Join me as I review Steel and Stone by Ellen Porath, live! Share your thoughts on this fifth novel in the Meetings Sextet series, released on September 1, 1992 by TSR Inc. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/3V0nibF
About Steel and Stone
New York Times–bestselling series: It’s hate a first sight for Kit and Tanis in this Meetings Sextet novel about their complicated enemies-to-lovers relationship
The tempestuous affair between Kitiara Uth Matar and Tanis Half-Elven begins with the sword.
Life isn’t simple for the hotheaded pair. They must contend with a carnivorous, two-headed troll; a deposed leader who believes Kitiara is the cause of the ruler’s troubles; a vindictive mage who seeks peculiar vengeance; and Kit’s hulking former lover. They also meet a beautiful magic-user hiding a painful secret, and a giant owl with a sardonic sense of humor.
Here is the long-awaited story of the meeting of Tanis and Kitiara, a tale of love, lust, betrayal, and revenge that takes the reader through Krynn and south to the glacial Icereach.
Transcript
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Fleurgreen the 23rd. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of Steel and Stone by Ellen Porath. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
The novel begins with Kitiara as Captain of the Valdane of Kern assaulting the Meiri keep where his daughter Dreena ten Valdane married the lord’s son. The son was killed and Valdane is now assaulting the keep, as his daughter won’t give the keep or land to him. He hired mercenaries to assault the keep including Kit, but he won’t allow his generals to start the siege until his daughter is out. Kitiara sees the daughter magically appear through the mist at the base of the keep, tells the Valdane, and he has his mage Janusz begin his spell and the generals begin their attack.
Janusz uses a magefire spell murdering many of the keep and leveling it, and the generals assault the keep but the citizens attack the mercenary army in greater numbers. Kitiara sees Janusz go into his tent and grab something out of his pack before casting the spell, and she decides to flee the massacre and steals nine stones from the mage before leaving. This sets up the story where Valdane wants Kit back to kill her, and Janusz wants the gems back. He enhanced an ettin to find Kit and they set off.
Kit was leaving and a soldier named Cavin Mackid and his squire Wode went with her. They spend a month together traveling. Then Kit leaves them after winning money from Cavin and he steals it back, so she steals it from him. He then tracks her for a while. There is yet another person tracking Kit, a wizard named Kai-lid Entenaka with a giant owl named Xanther, who I believe is either the Valdane’s daughter, believed to actually be killed in the assault, or some friend of hers. It’s not clear yet. As you can see many people want Kit for one reason or another, and this is only the first third of the novel!
Enter Tanis. He is returning from Qualinost to Solace and comes across Kit fighting hobgoblins. He aids her and it ends with them sleeping together. As all great road fights should! They decide to travel together and head north toward Haven, running across a town whose residents have gone missing one at a time. There is a will-o-the-wisp in the swamp luring them to their deaths and Kit and Tanis head that way. This is where I think Kit meant to help though she claimed she didn’t want to help the villagers. And Tanis definitely wants to help them. They defeat the creature eventually and head to Haven where they meet a great dwarf trader named Sonnus Ironmilll. They haggle for clothing for Tanis, and a dagger for Kit. They also meet a kender gal named Drizzleneff Gatehop who initially steals Kit’s dagger then her money purse when she gets her dagger back.
They run into Caven in an inn who demands his money from Kit, and then they all try to figure out how to make money together when Kit realizes she’s broke. Tanis leaves as Kit and Caven are getting drunk, and Woke tries to hook up with the barmaid. Kit and Caven end up sleeping with each other which was a great moment where Caven asked for consent and Kit gave it. We know Kit does this when it benefits her, in this case to get warm from the rain, but it’s the consent I really appreciated. Caven respects Kit knowing who she is and Kit is alway ready to use her wiles to her benefit. This is a much better scene than the one in Dark Heart.
I have to say, this whole novel thus far is great and I can’t wait to see where it ends up! Tanis wakes to see Kitiara puking in the chamber pot and hung over. He goes down to get her some weak tea and toast then leaves to find work to pay off Caven. Woke is watching the inn, waiting for Kit to leave to follow her. Tanis comes across a gnome who is working on a communications device but it ends up exploding so the gnome, named Speaker Sungear to humans, just calls out the news. An ettin was spotted killing livestock and a bounty of 15 steel is the reward to kill it. Tanis gets Kit to go with him and Caven and Woke follow them on the trail, insisting on going with.
We learn that Kai-lid is actually Dreena ten Valdane, and that she appears as her maiden who actually died in the castle raid. This death hurts as it was a sacrifice the maid made for her. They realize that Valdane and Janusz are now in Icereach building an army to conquer Ansalon, and as they are still beginning, the enterprise can actually be stopped, so Kai will look to conscript Kit, Tanis, Caven and Wode to help her. Janusz sent the ettin to collect Kitiara so he could get the stones she stole from him. These are essential to their plans of conquest as they have untold power he can tap into. His plan is to get the ettin to bring Kit to a specific place in Darken Wood and teleport them both with the power of the gems to Icereach, interrogate her and collect the gems. The ettin is luring them into Darken Wood at this moment.
