Messenger’s Legacy. Peter V. Brett

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       Copyright

      HarperVoyager

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      77-85 Fulham Palace Road,

      Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

       www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2014

      Copyright © Peter V. Brett 2014

      Cover texture © www.Shutterstock.com

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

      Map by Andrew Ashton.

      Peter V. Brett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      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.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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.

      Source ISBN: 9780008114701

      Ebook Edition © December 2014 ISBN: 9780008114718

      Version: 2014-11-11

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

       Map

1. Burning True

       2. Briarpatch

       3. Ragen

       4. Mudboy

       5. A Last Run

       6. Cories

       Ward Grimoire

       Introduction

       By the Same Author

       About the Publisher

       Dedication

       For Myke and Joshua, who read all the versions.

       Introduction

      Like the other Demon Cycle novellas, The Great Bazaar and Brayan’s Gold, this story grew out of the main series, a stunted branch that put down roots and flourished when planted on its own.

      The first chapter, ‘Burning True’, was originally written as the opening chapter of my third novel, The Daylight War. It quickly became clear that telling Briar’s story fully would require far more space than I had to spare in a series already known for its ever-increasing number of point-of-view characters. The chapter was excised, but I always knew I would come back to it when the time was right.

      Some time later, the chapter was published in Shawn Speakman’s charity anthology Unfettered, under the title Mudboy. Still only a piece of Briar’s story, I’m grateful to Subterranean Press for giving me the chance now to finally tell the story in full.

      Look for Briar to make appearances in The Skull Throne, the fourth book of the Demon Cycle next year.

      Peter V. Brett

      July, 2014

       www.petervbrett.com

       1

       Burning True

      324 AR Summer

      Briar started awake at the clanging.

      His mother was banging the porridge pot with her metal ladle, the sound echoing through the house. ‘Out of bed, lazeabouts!’ she cried. ‘First Horn sounded СКАЧАТЬ