The Demon King

For my father, Franklin Earl Williams

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One The Hunt

Chapter Two Unintended Consequences

Chapter Three Ambushed

Chapter Four A Dance Of Suitors

Chapter Five Old Stories

Chapter Six Fellsmarch

Chapter Seven In The Glass Garden

Chapter Eight Lessons To Be Learned

Chapter Nine Eyes And Ears

Chapter Ten Back In The Maze

Chapter Eleven Sanctuary

Chapter Twelve Bread And Roses

Chapter Thirteen The Raggers

Chapter Fourteen On The Wrong Side Of The Law

Chapter Fifteen Strange Bedfellows

Chapter Sixteen Demons In The Street

Chapter Seventeen Party Warfare

Chapter Eighteen On The Borderland

Chapter Nineteen Name Day

Chapter Twenty Willo And Bird

Chapter Twenty-One Blood And Roses

Chapter Twenty-Two Desperate Measures

Chapter Twenty-Three Name Day 2

Chapter Twenty-Four Unholy Ceremony

Chapter Twenty-Five The End Of Days

Chapter Twenty-Six Secrets Revealed

Chapter Twenty-Seven Gifted

Acknowledgements

By Cinda Williams Chima

Copyright

About the Publisher

Han Alister squatted next to the steaming mud spring, praying that the thermal crust would hold his weight. He’d tied a bandana over his mouth and nose, but his eyes still stung and teared from the sulfur fumes that boiled upward from the bubbling ooze. He extended his digging stick toward a patch of plants with bilious green flowers at the edge of the spring. Sliding the tip under the clump, he pried it from the mud and lifted it free, dropping it into the deerskin bag that hung from his shoulder. Then, placing his feet carefully, he stood and retreated to solid ground.

He was nearly there when one foot broke through the fragile surface, sending him calf-deep into the gray, sticky, superheated mud.

“Hanalea’s bloody bones!” he yelped, flinging himself backward and hoping he didn’t land flat on his back in another mudpot. Or worse, in one of the blue water springs that would boil the flesh from his bones in minutes.

Fortunately, he landed on solid earth amid the lodgepole pines, the breath exploding from his body. Han heard Fire Dancer scrambling down the slope behind him, stifling laughter. Dancer gripped Han’s wrists and hauled him to safer ground, leaning back for leverage.

“We’ll change your name, Hunts Alone,” Dancer said, squatting next to Han. Dancer’s tawny face was solemn, the startling blue eyes widely innocent, but the corners of his mouth twitched. “How about ‘Wades in the Mudpot’? ‘Mudpot’ for short?”

Han was not amused. Swearing, he grabbed up a handful of leaves to wipe his boot with. He should have worn his beat-up old moccasins. His knee-high footwear had saved him a bad burn, but the right boot was caked with stinking mud, and he knew he’d hear about it when he got home.

“Those boots were clan made,” his mother would say. “Do you know what they cost?”

It didn’t matter that she hadn’t paid for them in the first place. Dancer’s mother, Willo, had traded them to Han for the rare deathmaster mushroom he’d found the previous spring. Mam hadn’t been happy when he’d brought them home.

“Boots?” Mam had stared at him in disbelief. “Fancy boots? How long will it take you to grow out of those? You couldn’t have asked for money? Grain to fill our bellies? Or firewood or warm blankets for our beds?” She’d advanced on him with the switch she always seemed to have close to hand. Han backed away from her, knowing from experience that a lifetime of hard work had given his mother a powerful arm.

She’d raised welts on his back and shoulders. But he kept the boots.

They were worth far more than what he’d given in trade, and he knew it. Willo had always been generous to Han and Mam and Mari, his sister, because there was no man in the house. Unless you counted Han, and most people didn’t. Even though he was already sixteen and nearly grown.

Dancer brought water from Firehole Spring and sloshed it over Han’s slimed boot. “Why is it that only nasty plants growing in nasty places are valuable?” Dancer said.

“If they’d grow in a garden, who’d pay good money for them?” Han growled, wiping his hands on his leggings. The silver cuffs around his wrists were caked with mud as well, deeply embedded in the delicate engraving. He’d better take a brush to them before he got home, or he’d hear about that too.

It was a fitting end to a frustrating day. They’d been out since dawn, and all he had to show for it were three sulfur lilies, a large bag of cinnamon bark, some razorleaf, and a handful of common snagwort that he could pass off as maidenweed at the Flatlander Market. His mother’s empty purse had sent him foraging in the mountains too early in the season.

“This is a waste of time,” Han said, though it had been his idea in the first place. He snatched up a rock and flung it into the mudpot, where it disappeared with a viscous plop. “Let’s do something else.”

Dancer cocked his head, his beaded braids swinging. “What would you…?”