by Anders, Lou
ALSO BY LOU ANDERS
Frostborn
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Lou Anders
Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2015 by Justin Gerard
Maps by Robert Lazzaretti copyright © 2015 by Lou Anders
Rules of Charioteer Board Game copyright © 2015 by Lou Anders
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Crown and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anders, Lou.
Nightborn / Lou Anders ; illustrations by Justin Gerard.—First edition.
pages cm.—(Thrones and Bones ; book 2)
Summary: Karn Korlundsson must travel to the faraway city of Castlebriar, learn to play a new board game called Charioteers, decipher the Riddle of the Horn, and tangle with mysterious elves in order to rescue his best friend, Thianna Frostborn, facing great dangers at every step. Includes directions for playing Charioteers.
ISBN 978-0-385-39036-1 (trade)—ISBN 978-0-38539038-5 (ebook)
[1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Dragons—Fiction. 3. Animals, Mythical—Fiction. 4. Mythology, Norse—Fiction. 5. Board games—Fiction. 6. Fantasy.] I. Gerard, Justin, illustrator. II. Title.
PZ7.A518855Nig 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014042921
eBook ISBN 9780385390385
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
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Contents
Cover
Also by Lou Anders
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
Chapter One: Dangerous Games
Chapter Two: Marching Orders
Chapter Three: The Deeds of Heroes
Chapter Four: Barbarian at the Gate
Chapter Five: Dicey Situations
Chapter Six: Root of the Problem
Chapter Seven: The Frost Giant’s Daughter
Chapter Eight: Grave Matters
Chapter Nine: The Order of the Oak
Chapter Ten: Finger-Pointing
Chapter Eleven: Together Again
Chapter Twelve: Here, Kitty, Kitty
Chapter Thirteen: Fly by Night
Chapter Fourteen: Breaking the Line
Chapter Fifteen: City Under Siege
Chapter Sixteen: Fishing for Clues
Chapter Seventeen: Getting Into the Act
Chapter Eighteen: A Day at the Races
Chapter Nineteen: The Sunken Palace
Chapter Twenty: Shadows of Doubt
Chapter Twenty-One: The Marble King
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Fall of Gordasha
Chapter Twenty-Three: An Empire Unchained
Glossary
The Riddle of the Soundless Horn
“When You’re an Uskirian”
The Rules of Charioteers™
A History of the Continent of Katernia
A Timeline of Empires
Acknowledgments
About the Author
FOR XIN
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The outside world was the best kind of terrifying.
Small and quick, Desstra darted from shadow to shadow under the light of the moons. Her teammates crept silently through the trees on either side. She felt exposed in the open air. So vulnerable without tons of rock overhead. But the unfamiliar night sky excited her, and the smell of victory kept her focused. They could win this.
Desstra sensed a pressure against her leg and froze. The trip wire was stretched taut across her shin. An ounce more force and it would snap.
She knelt carefully. She caught the thin wire between thumb and forefinger, holding it still as she moved her leg away. Her gaze followed the line to a bent tree limb. A small cluster of spider egg sacs balanced on the branch. The sacs were the size and shape of rotten fruit. No baby spiders here. They would be filled with poison, acid, gas, or something equally nasty. Breaking the wire would send them hurling her way.
It was a crude trap, hastily constructed. The ones she’d set showed more finesse. Hard to detect, harder to disarm.
“What’s the delay?” growled a voice to her right—Tanthal. Of all the dark elves who lived in the caverns of Deep Shadow, she liked him the absolute least. Couldn’t he see that she had narrowly avoided a trap? Probably saw and didn’t care. Tanthal was always critical of her. He was snide and superior. She hated that they were teammates, even if he was one of the two best students in the school.
Tanthal came up to her, a sneer on his pale face. She indicated the trip wire.
“We are in something of a hurry,” he said.
“How very helpful of you to point out the obvious.”
“If you’re done wasting time here—”
“Don’t get your tips in a twist,” Desstra taunted, but then her own sharp ears twitched. Tanthal noticed and stopped speaking. He was arrogant but far from stupid. The Wyrdwood held worse dangers than rival classmates.
There—a shadow in the tree ahead.
Desstra’s right arm whipped forward even as her left shoved Tanthal aside. He rolled gracefully and came to his feet. Then his lips parted in surprise when he saw the dart buried in the ground where he had stood.
A grunt of pain, then a dark elf dropped heavily out of the foliage. Desstra’s own slender dart gleamed where it stuck in the elf’s neck. He lay facedown.
“Is he—?” Tanthal began.
“Paralysis,” Desstra answered. “Diluted hemlock. He’ll be okay when it wears off in a few hours.”
Tanthal looked as if he might kick the unfortunate elf. She pushed Tanthal aside and rolled her stricken opponent over so he wouldn’t suffocate in the last of the winter snow.
“You’re too soft,” said Tanthal. “Leave him. We have a game to win.”
