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  CONTENTS

  Prologue SHAWCROFT betrayal is timeless

  1 NAIL the fatherless are deemed by nature unholy

  2 NAIL desperate souls all

  3 NAIL that secret past survives

  4 GAULT AULBREK when hope dies

  5 TALA BRONACHELL primeval they ruled the skies

  6 TALA BRONACHELL true name shall never be uttered

  7 TALA BRONACHELL foul drinkers of blood

  8 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL oh gentle and naive reader

  9 NAIL mischief and guile

  10 GAULT AULBREK bathed in heaven

  11 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL one holy and pure

  12 TALA BRONACHELL the most vile of all living things

  13 NAIL hostile spirits

  14 TALA BRONACHELL railed against all

  15 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL ’twas also written in the stars

  16 NAIL glorious prophecy took root

  17 AVA SHAY great hero born by the sea

  18 GAULT AULBREK they are worse than fatherless

  19 TALA BRONACHELL signs found upon his flesh

  20 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL like unto a spring of poison waters

  21 TALA BRONACHELL and his name was Laijon

  22 NAIL villainous rogues each

  23 GAULT AULBREK sold him into slavery to rot

  24 NAIL blue stone and a battle-ax

  25 TALA BRONACHELL once fearsome with fire

  26 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL bathed in scarlet, bathed in blood

  27 STERLING PRENTISS where the foul demons slunk off to

  28 GAULT AULBREK what Lady Death hath stolen

  29 NAIL nailed thusly

  30 AVA SHAY await the day of his return

  31 NAIL flesh of his wound

  32 TALA BRONACHELL banished all darkness

  33 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL death of my beloved

  34 STERLING PRENTISS shredded by the claws of a beast

  35 NAIL naught but a slobbering fool

  36 TALA BRONACHELL grievous and great

  37 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL did hide them in deep places

  38 GAULT AULBREK a grin that will haunt their dreams

  39 NAIL never be self-sent

  40 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL in due time I will reveal all things

  41 TALA BRONACHELL can bring one back to life

  42 AVA SHAY a spark and wave of flame

  43 NAIL the craven, the venal, and the foolhardy

  44 STERLING PRENTISS one man be slain

  45 TALA BRONACHELL a blade sent from heaven

  46 GAULT AULBREK father of all Mourning

  47 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL the folly of men

  48 TALA BRONACHELL an eye toward truth

  49 GAULT AULBREK face-to-face and blade to blade

  50 JONDRALYN BRONACHELL to sit upon the heights of the stars

  51 NAIL bring about our ruin

  52 AVA SHAY those five once hidden from sight

  53 TALA BRONACHELL pillars of fire and rivers of blood

  54 LINDHOLF LE GRAVEN the dreams of mine heart

  Appendix

  Timeline of Events leading up to The Forgetting Moon

  Characters in The Forgetting Moon

  About Brian Lee Durfee

  FOR ALL

  FIREMEN, PARAMEDICS, NURSES, AND LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS ACROSS THE WORLD, MUCH APPRECIATION FOR THE NOBLE WORK YOU DO, SPECIFICALLY TO ALL MY GOOD FRIENDS AT THE UTAH DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

  INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As someone who was adopted and knows nothing of his biological heritage, I’ve always been drawn to the heroic quest tales of orphans and bastards. Luke Skywalker was my favorite as a kid. Then came Terry Brooks’ Shea Ohmsford, Lloyd Alexander’s Taran, David Eddings’ Garion, Robert Jordan’s Rand al’Thor, Tad Williams’ Simon, George R. R. Martin’s Jon Snow, and countless others. One might say these stories are in my blood. Mysterious blood, that is. I have never met a blood relative. And to always feel unattached and adrift in the world is a unique thing indeed. Sometimes the anonymity is worn with pride, other times sorrow.

  Ever since I was a teen, I aimed to explore these themes in a fantasy story of my own. So as you read this series to its conclusion, beware. Assume nothing. Trust no one. For in the end, do any of us know who we truly are? Do any of us ever show our true selves to the world?

