Chronicles of the Realm Wars

Chronicles of the Realm Wars is a series of three books written by Chris Schuler. It seems like a standard Fantasy novel but it does a few things differently. One is that it is rather well-written. Two is that it is fairly realistic. Magic is very rare is the mages are so precious they never leave their tower. If someone gets hit with an Axe it will usually mean they are either dead or now missing a limb. However the story is centered around Captain Seramin, a captain in the army of The south. The south is loosing against the Barbarians of the North. To help turn the tide of battle the King sends Seramin to find a magic sword. They bind a powerful prisoner to him to help search. Things get worse. They can be bought here (click search and type in Schuler): http://www.publishamerica.com/index.asp


 * All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Happens when ever they stop for more than a few seconds somewhere.
 * Badass Normal: Seramin despite having numerous injuries, throws a throwing dagger threw a barbarians reaming eye instantly killing him without really looking.
 * Blind Seer: Shoshe once her eye sockets get cleared of an infection.
 * Bittersweet Ending.: The heroes managed to get the sword and have important intelligence for the south and Oh dear Gods Hydrib is still alive, coming this way, and he looks pissed.
 * Crapsack World: The North that worship the evil Goddess of Death is winning the war.
 * Eye Scream: Shoshe gets one in the form of Flaming Shrapnel from her (now) dead father inn exploding.
 * Eye Awaken: Subverted: Hydrib gets one. However he opens his eyes just as an axe comes crashing down at him.He gets an Unexplained Recovery later though.
 * God Is Evil: Sinji the Goddess of Death. Thankfully only one of four.
 * Happiness in Slavery: Subverted so hard: When Hydrib gets free he immediately tries to Kill Seramin.
 * Instant Bandages: Averted, They do nothing except keep the injury from getting worse. They don't even keep out an infection.
 * Purple Prose: Used disturbingly when describing what happens to a person who gets they're eyes gorged out by a piece of flaming sharpnel and it has to go untreated for over a week. See Eye Scream above.
 * Pyrrhic Victory: Every victory for the heroes really.
 * Redshirt Army: If the person doesn't have a name they going to die. Hell even having one doesn't help much.