He stepped over their fallen rival. Desstra gritted her teeth and followed. Tanthal was right on both counts. A stronger poison would have been within the rules. And the stakes were too high not to play to win.
Tonight was the final exam, the culmination of two years of training. The classes had been sent into the Wyrdwood and pitted against each other in a contest that would test all their skills—stealth, sabotage, speed, combat, strategy. And an ability to operate on the surface. Only the winning team would graduate and join the elite members of the Underhand, the secret order that protected the people of Deep Shadow and acted as their eyes and ears in the world above. It was the highest honor, not to be cheaply earned.
Desstra, Tanthal, and a female elf named Velsa were all that remained of their team. They slowed as they approached the enemy camp. Desstra flattened herself against the trunk of a tree and peered through its branches. She saw the black banner where it fluttered atop a spear standing alone in a glade. There was no one around. No one she could see. Guards would be hidden nearby, and the area would be rigged with snares and other hazards.
She caught Tanthal’s eye, then pointed overhead and hoisted herself into the branches. When she was high enough, she climbed slowly out upon a limb. Balancing on her heels, she reached in her satchel for a spool
of spider’s silk. The thread was amazingly thin but strong as steel. Her specially treated gloves could handle the web without it sticking to her fingers. She let it spool out, dangling the web level with the banner. The wind caught it and carried it toward her target. When the line brushed the banner, it adhered instantly.
Desstra waited while her teammates readied their weapons. Then she gave a quick jerk on the spider silk, yanking the banner, spear and all, from the ground. She caught it in one hand, then leapt from the tree. Around her, three rival elves broke from cover. Time to run.
Tanthal’s mace collided with one opponent’s skull. The student fell, sprawling, and didn’t move. But another elf was directly in front of Desstra, arms spread wide and wicked stilettos in each hand. His smile told her just how easily he expected to subdue her.
Desstra planted the spear in the snow, using it to vault into the air. As she soared over the surprised elf, she let something fall from her satchel.
The egg sac broke at her opponent’s feet, spattering a sticky fungal paste all over him. The paste swelled rapidly, turning into a nasty yellow foam that would hold him tight until it dissolved.
Desstra allowed herself a moment of pride. The object now was to get the stolen banner back to their own base camp. Her classmate Velsa would run interference for her. Desstra would carry the prize. Tanthal had balked at that—he’d wanted that honor for himself—but she was unquestionably the fastest runner in their class.
Unfortunately, the remaining opponent was almost as fast, and he outdistanced Velsa easily. Desstra skipped aside from his slashing knives. Then Velsa was there, grasping but failing to slow the rival elf. Something whipped through the air between them. Tanthal’s mace. But it didn’t hit anyone. What had he been aiming at?
The trip wire snapped under the force of the projectile. The bent branch hurled its cluster of egg sacs. Enemy and teammate were both showered in an explosion of choking gas. They went down together, clutching their throats and gasping.
It was all Desstra could do not to lob her own egg sac at Tanthal.
“Don’t just stand there after I saved you,” he said, bending to retrieve his mace. “We need to keep moving.”
Desstra hesitated, reaching into her satchel. She might have an antidote for Velsa.
“Leave her,” barked Tanthal. “She’d rather bear the pain now than fail to graduate due to your misplaced kindness.”
Now they were two. They ran on.
“You sacrificed one of us!” Desstra spat, unable to keep the shock from her voice.
“As long as our team wins, what does it matter?” Tanthal replied. “We’ll all graduate. Velsa will thank me when we do. They all will.”
Desstra wasn’t so sure. While it was true that every member of the winning team would automatically graduate, they would also be evaluated separately. Their individual placement in the Underhand depended on it. It occurred to Desstra that in eliminating one of their own teammates, Tanthal was improving his own chances of being given a higher-ranked position. It was a cold move but not an illegal one. One that benefited the team some but Tanthal more.
They slowed as they drew near their own base camp. Desstra had set all the traps here personally. A complex series of trip wires and hidden spikes made the area nearly impassable to anyone who didn’t know the design. For Desstra, sure-footed as she was, dancing across the obstacles was child’s play.
But there was a problem. Three rival students had fanned apart to block their approach. Their own guards had been overcome, though Desstra’s traps still protected the camp.
“What would you say the chances are you’d let me carry that?” said Tanthal, indicating the banner.
“I’d say, ‘not good,’ ” Desstra replied. She was suspicious of his motives. When the arrogant elf frowned, she said, “Don’t ask questions when you think you won’t like the answers.”
“We need to get past those three. Give me the spear. I’ll make sure I have their attention. When they come for me, you can navigate your traps. When you’re across, I’ll toss the spear to you. Unless you can’t catch it.”
“I can catch,” she growled, though she wasn’t ready to agree to his plan.
“Good, then you can run it home.”
The strategy made sense. But it seemed unusually selfless of Tanthal. Desstra couldn’t see a hole in it, however, so she passed the banner across.
