The Warrior Heir

infobox Book |
name = The Warrior Heir


author = Cinda Williams Chima
language = English
series = The Heir Trilogy
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = Hyperion Books for Children
release_date = 2006
pages = 426
followed_by = The Wizard Heir

"The Warrior Heir" is the first book in the Heir Trilogy (followed by "The Wizard Heir", and the "The Dragon Heir").

Plot

"The Warrior Heir" starts off with a boy named Lee, finding that the Red Rose, one of the main political groups of the story, have killed his wizard father and damaged his mother's mental state. The reason they are hunting his family is because his sister is a warrior. Eventually Lee finds his sister, but then she sacrifices herself to help Lee survive. Then the story goes ahead a 100 years and talks about Jack Swift, a 16 year old boy who lives a simple live in the town of Trinity with his mother, Becka, and best friends, Will and Fitch. He has lived in Trinity all his life and the only thing that makes him different is a rare heart defect from when he was born and requires him to take medication everyday. One day he forgets to take his medicine, and begins to feel much stronger and more energetic. During soccer tryouts he makes the High School bully, Garret Lobeck, fly back without touching him.

Meanwhile, his aunt, Linda Downey, arrives in town and asks him if he wants to "dig up some old relatives." She explains that they are looking for a sword that belonged to Jack's great-great-grandmother, Susannah, and may have been buried with her. Linda, Jack, and Jack's friends Will and Fitch travel to Coalton county to research where Susannah's grave might be when they are mysteriously attacked. Linda stays behind while Jack and his friends escape. The next day Jack and his friends head to the library to continue their research. They find the location of the grave site, and later that night go to it and begin to dig. As they are doing this, Jack hears voices of ghosts, later revealed to be warriors. They find a sword, and Jack is instinctively aware that its name is Shadowslayer. As soon as he retrieves the sword, however, he is attacked by a mysterious cloaked wizard named Geoffrey Wylie, the same person who attacked them before. Jack and his friends head for the church. Along the way, Jack defends himself by shooting flames from his blade, throwing the wizard off guard. They hide inside a church, wait for Linda to arrive, and subsequently escape.

When they return to Trinity, and after dropping off Will and Fitch, Linda reveals to Jack that he is a Warrior, part of the five magic guilds and one of the last of his kind. The medicine he has been taking was to suppress his warrior powers. She also reveals that she is an enchanter, and has the ability to captivate people. She also tells him that when he was born he didn't have a Weirstone (source of power), and was dying. Linda Downey contacted Jessamine Longbranch, a wizard from England, to implant a wizard's stone in Jack, but she put a warrior stone in Jack instead. Linda tells him that since he is a Warrior, the two battling wizard houses (the Red Rose and the White Rose) will try to play him in a tournament called "The Game" in which the winning house gains control until the next game. Wizards are the superior race according to the ancient "Rules of Engagement," and have power over all the other guilds.

Jack comes to find that most of the people living around him are either wizards or some other class, and they are there to look after him and protect him. He finds his life to be getting more stressful and feels trapped. Jack begins training with a wizard named Leander Hastings (Who is Lee from the beginning of the book), who becomes the assistant principal of his high school. They practice fencing, unarmed combat, and basic magic spells. Jack also faces ghosts of dead warriors, and his skills and physique begin to increase greatly. During this time, he starts to go out with Ellen, one of his classmates, and they become much closer. He also secretly trains in Wizardry with Nicodemus Snowbeard, his neighbor, who is revealed to be a wizard.

Tensions rise when Jack is attacked and almost kidnapped by Traders working with Leesha Middleton, his ex-girlfriend (who is also a wizard). Leander Hastings kills both wizards and destroys the evidence that they were there. Jack's drink is also poisoned, and he is not safe anymore. When Jack travels to England for the summer, he is badly wounded by Longbranch and the White Rose when they try to capture him for the Game. He is healed by Leander Hastings who then proceeds to convince him to play in the Game for his house- the Silver Dragon.

At the Game, Jack's opponent is revealed to be his girlfriend, Ellen. As they fight, Jack refused to go on the offensive and hurt Ellen. After two hours of fighting Ellen finally gets the chance to kill Jack when he sprains his ankle and is unable to move. However, Ellen cannot bring herself to kill Jack. Instead, they say that the match is a tie. The Council of Wizards is furious and tries to kill them both, but all of the deceased warriors who fought in the tournaments appear and kill many wizards. Jack's ancestor Susannah forces the Council to change the rules, or suffer further losses. They make all classes of the Weir equal, make Trinity a sanctuary, and a tentative truce is declared between the houses.

External links

* [http://www.cindachima.com Cinda William Chima's Official Site]