Terry Brooks - Paladins of Shannara: The Weapons Master's Choice

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T

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ROOKS

SHANNARA

SHANNARA

First King of Shannara

The Sword of Shannara

The Elfstones of Shannara

The Wishsong of Shannara

THE HERITAGE OF SHANNARA

The Scions of Shannara

The Druid of Shannara

The Elf Queen of Shannara

The Talismans of Shannara

THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA

Ilse Witch

Antrax

Morgawr

HIGH DRUID OF SHANNARA

Jarka Ruus

Tanequil

Straken

THE DARK LEGACY OF SHANNARA

Wards of Faerie

Bloodfire Quest

Witch Wraith

PRE-SHANNARA

GENESIS OF SHANNARA

Armageddons Children

The Elves of Cintra

The Gypsy Morph

LEGENDS OF SHANNARA

Bearers of the Black Staff

The Measure of the Magic

The World of Shannara

THE MAGIC KINGDOM OF LANDOVER

Magic Kingdom for SaleSold!

The Black Unicorn

Wizard at Large

The Tangle Box

Witches Brew

A Princess of Landover

THE WORD AND THE VOID

Running with the Demon

A Knight of the Word

Angel Fire East

Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life

Paladins of Shannara: The Weapons Masters Choice is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

A Del Rey eBook Original

Copyright 2013 by Terry Brooks

Excerpt from Bloodfire Quest copyright 2013 by Terry Brooks

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

DEL REY and the Del Rey colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53681-5

www.delreybooks.com

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Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

First Page

About the Author

Excerpt from Terry Brookss Bloodfire Quest

He heard the woman coming long before he saw her. She was making no attempt to hide her approach, which suggested she intended him no harm, and this allowed him to sit back to wait on her. It was early evening, the sun gone below the horizon, the darkness settled in, and the purple-hued twilight filled with the sounds of insects and night birds. He was camped several miles outside of Tombara, an Eastland Dwarf village at the western edge of the Wolfsktaag Mountains below the Rabb River. He was there because he was looking for a small measure of peace and quiet and believed this was a place he could find it.

Wrong again.

Of course, she could have simply wandered in from the wilderness, following the smells of his dinner on the evening breeze. She could have appeared solely by chance and with no premeditation. The chances of that, by his reckoning, were only about a thousand to one.

Still, stranger things had happened, and he had borne witness to many of them.

He shifted slightly on the fallen log he was occupying, taking a moment to glance down at the skillet where his dinner was sizzling. Fresh cutthroat, caught by his own hand that very day. Fishing was a skill others would assume he had no time for, but a lot of the assumptions people made about him were wrong. He didnt mind this. If anything, he encouraged it. Wrong assumptions were helpful in his line of work.

He rose as he heard her near the edge of his campsite. His black clothing hung loose and easy on his slender frame, and his gray eyes were a match for his prematurely silver-hued hair and the narrow beard to which he had taken a fancy of late. He was youngless than thirtyand the smoothness of his face betrayed this. He stared at the shadowed space through which he judged the woman must pass if she kept to her current trajectory, and then he heard her stop where she was.

He said nothing. He gave her time.

Are you Garet Jax? she asked him from the darkness.

And if I am? he called back.

Then I would speak with you.

No hesitation, no equivocating. She had come looking for him, and she had a reason for doing so.

Come sit with me then. You can share my dinner. Are you hungry?

She stepped from the trees into the firelight, and while she was in many ways a woman of ordinary appearance, there was something striking about her. He saw it at once, and it gave him pause. Perhaps it was nothing more than the unusual auburn color of her short-cropped hair. Perhaps it was the way she carried herself, as if she was entirely comfortable in her own skin and unconcerned with what others thought. Perhaps it was something elsea resolve and acceptance reflected in her strange green eyes, a suggestion of having to come to terms with something that was hidden from him.

She was carrying nothing. No pack, no supplies, no weapons. It made him wonder if she was alone. No one traveled this country without at least a long knife and a blanket.

She crossed the clearing, her eyes locked on his. She wore a long travel cloak pulled tight about her shoulders and fastened at the neck. Perhaps she kept her weapons concealed beneath.

I am alone, if you are wondering, she said without being asked. They told me at the Blue Hen Tavern in Tombara that you were here.

No one knows where I am, he said.

They didnt say you were in this exact spot. But they knew you were somewhere nearby. I found you on my own. I have a gift for finding lost things.

Im not lost, he said.

Arent you? she replied.

He gave no response, but wondered at the meaning behind her words. She moved over to the log he had been occupying earlier and sat downalthough not too close to where he stood. He waited a moment and then joined her, respecting the distance she had chosen to keep.

Who are you? he asked.

My name is Lyriana. She glanced down at the long leather case propped up against a smaller log off to one side. Are those your weapons?

Yes. He studied her. But you already knew that, didnt you?

I know what they call you. The Weapons Master. But you seem awfully young to be a master of anything.

How do you know of me?

She shrugged. Stories told here and there. Word travels, even to places as remote as where I have come from. Most of the stories are good ones. People like to tell stories of disappointment and betrayal, of men and women who have suffered heartbreak and loss. But they dont tell those stories about you. And they say you are a man who makes a bargain and keeps it.

My word is an important part of what I have to sell.

Its said you dont fear long odds. That you once confronted as many as a dozen armed men and killed them all in the blink of an eye with nothing but your hands.

Two blinks of an eye and a knife. Why have you come to find me? What need do you have of a man like me?

She thought about it a moment, and then she smiled. Can we eat first? Your trout is in danger of being overcooked.

He poured ale from a skin into tin cups, and they sat together in silence while they ate their meal. All around them, the night sounds quickened as the darkness deepened and the quarter moon and stars came out. From out of a cloudless sky, clean white moonlight flooded the woods.

When they were finished, he scraped the plates and rubbed them clean with grasses before beginning on the skillet.