Assassin's Quest (The Farseer Trilogy, #3)

by Robin Hobb

Girl-on-a-Dragon soared up into the sky as she had strained to do for so long. It seemed an effortless lifting, almost as if she floated away. The Fool was borne away with her. I saw him lean forward, clutching instinctively at the supple waist of the girl before him. His face was turned away from me. I glimpsed the bland eyes and still mouth of the girl’s face. Perhaps her eyes saw, but she was no more separate from the dragon than its tail or wing; merely another appendage, one to which the Fool clung as they rose higher and higher.

Again her shadow swept over me, and again a moment of my life was snatched from me. I opened my eyes to find Will gone. Then I caught a brief glimpse of him, veering as he ran dodging between the standing blocks of stone much as a hare breaks his trail as he flees from a hawk. I could no longer see the coterie, but suddenly

There came a time when I could find no more dragons in the underbrush. Behind me, where Regal’s soldiers had camped, I heard the cries of hunted men and the roaring of dragons as they competed for not meat, but life. Trees gave way before their charges and their lashing tails sliced brush as a scythe cuts grain stalks. I had paused to breathe, one hand braced on my knee, the other still gripping Verity’s sword. Breath came harsh and dry to me. Pain was beginning to break through the Skill I had imposed on my body. Blood was dripping from my fingers. Lacking a dragon to give it to, I wiped my hand down my jerkin.

Girl-on-a-Dragon came lumbering toward us. On the ground, her airy grace deserted her. Instead she walked with power, as a hulking bear or a great horned bull does. The green of her scales shone like dark emeralds in sunlight. The girl on her back was a breathtaking beauty, for all her empty expression. The dragon head lifted and she opened her mouth and darted her tongue out to taste the air. More? “Hurry,” I bid him. He embraced me almost convulsively, and shocked me when he kissed my mouth. He spun and ran toward Girl-on-a-Dragon. The girl part of her leaned down, to offer him a hand as she drew him up to sit behind her. The expression on her face never changed. Just another part of the dragon. “To me!” he cried to the dragons that were already gathering around us. The last look he gave me was a mocking smile. Follow the Scentless One! Nighteyes commanded them before I could think. He is a mighty hunter and will lead you to much meat. Hearken to him, for he is pack with us. Girl-on-a-Dragon leaped up, her wings opened, and with powerful beats they carried her steadily upward. The Fool clung behind her. He lifted a hand in farewell, then quickly put it back to clutch at her waist. It was my last sight of him. The others followed, giving cry in a way that reminded me of hounds on a trail, save they sounded more like the shrilling of raptor birds. Even the winged boar rose, ungainly as was his leap into the air. The beating of their wings was such that I covered my ears an...

The Catalyst comes to change all things.

In the wake of the dragons’ departure, there was a great silence, broken only by the whispers of leaves as a few sifted down to the forest floor. Not a frog croaked, not a bird sang. The dragons had broken the roof of the forest in their departure. Great shafts of sunlight shone down on soil that had been shaded since before I was born. Trees had been uprooted or snapped off and great troughs had been gouged in the forest floor by the passage of their immense bodies. Scaly shoulders had gashed the bark from ancient trees, baring the secret white cambium beneath. The slashed earth and trees and trampled grasses gave up their rich odors to the warm afternoon. I stood in the midst of the destruction, Nighteyes at my side, and looked about slowly. Then we went to look for water. Our passage took us through the camp. It was an odd battle scene. There were scattered weapons and occasional helms, trampled tents and scattered gear, but little more than that. The only bodies that remained were those of soldiers that Nighteyes and I had killed. The dragons had no interest in dead meat; they fed on the life that fled such tissue.

cambric

cosseted

penchant

I healed. Not completely. A scar is never the same as good flesh, but it stops the bleeding.

