Episode One A Wyvern Hunt The belling of the hounds is already growing faint in the hollows when he finally pulls up. His horse is restive, anxious to return to the hunt, but Barrick Eddon yanks hard on the reins to keep the mare dancing in place. His pale face seems almost translucent with weariness, his eyes fever-bright. "Go on," he tells his sister. "You can still catch them." Briony shakes her head. "I'm not leaving you by yourself. Rest if you need to, then we'll go on together." He scowls as only a boy of fifteen years can scowl, the expression of a scholar among idiots, a noble among mudfooted peasants. "I don't need to rest, you strawhead. I just don't want the bother." "You are a dreadful liar," she says gently. Twins, they are bound to each other in ways close as lovers' ways. "And no one can kill a dragon with a spear, anyway." "It isn't a dragon, it's a wyvern — much smaller. Shaso says you can kill one with just a good clop on the head." "What do either you or Shaso know about wyverns?" he asks crossly. "They don't come stumping across the hills every day. They're not bloody cows." Briony thinks it a bad sign that he is rubbing his crippled arm without even trying to hide it from her. "No, but the Master of the Hunt asked Chaven before we set out, remember? And Shaso says we had one in Grandfather's day — it killed three sheep at a steading in Landsend." "Three whole sheep! Heavens, what a monster!" The crying of the hounds rises in pitch, and now both horses are taking nervous little steps. Someone winds a horn; its moan is smothered by the intervening trees. "They've seen something." She feels a sudden pang. "Oh! What if it hurts the dogs?" Barrick shakes his head in disgust, then brushes a curl of dark red hair out of his eyes. "The dogs?" But now Briony is frightened — she has raised two of the hounds, Rack and Dado, from puppyhood, and in some ways they are more real to this king's daughter than most people. "Oh, come, Barrick! I'll ride slowly, but I won't leave you here." His mocking smile vanishes. "Even with only one hand on the reins, I can outride you any hour." "Then do it!" she laughs, spurring down the slope. She is doing her best to poke him out of his fury, but she knows that cold blank mask too well. Only time and perhaps the excitement of the chase will breathe life back into it. She looks back up the hillside and is relieved to see that Barrick is following, a thin shadow atop the gray horse, dressed as though he were in mourning. But her twin dresses that way every day. Oh, please, Barrick, sweet angry Barrick, don't fall in love with Death. Her own extravagant thought surprises her — poetical sentiment usually makes Briony feel like she has an itch she can't scratch — and as she turns back in distraction she nearly runs down a small figure scrambling out of her way through the long grass. Her heart thumping in her breast, she brings Snow to rein and jumps down, certain she has almost killed some crofter's child. "Are you hurt?" It is a little man with gray hair who stands up, no higher than the belly-strap of her saddle — a Funderling. He doffs his shapeless felt hat and makes a little bow. "Quite well, my lady. Kind of you to ask." "I didn't see you . . ." "Not many do, Mistress." He smiles. "And I should also . . ." Barrick rattles past with hardly a look at Briony or her almost-victim. Despite his best efforts he is favoring the arm and his seat is dangerously bad. She scrambles back onto Snow, making a muddle of her riding skirt. "Forgive me," she says to the little man, then bends low over the horse's neck and spurs after her brother. * * * The Funderling helps his wife to her feet. "I was going to introduce you to the princess." "Don't be daft." She brushes burrs out of her thick skirt. "We're just lucky that horse of hers didn't crush us into pudding." "Still, it might be your only chance to meet one of the royal family." He shakes his head in mock-sadness. "Our last opportunity to better ourselves, my good Opal." She squints, refusing to smile. "Better for us would mean enough coppers to buy new boots for you and a winter shawl for me. Then we could go to meetings without looking like beggars' children." "It's been a long time since we've looked like children of any sort, my old darling." He plucks another burr out of her gray-streaked hair. "And it will be a longer time yet until I have my shawl if we don't get on with ourselves." But she is the one who lingers, looking almost wistfully along the trampled track through the long grass. "Was that really the princess? Where do you suppose they were going in such a hurry?" "Following the hunt. Didn't you hear the horns? Ta-ra, ta-ra! The gentry are out chasing some poor creature across the hills today." She sniffs, recovering herself. "I don't pay attention to such, and if you're wise, neither will you. Don't meddle with the big folk without need and don't draw their attention, as my