{"product_id":"the-steel-remains-isbn-9780345493040","title":"The Steel Remains","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Bold, brutal, and making no compromises—Morgan doesn’t so much twist the clichés of fantasy as take an axe to them.”—Joe Abercrombie\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eA dark lord will rise.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch is the prophecy that dogs Ringil Eskiath—Gil, for short—a washed-up mercenary and onetime war hero whose cynicism is surpassed only by the speed of his sword. Gil is estranged from his aristocratic family, but when his mother enlists his help in freeing a cousin sold into slavery, Gil sets out to track her down. But it soon becomes apparent that more is at stake than the fate of one young woman. Grim sorceries are awakening in the land. Some speak in whispers of the return of the Aldrain, a race of widely feared, cruel yet beautiful demons. Now Gil and two old comrades are all that stand in the way of a prophecy whose fulfillment will drown an entire world in blood. But with heroes like these, the cure is likely to be worse than the disease. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Steel Remains\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eAltered Carbon\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMarket Forces\u003c\/i\u003e brings the same iconoclastic approach to his fantasy debut as he did to his sf technothrillers. . . . [Richard K.] Morgan’s storytelling talent and his atmospheric, hard-hitting prose make this a strong addition to mature fantasy collections.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Spellbinding . . . There’s so much to like about the adventure.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Star-Ledger \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Morgan has taken traditional sword and sorcery tropes and given them a hard, contemporary kick. The antithesis of the cosy fairytale, this one is for big boys.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e (London) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] dark, gritty tale . . . The well-developed characters and realistic battle scenes ring true.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Bold, brutal, and making no compromises—Morgan doesn't so much twist the clichés of fantasy as take an axe to them.\"—Joe Abercrombie\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The award-winning author of Altered Carbon and Market Forces brings the same iconoclastic approach to his fantasy debut as he did to his sf technothrillers. . . . [Richard K.] Morgan's storytelling talent and his atmospheric, hard-hitting prose make this a strong addition to mature fantasy collections.\"—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Spellbinding . . . There's so much to like about the adventure.\"—\u003ci\u003eStar-Ledger\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Morgan has taken traditional sword and sorcery tropes and given them a hard, contemporary kick. The antithesis of the cosy fairytale, this one is for big boys.\"—\u003ci\u003eTimes\u003c\/i\u003e, London\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"[A] dark, gritty tale . . . The well-developed characters and realistic battle scenes ring true.\"—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eRichard K. Morgan\u003c\/b\u003e is the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eThirteen\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, \u003ci\u003eWoken Furies, Market Forces, Broken Angels,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAltered Carbon\u003c\/i\u003e, a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book that also won the Philip K. Dick Award. Morgan sold the movie rights for \u003ci\u003eAltered Carbon\u003c\/i\u003e to Joel Silver and Warner Bros. His third book, \u003ci\u003eMarket Forces\u003c\/i\u003e, has also been sold to Warner Bros. and was winner of the John W. Campbell Award. He lives in Scotland.\u003ci\u003eChapter One\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options. You can smell his breath, take his pulse, and check his pupils to see if he's ingested anything nasty, or you can believe him. Ringil had already tried the first course of action with Bashka the Schoolmaster and to no avail, so he put down his pint with an elaborate sigh and went to get his broadsword.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Not this again,\" he was heard to mutter as he pushed through into\u003cbr\u003ethe residents' bar.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA yard and a half of tempered Kiriath steel, Ringil's broadsword\u003cbr\u003ehung above the fireplace in a scabbard woven from alloys that men had\u003cbr\u003eno names for, though any Kiriath child could have identified them from\u003cbr\u003eage five upward. The sword itself also had a name in the Kiriath tongue,\u003cbr\u003eas did all Kiriath- forged weapons, but it was an ornate title that lost a lot\u003cbr\u003ein translation. \"Welcomed in the Home of Ravens and Other Scavengers\u003cbr\u003ein the Wake of Warriors\" was about as close as Archeth had been able to\u003cbr\u003erender it, so Ringil had settled on calling it the Ravensfriend. He didn't\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003elike \u003c\/i\u003ethe name especially, but it had the sort of ring people expected of a\u003cbr\u003efamous sword—and his landlord, a shrewd man with money and the\u003cbr\u003epotential for making it, had renamed the inn the same way, setting an\u003cbr\u003eeternal seal on the thing. A local artist had painted a passable image of\u003cbr\u003eRingil wielding the Ravensfriend at Gallows Gap and now it hung\u003cbr\u003eoutside for all the passing world to see. In return, Ringil got bed and\u003cbr\u003eboard and the opportunity to sell tales of his exploits to tourists in the\u003cbr\u003eresidents' bar for whatever was dropped into his cap.