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Shaman’s Crossing
Book One of the Soldier Son Trilogy
Robin Hobb
HarperVoyager An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
Published by Voyager 2006
Copyright © Robin Hobb 2005
Cover illustration © Jackie Morris
Map by Andrew Ashton
Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007196128
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007236886
Version: 2014–12–03
To Caffeine and Sugar, my companions through many a long night of writing.
Contents
I remember well the first time I saw the magic of the plainspeople.
I was eight and my father had taken me with him on a trip to the outpost on Franner’s Bend. We had arisen before the dawn for the long ride; the sun was just short of standing at noon when we finally saw the flag waving over the walls of the outpost by the river. Once, Franner’s Bend had been a military fort on the contested border between the plainspeople and the expanding Kingdom of Gernia. Now it was well within the Gernian border, but some of its old martial glory persisted. Two great cannons guarded