OTHER TITLES BY STEPHEN R. LAWHEAD

KING RAVEN TRILOGY:

Hood

Scarlet

Patrick, Son of Ireland

THE CELTIC CRUSADES:

The Iron Lance
The Black Rood
The Mystic Rose

Byzantium

SONG OF ALBION TRILOGY:

The Paradise War
The Silver Hand
The Endless Knot

THE PENDRAGON CYCLE:

Taliesin
Merlin
Arthur
Pendragon
Grail
Avalon

Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra
Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome

Dream Thief

THE DRAGON KING TRILOGY:

In the Hall of the Dragon King
The Warlords of Nin
The Sword and the Flame

© 1982, 1996, 2002, 2007 by Stephen Lawhead

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

CIP has been applied for.
ISBN 978-1-59554-379-1

Printed in the United States of America

07 08 09 10 11 QW 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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For Ross,
my golden one
with all my love.

1

The snow lay deep and undisturbed beneath the silver light of a dawning sky. Overhead, a raven surveyed a silent landscape as its black wings feathered the cold, thin air. The bird’s rasping call was the only sound to be heard for miles, breaking the frozen solitude in irregular staccato. All around, the land lay asleep in the depths of winter.

Every bear, every fox, hare, and squirrel was warm in its rustic nest. Cattle and horses stood contented in their stalls, heads drooping in slumber or quietly munching the first of the day’s provender. In the country, smoke drifted from peasant huts into the windless sky from rough-hewn chimneys, sent aloft from hearth fires tended through the night. The village, clustered close about the mighty walls of Askelon Castle, slept in pristine splendor, a princess safe in the arms of her protector.

All through the land nothing moved, nothing stirred, save the raven wheeling slowly overhead.

Quentin lay shivering in his cell, a huddled ball topped by a thin woolen blanket that he clasped tightly around his ears in a resolute effort to keep out the night chill. He had been awake, and cold, long before the sullen sky showed its drab gray through the lone slit ...