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAll that, \u003c\/i\u003eRingil once remarked ironically in a letter to Archeth, \u003ci\u003eand a blind eye turned to certain bedroom practices that would doubtless earn Yours Truly a slow death by impaling in Trelayne or Yhelteth. Heroic status in Gallows Water, it seems, includes a special dispensation not available to the average citizen in these righteous times. \u003c\/i\u003ePlus, he supposed, you don't go queer baiting when your quarry has a reputation for rendering trained swordsmen into dogmeat at the drop of a gauntlet. \u003ci\u003eFame, \u003c\/i\u003eRingil scribbled, \u003ci\u003ehas its uses after all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eMounting the sword over the fireplace had been a nice touch, and\u003cbr\u003ealso the landlord's idea. The man was now trying to persuade his\u003cbr\u003eresident celebrity to offer dueling lessons out back in the stable yards.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCross blades with the hero of Gallows Gap for three Empire- minted\u003cbr\u003eelementals the half hour. \u003c\/i\u003eRingil didn't know if he felt that hard up yet.\u003cbr\u003eHe'd seen what teaching had done to Bashka.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnyway, he dragged the Ravensfriend from the scabbard with a\u003cbr\u003esingle grating clang, slung it casually over his shoulder, and walked out\u003cbr\u003einto the street, ignoring the stares from the audience he had been\u003cbr\u003eregaling with tales of valor about an hour ago. He guessed they'd follow\u003cbr\u003ehim at least part of the way to the schoolmaster's house. It couldn't do\u003cbr\u003eany harm, if his suspicions about what was going on were correct, but\u003cbr\u003ethey'd probably all cut and run at the first sign of trouble. You couldn't\u003cbr\u003eblame them really. They were peasants and merchants, and they had no\u003cbr\u003ebond with him. About a third of them he'd never even seen before\u003cbr\u003etonight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eIntroductory comment from the treatise on skirmish warfare that the Trelayne Military Academy had politely declined to publish under his name: \u003ci\u003eIf you don't know the men at your back by name, don't be\u003cbr\u003esurprised if they won't follow you into battle. On the other hand, don't be surprised if they will, either, because there are countless other factors you must take into account. Leadership is a slippery commodity, not easily manufactured or understood. \u003c\/i\u003eIt was simple truth, as gleaned in the bloody forefront of some of the nastiest fighting the free cities had seen in living memory. It was, however, the Lieutenant Editor in Trelayne had written kindly, \u003ci\u003ejust too vague for the Academy to consider as viable\u003cbr\u003etraining material. It is this ambivalence as much as any other that leads us to decline your submission. \u003c\/i\u003eRingil looked at that last sentence on the parchment and suspected a kindred spirit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was cold out in the street. Above the waist he wore only a leather\u003cbr\u003ejerkin with loose half- length sailcloth sleeves, and there was an unseasonal\u003cbr\u003eearly chill sloping down the spine of the country from the\u003cbr\u003eMajak uplands. The peaks of the mountains that the town nestled under\u003cbr\u003ewere already capped with snow, and it was reckoned that Gallows Gap\u003cbr\u003ewould be impassable before Padrow's Eve. People were talking again\u003cbr\u003eabout an Aldrain winter. There had been stories circulating for weeks\u003cbr\u003enow, of high- pasture livestock taken by wolves and other, less natural\u003cbr\u003epredators, of chilling encounters and sightings in the mountain passes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot all of them could be put down to fanciful talk. This,Ringil suspected,\u003cbr\u003ewas going to be the source of the problem. Bashka the Schoolmaster's\u003cbr\u003ecottage was at the end of one of the town's cross streets and backed onto\u003cbr\u003ethe local graveyard.As by far the most educated man in the tiny township\u003cbr\u003eof Gallows Water— its resident hero excluded— Bashka had been handed\u003cbr\u003ethe role of temple officiator by default, and the house went with the\u003cbr\u003epriest's robes.And in bad weather, graveyards were a fine source of meat\u003cbr\u003efor scavengers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eYou will be a great hero, \u003c\/i\u003ea Yhelteth fortune- teller had once read in\u003cbr\u003eRingil's spittle. \u003ci\u003eYou will carry many battles and best many foes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eNothing about being a municipal exterminator in a border- town\u003cbr\u003esettlement not much bigger than one of Trelayne's estuary slums.