At the intersection of history and mythology, Anaiti encounters both human dangers and otherworldly foes.

Set in the fifth century BCE and unfolding against the immense and unforgiving backdrop of the Ukrainian steppe, Of Wind and Wolves is the first epic installment in J.M. Elliott’s The Steppe Saga.

Drawing inspiration from a passage concerning Heracles in The Histories by Herodotus, Elliott crafts a richly detailed and immersive tale that blends historical fact and fiction, as well as cultural records, with mythical aspects and a timeless coming- of-age story.

Anaiti’s fate is ominously reflected in a gift from Ariapaithi, the Skythian king. “Gifts are uninvited guests. They bear expectations and impose obligations. They establish bonds as strong as any shackle, which cannot be broken by any hammer but war.” To foster peace between the tribes and unite against a common enemy, Anaiti’s father has agreed that she will marry the geriatric Ariapaithi—becoming his third wife—and so leave her people to join the Skythai.

However, the amphora sent by Ariapaithi is illustrated with a nameless hero killing an Amazon woman. Given that her mother was a fearsome Amazon warrior who “surrendered her honor along with her arms” when she married Anaiti’s father, king of the rival Bastarnai, the imagery doesn’t bode well for Anaiti’s future. “The vessel’s art masked something malicious, something vile, as beauty so often did.”

Anaiti quickly discovers that her concerns are well founded, for the nomadic court of Ariapaithi is like an alien world to her—the customs and language are peculiar, and she by no means fits in. “What I knew of Skythia came mainly from stories. Huddled around the hearth at night, the people whispered of a wilderness with no towns nor even huts, but only endless, empty plains.” Still, despite the wild terrain, her training with a bow and her horse-riding skill seem ill-suited to the new life she has agreed to.

Ariapaithi is far too old for her and a life confined to a royal tent is not one she can bear to think about, and now, “surrounded by the world’s broadest plains, its richest pastures, and its finest horses, it finally struck home that I would never ride again. Like a fool, I’d rashly traded it all away.” But there is a major surprise in store for Anaiti, as Ariapaithi tasks her with killing an enemy in battle—and returning with her victim’s scalp—before their marriage can be performed.

As the king dictates, “She’ll ride with our men as they patrol the marches and return when she has a scalp. When she makes her kill, I’ll make her my wife.” And so begins Anaiti’s time with Aric, “Warden of the East March and Kara-Daranaka of the kingdom’s most sacred warband,” and his band of warriors. It’s a brutal life, but Anaiti much prefers it to the idea of marrying Ariapaithi and so seeks ways to remain with the warband.

Told through the first-person narrative of Anaiti, Of Wind and Wolves is a story of truly epic proportions, spanning vast distances both geographically and metaphorically. Having learned some of the ways of her mother’s Suramatai people but been forced to give up her training before its completion and return to her father’s kingdom, Anaiti has always been something of an outsider. What’s more, she has long kept a secret that Ariapaithi’s anarei—a sorcerer and rumored necromancer—seems to quickly discover:

“I don’t believe I have ever writhed upon the ground, and I knew better than to tell anyone about the other signs that plagued me. When I smelled the unearthly odor or felt the terrible presence of darkness approach, when time pulled the earth from beneath my feet, I fled far from the eyes of others. I hid for my life.”

As such, her outsider status is firmly entrenched even before she is dispatched on her marriage mission, and it has prepared her well for life with the warband. She is used to facing danger and keeping secrets, and she is willing to defend herself when required. The trials and tribulations she faces while apparently searching for her first scalp—to say nothing of the depravations and savagery—are narrated viscerally.

Indeed, J.M. Elliott excels at describing the brutal circumstances and situations that the warband face, even the honorary member who is one day expected to marry the king. The lives are difficult and often bloody, but the warband have a strange nobility and an undeniable sense of purpose. “More beasts than men they seemed at times, and their unbound world, their feral lives, reminded me of my youth—stirred something buried but not dead within me.”

Elliott makes clear the contradictions that Anaiti faces when embracing the freedom offered by a life in the wilderness while remaining under the control/protection of Aric, a complex character who knows and sees more than he lets on. It is through Aric that Anaiti learns the customs, rites, and legends of the Skythia. As she grows accustomed to it all, confronting both external threats and internal conflicts, Anaiti learns to trust in herself and her ability to protect her people.

Equally well described is the expansive environment of the steppe, a wild and forbidding land that is nevertheless majestic and compelling. “The steppe was an unbreakable horse—it could not be tamed or enclosed behind walls.” The worldbuilding during Anaiti’s travels and travails with the warband is excellent, providing a fascinating and sometimes perilous background to her journey of self- discovery. The flora and fauna really come to life, as do the dangers lying over seemingly ever horizon.

While Of Wind and Wolves is inspired by Herodotus’s account of Heracles, his union with a “twofold creature formed by the union of a maiden and a serpent,” their three sons, and their shaping of Scythian society, Elliott has taken a fable and crafted an epic. At the intersection of history and mythology, Anaiti encounters both human dangers and strangely otherworldly foes such as the Man-Eaters, which adds tension and mystique to the story, with the bounds of reality never quite clear.

To help navigate the expansive and intricate world that Anaiti inhabits, in addition to the detail of the story, Elliott provides a partial glossary and a map, which enhances the immersion of the tale.

For an epic tome, the well-crafted action and engaging intrigue ensure that things progress at a good pace, and as Of Wind and Wolves is the first book in Elliott’s The Steppe Saga, there seems to be much more for Anaiti to face.

—Erin Britton, Independent Book Review