There is something slightly dangerous about going back to a book that meant a great deal to you when you were young. You know the story, you remember the characters, and you remember how you felt about it, but you are no longer the person who first read it. Waylander II: The Realm of the Wolf is a particularly good example of that for me. I first encountered Waylander in my early twenties, and now, coming back to the story in my late fifties, I find that the bits that grab me are not always the bits I remembered.

That is not to say I have suddenly become immune to David Gemmell’s particular brand of heroic fantasy. Far from it. Give me an ageing warrior, an impossible fight, a doomed cause and a handful of people prepared to stand their ground when running would be considerably more sensible, and I am still very much on board.

The story picks up with Waylander living under the name Dakeyras, trying to put his old life behind him. He has settled into a quieter existence with his daughter Miriel, but that peace is shattered when assassins come looking for him. There is a price on his head, and before long the hunter once again becomes the hunted. From there, Gemmell expands the story into something considerably bigger, bringing in the Nadir, the Gothir, the Dark Templars and a growing conflict that threatens to swallow everyone involved.

But for me, the really interesting part is still Waylander himself.

He remains the reluctant hero, although by this point Gemmell has taken that idea somewhere rather more complicated. Waylander does not want glory. He does not particularly want responsibility. He certainly has no interest in being anybody’s chosen one. He has spent years trying to escape the man he used to be, only to discover that circumstances have a nasty habit of dragging the past back into the present.

And that brings us neatly to the idea of poking the sleeping wolf.

There is a wonderful theme running through the book about the consequences of disturbing something that might have been better left alone. Waylander has tried to put the wolf to sleep, but the people hunting him make the mistake of waking it. Once they do, they discover exactly why Waylander became such a legend in the first place.

The same idea extends beyond Waylander. Characters make choices because they think they understand the consequences, only to discover that they have disturbed something much larger than themselves. Prophecy, politics, revenge and old grudges all have a way of coming back to bite the people who thought they were safely buried.

That feels particularly relevant to me now.

As a teenager, I was fascinated by the obvious stuff. Waylander was cool. He was deadly. He had a dark past, a terrifying reputation and an almost supernatural ability to turn up when somebody had made the unfortunate decision to annoy him. What more could a late-teenage fantasy reader want?

Late-fifties me sees rather more of the sadness.

This is a story about ageing, loss, regret and the difficulty of accepting that the person you once were cannot simply be erased. Waylander is older now, and his experiences have changed him. He is still capable of extraordinary violence, but he understands the cost of violence in a way that his younger self did not. His reluctance to become the hero again is not cowardice. It is the exhaustion of someone who knows exactly where that road leads.

There is also a lovely contrast between the reluctant hero and the idea of the destined hero. Gemmell repeatedly asks whether destiny actually matters when individuals still have to make choices. Prophecy may point towards some future, but people remain capable of deciding how they respond to it. The Nadir storyline develops this particularly well, with the idea of the Uniter and the belief that one individual might change the destiny of an entire people.

That is one of the things I have always enjoyed about Gemmell. His heroes can be larger than life without becoming entirely removed from ordinary human weaknesses. His characters may swing enormous swords and fight seemingly impossible battles, but they still worry about love, grief, loyalty, failure and whether they have made the right choice.

And then there is Sean Barrett’s narration.

Barrett once again does an excellent job of filling the world of the Drenai with life. He gives the characters individuality without making the performance feel theatrical for the sake of it, and there is an understated quality to his narration that suits Gemmell’s storytelling beautifully. He makes the quieter moments work just as well as the battles, which is important in a book where the emotional weight underneath the action matters. The audiobook is an older production and, much like the first Waylander, there are places where you can feel that a modern recording and production could add a little polish, but Barrett remains a big part of why this works so well as an audiobook.

Waylander II may not have quite the same shock of discovery that the original had for me, but that is hardly surprising. The first book introduced me to Waylander. This one lets me spend more time with him.

And perhaps that is why returning to it now has been so enjoyable.

Late-teens me wanted to be Waylander.

Late-fifties me understands him a little better.

I am not sure which is more dangerous.

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