Fairest in the Land

By Barbara Hambly

Sequel to the Sun Wolf and Starhawk series. As Princess Tinomiel’s wedding to a charming prince approaches, she falls prey to what her parents are pretty sure is a curse: she falls asleep constantly, and sleeps for longer and longer. They hire former mercenary captain - now turned wizard - Sun Wolf, and his warrior partner Starhawk, to find the malignant Night Queen who is believed to have placed the curse. But Sun Wolf and Starhawk find that they may be in as much danger from the three Good Fairies who supposedly blessed the Princess at her birth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Hambly
• Release date: Jun 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311192158

Barbara Hambly

Since her first published fantasy in 1982 - The Time of the Dark - Barbara Hambly has touched most of the bases in genre fiction. She has written mysteries, horror, mainstream historicals, graphic novels, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, romances, and Saturday Morning Cartoons. Born and raised in Southern California, she attended the University of California, Riverside, and spent one year at the University of Bordeaux, France. She married science fiction author George Alec Effinger, and lived part-time in New Orleans for a number of years. In her work as a novelist, she currently concentrates on horror (the Don Simon Ysidro vampire series) and historical whodunnits, the well-reviewed Benjamin January novels, though she has also written another historical whodunnit series under the name of Barbara Hamilton.Professor Hambly also teaches History part-time, paints, dances, and trains in martial arts. Follow her on Facebook, and on her blog at livejournal.com.Now a widow, she shares a house in Los Angeles with several small carnivores.

Book preview

FAIREST IN THE LAND

by

Barbara Hambly

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Barbara Hambly

Cover art by Eric Baldwin

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Table of Contents

Fairest In the Land

About the Author

The Further Adventures

FAIREST IN THE LAND

by

Barbara Hambly

I suppose it really started at her naming-feast, said the King softly, looking down at the face of his sleeping daughter. When we didn’t invite the Night Queen.

She a friend of the family? Sun Wolf folded his arms, glanced sidelong at His Majesty, King Rainulf II of Mallincore, Ilfagen, and Darf Brael, Duke of Gnissmaul and Hereditary Godshadow of the Three Rivers, though owing to the wars that had intermittently torn the Gwarl Peninsula for the past twenty-five years since the death of Tarwyn the Strong, Rainulf currently held authority only in the city of Gnissmaul and its outlying countryside. Still, it wasn’t a bad gig. Situated where the Khivas River joined the Gniss, it was the central receiving-point for wool coming out of the cold Kanwed foot-hills – the very finest in the Middle Kingdoms – and ideally situated to take a cut of trade coming in from across the Inner Sea.

The ducal palace didn’t look more than a score of years old, the hangings around the princess’s bed wrought of figured silk. Obviously, the place was prospering. The King’s doublet was embroidered with a startlingly realistic garden of lilies, peach-blossom and primroses, sharply at odds with Sun Wolf’s shabby jerkin and battered boots.

My grandfather – er – owed his throne to her. The tips of His Majesty’s rather prominent ears flushed slightly pink. As anyone’s would, reflected Sun Wolf, who had to admit relationship to old Rainulf Raw-Heart – so called because, legend said, when he had killed his predecessor on the throne of Mallincore he had carved out that gentleman’s heart and not only eaten it before the assembled nobles of the kingdom, but had forced the king’s newly-widowed wife to share the morsel.

The Wolf wondered if Rainulf had kept up the ancient custom of bedding the Night Queen in order to keep demons from the land. The current Rainulf didn’t look like her type.

Still, by everything he’d heard about the lady, she wouldn’t take kindly to being cut out of anybody’s party-list.

Does she really exist? Starhawk of Wrynde – who had been Sun Wolf’s second-in-command back when he’d led the highest-paid troop of mercenaries in the Middle Kingdoms, and was the only member of that troop who’d remained with him after he’d discovered in himself the seeds of wizardry – spoke for the first time. She stood almost hidden by the bed-curtains, a tall slim woman in her later twenties, her straight baby-blonde hair cut short like a gladiator’s. I’d always heard she’s a legend.

Oh, she’s real, all right, said the Wolf. They used to be worshipped as goddesses, so it’s no surprise the priests don’t want to talk about them—

All of them? Her straight, dark brows pinched in over her nose, delicate still except for the bump of an old break in the middle. The Lady of the Woods and the Lady of the Waters and the others?

Some of ‘em, anyway. The Wolf turned back toward the bed, and the young man who’d been seated beside it on a