Once In a Blue Moon Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF SIMON R. GREEN

  Blue Moon Rising

  “This fantasy adventure is one readers will savor and enjoy for a long time to come.”

  —Rave Reviews

  “Delightful.”

  —New York Daily News

  “Easily my favorite of Simon Green’s fantasy novels.”

  —Chronicles

  Beyond the Blue Moon

  Chosen as One of the Year’s Best Books by Chronicles

  “I was completely caught up in their adventure and read it intently and impatiently until they finally achieved their destiny. If they’re making fantasy adventure much better than this, I don’t know about it.”

  —Chronicles

  “Fans of Hawk & Fisher will particularly enjoy the revelations about the deadly duo’s background, and, as always, Green provides plenty of spectacular violence and some spectacular wonders. Solving the mystery is almost incidental, but that doesn’t really matter in this engrossing adventure.”

  —Locus

  “Continuing the adventures of a pair of charmingly roguish and intensely honorable heroes, this fast-moving, wisecracking sequel to Blue Moon Rising belongs in most fantasy collections.”

  —Library Journal

  “Very satisfying.”

  —Wiltshire Times (UK)

  “One of the best fantasy books I’ve read all year . . . a truly enjoyable and fulfilling sequel. . . . I can’t recommend the book highly enough.”

  —The Green Man Review

  DON’T MISS THE ADVENTURES OF

  HAWK & FISHER

  SIX ACTION-PACKED NOVELS IN TWO OMNIBUS EDITIONS

  Swords of Haven and Guards of Haven

  In the dark city of Haven, where everything’s for sale, City Guard cops Hawk & Fisher cannot be bought. A husband-and-wife team with fast blades and even faster mouths who dare to cleanse Haven’s corrupted soul. Together, they are the perfect crime busters . . . with a touch of magic.

  The war against crime is forever.

  “I think what charmed me about it is the absolutely unabashed manner in which Green has copied the style of almost any current cop/detective/sleuth TV show. . . . The situations and dialogue are straight off your current screen.”

  —Asimov’s Science Fiction

  “Green’s very different approach to writing fantasy adventure—bearing a strong resemblance to the private eye novel—works surprisingly well.”

  —Chronicles

  “Simon R. Green’s books are fun books that grab you, suck you in, and don’t let you go. They are always fun, and the Hawk & Fisher books are no exception. Hawk and Fisher are a couple of honest, straight-talking, tough-as-nails guards who use steel as often as wits to keep themselves out of trouble. They bully their way through situations, often just letting their reputations work their magic. The plots are straightforward, with just enough of a twist to keep you guessing until the end. If you’ve read and enjoyed Green’s other books, you don’t want to miss these books. If you haven’t read Green before, Swords of Haven is a good way to get a taste of his style of writing.”

  —SF Site

  “Green has a marvelous gift of leavening grim situations with wicked wit, and the intrigues are intricative enough to leave even the most practiced mystery solver puzzling. A stormer of a series. Fine stuff.”

  —Prism UK

  Also by

  SIMON R. GREEN

  THE SECRET HISTORIES NOVELS

  The Man with the Golden Torc

  Daemons Are Forever

  The Spy Who Haunted Me

  From Hell with Love

  For Heaven’s Eyes Only

  Live and Let Drood

  THE DEATHSTALKER SERIES

  Twilight of the Empire

  Deathstalker

  Deathstalker Rebellion

  Deathstalker War

  Deathstalker Honor

  Deathstalker Destiny

  Deathstalker Legacy

  Deathstalker Return

  Deathstalker Coda

  THE ADVENTURES OF HAWK & FISHER

  Swords of Haven

  Guards of Haven

  OTHER NOVELS

  Blue Moon Rising

  Beyond the Blue Moon

  Blood and Honor

  Down Among the Dead Men

  Shadows Fall

  Drinking Midnight Wine

  ACE BOOKS

  THE NIGHTSIDE SERIES

  Something from the Nightside

  Agents of Light and Darkness

  Nightingale’s Lament

  Hex and the City

  Paths Not Taken

  Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth

  Hell to Pay

  The Unnatural Inquirer

  Just Another Judgement Day

  The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny

  A Hard Day’s Knight

  The Bride Wore Black Leather

  GHOST FINDERS NOVELS

  Ghost of a Chance

  Ghost of a Smile

  Ghost of a Dream

  ONCE

  IN A

  BLUE MOON

  SIMON R. GREEN

  ROC

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © Simon R. Green, 2014

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Green, Simon R.