  I must thank Bardett and Maxine Durfee for adopting a son (me). You’ve always loved and supported me as if I were your own. I could not have asked for better.

  Never-ending gratitude goes out to my superhero agent Matt Bialer, a dude who is honest and fair and knows how to sell a book. Plus, he’s a fellow artist. Stefanie Diaz for foreign sales. My editor at Saga Press, Joe Monti, deserves all the credit for putting together a spectacular book here. Oh, and thanks for giving a relatively unknown writer a chance! Justin Landon of Rocket Talk deserves a nod, as well as Valerie Shea and Jeannie Ng for copyediting. Chris Lotts’ many notes and initial support helped shape much of the story. And Amber R. Boehm’s final critique pushed the manuscript to the next level—huge appreciation to a brilliant writer, editor, and friend. Plus designer Michael McCartney and illustrator Richard Anderson’s fantastic cover is spot-on gritty, ethereal perfection. Awesome job, guys!

  Thanks also to Stephen King, Mötley Crüe, and the Oakland Raiders.

  * * *

  Trust is fleeting, while betrayal is timeless. Alas, life is crowded with lies. So be bloody, be brave, be happy. For at the end of every tale, nobody is who they seem to be. . . .

  —THE BOOK OF THE BETRAYER

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  SHAWCROFT

  15TH DAY OF THE FIRE MOON, 985TH YEAR OF LAIJON

  SKY LOCHS, GUL KANA

  In her panic, the woman had fled with the boy to the very edge of the glacier, a thin boning knife buried hilt-deep in her back. All that remained of her passing: a broad bloody smear that led over the lip of the ice to the loch waters five hundred feet below.

  The small boy, kneeling alone on the precipice of the ridge, stared up at Shawcroft with big calf-eyes, piercing green orbs that gaped wide and vulnerable against the seemingly bottomless drop beyond. The boy wore rough-spun breeches, soft woolen boots, and a crude elk-hide coat fit for a child, his tiny hands bare and red from the cold. Wisps of blond hair fluttered in the crisp breeze. Perched against the sunlit backdrop of the loch and the lofty, snow-covered mountains, the child appeared the very essence of innocence and purity. No more than three years old, if that. And despite the horrific injuries of the woman who had carried him this far, there was not a drop of blood on him.

  All his life a soldier for the Brethren of Mia’s cause, and Shawcroft’s heart had never ached more than it did now.

  “Don’t move!” he called out over the de
afening roar of the mammoth glacial river thundering somewhere far below. The sharp ridges of the surrounding crevasses and crags and heaps of ice magnified the immensity of the roiling water’s thrum. He could feel the glacier shifting under his leather boots as he carefully moved forward, knowing the ice could shear off at any moment and send both him and the boy plummeting to a violent, crushing death. Struggling not to stare at the red trail of blood that had led him here, Shawcroft stuffed his gloves into the buckled front closure of his fur-lined tunic and adjusted the cloak around his chest, longsword a barely noticed weight in the baldric looped over his shoulder.

  As he reached forth and helped the child from the edge, the plunging barrenness of the spacious air beyond seemed to pull at him with an immense, near-irrepressible force as he heard the hollow clomping of the two beasts coming up behind him.

  The boy’s small hand in his, Shawcroft turned and blinked against the stark brilliance of the mazelike landscape he’d just traveled through, beautiful in its own way, a hard-edged white beauty that tore at the eyes and scoured them raw. And shimmering darkly, two shadowy forms materialized out of that opaque brightness and glided toward him.

  He knew what they were.

  Bloodwood assassins. Both cloaked in black, riding black stallions. He’d been expecting them. The day’s battle wasn’t over yet.

  Shawcroft imposed himself between the assassins and the boy and drew his sword from over his shoulder—his Dayknight sword, long and cold and sleek with a black opal–inlaid pommel and leather-bound hilt that had molded to the contours of his hand from long use.

