Dragon Keeper
‘Fantasy as it ought to be written’ George R.R. MartinReturn to the world of the Liveships Traders and journey along the Rain Wild River in this fantastic adventure from the author of the internationally acclaimed Farseer trilogy.Guided by the great blue dragon Tintaglia, they came from the sea: a Tangle of serpents fighting their way up the Rain Wilds River, the first to make the perilous journey to the cocooning grounds in generations. Many have died along the way. With its acid waters and impenetrable forest, it is a hard place for any to survive.People are changed by the Rain Wilds, subtly or otherwise. One such is Thymara. Born with black claws and other aberrations, she should have been exposed at birth. But her father saved her and her mother has never forgiven him. Like everyone else, Thymara is fascinated by the return of dragons: it is as if they symbolise the return of hope to their war-torn world. Leftrin, captain of the liveship Tarman, also has an interest in the hatching; as does Bingtown newlywed, Alise Finbok, who has made it her life's work to study all there is to know of dragons.But the creatures which emerge from the cocoons are a travesty of the powerful, shining dragons of old. Stunted and deformed, they cannot fly; some seem witless and bestial. Soon, they become a danger and a burden to the Rain Wilders: something must be done. The dragons claim an ancestral memory of a fabled Elderling city far upriver: perhaps there the dragons will find their true home. But Kelsingra appears on no maps and they cannot get there on their own: a band of dragon keepers, hunters and chroniclers must attend them.To be a dragon keeper is a dangerous job: their charges are vicious and unpredictable, and there are many unknown perils on the journey to a city which may not even exist…
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ROBIN HOBB
Dragon Keeper
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
Copyright © Robin Hobb 2009
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016. Illustration © Jackie Morris.
Calligraphy by Stephen Raw. Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (background)
Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780007342594
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780007290253
Version: 2015-12-01
CONTENTS
Chapter Three: An Advantageous Offer
Chapter Five: Blackmail and Lies
Chapter Six: Thymaraâs Decision
To the memory of Spot and Smokey,
Brownie-butt and Rainbow, Rag-Bag and Sinbad.
Fine pigeons, one and all.
Day the 2nd of the Plough Moon
Year the 6th of the Reign of the Most Noble and Magnificent Satrap Cosgo
From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown to Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug
This night have dispatched to you four birds, bearing in two parts our agreement with the Dragon Tintaglia, to be ratified by the Rain Wild Council. Trader Devouchet, leader of the Bingtown Tradersâ Council, suggested that duplicates be sent. They sum up the formal agreement between the Traders and the Dragon. We are to aid her serpents in travelling up the Rain Wild River in exchange for her assistance with defending the Trader cities and waterways against the Chalcedean invaders.
Please dispatch a bird as soon as possible to confirm receipt of this message.
Detozi,
A brief message of my own, penned in haste in a very small space. All is chaos here. My bird coop scorched in the fires the invaders set, many of my birds dead from smoke. Iâm sending Kingsly as one of the messenger birds tonight. You know I raised him from a squab by hand after his parents died. Please keep him safe there and do not return him until we know that all is well. If Bingtown falls, treat him well and keep him as your own. Pray for us here. I do not know that Bingtown will survive this invasion, dragon or no.
Erek
They had come so far, yet now that she was here, the years of journeying were already fading in her mind, giving way to the desperate needs of the present. Sisarqua opened her jaws and bent her neck. It was hard for the sea serpent to focus her thoughts. It had been years since she had been completely out of the water. She had not felt dry land under her body since she had hatched on Otherâs Island. She was far from Otherâs Islandâs hot dry sand and balmy waters now. Winter was closing in on this densely forested land beside the chill river. The mudbank under her coiled length was hard and abrasive. The air was too cold and her gills were drying out too quickly. There was nothing she could do about that except to work more swiftly. She scooped her jaws into the immense trough and came up with a mouthful of silver-streaked clay and river water. She threw her great head back and gulped it down. It was gritty and cold and strangely delicious. Another mouthful, another swallow. And again.
She had lost count of how many gulps of the grainy soup she had ingested when finally she felt the ancient reflex trigger. Working the muscles in her throat, she felt her poison sacs swell. Her fleshy mane stood out all around her throat in a toxic, quivering ruff. Shuddering down her full length, she opened her jaws wide, strained, gagged, and then met with success. She clamped and locked her jaws to contain the liquid, releasing it only as a thin, powerful stream of clay, bile and saliva tinged with venom. With difficulty, she turned her head and then coiled her tail closer to her body. The extrusion was like a silvery thread, thick and heavy. Her head wove as she layered the wet winding over herself.