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere were torches fixed in brackets along the main streets and river\u003cbr\u003efrontage of Gallows Water but the rest of the town must make do with\u003cbr\u003ebandlight, of which there wasn't much on a night this clouded. True to\u003cbr\u003eRingil's expectations, the crowd thinned out as soon as he stepped onto\u003cbr\u003ean unlit thoroughfare. When it became apparent where he was headed\u003cbr\u003especifically, his escort dropped by more than half. He reached the corner\u003cbr\u003eof Bashka's street still trailing a loose group of about six or eight, but by\u003cbr\u003ethe time he drew level with the schoolmaster's cottage— the door still\u003cbr\u003egaping open, the way its owner had left it when he fled in his nightshirt—\u003cbr\u003ehe was alone. He cocked his head back to where the rubberneckers\u003cbr\u003ehovered at the far end of the street. A wry grin twitched his lips.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Stand well back now,\" he called.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom among the graves, something uttered a low droning cry.\u003cbr\u003eRingil's skin goosefleshed with the sound of it. He unshipped the\u003cbr\u003eRavensfriend from his shoulder and, holding it warily before him,\u003cbr\u003estepped around the corner of the little house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe rows of graves marched up the hill where the town petered out\u003cbr\u003eagainst outcroppings of mountain granite. Most of the markers were\u003cbr\u003esimple slabs hewn from the self- same stone as the mountain, reflecting\u003cbr\u003ethe locals' phlegmatic attitude to the business of dying. But here and\u003cbr\u003ethere could be seen the more ornately carved structure of a Yhelteth\u003cbr\u003etomb, or one of the cairns the northerners buried their dead under,\u003cbr\u003ehung with shamanistic iron talismans and daubed in the colors of the\u003cbr\u003edeceased's clan ancestry. As a rule, Ringil tried not to come out here too\u003cbr\u003eoften; he remembered too many of the names on the stones, could put\u003cbr\u003efaces to too many of the foreign- sounding dead. It was a mixed bag that\u003cbr\u003ehad died under his command at Gallows Gap that sweltering summer\u003cbr\u003eafternoon nine years ago, and few of the outlanders had family with the\u003cbr\u003emoney to bring their sons home for burial. The cemeteries up and\u003cbr\u003edown this stretch of the mountains were littered with their lonely\u003cbr\u003etestimony.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRingil advanced into the graveyard, one bent- kneed step at a time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClouds broke apart overhead, and the Kiriath blade glinted in the\u003cbr\u003esudden smear of bandlight. The cry was not repeated, but now he could\u003cbr\u003emake out smaller, more furtive sounds. The sounds, he reckoned\u003cbr\u003eunenthusiastically, of someone digging.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eYou will be a great hero.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYeah, right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eHe found Bashka's mother, as it seemed, grubbing around in the dirt\u003cbr\u003eat the base of a recent headstone. Her burial shroud was torn and soiled,\u003cbr\u003erevealing rotted flesh that he could smell from a dozen paces upwind\u003cbr\u003eeven in the cold. Her deathgrown nails made an unpleasant raking\u003cbr\u003esound as they struggled with the casket she had partially unearthed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRingil grimaced.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn life, this woman had never liked him. As temple officiator and\u003cbr\u003epriest, her son was supposed to despise Ringil for a worthless degenerate\u003cbr\u003eand a corruptor of youth. Instead, as a schoolmaster and man of some\u003cbr\u003eeducation himself, Bashka turned out to be far too enlightened for his\u003cbr\u003eown good. His easygoing attitude to Ringil and the late- night phil -\u003cbr\u003eosophical debates they occasionally got into at the tavern earned him\u003cbr\u003evitriolic reprimands from visiting senior priests. Worse still, his lack of\u003cbr\u003econdemnatory zeal gave him a reputation in the religious hierarchy that\u003cbr\u003eensured he would always remain a humble teacher in a backwater town.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe mother, naturally enough, blamed the degenerate Ringil and his\u003cbr\u003eevil influence for her son's lack of advancement, and he was not\u003cbr\u003ewelcome in the schoolmaster's house while she drew breath. This latter\u003cbr\u003eactivity had come to an abrupt halt the previous month, following a\u003cbr\u003eswift and unquenchable fever, sent presumably by some preoccupied\u003cbr\u003egod who had overlooked her great righteousness in religious matters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrying not to breathe through his nose, Ringil tapped the flat of the\u003cbr\u003eRavensfriend on a convenient grave to get her attention. At first she\u003cbr\u003edidn't seem to hear the noise it made, but then the body twisted\u003cbr\u003ewrenchingly around and he found himself looking into a face whose\u003cbr\u003eeyes had long ago been eaten by whichever small creatures took care of\u003cbr\u003ethat sort of thing. The jaw hung slack, most of the nose was gone, and\u003cbr\u003ethe flesh of the cheeks was mottled and holed. It was remarkable that\u003cbr\u003eBashka had even recognized her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Come on out of there,\" said Ringil, readying his sword.