Manga: Heroic Legend of Arslan 9

The Heroic Legend of Arslan Vol 9
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Prince Arslan finds himself gifted with 3,000 cavalrymen for aiding Rajendra in the capture of his traitorous brother, Gadhevi. But the king's two-faced generosity is clouded with greed as he sets to ambush Prince Arslan and his Parsian army late in the night. And later, in Peshawar Fortress, more trouble lurks as a shadowy figure silently stalks Arslan and his retinue in search of a secret letter. 

Arslan has been cordially invited to a royal execution and thus the saga with Gadhevi is finally over. I'll be sad to the end of sassy Salima though. 

This volume see's us move away from Sindhura after dealing with the ever shady Rajendra. I don't think anyone fell for the generous, nice guy act, and we move on to the next stage of the story, turning our attention back to Pars and Lusitania. Of course, Jaswant is the latest addition to Team Arslan, and there's some interesting hints towards future conflicts. 

This is an interesting volume, as like I said, we wrap up one arc and start to head in to another but while we get a bit of Arslan and the rest as they have to deal with a mystery shadow at the fortress looking for a secret letter, we also get a lot of Hilmes. It turns out the King of Lusitania's brother is facing some...problems, the actual King is useless and leaves it all to him, and through the sections about him we get an interesting insight in to how things stand in the enemy camp. Bodin appears to have turned on them, surprising no-one I'm sure. 

More intrigue is added to the plot as Sam goes to visit the imprisoned King and we get some history to the Pars royal line, and Prince Hilmes and his father which has left me with a million questions because there is definitely a secret being hidden from us that appears to involve a prophecy. I do like the focus we get on Hilmes this volume and what's going on with his camp as it catches us up on what's been going on. Plus we locate Kubard....one of the other missing Marzbans. It remains to be seen if he'll take a side. 

Kubard seems like he could be a lot of fun, and I assume we'll see more of him...presumably on the right side. This volume had one battle scene and it's a smaller one than we've had recently but that fits with the tone of the volume which is very much one of us catching up and moving on. But don't worry, there's a nice and ominous cliffhanger!