Review
"DAY OF THE JACKAL MEETS LORD OF THE RINGS . . . A marvelous conspiracy thriller of worlds within worlds, where no one is necessarily who or what they seem."
--SIMON R. GREEN
Author of the Deathstalker series
"Vivid . . . Well-plotted . . . [A] vigorous adventure story."
--Publishers Weekly
From the Paperback edition.
From the Publisher
When I first read Matthew Woodring Stover's Iron Dawn, I thought, "This is the best new action-adventure fantasy I've read in years!" I was not the only one who thought so either after speaking with an editor friend at another publishing house. She loved Iron Dawn, too. Then, after I joined the Del Rey team and learned of HEROES DIE, I had to grab a copy of the bound galley and read it! It was EVEN BETTER than Iron Dawn and again, my editor friend was green with envy because I got to read it first! I was glad to meet up with Matthew Woodring Stover's work, again, and urge everyone who likes hard-hitting, action-adventure fantasy to go out and read HEROES DIE--you won't be disappointed!
From the Inside Flap
t;br>But Caine's no hero. He's an assassin.
Renowned throughout the land of Ankhana as the Blade of Tyshalle, Caine has killed his share of monarchs and commoners, villains and heroes. He is relentless, unstoppable, simply the best there is at what he does. He is free.
At home on Earth, Caine is Hari Michaelson, a superstar whose adventures command an audience of billions. Yet he is shackled by a rigid caste society, bound to ignore the grim fact that men die on a far-off world for the entertainment of his own planet--bound to keep his rage in check.
But now Michaelson has crossed the line. His estranged wife, Pallas Rill, has mysteriously disappeared in the slums of Ankhana. To save her, he must confront the greatest challenge of his life: a lethal game of cat and mouse with the most treacherous rulers of two worlds.
Matthew Woodring Stover has created a spectacular, page-turning epic where a Jackal-type assassin maneuvers through a vivid Tolkienesq
From the Back Cover
Renowned throughout the land of Ankhana as the Blade of Tyshalle, Caine has killed his share of monarchs and commoners, villains and heroes. He is relentless, unstoppable, simply the best there is at what he does.
At home on Earth, Caine is Hari Michaelson, a superstar whose adventures in Ankhana command an audience of billions. Yet he is shackled by a rigid caste society, bound to ignore the grim fact that he kills men on a far-off world for the entertainment of his own planet--and bound to keep his rage in check.
But now Michaelson has crossed the line. His estranged wife, Pallas Rill, has mysteriously disappeared in the slums of Ankhana. To save her, he must confront the greatest challenge of his life: a lethal game of cat and mouse with the most treacherous rulers of two worlds . . .
About the Author
Matthew Woodring Stover is the acclaimed author of two previous fantasy novels, Iron Dawn and Jericho Moon. He is a student of the Degerberg Blend. This jeet kune do concept is a mixture of approximately twenty-five different fighting arts from around the world and forms the basis for Caine's combat style in the novels. He lives in Chicago, Illinois, with artist and writer Robyn Fielder.
From the Paperback edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prologue
1
With my hand on the doorjamb, some buried-alive instinct thumps within my
chest: this is going to hurt.
I take a deep breath and step inside.
The bedchamber of Prince-Regent Toa-Phelathon is really pretty restrained,
when you consider that the guy in the bed there rules the second-largest
empire on Overworld. The bed itself is a modest eight-poster, only half an
acre or so; the extra four posts--each an overcarved slab of rose-veined
thierril thicker than my thigh--support lamps of gleaming brass. Long
yellow flames like blades of spears waver gently in the breeze from the
concealed service door. I close the door soundlessly behind me, and its
brocade paper-covered surface blends seamlessly into the pattern of the
wall.
I wade through the billowing carpet of silken cushions, a knee-high cloud
of vividly shimmering primary colors. A flash of maroon and gold to my
left, and my heart suddenly hammers--but it's only my own livery, my
servant's dress, captured briefly in the spun-silver mirror atop the
Prince-Regent's commode of lacquered Lipkan krim. The reflection shows me
the spell, the enchanted face I present: smooth, rounded cheeks, sandy
hair, a trace of peach fuzz. I tip myself a blurry wink and smile with my
sandpaper lips, ease out a silent sigh, and keep moving.
The Prince-Regent lies propped on pillows larger than my whole bed and
snores happily, the silver hairs of his mustache puffing in and out with
each wheeze. A book lies facedown across his ample chest: one of
Kimlarthen's series of Korish romances. This draws another smile out of my
dry mouth; who would have figured the Lion of Prorithun for a
sentimentalist? Fairy tales--simple stories for simple minds, a breath of
air to cool brows overheated by the complexities of real life.
I set the golden tray down softly on the table beside his bed. He stirs,
shifting comfortably in his sleep--and freezing my blood. His movement
sends a puff of lavender scent up from the pillows. My fingers tingle. His
hair, unbound for napping, falls in a steel-colored spray around his face.
That noble brow, those flashing eyes, that ruggedly carved chin exposed by
careful shaving within his otherwise full beard--he's everybody's perfect
image of the great king. The statue of him on his rearing charger--the one
that stands in the Court of the Gods near the Fountain of Prorithun--will
make a fine, inspiring memorial.
His eyes pop open when he feels my hand grip his throat: I'm far too
professional to try to stifle his shout with a hand over the mouth, and
only a squeak gets past my grip. Further struggle is discouraged by his
close-up view of my knife, its thick, double-edged point an inch from his
right eye.
I bite my tongue, and saliva gushes into my mouth to moisten my throat. My
voice is steady: very low and very flat.
"It's customary, at times like this, to say a few words. A man shouldn't
die with no understanding of why he's been murdered. I do not pride myself
on my eloquence, and so I will keep this simple."