  Once in a blue moon/Simon R. Green.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-101-63763-0

  I. Title.

  PR6107.R44O53 2014

  823'.92—dc23 2013021844

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Don’t Miss the Adventures of HAWK & FISHER

  Also by SIMON R. GREEN

  Title page

  Copyright page

  INTRODUCTION

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  ONCE IN A BLUE MOON, SOMETHING MAGICAL HAPPENS . . .

  It’s been a hundred years since the Demon War. Since Prince Rupert and Princess Julia of legend rode into the Darkwood to defeat the terrible Demon Prince and banished him from the world of men. A hundred years since the Blue Moon shed its awful Wild Magic over the Forest Kingdom.

  Many things have changed, and many have not. But we all know: fate does so love an anniversary.

  ONE

  NO ONE EVER ESCAPES THE PAST

  The Dutchy of Lancre’s greatest pride, problem, and most profitable tourist attraction is the Haw
k and Fisher Memorial Academy. Also known, less formally, as the Hero Academy. Founded some seventy-five years ago by Captains Hawk and Fisher, late of the City Guard in some less than salubrious city port down in the depths of the Southern Kingdoms. There are many stories about Hawk and Fisher, apparently the only honest guards in that city; all of the stories are of a resolutely heroic nature, though not always particularly nice, or suitable for mixed company. But apparently these two venerable warriors reached an age where they preferred teaching to doing, and so—the Academy.

  Hawk and Fisher spent many happy and informative years teaching young men and women how to be warriors, got everything up and running, and then they moved on and were never seen again. Presumably they went back to being heroes, and died alone and bloody in some far-off place, fighting for some cause they believed in. Because that’s what usually happens to heroes. The Hero Academy kept their names, and many of the traditions they established, including that all the married warriors who came in to run the place took the names Hawk and Fisher for as long as they stayed. Out of respect for the original founders, or possibly to simplify merchandising rights. Either way, there have been a great many Hawks and Fishers through the years.

  For decades, hopeful parents have sent their more troublesome sons and daughters to the Hawk and Fisher Memorial Academy, from all sorts of countries, cities, and stations in life. To learn how to be heroes. For a great many reasons—fame and fortune, of course, duty and honour . . . and sometimes just because the hopeful applicants feel they have something to prove to their parents. Of the many who feel called, only a few are chosen every year; but it doesn’t stop them from coming, by the hundreds and sometimes thousands. Some are hopeful; some are hopeless. The Academy holds regular Auditions at the beginning of each term to sort out the wheat from the chaff, in a similarly destructive process. The Auditions are bloody hard, and often very bloody, and no one gets to moan about the decisions. Even if the applicants leave with less dignity or fewer limbs than they arrived with. Because the Hero Academy believes that if you can be dissuaded or frightened off, it’s better to find that out right at the beginning. The Academy’s tutors are strict but fair . . . but strict.

  The Hawk and Fisher Memorial Academy teaches people how to fight, and what to fight for, and how to stay alive while doing it. The Academy provides classes in weaponry, magic, lateral thinking, and really dirty tricks, and every year it turns out a whole bunch of highly motivated young people determined to go forth in the world and make it a better place. The world shows its appreciation every year by sending assassins to kill the current Hawk and Fisher and their staff, and if at all possible burn down the entire Academy and salt the earth around it.

  But that’s politics for you.

