Robin Hobb - The Rain Wild Chronicles - The Complete 4-Book Collection

ROBIN HOBB

The Rain Wilds Chronicles: The Complete 4-Book Collection

The Dragon Keeper Dragon Haven City of Dragons Blood of Dragons

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.

Harper Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

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The Dragon Keeper

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2009

Copyright © Robin Hobb 2009

Cover Layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2009

Dragon Haven

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2010

Copyright © Robin Hobb 2010

Cover Layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2010

City of Dragons

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2012

Copyright © Robin Hobb 2012

Cover Layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

Blood of Dragons

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2013

Copyright © Robin Hobb 2013

Cover Layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2013

Cover Illustrations © Jackie Morris 2014

Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBNs:

The Dragon Keeper: 9780007273744

Dragon Haven: 9780007335817

City of Dragons: 9780007273805

Blood of Dragons: 9780007444137

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008113735

Version: 2017-11-01

Cover

Title Page ROBIN HOBB The Rain Wilds Chronicles: The Complete 4-Book Collection The Dragon Keeper Dragon Haven City of Dragons Blood of Dragons

Copyright

The Dragon Keeper

Dragon Haven

City of Dragons

Blood of Dragons

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

ROBIN HOBB

The Dragon Keeper

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue: Serpents’ End

Chapter One: The Riverman

Chapter Two: The Hatch

Chapter Three: An Advantageous Offer

Chapter Four: Vows

Chapter Five: Blackmail and Lies

Chapter Six: Thymara’s Decision

Chapter Seven: Promises and Threats

Chapter Eight: Interviews

Chapter Nine: Journey

Chapter Ten: Cassarick

Chapter Eleven: Encounters

Chapter Twelve: Among Dragons

Chapter Thirteen: Suspicions

Chapter Fourteen: Scales

Chapter Fifteen: Currents

Chapter Sixteen: Community

Chapter Seventeen: Decisions

To the memory of Spot and Smokey,

Brownie-butt and Rainbow, Rag-Bag and Sinbad.

Fine pigeons, one and all.

Day the 2nd of the Plough Moon

Year the 6th of the Reign of the Most Noble and Magnificent Satrap Cosgo

From Erek, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown to Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

This night have dispatched to you four birds, bearing in two parts our agreement with the Dragon Tintaglia, to be ratified by the Rain Wild Council. Trader Devouchet, leader of the Bingtown Traders’ Council, suggested that duplicates be sent. They sum up the formal agreement between the Traders and the Dragon. We are to aid her serpents in travelling up the Rain Wild River in exchange for her assistance with defending the Trader cities and waterways against the Chalcedean invaders.

Please dispatch a bird as soon as possible to confirm receipt of this message.

Detozi,

A brief message of my own, penned in haste in a very small space. All is chaos here. My bird coop scorched in the fires the invaders set, many of my birds dead from smoke. I’m sending Kingsly as one of the messenger birds tonight. You know I raised him from a squab by hand after his parents died. Please keep him safe there and do not return him until we know that all is well. If Bingtown falls, treat him well and keep him as your own. Pray for us here. I do not know that Bingtown will survive this invasion, dragon or no.

Erek

They had come so far, yet now that she was here, the years of journeying were already fading in her mind, giving way to the desperate needs of the present. Sisarqua opened her jaws and bent her neck. It was hard for the sea serpent to focus her thoughts. It had been years since she had been completely out of the water. She had not felt dry land under her body since she had hatched on Other’s Island. She was far from Other’s Island’s hot dry sand and balmy waters now. Winter was closing in on this densely forested land beside the chill river. The mudbank under her coiled length was hard and abrasive. The air was too cold and her gills were drying out too quickly. There was nothing she could do about that except to work more swiftly. She scooped her jaws into the immense trough and came up with a mouthful of silver-streaked clay and river water. She threw her great head back and gulped it down. It was gritty and cold and strangely delicious. Another mouthful, another swallow. And again.

She had lost count of how many gulps of the grainy soup she had ingested when finally she felt the ancient reflex trigger. Working the muscles in her throat, she felt her poison sacs swell. Her fleshy mane stood out all around her throat in a toxic, quivering ruff. Shuddering down her full length, she opened her jaws wide, strained, gagged, and then met with success. She clamped and locked her jaws to contain the liquid, releasing it only as a thin, powerful stream of clay, bile and saliva tinged with venom. With difficulty, she turned her head and then coiled her tail closer to her body. The extrusion was like a silvery thread, thick and heavy. Her head wove as she layered the wet winding over herself.