father always said. No good will come of it. Now let's get on with our work, old man. I don't want to be wandering around near the edge of Shadow when darkness comes." Chert shakes his head, serious again. "Nor do I." * * * The harriers and sight hounds seem reluctant to enter the stand of trees, although their hesitation does not make them any quieter: the clamor is atrocious, and even the keenest of the hunters seem content to wait a short distance up the hill until the dogs have driven their quarry out into the open. The lure of the hunt for most has little to do with the quarry anyway, even so unusual a prize as this. Several dozen lords and ladies and many times that number of servitors swarm along the hillside, the gentlefolk laughing and talking and admiring — or pretending to admire — each others' horses and clothes, the soldiers and servants plodding along behind or driving oxcarts stacked high with food and drink and tableware and even the folded pavilions in which the company earlier took their morning meal. Others lead spare horses: it is not unusual during a particularly exciting hunt for a horse to collapse with a broken leg or burst heart, and none of the hunters could bear to miss the kill and have to ride home on a wagon just because of a dead horse. Beside the churls and higher servants stride men-at-arms carrying pikes or halberds, grooms, houndsmen, even a few priests — those of lesser status must walk, like the soldiers — even Puzzle, the king's old jester, who is playing a rather unconvincing hunting air on his lute as he struggles to remain seated on a saddled donkey. In fact, the quiet hills below the Shadowline now contain an entire small town on the move. Briony, who had enjoyed the moment's escape and the quiet that came with it, cannot help wondering what a hunt must be like in the huge and showy courts of Syan or Jellon. She does not have long to think about it. Shaso dan-Heza rides out from the main body to meet Barrick and Briony as they come down the crest. The master of arms is the only member of the gentry who actually seems dressed to kill something, wearing not the finery most nobles don for the hunt but his old black leather cuirass that is only a few shades darker than his skin. His huge war bow bumps at his saddle, bent and strung as though he expects attack at any moment. To Briony, the master of arms and her sullen brother Barrick look like a pair of thunderheads drifting toward each other, and she braces herself for the lightning. It is not long in coming. "Where have you been?" demands Shaso. "Why did you leave your guards behind?" Briony hastens to take the blame. "We did not mean to be away so long. We were just talking, and Snow was hobbling a little . . ." The old Tuani warrior ignores her, fixing his hard gaze on Barrick. Shaso seems angrier than he should, as though they had done more than simply wander away from the press of humanity for a short while. Surely he cannot think they are in danger here, only a few miles from the castle in the country the Eddon family has ruled for generations? "I saw you turn from the hunt and ride off, boy," he says. "What were you thinking?" Barrick shrugs, but there are spots of color high on his cheeks. "What affair is it of yours?" The dark man flinches and his hand curls. For a frightening moment Briony thinks he might actually hit Barrick. He has dealt the boy many clouts over the years, but always in the course of instruction, the legitmate blows of combat; to strike one of the royal family in public would be something else entirely. Shaso is not well-liked — many of the nobles openly declare that it is not fitting a blackskinned southerner, a former prisoner of war, should hold such high estate. He has been untouchable as long as Briony's father has ruled, but she wonders whether Shaso's titles, or even Shaso himself, will survive this bleak time of King Olin's absence . . . As if thoughts like these had passed through his own head, Shaso lowers his hand, then stares for a long moment before speaking. "You are a prince of Southmarch, boy," he says, brusque but quiet. "When you risk your life without need it is not me you are harming." Barrick stares back defiantly but the old man's words cool some of the heat of his anger. Briony knows Barrick will not apologize, but there will not be a fight, either. The excited barking of the dogs has risen in pitch. Their brother Kendrick is beckoning them down to where he is engaged in conversation with Gailon Tolly, the young duke of Summerfield. Briony rides down the hill toward him with Barrick just behind her. Shaso gives them a few paces start before following. Gailon of Summerfield — only a half-dozen years senior to Barrick and Briony, but with a stiff formality that she knows masks his dislike of some of her family's broader eccentricities — removes his green velvet hat and bows to them. "Princess Briony, Prince Barrick. We were concerned for