Sagas & Sass began covering the Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown in September 2022; “Casus Belli” is our summary of Lysander and Darrow’s POVs from chapter 79 through the end of book 6 – Light Bringer – as it was written to introduce Sagas & Sass Episode 90.
AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD!
Unfortunately, we have to revisit Lysander prior to finding out what Darrow is up to as we conclude our Light Bringer summaries…
In contrast to his first visit to Io, this time Lysander’s arrival there is a purposeful and triumphant Iron Rain. After all, he needs maximum visual and allegorical affect so he can use this event as a centerpiece in his forthcoming propaganda campaign!
::insert obvious gagging and puking noises::
Oh, sorry, sorry, excuse me, I needed to…take a moment there.
Aaaanywayyy, the Ascomanni – both in space and on the ground – are caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar and soundly defeated. The Core Golds and their forces rescue the lowColors and even find a group of high-value prisoners that includes Gaia au Raa…who was surely MEANT to be found, and has already been fed Lysander’s alibi prior to his meeting with her.
Lysander greets Gaia and the other prisoners with respect, and then promises that they are here to help, not to stay…and that he will bring Fa’s head to Gaia on a pike. Granted, Gaia would prefer Fa’s death to be a slow and painful thing, but surely they’ll find out what we already know soon enough ::wink wink::
Darrow, Cassius, and Diomedes watch Lysander defeat the Ascomanni from the Archi, with Darrow seeing the ensuing propaganda – Lysander charging into the Garter, liberating both lowColors meant to be shuttled away as slaves and Gold prisoners, including Gaia, and embracing the freed captives – for, well, exactly what it is. Unfortunately, he also has to admit that it’s stirring stuff, and that just makes him even angrier at Lysander being Atlas’s “Good Tyrant”.
Of course Diomedes continues to remind Darrow that Lysander was surprised on the Dustmaker, and Cassius is also questioning whether his former charge is working with Atlas. Thankfully, as angry as Darrow is, Diomedes does at least understand that Lysander being alive suggests that there’s a new arrangement. With that admission, Diomedes is then able to convince him that they have a bit of time – time enough to go down to Io, sneak into the Garter, and find Gaia, in hopes of showing her the truth behind Lysander’s theater.
And speaking of theater, the Rim Golds who hid from Fa’s army are shouting their fears to the wind before they all join Lysander in his attack on Europa and Fa…a ritual that first Cicero and then even Lysander himself take part in, though Lysander’s confessions are interrupted by the arrival of none other than DIOMEDES!
A+++, great timing Diomedes, no notes!
Admittedly, Lysander IS relieved and happy that his ally is alive, but he’s also baffled and having a hard time hiding it…not to mention stunned when Diomedes then insists that Lysander should be carrying the Shield of Akari.
They head off together to fetch it, but Lysander soon becomes uneasy, and, well, kinda rightfully so considering Diomedes isn’t actually taking him to get the Shield…though they continue on anyway, even after Diomedes essentially admits to knowing that Lysander is working with Atlas, because Diomedes also knows that it wasn’t always this way, and acknowledges that he understands Lysander’s choice.
All that said, though, it turns out that Diomedes DOES have something quite coy up his sleeve – because when he and Lysander reach their destination, who is waiting there for them but DARROW!!!
Oh, and Darrow ALSO didn’t know that he was going to be meeting Lysander – Diomedes was supposed to bring Gaia, so of course both Darrow and Lysander go into fighting mode…at which point Diomedes requests that they lower their blades and, as his guests, be civil with each other.
Not that either Darrow or Lysander want to do anything of the sort, but Diomedes tells them that it’s his turn to speak. He explains that while Lysander helped choose the twisted path they’re on, Darrow straightened part of it – his evidence being 🎵Fa’s head in a box 🎵
In all seriousness though, Diomedes knows that he’s probably going to be appointed as (essentially) the leader of the Rim, and while that still leaves him the weakest power in this particular room, Atlas and Atalantia are the real problems. He doesn’t believe that either Darrow or Lysander are true tyrants, and explains that what they SHOULD do is find the road back to peace, with Darrow presenting Fa’s head and Lysander presenting Atlas’s to the Moon Lords in exchange for their mercy regarding their transgressions.
While Darrow and Lysander are obviously still conflicted, it seems like Diomedes finally becoming a Chatty Cathy might be working its magic, because as far as we can tell both of them are considering his…shall we say, strongly worded suggestions. Lysander leaves one way, and Darrow follows Diomedes another, but unfortunately there’s another surprise in store…because when they reach the Archi, Cassius isn’t waiting there for them as he should be.
That said, they aren’t entirely alone, because Gaia has arrived to figure out what the heckity heck her grandson has been up to!
