Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [0]
Druidhome 01 - Prophet of
Moonshae
A Forgotten Realms novel
By
A Proofpack Release
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Release Date: June, 5th, 2005
Note: This trilogy is the sequel to the Moonshae trilogy.
The appearance of the raving stranger and the flight of the hounds were but the first two mysteries to arise in Blackstone on this night of dire portents. They were not the last nor, to the lord of the manor, the most troubling. Instead, Earl Blackstone found the third mysterious occurrence to be far more sinister, its portents more evil.
Like the other two, the third was a puzzle that developed during the darkness of the night of the full moon, though it was not discovered until the morning.
This was when a guard, patrolling the outside of the great manor house, came upon the body on the ground. It lay facedown below the third-floor window leading to Currag's chambers. When the stunned guard rolled the corpse over, it proved to be that of the young heir to the noble house.
There was no mark to be found on him, no sign of any physical injury-except, of course, for the brutal impact of the forty-foot fall into a stone-paved courtyard. Despite that impact, the features on the face, the expressions of the mouth and eyes, were still visible.
It remained for his father, the earl, to wonder at the thing that had come to Currag Blackstone in the depths of the fatal eve. Yet this much he knew: The visage of his son at the time of his death was a mask of almost unimaginable horror.
Prophet of Moonshae
Douglas Niles
The Druidhome Trilogy: Book One
PROPHET OF MOONSHAE
Copyright ®1992 TSR, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of TSR, Inc.
Random House and its affiliate companies have worldwide distribution rights in the book trade for English language products of TSR, Inc.
Distributed to the book and hobby trade in the United Kingdom by TSR, Ltd.
Cover art by Clyde Caldwell.
FORGOTTEN REALMS is a registered trademark owned by TSR, Inc. The TSR logo is a trademark owned by TSR, Inc.
First Printing: March, 1992
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-66509
987654321
ISBN: 1-56076-319-1
TSR, Inc. TSR Ltd.
P.O. Box 756 120 Church End, Cherry Hinton
Lake Geneva, WI 53147 Cambridge CB1 3LB
U.S.A. United Kingdom
To Jim Ward,
for all your advice and
inspiration through the years
Prologue
The dragon was very old and very evil. For centuries he had dwelled on the fringes of the Realms, preying across continents and oceans, passing countless decades of rapacious existence. No longer could he remember all the villages he had ravaged, all the damsels devoured.
Great knights rode against him, as often as not perishing within their plate armor from the heat of the creature's fiery breath. Those who survived the killing fireball succumbed to jaws studded with scimitar-like teeth or claws that could rend a war-horse with ease.
And when the knights failed, the wizards came to slay him. But the shrewd wyrm met them, spell for spell, with fire and ice-and dark, pernicious magic of even greater scope. Wrapped within a protective cocoon of sorcery, the serpent deflected lightning bolts back at their casters, sneered at spells that meant certain death to lesser creatures, and then spewed a seething, hellish cloud of infernal flame at the few surviving mages who dared persevere.
But ultimately, after more than a millennia and a half of monstrously evil existence, the great dragon confronted an enemy he could not defeat in battle nor deflect with sorcery-the measured passage of time itself. The massive eyes, with their cruel, slitted pupils, began to cloud. Muscles and joints, though still knotted with awesome