your wellbeing, cousins." Kendrick seems in a surprisingly good mood considering the burdens of regency on his young shoulders during his father's absence. Unlike King Olin, he is capable of forgetting his troubles long enough to enjoy a hunt or a pageant. Already his jacket of Sessian finecloth is unbuttoned, his red-gold hair in a careless tangle. "So there you are," he calls. "Gailon is right, I was worried about you two — it's especially not like Briony to miss the excitement." He glances at Barrick's funereal garb and widens his eyes. "Has the Procession of Penance come early this year?" "Oh, yes, I apologize for my dress," Barrick growls. "How terribly tasteless of me to dress this way, as though our father were being held prisoner somewhere. But wait — our father is a prisoner. Fancy that." Kendrick winces and looks inquiringly at Briony, who makes a face that says, He's having one of his difficult days. The prince regent turns to his brother and asks, "Would you rather go back?" "No!" Barrick shakes his head violently, but then manages to summon an unconvincing smile. "No. Everyone worries about me too much. I don't mean to be rude, truly. My arm just hurts a bit. Sometimes." "He is a brave youth," says the duke without even the tiniest hint of mockery, but it still makes Briony bristle like one of her beloved dogs. Last year Gailon Tolly offered to marry her. He is handsome enough in a broad-faced way, and his holdings are second only to Southmarch itself in size, but she is glad that her father had been in no hurry to find her a husband. She has a feeling that Duke Gailon of Summerfield would not be as tolerant to his wife as King Olin is to his daughter — that he would do his best to prevent Briony riding to the hunt in a split skirt, straddling her horse like a man. The dogs are yapping even more shrilly now, and a stir runs through the hunting party gathered on the hill. Briony turns to see a movement in the trees below, a flash of red and gold like autumn leaves carried on a swift stream, then something bursts out of the undergrowth and into the open, a large serpentine shape that is fully visible for the space of five or six heartbeats before it finds high grass and vanishes again. The dogs are already swarming after it in a frenzy. "Gods!" says Briony in sudden fear. "It's huge!" She turns accusingly to Shaso. "I thought you said you could kill one of them with a good clop on the head." Even the master of arms looks startled. "The other one . . . it was smaller." Kendrick shakes his head. "That thing is ten cubits or I'm a skimmer." He shouts to one of the beaters, "Bring up the boar spears!", then spurs down the hill with Gailon of Summerfield racing beside him and the other nobles hurrying to find their places close to the young prince regent. "But . . . !" Briony falls silent. She has no idea what she meant to say — why else were they here if not to hunt and kill a wyvern? — but she suddenly feels certain that Kendrick will be in danger if he gets too close. Since when are you a witching-woman? she asks herself, but the thought is strangely potent, the crystallization of something that has been troubling her all day like a shadow seen from the corner of the eye. Perhaps it is not Barrick who is seeking Death, perhaps rather the grim god is hunting them all. She shakes her head to throw off the swift chill of fear. Silly thoughts, Briony. Evil thoughts. It must be Barrick's sorrowing talk of their father that has done it. Surely there is no harm in a day like this, lit by such a bold autumn sun? The whole hunt is riding in Kendrick's wake, the horses thundering down the hill after the hounds, the beaters and servants running along behind, shouting excitedly, and she suddenly wants to be out in front with Kendrick and the other nobles, running ahead of all shadows and worries. I won't hang back like a little girl, she thinks. Like a lady. I want to see a wyvern. And what if I'm the one who kills it? Well, why not? In any case, her brothers both need looking after. "Come on, Barrick," she says. "If we don't go now we'll miss it all." * * * "Her name's Briony, isn't it?" Opal says suddenly. Chert hides a smile. "Are we talking about big folk? I thought we weren't supposed to meddle with that sort." "Don't mock. I don't like it here. Even though the sun's overhead it seems dark. And the grass is so wet! It makes me feel all fluttery." "Sorry, my dear. I don't like it much here either, but along the edge is where the interesting things are. Every time it draws back a little there's something new. Do you remember that Edri's Egg crystal, the one big as a fist? I found it just sitting in the grass, like something washed up on a beach." "It's not natural." "Of course it's not natural. Nothing about the Shadowline is natural. But you said you wanted to come today, and here you are." He looks up to the line of mist running along the grassy hills, denser in the