, peopled by a grotesquerie of old men and anti-heroes: Eremul the Half-Mage, a sickly loremaster whose legs were amputated by the Magelord's decree; Three Fingers, a convicted rapist whose every appendage has been shortened by half, but who is, perhaps, the closest friend Davarus Cole will ever find; Barandas, the patient and morally-grey leader of the Magelord's elite guard, whose heart is kept pumping only at his master's whim; Yllandris, a sorceress from the frozen north, whose inability to massacre the children of her enemies might prove her downfall; and many more.