Read the Prince of Thorns Online Free

Prince of Thorns

Table of Contents

Championship Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5 - Iv years earlier

Chapter 6

Affiliate 7

Affiliate 8

Chapter 9 - Iv years earlier

Chapter 10

Chapter 11 - Four years earlier

Chapter 12 - Four years earlier

Chapter 13 - Four years earlier

Affiliate xiv

Chapter 15 - Four years before

Chapter sixteen - Iv years earlier

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Affiliate xix

Chapter 20

Affiliate 21

Affiliate 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Affiliate 26

Chapter 27

Affiliate 28

Chapter 29

Affiliate xxx

Affiliate 31

Chapter 32

Affiliate 33

Chapter 34

Affiliate 35

Chapter 36 - Four years earlier

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Affiliate 44

Affiliate 45

Chapter 46

Affiliate 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING Group

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (United states) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue Due east, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen'southward Green, Dublin ii, Ireland (a partitioning of Penguin Books Ltd.)

Penguin Grouping (Commonwealth of australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

(a division of Pearson Australia Grouping Pty. Ltd.)

Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., xi Community Center, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: eighty Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the production of the writer'south imagination or are used fictitiously, and whatsoever resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely casual. The publisher does non have any control over and does non assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Map past Andre Ashton.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic grade without permission. Please do non participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase simply authorized editions.

ACE and the "A" design are trademarks of Penguin Grouping (United states of america) Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lawrence, Mark, 1966–

p. cm.—(The broken empire; bk. 1)

ISBN : 978-1-101-54329-0

i. Princes—Fiction. 2. Revenge—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3612.A9484P75 2011

813'.vi—dc22

2010053561

http://us.penguingroup.com

To Celyn, the best parts were never broken

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Helen Mazarakis and Sharon Mack for their help and back up.

ane

Ravens! Ever the ravens. They settled on the gables of the church even earlier the injured became the dead. Fifty-fifty before Rike had finished taking fingers from easily, and rings from fingers. I leaned back against the gallowspost and nodded to the birds, a dozen of them in a blackness line, wise-eyed and watching.

The boondocks-square ran red. Blood in the gutters, blood on the flagstones, blood in the fountain. The corpses posed as corpses do. Some comical, reaching for the sky with missing fingers, some peaceful, coiled about their wounds. Flies rose above the wounded equally they struggled. This way and that, some blind, some sly, all betrayed by their buzzing entourage.

"Water! Water!" It's e'er water with the dying. Foreign, it's killing that gives me a thirst.

And that was Mabberton. Two hundred dead farmers lying with their scythes and axes. You know, I warned them that we exercise this for a living. I said it to their leader, Bovid Tor. I gave them that chance, I always do. Simply no. They wanted blood and slaughter. And they got it.

State of war, my friends, is a thing of dazzler. Those as says otherwise are losing. If I'd bothered to go over to old Bovid, propped upward against the fountain with his guts in his lap, he'd probably take a contrary view. But wait where disagreeing got him.

"Shit-poor farm maggots." Rike discarded a handful of fingers over Bovid'southward open abdomen. He came to me, belongings out his takings, as if information technology was my fault. "Await! Ane gilded ring. Ane! A whole village and one fecking gilded ring. I'd like to ready the bastards up and knock 'em down again. Fecking bog-farmers."

He would too: he was an evil bastard, and greedy with it. I held his eye. "Settle down, Brother Rike. In that location's more than than one kind of gilt in Mabberton."

I gave him my warning look. His cursing stole the magic from the scene; too, I had to be stern with him. Rike was ever on the border after a battle, wanting more than. I gave him a look that told him I had more. More than he could handle. He grumbled, stowed his encarmine ring, and thrust his knife back in his belt.

Makin came up so and flung an arm about each of us, clapping gauntlet to shoulder-plate. If Makin had a skill, then smoothing things over was information technology.

"Blood brother Jorg is right, Little Rikey. There's treasure aplenty to be constitute." He was wont to call Rike "Picayune Rikey," on account of him being a caput taller than any of u.s.a. and twice as wide. Makin always told jokes. He'd tell them to those equally he killed, if they gave him time. Liked to run into them go out with a grinning.

"What treasure?" Rike wanted to know, nevertheless surly.

"When you get farmers, what else practise you always get, Little Rikey?" Makin raised his eyebrows all suggestive.

Rike lifted his visor, treating us to his ugly face. Well, brutal more than than ugly. I think the scars improved him. "Cows?"

Makin pursed his lips. I never liked his lips, too thick and fleshy, but I forgave him that, for his joking and his deathly work with that flail of his. "Well, y'all can have the cows, Little Rikey. Me, I'thou going to notice a farmer's girl or three, before the others use them all upward."

They went off then, Rike doing that laugh of his, "hur, hur, hur," as if he was trying to cough a fishbone out.

I watched them strength the door to Bovid's identify opposite the church building, a fine house, high roofed with wooden slates and a little flower garden in forepart. Bovid followed them with his eyes, just he couldn't turn his head.

