James Nicoll Reviews

C. L. Clark’s 2025 Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf is a League of Legends: Arcane novel. I will unravel all that later.

Ambessa Medarda is perhaps the Noxian empire’s foremost military leader. A vision granted after she was badly wounded suggests she will one day lead the empire. Currently she does not even lead her own clan. Her beloved grandfather Hostlord Menelik leads.

Who will follow old Menelik? That is a question for another day. Menelik will surely live for many years to come.

Or perhaps, he will die immediately after his audience with Ambessa.

There are two obvious candidates to replace Menelik. One is Ambessa. The other is her cousin Ta’Fik, arguably as (or perhaps even more) skilled in political and military matters.

The Medarda believe in vigorous competition, so even in the best of circumstances kinship would not preclude a savage struggle. In this specific case, Ta’Fik blames Ambessa for his sister’s death years ago. Therefore, he is not merely Ambessa’s rival. He is also bent on revenge.

The Medarda have a four-point code designed to reduce Medarda-on-Medarda losses:

• Medarda above all.
• A clever tongue is as valuable as sharp steel.
• A Medarda strikes their own path.
• A Medarda fights with honor.

All four points are open to interpretation. Clearly, victors get final say, particularly where the fourth point is concerned.

The circumstances of Menelik’s death provide Ta’Fik with his first weapon to use against Ambessa. Menelik died soon after talking to Ambessa. Clearly, Ambessa murdered the old man! There’s no evidence to say this is so, but also none to prove Ambessa’s innocence.

This is but the first of Ta’Fik bold gambits. Fortuitously for Ambessa, she is as ruthless and perhaps as cunning as Ta’Fik. More importantly, she is even better at escaping certain death than she is at being maneuvered towards it.

Ta’Fik and Ambessa might be surprised to discover they are both pawns of a third party, one whose goals are far greater than a single clan in one northern empire….

~oOo~

Yes, the Medarda Code is as loophole-proof as Asimov’s Three Laws.

About the title… League of Legends is Riot Games’ multiplayer online battle-arena video game, which has been around since 2009. Arcane is the television show based on the backstory for prominent characters in League of Legends. Ambessa is a supporting character in Arcane, where she is the domineering mother of secondary protagonist Mel. Chosen of the Wolf is probably the title of this particular novel, if this is a series novel. If this is stand-alone, then the title is Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf.

If there is one political axiom that philosophers from Plato to Machiavelli to Sun Tzu agree on, it is this: ​”Never go in against a Sicilian protagonist (whose survival is attested to in works set later) when death is on the line!” Ambessa is a pain in Mel’s ass in Arcane, which is set years later. Therefore, none of Ta’Fik’s traps will kill Ambessa or if they do, she will recover. Of course, Ambessa doesn’t know that. 

Well, there is the matter of the vision but I’d bet that Noxians who depend on prophecies to protect them don’t live long.

I’ve watched Arcane Season One and a couple of episodes of Season Two¹, on the basis of which I have come to two conclusions: the characters are idiots and Vi and Caitlin should spend more time kissing than they actually do. In fact, if every Arcane character’s solution to every challenge were to find a dark corner and make out with someone, a lot more people would be alive by the end of Season than are.

The characters in Ambessa are not idiots, at least not in the sense of making decisions whose goal seems to be to make bad situations worse. One can see a path between what they choose to do and where they want to end up. However, the Noxian political philosophy, encouraging as it does its most talented persons to engage in homicidal struggle against each other, has the effect of eliminating most of the empire’s best and brightest.

The author, clearly a League of Legends enthusiast, skillfully paints within the lines of established continuity. However, one does not have to be a League of Legends fan to enjoy this fast-paced sword-and-sorcery adventure. Which is good, as I have never played League of Legends.

Ambessa is available here (Orbit), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Bookshop US), here (Bookshop UK), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).

1: I watched Arcane as Fabula Ultima fodder.