Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: Outcast

What if you live in a time where reasons and logic didn't count? What will you do when everyone that you knew is against you? How do you react when you know that you are not in the wrong?

That is the theme in this 4th book on the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. 

I'm still waiting for the delivery of the 3rd book in the series from Kinokinuya. Because of that I just skipped to the 4th book instead. A lot had happened in the 3rd book apparently since the 4th installment in the series posed the harshest challenges to Torak so far.

In the first 2 books in the series, we still didn't being clear who is the antagonist actually. There were some clues, but most of the time Torak was sent to the expeditions because something bad happens to the Forest Clans.

In this book, apparently he already knew all his adversaries that he need to fight.

OK, since I didn't read the 3rd book yet, I only guessed what happens in the book from the information in the beginning of Outcast. In short - Torak had met the rest of the Soul Eaters. He already knew them all by name. Unfortunately, he had been branded forcefully to be a Soul Eater by them with a tattoo on his chest. And right now, one of the Soul Eater the Viper Mage is chasing him to get the fire-opal gem - the source of the Soul Eaters powers.

That is the gist of it so far......

Torak had been hiding his Soul Eater tattoo on his chest for two months now from the clan. When suddenly Aki a Boar Clan boy saw his chest during a fight, Torak had been declared an Outcast by all the Clans.

When reasons and logic is not being practiced, it is hard for him to fathom that he will be outcast by the same people that he had actually saved. This is the boy that had saved them twice (since I didn't read the 3rd book) and suddenly he is the villain? All his words came to deaf ears even though he had proved his loyalty to the clans all this while.

For a teenager such as Torak, all of this happened to fast for him to understand. All through from book #1 to #2, I have a feel that the pace of Torak adventure is too fast. One time he was in the Open Forest, suddenly he was at the Deep Forest, then he was at the beach. 

But in this book, the pace of Torak moving around had been quadrupled since he was starting to get mad and insane. Most of the time he was running from the clans hunting him around he was getting even more desperate. What makes it more dangerous is that the reason that he was driven to the edge is because the Viper Mage had her hand in it.

Torak's sidekick, Renn and Wolf have a more pronounce role in helping Torak this time due to the instability of Torak's mind most of the time. Sure, Torak had made two more friends in Rek and Rip - the twin ravens but it was due to Renn's resourcefulness and Wolf loyalty that made the success for Torak to beat the Soul Eater.

The writer have a bomb shell somewhere in the adventure concerning Renn and the Viper Mage. The series does became exciting at this point. And from my reading of the few pages of the 5th book - The Oath Breaker, things seems to be wilder.

Alhamdullilah.