hollows, but still thick as eiderdown along the hilltops. "We're almost there." "So you say," she grunts wearily. Chert feels a pang of shame at how he teases her, his good old wife. She can be tart, but so can an apple, and none the less wholesome for it. "Yes, her name's Briony." "And that other one, dressed in black. That's the other brother?" "I think so, but I've never seem him so close. They're not much for public show, that family. The old king Ustin, those children's grandfather, he was one for festivals and parades, do you remember?" Opal does not seem interested in reminiscence. "He seemed sad, the boy." "Well, his father's being held for a ransom the kingdom can't afford and the boy's got himself a gammy arm. Reasons enough, perhaps." "What happened to him? The boy?" Chert waves his hand as though he were not the type to pass along idle gossip, but it is only for show, of course. "I've heard it said a horse fell on him. But Old Pyrite claims that his father threw him down the stairs." "King Olin?" Hearing the tone of indignation, Chert almost smiles again. For one who claims not to care about the doings of big folk, Opal has some definite opinions about them. "He would never do such a thing!" "It seems far-fetched," Chert admits. "And the gods know that Old Pyrite will say almost anything when he's had enough mossbrew. . ." He stops, frowning. It is always hard to tell, here along the edge where distances are tricky at the best of times, but there is definitely something wrong. "What is it?" "It's moved," Chert says slowly. They are only a few dozen paces away from the boundary now — quite as close as he wants to get. He stares, first at the ground, then at a stand of white oak trees half-smothered by mist, faint as wandering spirits. The hairs on the back of his neck rise. "It's moved." "But it's always moving. You said so." "Slipping back from the edge a wee bit, then coming up to it again, like the tide," he whispers. "Like something breathing in and out." He can feel a heaviness to the air unusual even for this haunted place, a heightened watchfulness: it makes him feel reluctant even to speak. "But it's never moved any closer. Until now." "What do you mean?" "It's come forward." He doesn't want to believe it but he has spent as much time in these hills as anyone. "A dozen paces ahead of where I've ever seen it." "Is that all?" "Is that all? Woman, that line hasn't moved an inch closer to the castle in two hundred years . . . !" The dim rumbling that he has heard for several moments is growing louder, and Chert has just realized it isn't thunder. "Fissure and fracture!" he swears. "Those are horses coming toward us!" "The hunt?" she asks. The damp hillside and close-leaning trees seem capable of hiding anything. "You said the hunt was out today." "It's not coming from that direction." He suddenly realizes what he's saying and his heart stumbles in his chest. "Gods of raw earth — it's coming from the Shadow!" He grabs his wife's hand and yanks her stumbling along the hill away from the misty boundary, their short legs digging, feet slipping on the wet grass as they scramble for the safety of the trees. The noise of hooves seems impossibly loud, as though it is right on top of the staggering Funderlings. Chert and Opal reach the trees and throw themselves down into the scratching underbrush. Chert grabs his wife close and peers out at the hillside as four riders erupt from the mist and rein in their stamping white mounts. The animals, not quite like any horses Chert has ever seen, blink as though unused to sunlight. He cannot see the riders, who wear hooded cloaks that at first seem black, but which have the flickering sheen of an oily puddle, but they too seem startled by the brightness. As they look around, a tongue of mist curls about their horses' feet, as though their shadowy land will not entirely let them go. One of the riders slowly turns toward the trees where the two Funderlings lie hidden. For a long moment the invisible face is tilted toward them, staring perhaps, or just listening, and although his every fiber tells Chert to leap to his feet and run, he lies as still as he can, clutching Opal so tightly that he can feel her silently struggling to break his painful grip. The hooded figure turns away. One of its fellows takes something from the back of its saddle and drops it to the ground. The riders linger for a moment, staring across the valley at the distant towers of Southmarch Castle, then without a sound they wheel and ride their white horses back into the ragged wall of mist. Chert lets go of his wife. "You've broken my bones, you old fool," she moans, climbing up onto hands and knees. "Who was it? I couldn't see." "I . . . I don't know." It happened so quickly that it almost seems a dream. Chert gets up, feeling the ache of the panicked run begin to throb in all his joints. "They just rode out, then turned around and rode back . . ." He stops, staring