ACCOLADES AND PRAISE FOR
A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying
Winner of the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award
Shortlisted for the OLA Silver Birch Award
A School Library Journal Best Middle Grade Book of 2019
An Ontario Library Association Top Ten Title of 2019
“A fast and fun read, [and] a great read-a-like for Tamora Pierce’s Tortall series.”
—Starred Review, School Library Journal
“A fresh take on familiar fantasy creatures and situations.”
—Starred Review, Shelf Awareness
“A rousing romp for monster hunters and monster lovers alike.”
—Kirkus Reviews
PRAISE FOR
The Gryphon’s Lair
“Remarkably well-crafted, The Gryphon’s Lair is a memorable thrill filled with tough choices, hard-fought battles and unforgettable lessons.”
—Starred Review, Shelf Awareness
“A fun and fiery follow-up.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“An enjoyable follow-up to its rollicking predecessor.”
—School Library Journal
PUFFIN CANADA
an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers, a division of Penguin Random House of Canada Limited
First published 2021
Text copyright © 2021 by K. L. A. Fricke Inc.
Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Xavière Daumarie
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design: Kelly Hill
Cover art: © Cory Godbey
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The serpent’s fury / Kelley Armstrong.
Names: Armstrong, Kelley, author. | Daumarie, Xavière, illustrator.
Series: Armstrong, Kelley. Royal guide to monster slaying (Series)
Description: Series statement: Royal guide to monster slaying | Illustrated by Xavière Daumarie.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200368958 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200368974 | ISBN 9780735270152 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780735270169 (EPUB)
Classification: LCC PS8551.R7637 S47 2021 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020948566
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca
a_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Excerpt from Monsters: A Field Guide, Part 3
CHAPTER ONE
“So, tell me about the dropbears,” my brother, Rhydd, says as we ride toward the Dunnian Woods.
“They’re bears,” Alianor says. “And they drop.”
At a look from me, she throws up her hands. “Fine, they’re marsupials. Happy? They still drop.”
“More like plummet,” I say. “Dive-bomb, maybe? Drop implies a slower—”
“Stop, Rowan. Just because you’re the royal monster hunter doesn’t mean you need to be so particular about monsters.”
“Um, I think the fact that I’m the royal monster hunter does mean I need to be particular. False information leads to—”
“La-la-la,” she says, hands pressed to her ears.
I turn to Rhydd. “Just wait until a dropbear falls on us. Alianor’s dying words will be ‘That monster moved so much faster than I expected.’ ”
Rhydd grins. In front of me, my jackalope’s nose rises, twitching, as he scans the sky for marsupial monsters plummeting from the clouds.
Dain rolls his eyes. “Trees, Jacko. They need trees to drop from. Remember?”
“Plummet.”
“Yes, princess.” Another eye roll for me, and he spurs his horse to catch up with the other hunters ahead.
The four of us are joking, keeping things light, trying to forget we’re heading into the monster-filled Dunnian Woods to deal with a dropbear-filled cabin. As for why there are dropbears in a cabin…The week before, they’d attacked us, and we’d lured them into the cabin to keep them contained until we could figure out what to do with them. We’d left food and water, as well as a couple of guards to ensure they survived their imprisonment.
Dropbears never used to come this close to Tamarel. Given the choice between a single gryphon and a swarm of dropbears, I’d rather face the former. Yes, a gryphon is as big as a small house, with a beak that can snap a person in two. But dropbears only come in swarms, attacking at night with claws and fangs, and a viciousness I haven’t encountered in any other beast.
Still, I never considered not joining this expedition. I am the royal monster hunter. Well, technically, I need to complete my trials first, but until then I carry the ebony sword and do my duty.
I’m also a princess. Mom’s the queen, and Rhydd will succeed her on the ivory throne. That’s how it works in our kingdom. The oldest child gets the throne, and the next one takes the sword. I’m two minutes older than Rhydd, but after my aunt died—killed by the gryphon that injured Rhydd’s leg—we switched roles, which is what we always wanted.
Our kingdom is Tamarel, and it’s separated from other kingdoms by the Dunnian Woods and the mountains, both infested with monsters, just like the ocean along our other borders. That’s why our clan—Clan Dacre—is in charge.
We have a gift for monsters, and not just hunting them. I’m riding a ceffyl-dwr—a carnivorous river horse—with a jackalope sitting in front of me. A pegasus filly flies overhead. A warg—which is like a giant wolf—runs at my side. Rhydd rides our late aunt’s unicorn, Courtois.
There’s another monster who is very much on my mind these days. Tiera, a young gryphon I raised from birth. Last week, I left her in a gryphon aerie with others her age. It was the right thing to do, but it still hurts so much.
As happy as I am to have the monsters around, I’m thrilled to have so many of my favorite fellow humans on this mission. Riding beside Rhydd is Alianor, daughter of the Clan Bellamy bandit warlord. She’s also a healer in training who has declared she wants to be Tamarel’s first monster doctor. And then there’s Dain, who’s training alongside me to be a hunter. As for grown-ups, we have our trainer, Wilmot, plus my guard, Kaylein, and six monster
