A Knight of the Word

Terry Brooks

Contents ( 31)

Praise for THE WORD & THE VOID TRILOGY

RUNNING WITH THE DEMON

“A breathtaking run of near-catastrophes and revelations … His fans should embrace it was eagerly as they have The Sword of Shannara.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“I will be thinking about Running with the Demon for weeks, savoring a magnificent story and turning over its mysteries in my mind.… Terry Brooks’s best yet, and a treat for us all!”

—Ann Rule

“By far the best of Terry Brooks’s many wonderful novels: darker, starker, classically written, and with a brand-new mythos to fuel its contemporary plot. I couldn’t put it down.”

—John Saul

A KNIGHT OF THE WORD

“One of Brooks’ great strengths has always been his characterization. This time out, it’s no different. It is that depth of character that draws the reader in and plays havoc with emotions. Ross’s plight and his loss of faith is well-conceived and chillingly real. So too is Nest’s reluctance to get involved in something she would really rather choose to ignore … a sure bet.”

—SF Site

ANGEL FIRE EAST

“That is Brooks’ way of casting spells—transporting his readers into plausible realms where sorcery is alive, whether those places are in other ages or right in the middle of our own. As a result, he’s reaped more than a few magical moments.”

—Seattle Times

A Knight of the Word is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

2007 Del Rey Books Mass Market Edition

Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1998.

eISBN: 978-0-345-44459-2

www.delreybooks.com

v3.1

Prologue

He stands on a hillside south of the city looking back at the carnage. A long, gray ribbon of broken highway winds through the green expanse of woods and scrub to where the ruin begins. Fires burn among the steel and glass skeletons of the abandoned skyscrapers, flames bright and angry against the washed-out haze of the deeply clouded horizon. Smoke rises in long, greasy spirals that stain the air with ash and soot. He can hear the crackling of the fires and smell their acrid stench even here.

That buildings of concrete and iron will burn so fiercely puzzles him. It seems they should not burn at all, that nothing short of jackhammers and wrecking balls should be able to bring them down. It seems that in this postapocalyptic world of broken lives and fading hopes the buildings should be as enduring as mountains. And yet already he can see sections of walls beginning to collapse as the fires spread and consume.