I looked at the ravens, I watched Gemt and his half-wit brother, Maical, taking heads, Maical with the cart and Gemt with the axe. A thing of beauty, I tell you. At to the lowest degree to look at. I'll agree war smells bad. But we'd torch the place soon enough and the stink would all turn to forest-fume. Gilt rings? I needed no more paymen

"Male child!" Bovid called out, his vox all hollow like, and weak.

I went to stand before him, leaning on my sword, tired in my arms and legs of a sudden. "Best speak your piece quickly, farmer. Blood brother Gemt's a-coming with his axe. Quickly."

He didn't seem likewise worried. It'due south hard to worry a man and so shut to the worm-feast. Still, it irked me that he held me and then lightly and called me "boy." "Exercise you accept daughters, farmer? Hiding in the cellar maybe? Old Rike will sniff them out."

Bovid looked upwardly abrupt at that, pained and sharp. "H-how old are you, boy?"

Over again the "boy." "Former enough to slit yous open like a fatty purse," I said, getting angry at present. I don't like to get angry. Information technology makes me angry. I don't retrieve he defenseless even that. I don't retrieve he even knew it was me that opened him up non half an hr earlier.

"Fifteen summers, no more. Couldn't be more . . ." His words came tedious, from blue lips in a white face.

Out by two, I would have told him, but he'd gone past hearing. The cart creaked up behind me, and Gemt came along with his axe dripping.

"Accept his head," I told them. "Leave his fatty belly for the ravens."

Fifteen! I'd hardly be fifteen and rousting villages.

By the time fifteen came around, I'd exist King!

Some people are built-in to rub you the wrong style. Brother Gemt was born to rub the world the wrong mode.

Mabberton burned well. All the villages burned well that summertime. Makin called information technology a hot bastard of a summer, also hateful to give out pelting, and he wasn't wrong. Dust rose behind the states when we rode in; smoke when we rode out.

"Who'd be a farmer?" Makin liked to inquire questions.

"Who'd be a farmer's daughter?" I nodded toward Rike, rolling in his saddle, near tired enough to fall out, wearing a stupid grin and a bolt of samite material over his one-half-plate. Where he found samite in Mabberton I never did go to know.

"Brother Rike does enjoy his uncomplicated pleasures," Makin said.

He did. Rike had a hunger for it. Hungry like the burn.

The flames fair ate upwardly Mabberton. I put the torch to the thatched inn, and the fire chased us out. Simply one more than bloody day in the years' long death throes of our broken empire.

Makin wiped at his sweat, smearing himself all over with sootstripes. He had a talent for getting muddy, did Makin. "You weren't above those simple pleasures yourself, Brother Jorg."

I couldn't contend there. "How old are you?" that fat farmer had wanted to know. Old enough to pay a call on his daughters. The fatty girl had a lot to say, but like her father. Screeched like a barn owl: hurt my ears with it. I liked the older one better. She was repose enough. So quiet you lot'd give a twist here or there simply to check she hadn't died of fearfulness. Though I don't suppose either of them was quiet when the fire reached them . . .

Gemt rode up and spoiled my imaginings.

"The Baron'southward men will come across that fume from ten miles. You shouldn'ta burned it." He shook his head, his stupid mane of ginger hair bobbing this fashion and that.

"Shouldn'ta," his idiot blood brother joined in, calling from the old grey. Nosotros let him ride the quondam gray with the cart hitched up. The grey wouldn't leave the road. That horse was cleverer than Maical.

Gemt e'er wanted to indicate stuff out. "You shouldn'ta put them bodies down the well, nosotros'll go thirsty at present." "Y'all shouldn'ta killed that priest, nosotros'll have bad luck now." "If we'd gone easy on her, we'd have a ransom from Businesswoman Kennick." I simply ached to put my knife through his throat. Correct and then. Only to lean out and plant it in his neck. "What's that? What say you lot, Brother Gemt? Bubble, bubble? Shouldn'ta stabbed your bulgy one-time Adam's apple?"

"Oh no!" I cried, all shocked-like. "Quick, Piffling Rikey, go piss on Mabberton. Got to put that burn down out."

"Baron'southward men will see it," said Gemt, stubborn and reddish-faced. He went crimson as a beet if you crossed him. That red face up but made me desire to kill him even more than. I didn't, though. You got responsibilities when yous're a leader. You got a responsibility not to kill too many of your men. Or who're you going to lead?

The column bunched up around u.s., the mode it always did when something was up. I pulled on Gerrod's reins and he stopped with a snicker and a stamp. I watched Gemt and waited. Waited until all thirty-viii of my brothers gathered around, and Gemt got so scarlet y'all'd recall his ears would bleed.

"Where we all going, my brothers?" I asked, and I stood in my stirrups and then I could look out over their ugly faces. I asked information technology in my quiet voice and they all hushed to hear.

"Where?" I asked once again. "Surely information technology isn't simply me that knows? Do I go on secrets from yous, my brothers?"

Rike looked a bit confused at this, furrowing his brow. Fat Burlow came upwards on my right, on my left the Nuban with his teeth so white in that soot-black face. Silence.