at the dark bundle the riders dropped. It is moving. "Chert, where are you going?" He doesn't intend to touch it — no Funderling is such a fool, to snatch up something that even those beyond the Shadowline do not want. As he moves closer he cannot help noticing that the object is a large sack which is making small, frightened noises. "There's something in it," he calls to Opal. "There's something in lots of things," she says, coming grimly after him. "But not much between your ears. Leave it alone and come away, you. No good can come of it." "It's . . . it's alive." A thought has come into his head. It is a goblin, or some other magical creature banished from the lands beyond. Goblins are wish-granters, that's what the old tales say. And if he frees it, would it not give those wishes to him? A new shawl? Opal can have a queen's closet full of clothes if she wishes. Or the goblin could lead him to a vein of firegold and the masters of the Funderling guilds will soon be coming to Chert's house with caps in hands, begging his assistance. Even his own so-proud brother . . . The sack thrashes and tips over. Something inside it snarls. Of course, he thinks, there could be a reason they took it across the Shadowline and tossed it away like offal on a midden. It could be something extremely unpleasant. An even stranger sound comes from the sack. "Oh, Chert," his wife says, and now her voice is quite different. "There's a child in there! It's crying!" He still does not move. Everyone knows there are sprites and bogles enough on this side of the Shadowline which can mimic the voices of loved ones in order to lure travelers off the path to certain doom. Why expect anything better of something that actually comes from the twilight country itself? "Aren't you going to do anything?" "Do what? Any kind of demon could be in there, woman." "That's no demon, that's a child — and if you're too frightened to let it out, Chert of the Blue Quartz, I will." He knows that tone all too well. He mutters a prayer to the gods of deep places, then advances on the sack as though it were a coiled viper, stepping carefully so that in its thrashing it will not roll against him and, perhaps, bite. The sack is held closed with a knot of some gray rope. He touches it carefully and finds the cord slippery as wet smooth stone. "Hurry up!" Opal calls. He glares at her, then begins cautiously to unpick the knot, wishing he had brought something with him sharper than his old knife, dulled by the scraping at and digging out of many stones. Despite the cool, foggy air, sweat has beaded on his forehead by the time he is able to tease the knot apart. The sack has lain still and silent for some time. He wonders, half-hoping it is so, whether the thing inside has suffocated. "What's in there?" his wife calls, but before he has time to tell her he hasn't even opened the cursed thing, something shoots out of the loosened neck of the heavy sack like a stone out of the mouth of a culverin and knocks him onto his back. Chert tries to shout, but the thing has his neck gripped in clammy hands and is trying to bite his chest through his thick jerkin. He is so busy trying to fight it off that he can't even make out the shape of his attacker until a third body enters the fray and drags the clutching, strangling monstrosity off him. They all tumble into a pile. "Are you . . . hurt . . . ?" Opal gasps. "Where is the blasted thing?" Chert rolls over into a sitting position. The sack's contents are crouching a short distance away, staring at him with mistrustfully squinting blue eyes. It is a boy, a child of perhaps six or seven years, sweaty and dissheveled, with deathly pale skin and hair that is almost white, as though he has been in the sack for years. Opal sits up. "A child! I told you." She looks at the boy for a moment. "One of the big folk, poor thing." "Poor thing!" Chert gently touches the scraped places on his neck and cheeks. "The little beast tried to murder me." "Oh, be still. You startled him, that's all." She holds out her hand toward the boy. "Come here — I won't hurt you. What's your name, child?" When the boy does not reply, she fumbles in the wide pockets of her dress and withdraws a heel of brown bread. "Are you hungry?" From the fierce glint in his eye, the boy is very interested, but he still does not move toward them. Opal leans forward and sets the bread on the grass. He looks at it and her, then — with a movement as swift as the viper Chert had earlier imagined — snatches the bread up, sniffs it, and crams it into his mouth, scarcely bothering to chew before swallowing. Finished, the boy looks at Opal with fierce expectancy. She laughs worriedly and feels in her pocket until she locates a few pieces of dried fruit, which she also sets on the grass. These disappear even faster than the bread. "What's your name?" she asks the boy. "Where are you from?" Searching his teeth with his tongue for any fragments