After finishing this book I realized I accidentally skipped the previous one in the series. I did wonder about the unusually high number of blanks the author left for the reader to fill in :D but the book still did make sense and I think I understood everything. So that's a definite plus for the book. There also were a few places where the mystery around the standard bearer were a little reminiscent of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, which was also a plus.

It feels like I went through a lot with these characters: in the first book, Croaker was a physician in a mercenary company, serving a distant Lady he could ony dream about. And so much has changed since then... That's been a really enjoyable aspect. But overall, I still think the book was too long and dragged out. And I missed Croaker a little.