Kip crawled toward the battlefield in the darkness, the mist pressing down, blotting out sound, scattering starlight. Though the adults shunned it, he’d played on the open field a hundred times–during the day. Tonight, his purpose was grimmer.
Reaching the top of the hill, Kip stood and hiked up his pants. The river behind him was muttering obscenities, or maybe that was the warriors beneath its surface, dead these sixteen years. Kip squared his shoulders, ignoring his imagination. The mists made it seem he was suspended, outside of time. But even if there was no evidence of it, the sun was coming. By the time it did, he had to get to the far side of the battlefield. Farther than he’d ever gone searching.
Even Ramir, wouldn’t come out here at night. Everyone knew Sundered Rock was haunted. But Ram didn’t have to feed his family; his mother didn’t smoke her wages.
Gripping his little belt knife tightly, Kip started walking. It wasn’t just the unquiet dead that might pull him down to the evernight. A pack of giant javelinas had been seen roaming the night, tusks cruel, hooves sharp. They were good eating if you had a matchlock, iron nerves, and good aim, but since the Prisms’ War had wiped out all the town’s men, there weren’t many people who braved death for a little bacon. Rekton was already a shell of what it had once been. The alcaldesa wasn’t eager for any of her townspeople to throw their lives away. Besides, Kip didn’t have a matchlock.
Nor were javelinas the only creatures that roamed the night. A mountain lion or a golden bear would also probably enjoy a well-marbled Kip.
A low howl cut the mist and the darkness hundreds of paces deeper into the battlefield. Kip froze. Oh, there were wolves too. How’d he forget wolves?
Thanks to the lovely folks at Orbit Books, we get a three chapter preview of Brent Weeks’ The Black Prism, an unrelated follow-up to his incredibly successful The Night Angel Trilogy. Given that Weeks is still wrapping up the first draft of the book, remember that these early chapters are likely to change in the published novel. In any case, it’s a nice treat for fans of Weeks’ work.
You can read the excerpt HERE.
[…] book by Brent Weeks. The guy with his finger on the pulse – Aidan Moher – provides some handy free reading of the first three chapters so you can judge if this is a book you’d like to read on its […]
[…] book by Brent Weeks. The guy with his finger on the pulse – Aidan Moher – provides some handy free reading of the first three chapters so you can judge if this is a book you’d like to read on its […]