Today, we’re very excited to welcome back to the Hive David Wragg to celebrate the release of his latest novel, The Company of the Wolf.

Dave is a firm favourite with myself (Beth) and Nils, and I was beyond honoured when he asked if I’d sensitivity read The Company of the Wolf; so as you can imagine, it holds a very special place in my heart! This is the second instalment in Dave’s Tales of the Plains trilogy, the first of which was The Hunters. To celebrate publication day, Dave has written a guest post about pacifism, a very important theme throughout The Company of the Wolf.

Before we hand you over, let’s check out the official blurb:

Full of David Wragg’s unique blend of humour, heart, and high stakes, The Company of the Wolf is the epic next instalment in the Tales of the Plains trilogy.

Seeking a better life, Ree and Javani have travelled west into the mountains, and left their pasts – and their troubles – behind. But new places bring new problems, and when they stumble across a lone traveller under bandit attack, they make the mistake of lending a hand.

Forced to take refuge in the traveller’s village, they quickly find allies among the lush, wooded hills. But then the true nature of the bandits is revealed.

With winter approaching and a vengeful company of mercenaries circling like wolves, Ree and Javani must uncover the secrets of this peaceful valley … or risk the ruin of it all.

The Company of the Wolf is out today – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org

On Pacifism, and The Company of the Wolf

by David Wragg

After the arid deserts and dust-storms of The Hunters, part two of the Tales of the Plains trilogy sees our protagonists heading west into cold and forested mountains, trying to find a better life and, not to put too fine a point on it, getting lost. Instead of the promised land, they find an unmarked settlement off the beaten track, and, lurking in the surrounding hills, a hungering mercenary company. Matters between villagers and mercenaries have been at apparent equilibrium until their arrival, but thanks to Ree’s incessant need to stick her oar in (and Javani’s own unique contributions), things begin to spiral…

The idea for The Company of the Wolf had been kicking around in my head for a while – probably years. I’ve always been a fan of the whole Villagers vs Bandits trope, almost certainly dating back to watching certain episodes of The A-Team at an impressionable age in the 1980s. Since then, I’ve been spoiled by Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (and, as we’re talking Westerns here, at least one Magnificent Seven), and countless other variations. When it came to plotting Ree and Javani’s next adventure after The Hunters, I knew immediately where I wanted to take them, and what I wanted them to face.

But there’s more to the book than exploring the changed and changing relationship between the two protagonists, and their impact on each other and their surroundings. The village they stumble over, Ar Ramas, has a very particular outlook, and a common set of foundational beliefs: that it is a place of peace, where violence is anathema, and everyone may live without fear. As creeds go, it’s a worthy one, and one I’d hope we could all aspire to, but pacifism, and its limits, was something I wanted to explore.

My first series, Articles of Faith (The Black Hawks and The Righteous), featured a protagonist called Chel, who had a serious aversion to killing (both personally and in general), and little in the way of combat ability. Part of his nature was something of a bet with myself – could I get someone who was no good in a fight all the way through a fantasy quest plotline without either of us coming a cropper? (Find out for yourself, good books, very cheap)

Chel’s refusal to kill baffled and annoyed a few people, both within the story and as readers, which I found interesting. I do wonder if we, as fantasy readers/viewers/Konsumers-of-Kontent are desensitised to a certain level of violence within our narratives, perhaps trained to expect a degree that might have shocked most inhabitants of the mediaeval lands we lift take inspiration from. I think we naturally tend towards a vaguely Hobbesian view of life in “fantasy times” as nasty, brutish and short, without perhaps realising that in our own middle ages (despite famine, pestilence, and the occasional other horsemen) much of life was carefully regulated, laws and protections existed and were adhered to (no doubt as well as laws these days), and in times of peace, life was mostly predictable, if not always comfortable.

Thus questions of “why wouldn’t Chel just kill that person who was inconvenient?” suggested as much to me about reader expectations as they did about the character, but occasionally someone would describe Chel as a “pacifist”. And this got me thinking, because to my mind, Chel is very clearly not a pacifist. One of his first actions is threatening someone with bodily harm, he spends the bulk of two books getting into fights, and has a tendency to lead with his forehead. A refusal to kill is not pacifism. From here, though, I wanted to delve into what was.

The villagers of Ar Ramas in The Company of the Wolf have sworn off violence of any sort, and want to live their lives in peace and without fear. Weapons are forbidden, almost anything with a sharp edge likewise, and no one within the village boundary would dream of raising a hand to another. The village is miles off the main trade roads, nestled in a hidden valley, but infrequent travellers are welcomed in – as long as they agree to adhere to the rules.

But what happens if they don’t?

When it comes to subtitles, RF Kuang has already beaten me to The Necessity of Violence; I’d like to think that as a species we can aim to build a better world where acts of savagery are merely folk memory, but the reality, as The Simpsons taught us many years ago, is that “some [people/elephants] are just jerks”. In the book, the eponymous Lupine Company are the jerks in question, and they have a very limited interest in respecting the villagers’ laws. They’ve started to push, and nobody is pushing back… until Ree and Javani arrive.

At heart, The Company of the Wolf is about standing up to bullies, when all you want is to be left alone. It’s about the delicacy of peace, and the sacrifices demanded to preserve it. Can we preserve a tranquil ethos in the face of threats and provocation, or worse? How much should we have to endure in the service of noble goals? And if a line is crossed, are we willing to do what’s necessary, even if it’s contrary to everything we’ve striven for?

There’s also quite a lot of swearing and name-calling, if you’re a fan of that from my previous books.

I can’t pretend to have any definitive answers, but writing The Company of the Wolf helped me ask myself a lot of pointed questions about my own feelings and beliefs, as well as tell what I believe is my best story yet. I hope you’ll agree, and perhaps ponder some notions of your own.

The Company of the Wolf is out in hardback and ebook on 29th August 2024, with audio following a few weeks later. The Hunters is out now in paperback, hardback, ebook and audio.

The Company of the Wolf is out today – you can order your copy on Bookshop.org