Fire in the Steppe

Fire in the Steppe by Henryk Sienkiewicz, translated by WS Kuniczak, 717 pages

In With Fire and Sword, Poland was saved from the Cossacks.  In The Deluge, she was saved from the Swedes.  In Fire in the Steppe it is the Turks who threaten the Commonwealth, and again her heroes, gathered around the incomparable swordsman Volodyovski, stand ready to defend her.  One final time they take their places on the ramparts of Christendom, disregarded by the sensible men of their own time and sensible historians of times to come, but glorious giants in the world of song and story.

In many ways Fire in the Steppe parallels With Fire and Sword.  Again, steppe warfare features prominently, again the most prominent villain is an easterner living among the Poles who is driven to treason by his desire for the hero's woman, again there is a climactic siege in which the defenders face impossible odds.  The last novel in Sienkiewicz's trilogy is far superior to the first, however.  Love at first sight has been replaced with a dramatic romance and courtship with as many twists and turns as any battle.  Where the love interests in the first two novels fell easily into the role of damsel in distress, Volodyovski's wife is more capable of handling herself physically.  Best of all, the climax dramatizes in unforgettable fashion one of the central themes running through the entire trilogy, the necessity of brave men to defend Poland and the cowardice that turns soft men into traitors in spite of themselves.