Last Of The Wilds
Trudi Canavan
LAST OF THE WILDS
Book Two of a phenomenal new epic fantasy trilogy
AGE OF THE FIVE
by internationally bestselling author
TRUDI CANAVAN
The faces of the corpses were white, the hair either black or a bleached non-color. The weapons, still clutched in stiffened hands or wedged in flesh, lacked shine. The circs of the priests were a dull white.
But the stains on them were luridly bright. Thick crimson oozed from wounds and slicked blades. Pools of it gathered under the dead like a morbid carpet. Trickles of it flowed down folds in the earth. It gathered to form streams. Pooled. Soaked into the soil, so that it bubbled to the surface at every step.
The sickened mud sucked at her feet. She took a few more steps, then found she could not move. The mud clung to her shoes. It gave beneath her. She felt herself sinking into it. She felt the cold moisture creeping up her legs and her heart began to race.
“
She looked up to see corpses raising their heads to stare at her with dead eyes.
“
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
EOS
10 East 53rd Street
New York, New York 10022-5299
This book was originally published in Australia in 2005 by Voyager, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Copyright (c) 2006 by Trudi Canavan
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-081591-2
ISBN-10: 0-06-081591-4
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Eos, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
First Eos paperback printing: May 2006
HarperCollins(r) and Eos(r) are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Printed in the U. S. A.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks:
First to “The Two Pauls” and Fran Bryson, who read the roughest of all rough drafts. Also to Jennifer Fallon, Russell Kirkpatrick, Glenda Larke, Fiona McLennan, Ella McCay, Tessa Kum for their feedback. To all my readers, especially all my readers on Voyager Online. And, finally, to Diana Gill and the Eos team, and to Matt Stawicki for the fabulous cover illustrations.
Prologue
Reivan detected the change before any of the others. At first it was instinctive, a feeling more than a knowing; then she noticed that the air smelled duller and that there was a grittiness to it. Looking at the rough walls of the tunnel, she saw deposits of a powdery substance. It coated one side of every bump and groove, as if it had been blown there from a wind originating in the darkness ahead.
A shiver ran down her spine at the thought of what that might mean, yet she said nothing. She might be wrong, and everyone was still deeply shocked by their defeat. All were struggling to accept the deaths of friends, family and comrades, their bodies left behind, buried in the fertile soil of the enemy. They didn’t need something else to worry about.
Even if they hadn’t been all scurrying home in the lowest of spirits, she would not have spoken. The men of her team were easily offended. They, like her, nursed a secret resentment that they had not been born with enough Skill to become a Servant of the Gods. So they clung to the only sources of superiority they had.