I was there on the summer afternoon when Verity-as-Dragon appeared in the skies over Buckkeep. With him, I saw the shining black towers and turrets of Buckkeep Castle far below us. Beyond the castle, where Buckkeep Town had been, were the blackened shells of buildings and warehouses. Forged ones ambled through the streets, pushed aside by swaggering Raiders. Masts with tatters of canvas dangling from them thrust up through the calm waters. A dozen Red Ships rocked peacefully in the harbor. I felt the heart of Verity-as-Dragon swell with anger. I swear I heard Kettricken’s cry of anguish at the sight. Then the great turquoise-and-silver dragon was alighting in the center grounds of Buckkeep Castle. He ignored the flight of arrows that rose to meet him; ignored, too, the cries of the soldiers who cowered before him, senseless as his shadow spread over them and his great wings beat to lower his bulk to the ground. It was a wonder he did not crush them. Even as he was alighting, Kettricken was trying to stand up upon his shoulders, crying to the guard to lower their pikes and stand away. On the ground, he dipped his shoulder to let a disheveled Queen Kettricken dismount. Starling Birdsong slid down behind her and distinguished herself by bowing to the line of pikes that were pointed at them. I saw not a few faces I recognized, and shared Verity’s pain at how privation had transformed them. Then Patience came forth, pike gripped tightly, helm askew upon her bundled hair. She pu...

I had considered having him erect a statue in my memory, but had decided that would be going too far. The fanatical loyalty I had imprinted on him would be my best memorial. While Regal lived, Queen Kettricken and her child would have no more loyal subject. Ultimately, of course, that was not long. All have heard of the tragic and bizarre death of Prince Regal. The rabid creature that savaged him in his bed one night left bloody tracks, not just on his bedclothes, but all about the bedchamber, as if it had exulted in its deed. Gossip had it that it was an extremely large river rat that had somehow journeyed with him all the way from Tradeford. It was most disturbing to all the folk in the Keep. The Queen had the rat dogs brought in, to scour every chamber, but to no avail. The beast was never captured or killed, though rumors of sightings of the immense rat were rampant among the keep servants. Some say that that was why, for months afterward, Lord Chade was seldom seen without his pet ferret.

If the truth be known, Forging was not an invention of the Red Ships. We had taught it well to them, back in the days of King Wisdom. The Elderlings that took our revenge on the OutIslands soared many times over that country of islands. Many OutIslanders were devoured outright, but many others were overflown by dragons so often that they were stripped of their memories and feelings. They became callous strangers to their own kin. That was the grievance that had rankled so amongst that long-memoried folk. When the Red Ships sailed, it was not to claim Six Duchies territory or wealth. It was for revenge. To do to us as so long ago we had done to them, in the days of their great-great-grandmothers. What one folk know, another may discover. They had scholars and wise folk of their own, despite Six Duchies disdain of them as barbarians. So it was that mention of dragons were studied by them, in every ancient scroll they could find. While it would be difficult to find absolute proof, it seems to me that some copies of scrolls collected by the Skillmasters of Buck might actually have been sold, in the days before the Red Ships menaced our coasts, to OutIslander traders who paid well for such things. And when the slow movement of glaciers bared, on their own shores, a dragon carved of black stone and outcroppings of more of that black stone, their wise men combined their knowledge with the insatiable lust for vengeance of one Kebal Rawbread. They resolved to create dragons of thei...

Sometimes, when she beds with me and I lie awake afterward listening to her slow breathing, I think I will rise on the morrow and find some new meaning to my life. But most mornings, when I awake aching and stiff, I think I am not a young man at all. I am an old man, trapped in a young man’s scarred body.

My boy has learned what that look means, and he measures the elfbark carefully to deaden me. Carryme he adds that I may sleep, and ginger to mask the elfbark’s bitterness.

For the very real Kat Ogden Who threatened, at an early age, to grow up and be a tap dancing, fencing judoka, movie star, archaeologist, and President of the United States. And is getting frighteningly close to the end of her list. Never mistake the movie for the book.