Tanthal broke from cover.
“Looking for this?” he yelled, waving the banner back and forth in the air.
The three rival students converged on him instantly.
Desstra gave them a wide berth, swinging around to head for their base camp. They didn’t spare her a glance, all eyes on the banner. If they let it slip by, their chances of graduation were over.
Desstra reached the first trip wire and leapt across.
“Desstra, catch!” came Tanthal’s shout.
But that was all wrong. She wasn’t anywhere near across.
She turned just in time to see the spear hurling her way. She caught it by instinct, not understanding why Tanthal had the plan so wrong.
All three dark elves ran straight at her. Then she saw what Tanthal had done. She had the spear. Only the spear. He had removed the black banner.
But the other team didn’t know that. They were heading straight for her. She turned to run, leaping her many trip wires. But the elves in her wake didn’t see the traps. They cut right across the wires, each elf snagging several.
Chaos erupted in every direction.
Gas, darts, foam, webbing. They were all engulfed, Desstra included. Her right foot was stuck fast in a vicious glue of her own design, while her left arm was wrapped in a net of spiderwebs that would take some work to untangle.
Fortunately, she had avoided setting any traps with deadly acids or poisons, but the mess she was in now was bad enough. Neither she nor her three rivals were going anywhere soon.
Tanthal chuckled as he strode casually by, nimbly picking his way across the ground. He waved the black banner at them as he passed.
“You—you—the banner—” Desstra couldn’t talk. She was choking on her indignation, as well as on an unpleasant purple gas. Her eyes stung and her throat burned.
“Nothing about the rules says the banner has to stay on the spear,” he laughed.
“You betrayed me!” she yelled back.
“And we won. Relax, Desstra. I just made sure you graduated.”
He gave a short bow, then marched into their camp.
Desstra slumped to the ground, with nothing to do but wait for her traps to dissolve. Her opponents grumbled and cursed, but she was deaf to their complaints. She would graduate, true, but how would her evaluation go? Surely her instructors would see that she had been instrumental in the win—would have won for her team, in fact, had Tanthal not betrayed her. Stuck in the bonds of her own traps, she wasn’t sure. Results were what mattered. Not excuses about what could have or should have been. One thing was clear: Tanthal had played both sides expertly, and Tanthal had won.
—
“I win,” said Karn, sliding his Jarl off the edge of the board with a grin. “That’s two barrels of fish you owe me for my one ox.”
Bandulfr’s hairy face loomed over the Thrones and Bones set. His bloodshot eyes studied all the pieces, looking for something to which he could object. Then he spat in defeat and sat back, a wide smile stretching open to show his many missing teeth.
“It’s a fine game you play, young Karn Korlundsson,” the fisherman said. “But would you make it best two out of three?”
“Wish I could,” replied Karn truthfully. “But I’ve got to get to the fur market to unload some arctic fox pelts. Pack up the barrels for me, will you? I’ll send Pofnir along to collect them later.”
Bandulfr’s disappointment showed in his face. Then he leaned into Karn’s own. Karn could smell the sea all over the man.
“Your father’s letting you do all the trading this year, is he? Thin
ks parading the young hero around gets him a better deal?”
“It’s time I learned,” said Karn.
“And you have. And well. Too well,” said Bandulfr. “But I guess the chance to haggle with a local legend takes the sting out of the hard bargains you drive, eh, boy? Not many Norrønir have done what you’ve done. Beat old Helltoppr in his barrow and faced down the dragon Orm in his den? Can I see it, then? Just for a moment?”
Karn sighed. Everyone wanted a glimpse.
He withdrew Whitestorm from its sheath and held the sword up. The blade had a red-gold sheen from something unusual mixed in with its steel, and it was lighter than it should be for its size. But it didn’t have any fancy engraving. No magic jewels in its oval guard or round pommel; no mystic runes running down its length. It was just an ordinary spatha-style sword, actually a bit too long for him. Better suited for a taller warrior or someone mounted on horseback.
Korlundr had insisted his famous son wear the sword on this trip. Karn had to admit he was enjoying all the attention. Everywhere he went, folks slapped his back and asked him what it had been like when his uncle had betrayed his father and sent Karn fleeing alone into the northern wastes. They wanted to hear how Karn had stood up to a dragon, how he’d faced an undead draug warrior in his barrow and restored his father to life. But mostly they wanted to hear about Thianna, the half-giant girl from the Ymirian mountain range whom Karn had met in the snows. Thianna, who had been fleeing from her own family problems and who had become his companion in adventure, then his best friend in the world. He wouldn’t have survived without her.
“Was she really as big as all that?” asked Bandulfr. “What was she, this big?” He held a hand over his head.
“Bigger,” replied Karn, grinning. “In every way.”
He left the fisherman’s stall and took the street east from the docks, heading to the fur market. Life in Norrøngard was good, but he missed the enormous girl, the excitement of having her in his life. That sort of wild adventuring belonged in the past now.