"Brother Gemt tin can tell u.s.. He knows what should be and what is." I smiled, though my hand still ached with wanting my dagger in his cervix. "Where we going, Brother Gemt?"

"Wennith, on the Horse Coast," he said, all reluctant, not wanting to concur to annihilation.

"Well and skilful. How nosotros going to get there? Near xl of u.s.a. on our fine oh-so-stolen horses?"

Gemt set his jaw. He could see where I was going.

"How we going to get at that place, if we want us a slice of the pie while it's nevertheless prissy and hot?" I asked.

"Lich Road!" Rike called out, all pleased that he knew the answer.

"Lich Route," I repeated, still quiet and smiling. "What other fashion could nosotros go?" I looked at the Nuban, holding his dark eyes. I couldn't read him, simply I let him read me.

"Ain't no other manner."

Rike's on a roll, I thought, he don't know what game'south being played, but he likes his part.

"Do the Baron's men know where nosotros're going?" I asked Fat Burlow.

"War dogs follow the front," he said. Fat Burlow ain't stupid. His jowls quiver when he speaks, but he own't stupid.

"So . . ." I looked around them, real slow-similar. "So, the Baron knows where bandits such as ourselves will be going, and he knows the mode nosotros've got to go." I let that sink in. "And I but lit a bloody big fire that tells him and his what a bad thought it'd be to follow."

I stuck Gemt with my pocketknife then. I didn't need to, only I wanted it. He danced pretty enough likewise, chimera bubble on his blood, and fell off his horse. His red confront went pale quick plenty.

"Maical," I said. "Take his head."

And he did.

Gemt simply chose a bad moment.

Whatever broke Brother Maical left the outside untouched. He looked as solid and every bit tough and every bit sour as the rest of them. Until y'all asked him a question.

iii

"Two dead, two wrigglers." Makin wore that big grin of his.

Nosotros'd have camped by the gibbet in any case, but Makin had ridden on alee to check the ground. I idea the news that two of the iv gibbet cages held live prisoners would cheer the brothers.

"Two," Rike grumbled. He'd tired himself out, and a tired Little Rikey ever sees a gibbet every bit half empty.

"Ii!" the Nuban hollered down the line.

I could see some of the lads exchanging coin on their bets. The Lich Route is equally tiresome as a Sun sermon. It runs directly and level. So straight information technology gets so as you'd kill for a left plough or a correct plough. So level you lot'd cheer a gradient. And on every side, marsh, midges, midges and more marsh. On the Lich Road information technology didn't get whatever meliorate than two caged wrigglers on a gibbet.

Strange that I didn't think to question what business organisation a gibbet had continuing out there in the middle of nowhere. I took information technology as a bounty. Somebody had left their prisoners to die, dangling in cages at the roadside. A strange spot to choose, merely free entertainment for my little band nonetheless. The brothers were eager, so I nudged Gerrod into a trot. A good horse, Gerrod. He shook off his weariness and clattered forth. There

'south no route like the Lich Road for clattering along.

"Wrigglers!" Rike gave a shout and they were all racing to catch up.

I let Gerrod have his caput. He wouldn't let any equus caballus become past him. Not on this road. Not with every thousand of it paved, every flagstone fitting with the next and so close a blade of grass couldn't promise for the light. Not a stone turned, non a stone worn. Built on a bog, heed you!

I beat them to the wrigglers, of grade. None of them could touch Gerrod. Certainly not with me on his back and them all half every bit heavy over again. At the gibbet I turned to look back at them, strung out along the road. I yelled out, wild with the joy of it, loud enough to wake the head-cart. Gemt would be in in that location, billowy effectually at the back.

Makin reached me first, even though he'd rode the distance twice before.

"Let the Baron's men come," I told him. "The Lich Route is as good equally any span. Ten men could hold an army hither. Them that wants to flank us can drown in the bog."

Makin nodded, still hunting his breath.

"The ones who built this road . . . if they'd make me a castle—" Thunder in the east cutting beyond my words.

"If the Road-men built castles, nosotros'd never make it anywhere," Makin said. "Be happy they're gone."

We watched the brothers come up in. The dusk turned the marsh pools to orange burn, and I idea of Mabberton.

"A expert twenty-four hour period, Brother Makin," I said.

"Indeed, Brother Jorg," he said.

So, the brothers came and set to arguing over the wrigglers. I went and sat against the loot-cart to read while the light stayed with us and the pelting held off. The twenty-four hours left me in mind to read Plutarch. I had him all to myself, sandwiched between leather covers. Some worthy monk spent a lifetime on that volume. A lifetime hunched over information technology, brush in mitt. Here the gold, for halo, sun, and scrollwork. Here a bluish like poison, bluer than a noon sky. Tiny vermilion dots to brand a bed of flowers. Probably went blind over information technology, that monk. Probably poured his life in here, from young lad to grey-head, prettying upwardly old Plutarch's words.

wirthupolliveng.blogspot.com

Source: https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/mark-lawrence/45958-prince_of_thorns.html