of food that might have escaped him, he only looks at her. "Dumb, it seems," says Chert. "Or at least he doesn't speak our . . ." "Where is this?" the boy asks. "Where . . . what do you mean?" Chert asks, startled. "Where is this . . ." — the boy sweeps his arm in a circle, taking in the trees, the grassy hillside, the fogbound forest. "This . . . place? Where are we?" He sounds older than his age somehow, but younger too, as though speaking is a new thing to him. "We are on the edge of Southmarch — called Shadowmarch by some, because of the Shadowline." Chert gestures toward the misty boundary, then swings himself around to point in the opposite direction. "The castle is over there." "Shadow . . . line?" The boy squints. "Castle?" "He needs more food." Opal's words have the sound of an inarguable decision rendered. "And sleep. You can see he's weary to the bone." "Which means . . . what?" But Chert already sees the shape of it and does not like it much. "Which means we take him home, of course." Opal stands, brushing the loose grass from her dress. "We feed him." "But . . . but he must belong to someone! To one of the bigfolk families!" "And they tied him in a sack and left him here?" Opal laughs scornfully. "Then they are likely not pining for his return." "But he came . . . he came from . . ." Chert looks at the boy, who is sucking his fingers and examining the landscape. He lowers his voice. "He came from the other side." "He's here now," Opal says. "Look at him — do you really think he's some unnatural thing? He's a little boy who wandered into the twilight and was tossed out again. Surely we of all people should know better than to believe everything that has to do with the Shadowline is wicked. He probably comes from some other place along the boundary — somewhere leagues and leagues away! Shall we leave him here to starve?" She pats her thigh, then beckons. "Come with us, child. We'll take you home and feed you properly." Before Chert can make further objection Opal sets off, stumping back along the hillside toward the distant castle, the hem of her old dress trailing in the wet grass. The boy pauses only to glance at Chert — a look the little man first thinks is threatening, then decides might be as much fear as bravado — before following after her. "No good will come of it," Chert says, but quietly, already resigned through long experiece to whatever complex doom the gods have planned for him. In any case, better angry gods than an angry Opal. He doesn't have to share a small house with the gods, who have their own high and vasty places. He sighs and falls into step behind his wife and the boy. * * * The wyvern has been brought to bay in another copse of trees, a dense circle of rowans carpeted with bracken. Even through the milling ring of dogs, wild with excitement but still cautious enough to keep their distance, perhaps put off by the unusual smell or strange slithering movements of their quarry, Briony can see the length of the thing as it moves restlessly from one side of the copse to the other, its bright scales glimmering in the shadows like a brushfire. "Cowardly beasts," says Barrick. "They are fifty to one." "They are not cowards!" Briony resists the urge to push him off his horse. He is looking even more drawn and pale, and has tucked his left arm inside his cloak as though to protect if from chill, though the afternoon air is still sunwarmed. "The scent is strange to them!" Barrick frowns. "There are too many things coming across the Shadowline these days. Just back in the spring there were those birds with the iron beaks that killed a shepherd. And the dead giant they found at Daler's Troth . . ." The thing in the copse rears up, hissing loudly. The hounds start away, whining and yipping, and several of the beaters shout in terror and scuttle back from the ring of trees. Briony can still see only a little of the beast as it slips in and out through the gray rowan trunks and tangled undergrowth. It seems to have a head narrow as a seahorse's, and as it hisses again she glimpses a mouth full of spiny teeth. It almost seems frightened, she thinks, but that does not make sense. It is a monster, an unnatural thing: there can be nothing in its dark mind but malevolence. "Enough!" cries Kendrick, who is holding his frightened horse steady near the edge of the copse. "Bring me my spear!" A page runs up to him, little face wan with fear, looking determinedly at anything except the hissing shape only a few paces away. The page is in such terrified haste to hand over the spear and escape that he almost lets the long, gold-chased shaft with its crosshaft and its heavy iron head fall to the ground as the prince reaches for it. Kendrick catches it, then kicks out at the retreating boy in irritation. Others of the hunting party are calling for spears as well. With the kill so close the dozen immaculately coiffed and dressed women who have accompanied the hunt, most