  Despite the slick ice all around, both horses moved with an unobtrusive ease, sure of their step, seeping through the massive crags and jutting shards of ice like smoke.

  Thirty feet before Shawcroft and the boy, the riders reined in their steeds. Large stallions both, their eyes a faint, hazy rose color—the telltale signs of the rauthouin bane the two young assassins had been injecting into the still-growing beasts. Within a year those eyes would glow a flaming red, and both stallions’ shoulders and haunches would broaden with corded tendon, muscle, and might. They would be full Bloodeye steeds then, rabid and wild.

  The killers atop these brutish creatures were brothers, known by the Brethren of Mia as Hawk and the Spider—King Aevrett Raijael of Sør Sevier’s two favorite young assassins.

  Lithe and silent, they dismounted and shed their cloaks, both wearing the black leather armor of their craft. The brittle cold seemed to affect neither assassin as they drifted toward Shawcroft. They looked the same. Eighteen years old at the most, with cool narrow eyes, squared jaws and cheekbones, raven-colored hair cropped short. A serene self-assurance evident in their every nimble step.

  Shawcroft set his stance. “I do not wish to kill either of you!” he yelled over the waters rumbling deep below.

  “Then I promise we won’t die,” the one named Hawk answered. His familiar voice carried a smooth, indignant lilt that cut across the glacier.

  The Spider’s eyes roamed the icy ledge behind Shawcroft, pausing on the boy but a moment, coming to rest on the dark stain left by the woman. “Oh, what people won’t do to save their loved ones from death at the hands of a Bloodwood. She took a terrible chance fleeing that pathetic mining camp . . . running out here so far.” A dagger, black as polished coal, appeared in his hand. He looked at Shawcroft with fierce intent. “And what will you do to avoid death at our hands, old man?”

  “I’m not so old I can’t handle the two of you. I’ve killed your kind before. Even today, one like you lies dead in the camp above.”

  Hawk’s flat eyes appraised him. “We only want the boy.”

  Shawcroft wasn’t altogether certain the child shouldn’t just die here with him, now. It would at least bring the bleak emptiness of the boy’s hard and lonely future to an end. One swift shove with my boot. He glanced down at the child shivering just behind him, the rim of the ice so near. Hardly any effort at all.

  He could feel the glacier moving underfoot again and repositioned himself.

  The two assassins launched their attack—like malevolence flowing, daggers seeming to materialize from hidden places in their armor.

  With a flash of his blade, Shawcroft blocked the first dagger thrown at his face; the second one cut deep into his right shoulder. From the left, the Spider engaged him first, daggers like snapping shards of glass, striking like lightning. Hawk was on him from the right, his assault just as rapid. In the blink of an eye, Shawcroft was full of holes. He didn’t feel the pain. But he knew from experience that numbness was a bad thing, for who knew what foul poisons coated a Bloodwood’s blades.

  Suddenly all three of them were dashed face-first to the ice as the glacier buckled and shifted violently. The two Bloodeye stallions jumped and neighed, losing their footing as ferocious sound echoed and thundered. Then the horse on the left disappeared into a huge fissure that cracked open underneath, its scream feral and savage as it plummeted into the white yawning violence of the roaring water below. The ice split wider; chunks as bulky and massive as castle towers plunged down while others lanced toward the sky at precarious angles.

  On his stomach, clinging to the surface of the glacier, Shawcroft could only stare in awe as the great mountains of ice were thrust heavenward above him with a grinding brilliance. His vision was filled with lustrous deep blues and purples webbed with luminescent streaks of white. And in an instant it all came boiling down, rolling and colliding and splintering into jagged chunks and wicked shards, all of it tumbling away to the left just beyond the Spider, who was now balanced on his hands and knees along the remains of the ledge.

  Shawcroft took his chance and scrambled forward, stabbing with his sword. The Spider tried to block the blow, slipped, and disappeared over the rim.

