Title Page

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Map

Part One: First Signs of Night

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Part Two: Sunfall

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About the Author

Also by Tim Lebbon

Preview of Dawn

Copyright Page

Dedication

For Tracey, Ellie and Dan, with love

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Jason and Jeremy at Night Shade Books for giving me the chance, Katherine Roberts for her support whilst writing this novel, Chris Golden for a sympathetic ear, Rich SanFilippo for first contact, my long-suffering agent Steve Calcutt

and

a huge thanks to my wonderful editor, Anne Groell, for her sharp eye and unending wit, and her refreshing interest in Welsh place names. I can’t help living in Goytre.

Map

Part One: First Signs of Night

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

WHEN KOSAR SAW the horseman, the world began to end again.

The horse walked toward the village, the rider shifting in fluid time to his mount’s steps. The man’s body was wrapped in a deep red cloak, pulled up so that it formed a hood over his head, shadowing his face. His hands rested on his thighs. The horse made its own way along the road. Loose reins hung to either side of its head, its mane was clotted with dirt, and its unshod hooves clacked and clicked puffs of dust from the dry trail. Only one man on a horse, and he did not appear to be armed.

How, then, could Kosar know that death followed him in?

With a grimace he stopped work and squatted. A warm breeze kissed the raw flesh of his fingertips—the marks of a thief—and took away the pain for a few precious moments. Blood had dripped and dried into a dust-caked mess across his hands and between his fingers, and they crackled when he flexed them. The unhealing wounds were a permanent reminder of the mistakes of his past.

Kosar decided that the irrigation trenches could wait a few minutes more. It had taken two years for the village to decide to commission them; another moment would make no difference to the crops withering and dying in the fields. Besides, they needed much more than water, though most would refuse to believe that was so. And now there was something more interesting to grab his attention, something that might bring excitement to this measly little collection of huts, hovels and run-down dwellings that dared call itself a village.