riding decorously on side-saddles, a few even carried in litters — their awkward progress has slowed everyone else quite a bit, to Briony's disgust — take the opportunity to withdraw to a nearby hillock where they can watch the end from a safe distance. Briony sees that Rose and Moina, two of her ladies-in-waiting, have spread a blanket for her between them on the hillside and are waiting expectantly. Old Puzzle the jester is restringing his lute, biding his time until he can see what food the ladies might have in their hamper. Briony scowls and waves at one of the beaters as he staggers past with several of the heavy spears in his arms. "Give me one of those." "What are you doing?" Barrick himself cannot easily handle the long spears with only one arm, and has not bothered to call for one. "You can't go near that creature. Kendrick won't let you." "Kendrick has quite enough to think about. Oh, gods curse it." She scowls. Gailon of Summerfield has seen and is spurring toward them. "My lady! Princess!" He leans out as if to take the spear from her, and only realizes at the last moment that he would be overstepping himself. "You will hurt yourself." She manages to control her voice, but barely. "I do know which end points outward." "But this is not fitting for a lady . . . and especially with such a fearsome beast . . . !" "Then you must make sure and kill it first," she says, a bit more gently but no more sweetly. "Because if it reaches me, it will get no farther." Barrick groans, then calls the bearer back and takes a spear for himself, clutching it awkwardly under one arm while still holding the reins. "And what are you doing?" she demands. "If you're going to be a fool, someone has to protect you." Duke Gailon looks at them both, then shakes his head and rides off toward Kendrick and the hounds. "I don't think he's very happy with us," Briony says cheerfully. From somewhere back along the hillside, she hears the master of arms shout her name, then her brother's. "And Shaso won't be either. Let's go." They spur forward. The dogs, surrounded now by a ring of men with spears, are beginning to find their courage again. Several of the lymers dart into the copse to snap at the swift-moving, reddish shape. Briony sees the long neck move, quick as a whipcrack, and one of the dogs yelps in terror as it is caught in the long jaws. "Oh, hurry!" she says, miserable but also strangely excited. The dogs swarm into the copse in numbers, a flood of low shapes swirling in the dappled light beneath the trees, barking in frightened excitement. There are more squeals of pain, but then a strange, creaking bellow from the wyvern as one of the dogs gets its teeth into a sensitive spot. The barking suddenly rises fiercely in pitch as the beast fights its way through the pack, trying to escape the confinement of the trees. It crushes at least one of the hounds and tears out the innards of several others, shaking a victim so hard that blood flies everywhere like red rain. It bursts out of the leaves and the moving shadows into the clear afternoon sunlight, and for the first time Briony can see it whole. It is mostly serpentine body, a great tube of muscle covered with glimmering red and gold scales, with a single pair of sturdy legs two cubits below the narrow head. A sort of ruff of bone and skin has flared out behind the skull, stretching even wider now as the thing rises up on those legs, head swaying higher than a man's as it strikes toward Kendrick and the two other humans closest to it. It has come on them too quickly for the men to dismount and use the long boar-spears properly. Kendrick waits until the strike has missed, then digs at the creature's face with his spear. The wyvern hisses and sideslips the blow, but as it does so one of the other men — Briony thinks it might be Tyne, the hunting-mad earl of Blueshore — drives his spearhead into the thing's ribs just behind its shoulders. The wyvern contorts its neck to snap at the shaft in helpless rage. Kendrick seizes the opportunity to drive his own spear into the thing's throat, then spurs his horse forward so that he can use its force to pin the wyvern against the ground. The spear slides in through a sluice of red-black blood until the crosshaft meant to keep a boar from forcing its way up the shaft stops it. Kendrick's horse rears in alarm at the thing's agonized, furious hiss, but the prince stands in his stirrups and leans his weight on the spear, determined to keep the thing staked to the earth. The dogs swarm forward again; the other members of the hunt begin to close in too, all anxious to be in at the kill. But the wyvern is not beaten. In a sudden, explosive movement the thing coils itself around the spear, stretching its neck a surprising distance to bite at Kendrick's gloved hand. The prince's horse rears again and he almost loses his grip on the spear entirely. With the pressure lessened, the monster's tail writhes out and