Red Country by Joe Abercrombie is an epic fantasy novel that tells the story of Shy South, a tough and resourceful young woman who has managed to survive in a harsh and unforgiving frontier known as The Far Country. Shy is a cattle rancher by trade, but when her farm is attacked and her brother and sister are kidnapped by a gang of ruthless bandits, she sets out on a dangerous journey to rescue them and bring them back home.

Along the way, Shy crosses paths with a group of unlikely allies, including a former soldier named Temple who is haunted by his traumatic experiences in a bloody war, a mysterious wizard called Bayaz who holds a powerful secret about the history of the land, and a fierce and fearless mercenary named Nicomo Cosca who is known as "The Great Leveller."

Together, the group travels through treacherous mountains and perilous deserts, facing numerous obstacles and dangers along the way. They confront hostile tribes, bloodthirsty outlaws, and vicious monsters, all while trying to stay one step ahead of the notorious Black Calder gang who captured Shy's siblings.

The journey is long and difficult, but through sheer grit and determination, Shy and her comrades eventually track down the Black Calder gang to their stronghold in the town of Crease. There, they launch a daring assault on the gang's headquarters, fighting their way through hordes of heavily armed bandits and freeing Shy's brother and sister in the process.

But the victory is short-lived as they soon discover that the true mastermind behind the Black Calder gang is none other than Bayaz himself, the very person who helped them along the way. Bayaz reveals that he has been using the Black Calder gang to sow chaos and instability in the land, all in order to strengthen his hold on power and extend his influence over the region.

Furious at being betrayed, Shy and her allies confront Bayaz, but they find themselves vastly outmatched by his formidable magic abilities. In a final act of desperation, Shy manages to kill Bayaz's closest associate, a young woman named Ferro who had been seeking revenge on Bayaz for enslaving her people. This act of defiance weakens Bayaz enough for Nicomo Cosca to deliver the final blow, and they succeed in killing him.

With Bayaz dead and the Black Calder gang crippled, Shy and her companions return to their homes, but it is a bitter victory. For Shy, the journey has taken its toll, and she realizes that she can never go back to the person she once was. The experience has changed her irreversibly, and she must now find a way to move forward and forge a new path in life.

In the end, Red Country is a powerful and visceral tale of survival, betrayal, and redemption. It takes readers on a thrilling adventure through a harsh and unforgiving world, and it leaves them with a haunting and unforgettable message about the costs of violence, the price of power, and the resilience of the human spirit.

‘And there’s the Fellowship,’ said Sweet, reining in with forearms on saddle horn and fingers dangling.

The wagons were strung out for a mile or so along the bottom of the valley. Thirty or more, some covered with stained canvas, some painted bright colours, dots of orange and purple and twinkling gilt jumping from the dusty brown landscape. Specks of walkers alongside them, riders up ahead. At the back came the beasts–horses, spare oxen, a good-sized herd of cattle–and following hard after a swelling cloud of dust, tugged by the breeze and up into the blue to announce the Fellowship’s coming to the world.

‘Will you look at that!’ Leef kicked his horse forward, standing in his stirrups with a grin all the way across his face. ‘D’you see that?’ Shy hadn’t seen him smile before and it made him look young. More boy than man, which he probably was. Made her smile herself.

‘I see it,’ she said.

‘A whole town on the move!’

‘True, it’s a fair cross section through society,’ said Sweet, shifting his old arse in his saddle. ‘Some honest, some sharp, some rich, some poor, some clever, some not so much. Lot of prospectors. Some herders and some farmers. Few merchants. All set on a new life out there beyond the horizon. We even got the First of the Magi down there.’

Lamb’s head jerked around. ‘What?’

‘A famous actor. Iosiv Lestek. His Bayaz mesmerised the crowds in Adua, apparently.’ Sweet gave his gravelly chuckle. ‘About a hundred bloody years ago. He’s hoping to bring theatre to the Far Country, I hear, but between you, me and half the population of the Union, his powers are well on the wane.’

‘Don’t convince as Bayaz any more, eh?’ asked Shy.

‘He scarcely convinces me as Iosiv Lestek.’ Sweet shrugged. ‘But what do I know about acting?’

‘Even your Dab Sweet’s no better’n passable.’

‘Let’s go down there!’ said Leef. ‘Get us a better look!’

There was a less romantic feel to the business at close quarters. Isn’t there to every business? That number of warm bodies, man and beast, produced a quantity of waste hardly to be credited and certainly not to be smelled without good cause. The smaller and less glamorous animals–dogs and flies, chiefly, though undoubtedly lice, too–didn’t stand out from a distance but made double the impression once you were in the midst. Shy was forced to wonder whether the Fellowship might, in fact, be a brave but foolhardy effort to export the worst evils of city-living into the middle of the unspoiled wilderness.

Not blind to this, some of the senior Fellows had removed themselves a good fifty strides from the main body in order to consider the course, meaning argue over it and grab a drink, and were now scratching their heads over a big map.

‘Step away from that map ’fore you hurt yourselves!’ called Sweet as they rode up. ‘I’m back and you’re three valleys south o’ the course.’

‘Only three? Better than I dared hope.’ A tall, sinewy Kantic with a fine-shaped skull bald as an egg stepped up, giving Shy and Lamb and Leef a careful look-over on the way. ‘You have friends along.’

‘This here is Lamb and his daughter Shy.’ She didn’t bother to correct him on the technicality. ‘This lad’s name, I must confess, has for the time being slipped from my clutches—’

‘Leef.’

‘That was it! This here is my… employer.’ Sweet said the word like even admitting its existence was too much cramping of his freedoms ‘An unrepentant criminal by the name of Abram Majud.’