Bujold has created a universe; no, a galaxy; no, a system; no, a planet; where the gods sort of walk amongst us. The Gods actually infest voluntary or involuntary victims and walk through them.

In addition to the Gods, animal spirits can be subscribed to, in bloody, blood-letting ceremonies. This is how the heroine of our story ended up with the spirit of a jaguar. The fellow that thought he was going to end up with the jaguar ended up with his head bashed in, and the jaguar spirit, needing a home, picked our heroine, fresh from her head-bashing adventure. Of course, the head that was bashed was of a prince of the realm, which meant that our heroine was in deep shit, even if the prince was trying to rape her and the whole head-bashing was in self defense.

Assigned to bring our heroine to injustice is the hero. Coincidently, he, too, is sharing a body with an animal spirit, a wolf. And not just any wolf, but the spirit of the wolf of wolves. It is an ancient and wise spirit and our hero has kept it quite suppressed for many years. And some evil schemer has put our hero under a geas to kill our heroine. (Possibly to avoid a messy trial?) Many rollicking adventures occur as the party heads back to the capital and the heroine’s awaiting death.

Of course, the heroine does not seem to care that her fate is in the hand of politicians. She doesn’t seem to care about much at all. Most other people, when infested with an animal spirit, go crazy for a while. Our hero was crazy for several years after receiving his spirit. She just goes along for the ride, quietly, maybe communing with her inner beast.

So, the hero tries and fails to kill the heroine. A god visits them with their spirit animals in a dream They fall in love and share a spiritual bond. Turns out that the heroine has a history. Her family owns the site of a long lost battle where the blood sacrifice of many men has caused a rupture in the force. And she feels compelled to rectify this wrong.

This long-lost battle is also the key to the geas. The king that lost the battle, and his life, transferred his spirit to another at death and has continued to transfer his spirit through the centuries, seeking to do something about that terrible loss. Generally, when the spirit takes over body of the next in line for the crown, the original owner is driven out or absorbed completely by the incoming spirit. And our hero is the next in line for the crown. (Not really relevant except as a motivation to not let it happen. OK, maybe it is relevant at the end.)

The earl-who-would-be-king takes our hero and the wife of the body he inhabits, who happens to be the sister of the prince who got his head bashed in, off to the haunted battle site. There, in a spirit realm, the king tries to lead his men somewhere. Meanwhile, the heroine has chased the hero, along with a supporting posse, to the battlefield and helps the hero manage the king spirit when the earl died, free the tormented spirits and let them run off to whatever God will have them, and send the king’s spirit to oblivion.

I’m sorry, I have a hard time with this sort of world. I know Elaine was laughing out loud at parts. I assume one of them was when the heroine is facing a discussion of life and death, her life and death, and she blurts out “I can’t believe she married Oswin!”

I don’t have a lot of sympathy with the characters. Once they were defined at the beginning, you knew how they would react throughout the book. The hero is a loyal dogsbody who has kingship forced upon him. He does what is required and relinquishes the kingship, and does so in front of the man who will most likely be selected the next king of the realm. (The brother of the man who got his head bashed in) The hero discovers a few things that his inner beast will let him do, so he doesn’t feel a need to keep it suppressed all the time.

The heroine doesn’t really seem to do anything except support the man she loves, although I have no idea how a wolf and a jaguar can co-exist for more than a moment or so. Doesn’t matter, they’re in love.

The Hallowed Hunt is the third book in a series based on the same world (Paladin of Souls, The Curse of Chalion), with the same Gods and spirit rules. Some of the main characters in one story may come back as supporting characters in another. I thought the earlier books didn’t get as bogged down as this one. I only finished the second half of this book because I had made it that far. The fact that anyone would marry Oswin boggles the mind.