wraps around the horse's legs. The black gelding nickers in terror. For a brief moment they are all tangled together like some fantastical scene from an ancient tapestry, everything so strange that Briony cannot quite believe it is truly happening. Then the wyvern tightens itself around the legs of Kendrick's horse, crushing bones in a drumroll of frighteningly loud cracks, and the prince and his mount collapse downward into a maul of red-gold coils. As Barrick and Briony stare in horror from twenty paces away, Summerfield and Blueshore both begin to jab wildly at the agitated monster and its prey. Other nobles hurry forward, shouting in fear. With the crush of eager dogs, the writhing loops of the injured wyvern's long body and the thrashing of the mortally injured horse, it's impossible to see what is happening on the ground. Briony is dizzy and sick. Something comes up suddenly out of the long grass, speeding toward her like the figurehead of a Vuttish longboat cutting the water — the head of the wyvern as it makes a desperate lunge at escape, still dragging Kendrick's spear in its neck. It darts first to one side, then to the other, hemmed in by terrified horses and downstabbing spears, then plunges through an opening in the ring of hunters, straight at Briony and Barrick. It rises up before them, black eye glittering, and sways back and forth like an adder as it measures them. As if in a dream, Briony lifts her spear. The thing hisses and rears higher. She tries to track the moving head, keeping the point always between it and her, but its looping motions are quick and fluidly deceptive. A moment later Barrick's spear slips from his clumsy, one-handed grasp and bangs sideways into Briony, knocking her own weapon from her hands. The wyvern's narrow jaws spread wide, dripping with bloody froth. The head lunges forward, then suddenly snaps to one side as though yanked by a string. Its strike has come so close that when she undresses that night Briony will find that the thing's caustic spittle has burned holes in her deerhide jerkin, as though someone has held the garment over the flames of a dozen tiny candles. The wyvern lies on the ground, an arrow jutting from its eye, little shudders rippling down its long neck as it dies. Briony drops her spear and Barrick's clattering to the ground, then turns to see Shaso riding toward them, his war bow still in his hand. He looks down at the dead beast before lifting his angry stare to the royal twins. "Cursed, foolish children," he says.

The question "Will there ever be a paper version of Shadowmarch?" - the answer needs revision. There will indeed be a paper version of Shadowmarch - the book rights will ultimately be sold. But it's some while off, so anybody holding off subscribing to wait for the book is going to have to wait quite a while.

Q. What's next? A. I'm going to do three things: first, an online epic fantasy serial called "Shadowmarch" which will be an attempt to do writing for the medium in a way that will be more interesting than simply a novel to be downloaded. I'm also working on my next novel, a single-volume fantasy that should be very dark and very interesting, called WAR OF THE FLOWERS, about what fairyland looks like these days (among other things.) After that, something that I'm currently calling A CHRONICLE IN STONE, which will be a linked collection of stories throughout the history of Osten Ard, my fantasy world from the "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" books. But I think it will have some features that no one has ever tried before with this kind of work.

elise,dimanche 01 août 2004, 12:25 a écrit :pour ma part j'attends fébrilement la sortie papier de ce nouveau cycle,l'Arcane des épées étant parmi mon top 5,j'aime beaucoup le style de cet auteur..bref c'est une super nouvelle

gratuitement

A Brief History of EoinPreludePart One: Blood(01) A Wyvern Hunt(02) A Stone in the Sea(03) A Proper Blue Quartz(04) A Surprising Proposal(05) Songs of the Moon and Stars(06) Blood Ties(07) Sisters of the Hive(08) The Hiding Place(09) A Gleam of Pale Wings(10) Halls of Fire(11) Bride of the Good(12) Sleeping in StonePart Two: Moonlight(13) Vansen´s Charge(14) Whitefire(15) The Seclusion(16) The Grand and Worthy Nose(17) Black Flowers(18) One Guest Less(19) The God-King(20) Lost in the Moon´s Land(21) The Potboy´s Dolphin(22) A Royal Appointment(23) The Summer Tower(24) Leopards and Gazelles(25) Mirrors, Missing and Found(26) The Considerations of QueensPart Three: Fire(27) Candlerstown(28) Evening Star(29) The Shining Man(30) Awakening(31) A Night Visitor(32) In this Circle of the World(33) The Pale Things(34) In a Marrinswalk Field(35) The Silken Cord(36) At the Giant´s Feet(37) The Dark City(38) Silent(39) Winter´s Eve (40) Zoria´s FlightAppendix

Dwarf Tyrion,vendredi 29 octobre 2004, 14:33 a écrit :J'ai tout de meme une question - Est-ce le premier d'une serie, ou une histoire en un volume ?