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt came through the dead woman's rib cage with a cracking, sucking\u003cbr\u003esound, a corpsemite fully a yard long not counting the tendril appendages\u003cbr\u003eit had used to puppet the corpse's limbs. It was gray in hue, not unlike\u003cbr\u003esome species of smooth- skinned maggot, which its body in many ways\u003cbr\u003eresembled. The blunt snout of the thing ended in chomping jaws set with\u003cbr\u003ehorny ridges that could shatter bone, and Ringil knew that the tail end\u003cbr\u003elooked much the same. Corpsemites didn't excrete their waste, they oozed\u003cbr\u003eit from pores along the slug- like body, a substance that, like their saliva,\u003cbr\u003ewas lethally corrosive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo one knew where they came from. Folklore had it that they were\u003cbr\u003eoriginally lumps of witch's snot, hawked up and animated to voracious\u003cbr\u003elife by their evil owners for reasons most of the tales were rather vague\u003cbr\u003eon. Authorized religion insisted variously that they were either ordinary\u003cbr\u003eslugs or maggots, possessed by the souls of the evil dead, or demonic\u003cbr\u003evisitations from some cemetery hell where the spiritually unworthy\u003cbr\u003erotted, fully conscious, in their graves. Archeth had had a slightly saner\u003cbr\u003etheory: that the mites were a mutation produced by the Kiriath's\u003cbr\u003eexperiments with lower life- forms centuries before, a creature designed\u003cbr\u003eto dispose of the dead more efficiently than conventional scavengers\u003cbr\u003ewould.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhatever the truth, no one was quite sure what level of intelligence\u003cbr\u003ethe corpsemites had. But somewhere in their evolution, natural or\u003cbr\u003eotherwise, they'd learned to use the carcases they fed upon for a whole\u003cbr\u003ehost of other purposes. A body could serve them as a hiding place or an\u003cbr\u003eincubation bed for their eggs; if not too badly decayed, it might become\u003cbr\u003ea means of rapid motion or disguise; and, in the case of humans or\u003cbr\u003ewolves, it could be a digging tool. It was the use of human corpses that\u003cbr\u003etriggered the spate of zombie sightings throughout the northwest\u003cbr\u003ewhenever the winters were hard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRingil had occasionally wondered whether the corpsemites didn't\u003cbr\u003ealso manipulate carcasses as a form of play. It was entirely his own\u003cbr\u003emacabre idea, conjured up when he first read about the creatures in\u003cbr\u003eaccounts by travelers to the Kiriath wastes. After all, he reasoned to his\u003cbr\u003efather' s librarian, a corpsemite's own secretions would eat through a\u003cbr\u003ewooden casket nearly as fast as a corpse's decaying hands could open it,\u003cbr\u003eso why else would they bother? The opinion of the librarian, and later of\u003cbr\u003ehis father, was that Ringil was a very sick young man who ought to\u003cbr\u003econcern himself, as his elder brothers already did, with more natural\u003cbr\u003epursuits like riding, hunting, and bedding the local wenches. His\u003cbr\u003emother, who no doubt already had her suspicions, said nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom his one or two previous encounters with these creatures,\u003cbr\u003eRingil also knew that they could be very—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe corpsemite flexed its body free of the encaging ribs, leapt\u003cbr\u003estraight at him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e—fast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eHe hacked sideways, rather inelegantly, and succeeded in batting the\u003cbr\u003ething away to the left. It hit a headstone and dropped to the ground\u003cbr\u003ewrithing, sliced almost in half by the stroke. Ringil brought the sword\u003cbr\u003edown again and finished the job, mouth pursed with distaste. The two\u003cbr\u003esevered halves of the creature twisted and trembled and then lay still.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDemons and the souls of the evil dead were not, it seemed, up to\u003cbr\u003erepairing that kind of damage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRingil also knew that corpsemites moved in groups. As the slimy\u003cbr\u003efiligree of a tendril appendage touched his cheek, he was already\u003cbr\u003espinning around to face the next one. The drops of secretion burned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo time to wipe it off. He spotted the creature, coiled on top of a\u003cbr\u003eYhelteth tomb, skewered it on reflex. The tendrils recoiled and the thing\u003cbr\u003emade angry chittering noises as it died. Ringil heard a clatter of\u003cbr\u003eresponse from the other side of the tomb and saw movement. He\u003cbr\u003estepped wide around the worked stone slab, saw the two smaller mites\u003cbr\u003ehauling themselves up out of the wreckage of a rotted coffin and its\u003cbr\u003eequally far- gone