Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Published by HarperVoyager 2007

      Copyright © Robin Hobb 2007

      Cover illustration © Jackie Morris

      Map by Andrew Ashton

      Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780007196203

      Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007283446

      Version: 2017-06-30

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Map

One: Soldier’s End

Two: Flight

Three: Lisana

Four: Mage Work

Five: The Other Side

Six: Confrontations

Seven: Epiny’s Ultimatum

Eight: Quick-walk

Nine: Journey in Darkness

Ten: Dream-walker

      Eleven: The Wintering Place

      Twelve: Trade Goods

      Thirteen: Hoarding

      Fourteen: The Trading Place

      Fifteen: The Invitation

      Sixteen: Kinrove

      Seventeen: Treachery

      Eighteen: Boxed

      Nineteen: The Summoning

      Twenty: The Warning

      Twenty-One: Massacre

      Twenty-Two: Retreat

      Twenty-Three: Tidings

      Twenty-Four: Resolutions

      Twenty-Five: Decisions

      Twenty-Six: The Dance

      Twenty-Seven: The Tree

      Twenty-Eight: Emergence

      Twenty-Nine: Dead Man’s Quest

      Thirty: Reunion

      Thirty-One: Lives in the Balance

      Thirty-Two: Decisions and Consequences

      Thirty-Three: Face to Face

      Thirty-Four: Retrospection

       Keep Reading

       About the Author

       Also by the Author

       About the Publisher

       Map

       ONE

       Soldier’s End

      I never spoke up for myself at my court martial.

      I stood in the box where they put me, and tried not to think of the agonizing bite of the leg irons around my calves. They were too small for a man of my flesh, and the cold iron bit deep into the meat of my legs, burning and numbing at the same time. At the moment, the pain mattered to me more than the outcome of the hearing. I already knew how it would end.

      That pain is chiefly what I remember of my trial. It hazes my memories in red. A number of witnesses spoke against me. I recall their righteous voices as they detailed my crimes to the assembled judges. Rape. Murder. Necrophilia. Desecration of a graveyard. My outrage and horror at being accused of such things had been eroded by the utter hopelessness of my situation. Witness after witness spoke against me. Threads of rumour, hearsay from a dead man’s lips, suspicions and circumstantial evidence were twisted together into a rope of evidence stout enough to hang me.

      I think I know why Spink never addressed any questions directly to me. Lieutenant Spinrek, my friend since our Cavalla Academy days, was supposed to be defending me. I’d told him that I simply wanted to plead guilty and get it over with. That had angered him. Perhaps that was why he didn’t ask me to testify on my own behalf. He didn’t trust me to tell the truth and deny all the charges. He feared I’d take the easy way out.

      I would have.

      I didn’t fear the hangman’s gibbet. It would be a quick end to a life corrupted by a foreign magic. Walk up the steps, put my head into the noose and step off into darkness. The weight of my falling body would probably have jerked my head right off. No dangle and strangle for me. Just a quick exit from an existence that was too tangled and spoiled to repair.

      Whatever I might have said in my own defence would have made no difference. Wrongs had been done, ugly, evil

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