Book 95: Cursor's Fury

Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher

Tavi is now a cursor, and has completed his training and schooling. In this novel, he is assigned to a new legion as a junior logistics officer to spy on potential traitors against Gaius Sextus, the First Lord. Most of the unit is rather green and untrained, but the commander is fair. Unfortunately, the legion soon finds itself under attack by a Canim army, and most of the chain of command is taken out, leaving Tavi in charge. Fortunately, he is still as intelligent as ever, and has several strong NCOs to rely on during the ensuing battle, most importantly Valius Marcus.

At the same time as this is going on, one of the lords of the kingdom, Kalare (his son was the bully that tormented Tavi in the previous book) has decided to rebel because he wants to become the First Lord. He has taken several important hostages, and Amara is sent on a mission to free these hostages (one of them is the wife of another noble, and as much as he wants to fight, he is not willing to risk his wife's life to support Gaius).

Overall, it was a very entertaining read, and Butcher also gave more background on some of Tavi's friends, most importantly Max and his family. Isana and Fade were involved in an attack, so most of their sections deal with Isana desperately trying to rescue Fade during the Civil War, and her recognizing her feelings for him. While all the parts of the novel are crucial, Isana's parts tend to be the least exciting for me, usually. In this novel, Butcher finally gives the background story he has been hinting at for the last two novels.