Renegade’s Magic. Робин ХоббЧитать онлайн книгу.
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Renegade’s Magic
Book Three of the Soldier Son Trilogy
Robin Hobb
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
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
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Source ISBN: 9780007196203
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007283446
Version: 2017-06-30
Contents
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
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