TL;DR Review: Things are far darker than they appear, but justice must be done. A story as utterly Vonvalt as I could have asked for!
Synopsis:
A HAUNTED LIGHTHOUSE
A JUSTICE ACCUSED OF MURDER
AND A SINGLE QUESTION
What is The Scour?
In the dying port town of Gdansburg, Sir Konrad Vonvalt finds the unthinkable: a fellow Justice imprisoned for the murder of a young boy. Despite the furious insistence of the townsfolk, the only evidence is a question written on a piece of paper by a dead man: what is The Scour?
The answer begins in the town’s haunted lighthouse and ends in its past–where Vonvalt may dig up more than he bargained for.
Full Review:
What a treat to be back in the Sovan Empire!
The Empire of the Wolf was one of my favorite reads of 2024, and Grave Empire kicked off my 2025 in epic style. Stepping back into this gritty, Witcher-esque world of unnamed horrors was like slipping on my favorite pair of slippers after a long day at work.
The Scour is a prequel novella to The Justice of Kings. It follows Vonvalt and Bressinger as their circuit takes them to a small town on the edge of the Sovan Empire. There, they find a fellow Justice accused of murder, and town filled with people who are more interested in rebuffing them than actually solving the murder.
What starts out as a simple, straightforward crime—the death of a child—inevitably turns to the impossible, magical, and arcane in true Richard Swan style. And with every chapter we get in deeper, things just grow more nerve-wracking. We begin to not only sense the things that lurk in the shadows and go bump in the night, but actually look for them. And yet…what we get is something so entirely true to The Justice of Kings that I can only consider it the perfect Vonvalt story.
In The Scour, as in The Justice of Kings, there’s this constant reminder that though Vonvalt and Bressinger are both men of action, this is far more Broadchurch than Bosch. The true nature of the story is justice, not simply seeing the murderer is punished for their crimes. While this keeps the pace slow and steady, it creates a far more intriguing storyline than would a character who went around solving crimes at the edge of his sword.
One of the great themes of The Scour is the fallibility of those entrusted to carry out justice. We’re treated to a look at how even those we want to believe are acting in the best interest of law and order are still just as human as those they hunt. It adds a great deal of nuance to what might otherwise be a familiar-feeling story.
Of course, with that signature Richard Swan dark fantasy flavor, The Scour ends up being a bit of everything: a bit of action, a bit of complex detective mystery, a bit of supernatural horror, and a whole lot of fun.
It’s not a story you should read before The Justice of Kings, but if through the pages of the Empire of the Wolf you’ve come to understand the true nature of Vonvalt, you will love this prequel as much as I did.
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