In fact, she’s not the only one, because when Lysander meets back up with the Gorgon Grays, they want to know why Diomedes isn’t with him. Lysander insists that he needs to talk to Atlas directly, and what luck! Turns out Atlas is on his way and should be arriving very soon.
Upon returning to his chambers Lysander requests Rhone, but is told that he’s actually escorting Atlas…again a lucky thing, because who is waiting in Lysander’s chambers for him but CASSIUS! He’s apparently already informed Pytha about Lysander’s deal with the devil, but she believes that Cassius wants to help Lysander just as much as she herself does.
They of course have a lengthy chat, starting with the past but in the end, isn’t the future a more important thing to discuss just now? It turns out that Cassius believes that Lysander will hand Atlas over to Diomedes – however, Lysander insists he can’t do so. Cassius then tells him that they can kill Atlas together as soon as he arrives, at which point Lysander will be free and will no longer have to compromise.
But it can’t be just Atlas – it has to be Rhone, too, and they basically CAN’T fail. They aren’t entirely alone, of course – Pytha is there to help as well – and she at least believes that if the three of them work together, they’ll surely succeed.
Which is…a very nice sentiment, and yet…
Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves! After all, their plan to ambush Atlas as soon as he lands isn’t the total worst. Sure, Lysander couldn’t show up in armor, but once again he’s lucky because Atlas isn’t wearing any either – and as soon as Lysander reveals that Darrow killed Fa, Atlas sends most of his Gorgons away…well, except for Rhone and a half dozen others, but at least Lysander is able to take out the extraneous Praetorians before he’s knocked off his feet.
Meanwhile Cassius’s assault on Atlas seems to be going as planned…uuuuntil Rhone fires at Cassius, allowing Atlas to finally go on the attack while Rhone himself refocuses on Lysander. Both duels are rough, with Lysander and Cassius soon sporting several serious wounds, but Lysander finally takes out Rhone by cutting through his calves, spilling him onto the deck like a turtle on its back before spearing him through the head not just once, but THREE times, for good measure.
And Cassius, of course, is razormaster extraordinaire, relying on his defensive discipline despite his wounds and soon snaking his now-whip-shaped razor around Atlas’s neck! Lysander calls out for Cassius to kill him, but before this can happen Atlas blabs about Eidmi. You know, the weapon. The weapon that can target any Color. Silenius’s weapon. The weapon that Lysander clearly knows about. THAT weapon.
Hey, Lysander….BIG oopsies. Big. HUGE.
Cassius doesn’t want to believe that Lysander would keep, let alone USE, such a thing…but then let’s be real, Cassius has never been the best judge of Lysander’s character. (Poor dude.) So yeah, he’s totes wrong in this case (uhhhh-gain) and when Lysander refuses to stand down, Cassius refuses to obey Lysander’s request that he leave. And of course Lysander is a pixie piece of shit who won’t even fight Cassius for real – as with Alexander, he simply shoots Cassius until this man, who was basically the only brother Lysander ever had, collapses and dies.
Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool.
Seriously though, we won’t even bother with the ‘I’m not crying you’re crying’ bit, because for sure everyone was crying here. Don’t ‘@’ us.
To make matters worse, Lysander plants Cassius’s razor just above his own heart and goes stumbling through the ship lying about assassins, blaming not just Cassius but also Diomedes! Eventually Lysander pulls Kyber aside and admits that Atlas was trying to control him, ordering her to kill the rest of Rhone’s cohort and retrieve the black bag he dropped down the hangar’s waste chute. Because oh yeah, he’s gonna be too busy showing off his barely-patched-up injuries and convincing his allies of his new ‘truth’ to bother with any more dirty work.
Back on Io, Darrow is waiting impatiently for news from Lysander or Cassius, while Gaia is being a real stick-in-the-mud about allowing any sort of cooperation – let alone ALLIANCE – with Darrow. She then announces that Diomedes is going to kill Darrow…but instead, Diomedes wraps Pyrphoros around his own neck and puts the handle in his grandmother’s hand and tells her that she might as well kill him!
Obviously she’s not about to do THAT, but this doesn’t mean she’s going to help them…she’s simply not going to OPPOSE them. Diomedes and Darrow seem to understand that they’ll have to work with what they can get, and anyway, it’s nivalnight and therefore time for the summit, where they still hope Lysander and Cassius will meet them.
LE SIGH.
Not surprisingly, Diomedes is appointed Hegemon – aka leader of the Rim, to give the briefest explanation – and brings Darrow before the remaining Moon Lords to present the gift of Fa’s head and to request a formal pardon for the destruction of the Dockyards of Ganymede.
The Moon Lords remain silent…that is, until Diomedes tells them he has offered Darrow a military alliance, at which point they erupt in anger.