  With a burst of speed Shawcroft was on his feet, whirling to meet Hawk, who came at him with fiery purpose. He blocked the Bloodwood’s first flurry of blows, the sound of sword on dagger muffled under the riotous carnage of glacial ice sloughing away around them. Shawcroft pressed his attack, forcing most of Hawk’s flickering black daggers into superficial slashes and glancing blows, though some struck home. Determined, he advanced, connecting several times with the leather armor of his foe, backing the youth down, driving him toward the growling chasm where his fellow assassin had just vanished. But Shawcroft’s injuries were taking their toll. With each heavy swing of his sword, his heart pounded and lungs labored. His throat was dry and raw, sucking in gulps of freezing air.

  The glacier rumbled and shook again. Shawcroft lost his sword as he and Hawk were dashed to the frozen surface a second time, both sliding toward the tilting edge. Hawk’s lower body slipped over the lip of the glacier. Eyes now wide, the assassin was clawing at the ice with both daggers to find purchase while Shawcroft tumbled uncontrollably straight into him, forcing the youth completely over the rim.

  Together they clung there—Hawk dangling by one hand, clutching his black dagger still lodged in the ice, Shawcroft staring over the ledge into a stew of roiling, thunderous water and ice five hundred feet below. To his shock, the Spider had not perished in his fall but had landed on a sizable shelf of flat ice some fifty feet down. He lay unmoving in a growing pool of blood, one arm awkwardly twisted under his body.

  Shawcroft’s eyes met those of Hawk. “I know who you are, boy.”

  The youth’s eyes narrowed. “To the bloody underworld with you, old man.”

  “You were meant for greater things than this.” Shawcroft punched the dagger out of the ice with the palm of his hand. As Hawk fell, his calm gaze never left Shawcroft’s. The assassin landed hard on the outcrop near his Bloodwood partner and rolled, clutching his side.

  Shawcroft slid himself backward from the precipice, carefully, or he knew he would be headlong down into the cruel, snarling gorge with the two assassins. He grabbed his sword off the ice and scanned the ledge behind him.

  The boy was gone.

  Shawcroft clambe
red to his feet, using his sword as a crutch, still shaky as the glacier around him continued to groan. At least a dozen wounds from the blades of the Bloodwoods soaked his clothes, and he could feel himself weakening fast. Frantic, his eyes searched the glacier.

  The remaining Bloodeye stallion nickered somewhere behind him. He turned.

  The boy was there, standing directly in front of the horse, one small hand reaching out to touch the lowered snout of the black beast.

  Shawcroft staggered toward the horse and child. The Bloodeye’s flared nostrils gusted puffs of frozen vapor into the boy’s pallid face. A dusting of ice crystals made the child’s blond hair glittery in the sunlight. The stallion’s red-hazed eyes were ablaze with both fear and uncertainty as the resounding crash and cracking of great blocks of ice could be heard all around.

  Shawcroft snatched up the reins of the Bloodeye, and with one twist of the bit and a swift downward pull, brought the horse to its knees. He braced himself, ready to plunge his sword into the beast’s neck. To him, this was no regular horse, but an alchemy-induced monster. And he would have no problem killing it.

  The glacier shifted violently again. The boy began to cry.

  It was then that Shawcroft realized, he must survive. Both he and the boy. He could feel the assassins’ poisons working on him. If they could get back to Arco—the mining camp in the mountain valley just above the glacier—get back to where all this destruction had started, back to the burnt huts and dead villagers, he could possibly find his own murdered horse in the ruin and the antidotes hidden within his saddlebags.

  Shawcroft let go of the stallion’s bit. The Bloodeye stood and scampered a few paces away. He sheathed the sword over his shoulder. Weary from his injuries and desperately wanting rest, he let the magnitude and horror of the day’s events finally set in. But he would not shed a tear. Surely my conscience cannot be fading so soon. . . .

  Fighting back all emotion, Shawcroft scooped the boy into his arms, mounted the stallion, and began his long trek back through the arduous maze of the glacier toward the destroyed mining camp, knowing one thing for certain.