contents. A single downward blow sliced them both\u003cbr\u003eirreparably open, body fluids gushing like pale oil from the wounds. He\u003cbr\u003edid it again, just to be sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe fifth mite landed on his back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe didn't think at all. In retrospect, he guessed it must have been\u003cbr\u003epure revulsion that drove him. He dropped the sword with a yell,\u003cbr\u003ereached down to the fastenings of his jerkin, and tore them open with\u003cbr\u003eboth hands. In the same motion he shrugged himself halfway out of the\u003cbr\u003egarment while the corpsemite was still finding out that the leather was\u003cbr\u003enot his real skin. The jerkin sagged under the creature's weight, helped\u003cbr\u003ehim to pull clear. The tendrils around his waist and over his shoulders\u003cbr\u003ewere still creeping toward each other and they didn't have time to\u003cbr\u003etighten against the movement. His left arm came free and he whirled\u003cbr\u003elike a discus thrower, hurling the bundle of jerkin and mite off his right\u003cbr\u003esleeve and away among the headstones. He heard it hit something solid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTendrils had touched him on the chest and back— later he would\u003cbr\u003efind the weals. Now he snatched up the Ravensfriend and stalked after\u003cbr\u003ehis jerkin, eyes and ears open for any remaining members of the group.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe found the garment, partially dissolved, at the base of an ancient\u003cbr\u003emoss- grown slab near the back of the cemetery. \u003ci\u003eNot a bad throw, that,\u003cbr\u003efrom a standing start. \u003c\/i\u003eThe corpsemite was still trying to disentangle itself\u003cbr\u003efrom the leather and flapped confusedly at him as he approached. Its\u003cbr\u003ejaws were bared and it was hissing like a new sword in the cooling\u003cbr\u003etrough.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yeah, yeah,\" he muttered and plunged the Ravensfriend down\u003cbr\u003epoint- first, impaling the mite on the earth. He watched with somber\u003cbr\u003esatisfaction as it died. \"That was clean on today, you little shit.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe stayed among the graves long enough to start feeling the cold\u003cbr\u003eagain, and to take a brooding interest in the slight but unmistakable\u003cbr\u003epaunch that was beginning to threaten the aesthetics of his narrowhipped\u003cbr\u003ewaist. No further corpsemites showed themselves. He took an\u003cbr\u003euncontaminated shred of his jerkin as a rag and cleaned the body fluids\u003cbr\u003eoff the Ravensfriend's bluish surfaces with fastidious care. Archeth had\u003cbr\u003einsisted the Kiriath blade was proof against all and any corrosive\u003cbr\u003esubstances, but she had been wrong about things before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe final outcome of the war, to name but one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, finally, Ringil remembered that the creatures had touched\u003cbr\u003ehim and, as if on cue, the blisters they'd left began to burn. He rubbed at\u003cbr\u003ethe one on his cheek until it burst, deriving a certain brutal amusement\u003cbr\u003efrom the thin pain he got out of it. Not what you'd call a heroic wound,\u003cbr\u003ebut it was all he'd have to show for the evening's exertions. No one\u003cbr\u003ewould be coming out here to check on the carnage until it got safely\u003cbr\u003elight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eOh well, maybe you can narrate it into a couple of pints and a fowl platter. Maybe Bashka'll buy you a replacement jerkin out of sheer gratitude, if he can afford it after he's paid to rebury his mother. Maybe that towheaded lad from the stables will listen in and be impressed enough to overlook this gut you're so intent on developing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYeah, and maybe your father's written you back into his testament.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe the Yhelteth Emperor is a queer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eThat last was worth a grin. Ringil Angeleyes, scarred hero of Gallows\u003cbr\u003eGap, chuckled to himself a little in the chill of the graveyard, and\u003cbr\u003eglanced around at the silent markers as if his long- fallen comrades\u003cbr\u003emight share the joke. The quiet and the cold gave him nothing back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe dead stayed stonily unmoved, just the way they'd been now for nine\u003cbr\u003eyears, and slowly Ringil's smile faded away. A shiver clung at his back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe shook it off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen he slung the Ravensfriend back across his shoulder and went\u003cbr\u003ein search of a clean shirt, some food, and a sympathetic audience.Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of Thirteen; Book One of A Land Fit for Heroes","brand":"Del Rey","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300250734821,"sku":"NP9780345493040","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345493040.jpg?v=1767741658","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-steel-remains-isbn-9780345493040","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}