It’s Gaia who puts them in their place, with her and Diomedes then working together in an attempt to convince them that Atalantia is the REAL Big Bad that they need to worry about taking down.
Buuuut as soon as the meeting seems to be coming up Darrow, a Green approaches to inform Diomedes that they are receiving a tightbeam from the Light Bringer…and as we already know, it’s certainly not GOOD news.
Sure enough, Lysander appears on screen to show off his injuries, shit-talk Darrow’s presence in the Rim, claim that ‘assassins were sent from the Garter’ to finish him off, and to then display Cassius’s naked and brutalized body because of course he fucking does THAT.
Darrow is obviously broken-hearted, while Diomedes is more enraged than we’ve ever seen him as he names Lysander “liar”. The Moon Lords, however, seem to be entertaining Lysander’s bullshit…at least until he demands that they surrender Darrow to him, because Darrow is their guest and all, and they have more honor (or at least more pride…) than Freys. Heh.
Lysander, however, has negative ONE MILLION honor. When they refuse to relinquish Darrow, he uses the Light Bringer’s particle cannons to fire on the Garter – which includes the meeting place where Darrow, Diomedes, Gaia, and the Moon Lords are located, lacking a plan, armor, gravBoots, men, and, well, any resources at all, really.
Diomedes calls for order, and the Moon Lords begin to evacuate in neat rows, only to be interrupted as the pillars supporting the exit begin to collapse! Darrow races to pull an Atlas (the Greek Titan, not the jerk from this series) and hold up the proverbial sky so the Moon Lords can escape. He receives aid from Diomedes (of course, Diomedes is Best) and others, with many of those present escaping outside and from there rushing to a secret door that leads to bunkers.
Problem is, there are still people on the surface, so while a few of the elderly Moon Lords remain behind in relative safety, Darrow and the rest – even Gaia, bless her heart – make their way to the garages in hopes of fighting back…
But against WHAT? Lysander burned the eastern Garter while he looted the western portion – he’s going into the PRODUCE business, y’all, and plans to turn the Mercurian desert into a crop heartland! Some of Lysander’s buds are delighted that he is, err, ‘diversifying his portfolio’ – especially as many of them will also profit from these ventures of his – however, Cicero doesn’t seem too fond of some of Lysander’s actions, particularly burning the Browns who refuse to leave their orchards. Lysander, of course, feeds Cicero some pretty words and they depart together.
Lysander does have one more thing to take care of, though – or rather, one more person to take care of. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy the Archi, and now Pytha waits by the ship with Cassius’s body, as Lysander is allowing her to take it back to Darrow. Of course Pytha is furious with Lysander, promising to kill him if she ever sees him again, but he still sees her off before meeting back up with Kyber, who he immediately honors by granting her the position of his Dux.
With that, it’s time for our least favorite little pixie shit and his space racist allies to sail home, because the Volk have gathered and Lysander knows they won’t be able to hit that fleet before they unite. As Lysander departs, he returns to his suites to muse over the fourteen golden cubes that make up the weapon Eidmi, paying special attention to the ones marked with Red and Gold sigils and wondering which Silenius would have used first…
So we leave Lysander, ya know, just casually contemplating some genocide…and pivot back to Darrow, where we learn that something (::shrugs in ‘this might be a plot hole’::) put a stop to Diomedes’ and Darrow’s attempted rescue mission and they’ve been trapped in the Raa bunker, where Darrow has spent the time finishing his memoirs to Pax.
Ash rains down on the once-verdant Garter as Volk ripWings help search for survivors from the sky while Daughters of Athena skip across the surface clearing collapsed bunker entrances. Sevro arrives and explains that it took him working on Athena and Lyria working on Volga to get the two to sort of work together and help out, but let’s be real, they also needed to show up to sign the all-important Covenant between them and the Rim.
That done, Diomedes promises that once the Rim fleets have done what they can to save as many of their people as possible and to make sure they’ve chased away the Ascomanni, they will rendezvous with Darrow…and so he departs Io, though before he’ss gone very far he’s hailed by a ship he cannot see – the Archi, of course!
But of course it’s a somber pickup, with Darrow crying over Cassius’s body until Sevro arrives to offer him…well, not any sweet kind of comfort (this IS Sevro we’re talking about, after all) but conversation, and someone to sit with while they bring up the Institute recordings Cassius had in his chambers so that they can reminisce over a time when they were all three together, idiots drunk on victory and howling at the moon.
They’ve got a long trip home, but they’re finally on their way with the army and armada that Darrow promised Virginia!
And that, dear followers, is where we leave the Red Rising Saga…at least until we return with detailed coverage of book 7 in the hopefully-not-too-distant-future!
