“Good,” Ushahin said simply. He lifted one hand, and a cloud of ravens rose swirling from the fields, gathering and grouping. The blood-bay stallion shifted beneath his weight, hide shivering, gathering. The road, which was at once like and unlike the road upon which they stood, beckoned in a silvery path. “Then let us ride.”

Home!

The blood-bay leapt and the ravens swept forward. Behind them ran the grey and the black. The world lurched and the stars blurred; all save one, the blood-red star that sat on the western horizon. Now three rode astride, and two were of the Three. The beating of the ravens’ wings melted into the drumming sound of hoofbeats and the swift, steady pad of the Gulnagel’s taloned feet.

And somewhere to the north, a lone Rider veered into the Unknown Desert.

In the farmsteads and villages, Midlanders tossed in their sleep, plagued by nightmares. The color of their dreams changed. Where they had seen a horse as white as foam, they saw three; smoke and pitch and blood.

Where they had seen a venerable figure—a Man, or something like one—with a gem as clear as water on his breast, they saw a shadowy face, averted, and a rough stone clenched in a child’s fist, the crunch of bone and a splash of blood.

Over and over, it rose and fell.

Onward, they rode.

Copyright Page

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

BANEWREAKER: VOLUME ONE OF THE SUNDERING

Copyright © 2004 by Jacqueline Carey

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

eISBN 9781429910941

First eBook Edition : March 2011

First Edition: November 2004
First Mass Market Edition: August 2005