I lean close and stare past my knife blade into his eyes. "The Monasteries
kept you on the Oaken Throne by supporting your foolish action against
Lipke in the Plains War; the Council of Brothers felt, on balance, that
you would be a strong enough ruler to hold the Empire together, at least
until the Child Queen reaches majority."
His face is turning purple, and veins in his neck bulge against my grip.
If I don't talk fast, I'll have choked him out before I'm done. I sigh
through my teeth and pick up the pace.
"They have discovered, though, that you're an idiot. Your punitive taxes
are weakening both Kirisch-Nar and Jheled-Kaarn--they tell me ten thousand
free peasants starved to death in Kaarn alone last winter. Now you've
bloodied the nose of Lipke over that stupid iron mine in the Gods' Teeth,
and you're making noises like you want to fight a full-scale war over two
crappy little eastern provinces. You have ignored and insulted the Lipkan
trade delegation and have dismissed the Council of Brothers' admonitions.
They've decided that you're no longer fit to rule, if you ever were. They
are tired of waiting. They've paid me a great deal of money to remove you
from the throne. Blink twice if you understand."
His eyes widen stiffly, bug out staring from his head as though he'd make
them lidless if only he could, and his throat works under my hand. He
mouths words at me that my poor lipreading skill can't follow beyond the
initial please please please. He'd like to argue with me, no doubt, or
perhaps request leniency or asylum for his wife and two daughters. I can
grant neither; if a war of succession follows this murder, they'll have to
take their chances along with the rest of us.
Finally his eyeballs begin to dry, and he blinks--once. Funny how our
reflexes conspire to kill us, sometimes. In terms of my contract, I'm to
ensure his comprehension; if I'm to do this properly, I should wait for
his next blink. All proprieties should be observed, in the death of a king.
His gaze shifts minutely--the old warrior is going to make a try for me, a
last desperate convulsion of his will to survive, calling on other, more
recent reflexes to rescue him.
When it's a choice between observing the proprieties and getting caught in
the Prince-Regent's bedchamber, nine infinite floors up the spire of the
Colhari Palace, the proprieties can fuck off.
I jam the knife into his eye. Bone crackles and blood sprays. I use the
knife to twist his face away from me: a bloodstain on this livery could be
fatal, on my way out. He flops like a salmon that's found unexpected land
beneath an upstream leap. This is only his body's last unconscious attempt
to live; it goes hand-in-hand with the release of his bowels and bladder.
He shits and pisses all over himself and his satin-weave sheets--another
one of those primordial reflexes, a futile dodge to make his meat
unappetizing to the predator.
Screw it. I'm not hungry anyway.
He quiets after a year or so. I brace my free hand against his forehead
and work the knife back and forth. It comes free with a wet scrape, and I
set about the grisly part of this job.
The serrated edge slices easily through the flesh of his neck, but grates
against his third cervical vertebra. A slightly altered angle of attack
puts the edge between the third and fourth, and a couple seconds' sawing
loosens his head. The copper scent of his blood is so thick I can smell it
through the stench of his shit; my stomach twists until I can barely
breathe.
I uncover the golden tray that I'd carried up from the kitch-ens, gently
set the plates of steaming food to one side, and put Toa-Phelathon's head
in their place, picking it up carefully by the hair so that none of the
gore that drains from it will stain my clothes. I replace the golden dome
and strip off my bloodstained gloves, tossing them carelessly onto the
body beside the discarded knife. My hands are clean.
I lift the tray to my shoulder and take a deep breath. The easy part's
over. Now I have to get out of here alive.
The trickiest part of this escape is the first hurdle: getting away from
the body. If I pass the pair of guards at the service door cleanly, I'll
be out of the palace before anyone knows the old man is dead. My adrenals
sing to me a potent tune that makes my hands tingle and raises goose bumps
up my back. My heartbeat thunders in my ears.
In the upper left corner of my vision, the red Exit Square blinks. I
ignore it, even as it moves with my eyes like an afterimage of the sun.
I'm only halfway across the room when the service door swings open. Jemson
Thal, the master steward, starts talking before he even clears the
doorway. "Your pardon, Majesty," he begins in a hasty breathless gabble,
"but there is a rumor of an impostor among the serv ..."
Jemson Thal takes in the headless corpse on the bed, he takes in me, and
his gabble trails into gasping. His eyes go round and the color drains
from his face; his mouth works like he's strangling. I close the distance
between us with a long, smooth croise and kick him in the throat. It drops
him like a bag of rocks, and now he's strangling for real as he tries to
breathe around the splinters of his larynx, clawing at his throat and
writhing on the service-passage floor.
I didn't even tip the tray.
One of the guards is, will be, easy. With a wordless exclamation he drops
to one knee beside Thal and tries stupidly to help him. What's he think
he's gonna do, thump the poor bastard's back until he coughs up his
windpipe? The other isn't in sight; smarter than his partner, he's pressed
against the wall of the service passage, waiting for me.
Both of these guards wear long sturdy hauberks under their mantles of
maroon and gold, with padded chainmail coifs reinforced by studded steel
skullcaps. Toa-Phelathon spared no expense in outfitting his Household
Knights; my knives are useless against them, but hey, that's all
right--I'm deep in it, now.
The waiting is over. I'm happy again.
The smarter guard has a brainstorm and begins to shout for help.
I uncover the tray and gravely regard Toa-Phelathon. The lower third of
his flowing hair is soaked in blood, but his face isn't too contorted;
even with the ruin of his eye he's still clearly recognizable. I thrust
the tray through the doorway about chest high; the sight of its cargo cuts
off the shouted alarm as efficiently as an arrow down the throat.
While the portion of the guard's brain that handles signal processing
still stru...
