Beast Quest 6 – Epos the Winged Flame

Adam Blade's Epos the Winged Flame is an adventure for 7 year olds in which the last Beast of a long quest turns out to be a phoenix sitting on top of a volcano.

What happens

Tom and Elenna have been on the road for nearly two weeks and they are shattered. Elenna leans on the horse while they walk. Tom keeps hacking at the thorns anyway, because there is one Beast left.

Six Beasts protect Avantia. A dark wizard called Malvel has put every one of them under a spell, and Tom's job from the king is not to kill them but to set them free. Your reader gets a hero whose whole quest is rescue, which is a nicer shape than it sounds.

Epos is number six, the final one. It normally sits on the volcano above the city and keeps the thing quiet. Under the spell it is doing the opposite. Within a chapter of the story starting the sky is full of ash, red-hot stones are coming down through the trees, and Tom's shield is too small to cover the horse.

They have a map of Avantia that grows out of the parchment as you look at it, little hills and lakes standing up as tall as a thumbnail, with a red line trailing behind to show where they have been. That is the sort of detail a seven year old will want to own.

One thing to check before bedtime. The prologue does not star Tom. It stars a village boy called Owen, who hears scrabbling in the caves, goes in alone to help what he thinks is a trapped animal, gets lost in the dark, finds a piece of scorched armour on the floor and then meets the thing that scorched it. He is still in real trouble when the chapter ends.

That prologue is short and properly frightening. A child who takes these books in their stride will love it. A nervous one may want the light on. The rest is adventure rather than horror, but the opening is the opening.

Tom is easy to like. His mother died when he was born and his father vanished the same day, and he is still hoping to find him. Elenna misses her village and says so. Neither of them is brave in an annoying way, and they keep telling each other they are tired.

The chapters are short and something happens in every one, which makes this a good one for a reader who wants to feel they are getting somewhere fast.

This is the sixth Quest and the last of this run. The book lists the five already done, so your reader can pick it up here and follow everything.

What to read next

If they want to go back to the start, Ferno the Fire Dragon is the one where Tom is still a blacksmith's apprentice in his own village, hitting a sack of hay with a poker and wishing something would happen.