Brent Weeks - Beyond the Shadows (The Night Angel Trilogy)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2008 by Brent Weeks

Excerpt from Orcs copyright 2004 by Stan Nicholls

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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First eBook Edition: December 2008

ISBN: 978-0-316-04027-3

K ylar had never started a war.

Approaching the Laeknaught camp required none of the stealth hed used to approach the Ceurans. Invisible, he simply walked past the sentries in their black tabards emblazoned with a golden sun: the pure light of reason beating back the darkness of superstition. Kylar grinned. The Laeknaught were going to love the Night Angel.

Without provoking anyone, Cenaria had been invaded from the east by the Laeknaught, from the north by Khalidor, and now from the south by Ceura. It was about time some of those hungry swords met each other.

Kylar ran, pulling his illusions around him, becoming the Night Angel. As if through smoke, there were glimpses of gleaming iridescent black metal skin, the crescents of exaggerated muscles, a face like Judgment, with brows pronounced and frowning, and glossy black eyes without pupils that leaked blue flames. He ran past a knot of gaunt Cenarian recruits, wide-eyed, their weapons in hand but forgotten. There were no crimes in their eyes. These men had joined because they had no other way to feed themselves.

The next group had participated in a hundred burnings and worse. A smoking black blade slid from Kylars left hand.

I judge you! the Night Angel shouted. I find you wanting!

Praise for The Way of Shadows

What a terrific story! I was mesmerized from start to finish. Unforgettable characters, a plot that kept me guessing, nonstop action and the kind of in-depth storytelling that makes me admire a writers work.

Terry Brooks

Kylar is a wonderful charactersympathetic and despicable, cowardly and courageous, honorable and unscrupulous... a breathtaking debut!

Dave Duncan, author of The Alchemists Code

BOOKS BY BRENT WEEKS

T HE N IGHT A NGEL T RILOGY

The Way of Shadows

Shadows Edge

Beyond the Shadows

For Kristi,

for all the usual reasons,

&

For my dad,

for your excellence and your integrity,

and for raising kids who whisper, Peep!

L ogan Gyre was sitting in the mud and blood of the battlefield of Pavvils Grove when Terah Graesin came to him. It was barely an hour since theyd routed the Khalidorans, when the monstrous ferali forged to devour Cenarias army had turned instead on its Khalidoran masters. Logan had issued the orders that seemed most pressing, then dismissed everyone to join the revelries that were sweeping the Cenarian camp.

Terah Graesin came to him alone. He was sitting on a low rock, heedless of the mud. His fine clothes were so spattered with blood and worse they were a total loss anyway. Terahs dress, by contrast, was clean except for the lower fringe. She wore high shoes, but even those couldnt keep her entirely free of the thick mud. She stopped before him. He didnt stand.

She pretended not to notice. He pretended not to notice that her bodyguardsunbloodied from battlewere hidden in the trees less than a hundred paces away. Terah Graesin could have only one reason to come to him: she was wondering if she was still the queen.

If Logan hadnt been so bone-weary, he would have been amused. Terah had come to him alone as a show of vulnerability or fearlessness. You were a hero today, Terah said. You stopped the Godkings beast. Theyre saying you killed him.

Logan shook his head. Hed stabbed the ferali, and then the Godking had left it, but other men had given it more grievous wounds than he had. Something else had stopped the Godking, not Logan.

You commanded it to destroy our enemies, and it did. You saved Cenaria.

Logan shrugged. It already seemed long ago.

I guess the question is, Terah Graesin said, did you save Cenaria for yourself, or for all of us?

Logan spat at her feet. Dont give me that horseshit, Terah. You think youre going to manipulate me? Youve got nothing to offer, nothing to threaten. Youve got a question for me? Have a little respect and just fucking ask.

Terahs back stiffened, her chin lifted, and one hand twitched, but then she stopped.

It was the hand twitch that captured Logans attention. If she had raised her hand, was that the sign for her men to attack? Logan looked past her into the woods at the edge of the field, but the first thing he saw wasnt her men. He saw his own. Agons Dogsincluding two of the astoundingly talented archers Agon had armed with Ymmuri bows and made wytch huntershad stealthily circled behind Terahs bodyguards. Both wytch hunters had arrows nocked, but not drawn. Both men had obviously taken care to stand where Logan could see them clearly, because none of the other Dogs were clearly visible.

One archer was alternately looking at Logan and at a target in the woods. Logan followed his eyes and saw Terahs hidden archer, aiming at Logan, waiting for Terahs signal. The other wytch hunter was staring at Terah Graesins back. They were waiting for Logans signal. Logan should have known his streetwise followers wouldnt leave him alone when Terah Graesin was near.

He looked at Terah. She was slim, pretty, with imperious green eyes that reminded Logan of his mothers. Terah thought Logan didnt know about her men in the woods. She thought Logan didnt know that she had the stronger hand. You swore fealty to me this morning under less than ideal circumstances, Terah said. Do you intend to keep your troth, or do you intend to make yourself king?

She couldnt ask the question straight, could she? It just wasnt in her, not even when she thought she had total control over Logan. She would not make a good queen.

Logan thought hed already made his decision, but he hesitated. He remembered how it felt to be powerless in the Hole, how it felt to be powerless when Jenine, his just-wed wife, had been murdered. He remembered how disconcertingly wonderful it felt to tell Kylar to kill Gorkhy and see it done. He wondered if he would feel the same pleasure at seeing Terah Graesin die. With one nod toward those wytch hunters, he would find out. He would never feel powerless again.

His father had told him, An oath is the measure of the man who gives it. Logan had seen what happened when he did what he knew was right, no matter how foolish it looked at the time. That was what rallied the Holers around him. That was what had saved his life when he was feverish and barely conscious. That was what had made Lillythe woman the Khalidorans crafted into the feraliturn on the Khalidorans. Ultimately, Logans doing what was right had saved all of Cenaria. But his father Regnus Drake had lived by his oaths, through a miserable marriage and miserable service to a petty, wicked king. He gritted his teeth all day and slept well every night. Logan didnt know if he was as much of a man as his father. He couldnt do it.