Raymond E. Feist
FLIGHT OF THE NIGHTHAWKS
The Darkwar
Book One
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As I have done in the past and will continue to until Midkemia is no more, my thanks everlasting to the mothers and fathers of Midkemia for giving me a wonderful sandbox in which to play. From Thursday to Friday nights, for thirty years your voices echo in my ear each time I sit down to spin a yarn on our world. To Jonathon Matson, as always, my thanks for friendship and wise counsel.
To my editors, for always trying hard no matter how crazy the circumstances.
To my mother, for always inspiring me through sheer endurance and unqualified love.
To my children, for giving me a reason for existing beyond mere self-gratification and personal goals.
To those ladies with whom I dine, thanks the amusement, the affection, the drama, and the glimpse into a world I barely understand.
To new friends and to enterprises that keep things interesting. Again to my readers, who let me keep doing this. Without any of the above mentioned, and some I'm leaving out would not be worth enduring, let alone living.
Raymond E. Feist San Diego, CA July, 2005
For Andy and Rich,
long overdue thanks for stepping in and being there at the right time
Fate will bring together those a thousand miles apart;
without fate, they will miss each other though they come face to face.
Chinese proverb
• PROLOGUE •
Harbinger
The storm had broken.
Pug danced along the edge of the rocks, his feet finding scant purchase as he made his way among the tide pools. His dark eyes darted about as he peered into each pool under the cliff face, seeking the spiny creatures driven into the shallows by the recently passed storm.
His boyish muscles bunched under his light shirt as he shifted the sack of sandcrawlers, rockclaws, and crabs plucked from this water garden. The afternoon sun sent sparkles through the sea spray swirling around him, as the west wind blew his sun-streaked brown hair about. Pug set his sack down, checked to make sure it was securely tied, then squatted on a clear patch of sand. The sack was not quite full, but Pug relished the extra hour or so that he could relax. Megar the cook wouldn't trouble him about the time as long as the sack was almost full. Resting with his back against a large rock, Pug settled in to relax. He opened his eyes suddenly. He had fallen asleep, or at least he knew he had fallen asleep here once . . . He sat up.
A cool wet spray struck him in the face. Without having closed his eyes, somehow time had passed. Fear rose up within his chest, and he knew he had stayed much too long. Westward, over the sea, dark thunderheads were forming above the black outline of the Six Sisters, the small islands on the horizon. The roiling, surging clouds, with rain trailing below like some sooty veil, heralded another of the sudden storms common to this part of the coast in early summer. The winds drove the clouds with unnatural fury and distant thunder grew louder by the moment.
Pug turned and looked in all directions. Something was terribly wrong. He knew he had been here many times before, but. . . He had been here before! Not just in this place, but living this moment!
To the south, the high bluffs of Sailor's Grief reared up against the sky, as waves crashed against the base of that rocky pinnacle. Whitecaps started to form behind the breakers, a sure sign the storm would quickly strike. Pug knew he was in danger, for the storms of summer could drown anyone on the beaches, or if severe enough, on the low ground beyond. He picked up his sack and started north, towards the castle. As he moved among the pools, he felt the coolness in the wind turn to a deeper, wetter cold. The day began to be broken by a patchwork of shadows as the first clouds passed before the sun, bright colours fading to shades of grey. Out to sea, lightning flashed against the blackness of the clouds, and the boom of onrushing thunder rode over the noise of the waves. Pug picked up speed when he came to the first stretch of open beach.