Kit and crew track them into the woods and are attacked by undead. They are nearly killed but saved by Janusz as he needs her to get the gems. Then Kai and Xanther arrive and drop the spell on the party. They all travel together to the Ettin as Kai tells them about a Sla-Mori that may take them to Icereach. No one but Tanis wants to help her stop Valdane, but they all need to travel together to defeat the ettin. When they finally find the beast it’s only because the owl Xanther told it where they were, hoping to trick it into only taking and harming Kit, not Kai. Naturally, you can’t trust ettins, so it attacks the group, killing Wode, defeating everyone else and taking Kit and Kai.
Caven insists on burying Wode, and then they all travel after the ettin and its prisoners. They believe it’s headed to the sla-mori, but they aren’t sure. The owl tells them that Kit is pregnant and they fight over it. Tanis has an image of taking care of Kit and the child, but Caven wants nothing to do with it even though he insists it’s his. The owl states that perhaps before they make plans they should ask Kit. I love this line. Us men often make lofty goals and traditionally if you get a woman pregnant you are expected to marry her and take care of the baby. But what about the woman’s wishes? Kit is not the mother type, nor at this young age of twenty-ish, is she wanting kids or a husband, if ever. The woman should always be consulted as it’s her body that is creating and carrying the potential child, and if she doesn’t want to keep it, she shouldn’t be expected to. As you can tell, I am a pro choice person. Women should have total autonomy over their bodies, though I believe they should consult their partners, they have the final say. Most importantly, under the care of their trusted doctors!
Xanther offers to take Tanis and Caven by flight to Icereach, now that they are certain that is where Kit and Kai are, but Caven refuses to fly, so as Tanis and Xanther fly, they stop to wait for Caven on his horse. This is an insane proposition to me. It would take so many weeks to travel from Darken Wood to Icereach not to mention all the dangers along the way, while Tanis just flies there. Xanther has sent for his owl children to guide and protect Caven as he travels. When they finally reach the Plains of Dust, they encounter a massive storm that waylays them for a while. When they dig themselves out of the sand they now find themself under, and connect with Caven, they knock him out and tie him to an owl.
They arrive in Icereach Bay and fly to the other side to be met by a hundred owls guided by Xanther and the Ice folk led by Brittain of the White Bear Clan. He initially believes that they are sent to spy on them by the evil one as they refer to Valdane. Xanther dies as he is not supposed to travel this far out of Darken Wood, and his last communication with Kai was to tell her that she needs to cooperate with her captives so she can get out of prison, so Tanis and Caven can rescue them. Kitiara has already feigned cooperation with the Valdane and accepted her role a s General of his massive ice bear, minotaur and thanoi army. This is set up for a great battle which I wish I could see on screen.
Tanis, Caven and the owls are joined by the ice folk who ride them all into battle against Valdane’s forces. Tanis and Caven break off to find entrance to the fortress, and they fall down a precipice which puts them in the cell Kit and Kai used to occupy. They use the potion to climb the walls that the ice folk cleric gave them and they run into the ettin who they trick into delivering them to Valdane and Kit. Kit convinces Tanis that she is evil and has Tanis open her bag revealing the Ice Jewels she stole from Janusz, and then they all attack. They try to get Kai to use the gems to teleport them away, and the ettin kills Caven. Tanis and Kit defeat it and as Janusz is protecting himself with a spell, knowing that Valdane and Janusz are bloodlinked, as soon as the spell is down, Tanis will kill Janusz which will also kill Valdane.
Kai-lid, also feigning to be Lida, but truly being Dreena realizes she can use the jewel to harm Janusz who then drops his protection spell to attack her, and Tanis kills him and Valdane. This causes the fortress to collapse, so with Kit unconscious from the battle, Tanis scoops her up and Kai uses the jewels to teleport them outside, where they see only a third of the ice folk/owl army remaining, but they defeated the evil ones forces, and the fortress shows no sign of ever existing.
Kit tries to find the jewels months later but after Kai threw em into Icereach Bay, they are now lost. And Kit and Tanis are seemingly estranged or indifferent at the end, which is odd…. Also, it blew past teh magical abortion Kit has Janusz give her after pretending to be on their side. It was an odd choice to bring up in the first place as its so divisive, but perhaps that’s why it wasn’t clarified. In any case, this was a fun read and if you like Tanis and Kitiara, you should definitely read it for yourself.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Steel and Stone by Ellen Porath. What did you think of Kitiara’s ambitions for power? Do you think Tanis was portrayed properly? And finally, would you prefer to ride a giant eagle, griffon or giant owl into battle? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or leave a comment below.
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This channel is all about celebrating the wonderful world of the Dragonlance Saga, and I hope you will join me in the celebration. Thank you for watching, this has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).
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