  • • •

  On a day that at first seemed much like any other day, Hawk and Fisher were out taking an early-morning constitutional, strolling unhurriedly across the great open plain that surrounded the Academy. Most of it was dry, dusty ground, studded with just enough awkwardly protruding rocks that you had to keep your eyes open and your wits about you, and punctuated here and there with optimistic outbursts of grey-green shrub. Thick woodland marked the western horizon, and the DragonsBack mountain ridges the eastern. Not much to look at, and even less to do, out on the plain, which helped concentrate the minds of the students wonderfully.

  On that particular morning the sun was barely up, the sky was an overcast grey, and the air was so still that even the smallest sound seemed to carry forever. Hawk and Fisher wandered along, side by side, their movements so familiar to each other they were practically synchronised. They looked like they had a long history together, most of it concerned with organised violence. They looked like they belonged together, and always would be.

  Hawk was well into middle age, a short and stocky man with a broad face, thinning grey hair, and a spreading bald patch he was growing increasingly touchy about. He wore a simple soldier’s tunic over smooth leather leggings, and rough, functional boots. His cool grey eyes were calm and steady, and gave the strong impression that they missed nothing. He limped slightly, as though favouring an old wound, but given that the limp had a tendency to transfer itself from one leg to the other and back again without warning, no one took it particularly seriously. He carried a great axe at his side instead of a sword, by long tradition. He studied the world with a thoughtful, watchful gaze to make sure it wouldn’t try to jump out and surprise him. Everything in the way he moved and held himself suggested he’d been a soldier or mercenary in his previous life, but he never spoke of it. Tradition demanded that all the Hawks and Fishers leave their pasts behind, along with their original names, when they took over control of the Hero Academy.

  Fisher was also advancing into middle age, and with even less enthusiasm than her husband. She was of barely average height and more than average weight, with short-cropped grey hair, a jutting beak of a nose, and a brief, flashing smile. She wore the same simple tunic and leggings as Hawk, and carried a long sword in a rune-carved scabbard down her back. She studied the world with fierce green eyes, in a way that suggested the world had better not give her any trouble if it knew what was good for it. A potential student who claimed to be a Bladesmaster, and therefore unbeatable with a sword in his hand, once told Fisher to her face that a woman’s place was in the home, and especially the kitchen. Fisher laughed herself sick, and then duelled him up the hall and back down again, beat the sword out of his hand, kicked him in the nuts, and rabbit-punched him before he hit the ground. And then sent him home strapped to a mule, riding backwards.

  No one messed with Hawk and Fisher.

  Stumbling along behind them, grumbling constantly under his breath, was the Administrator. He was not a morning person, and didn’t give a damn who knew it. Normally at this very early hour of the day, he would have been sitting alone at a table in the kitchens, holding on to a mug of mulled wine with both hands, as though that was all that was holding him up, and giving the sudden-death glare to anyone who tried to talk to him. But it was the first day of the new autumn term, the Auditions were to be held at midday, and Hawk and Fisher had been very insistent that they wanted to talk to him somewhere extremely private; so here he was. Taking an early-morning stroll that was undoubtedly good for him, and hating every moment of it. Birds were singing happily in the sky above, and every now and again the Administrator would raise his weary head and look at them with simple and uncomplicated loathing.

  If the Administrator had ever been blessed with anything as common as a real name and a proper background, no one knew about it. He’d arrived at the Academy some forty years earlier as just another student, bluffed and bullied his way onto the staff, and lost no time in proving himself invaluable at taking care of all the dull, soul-destroying but unfortunately wholly necessary administrative work that no one else wanted to do. All he had to do was threaten to leave, and he was immediately awarded a substantial pay increase and a straightforward assurance that no one gave a damn what his real name might be or where he’d come from.

  The Administrator was tall but heavily stooped, and tended to stride through the Academy corridors as though he personally bore all the cares of the world on his narrow shoulders. And wanted everyone to know it. He wore stark black and white formal clothes, comfortable shoes, and an old floppy hat that didn’t suit him. Though given the appalling state of the thing, it would be hard to name anyone it would have suited. He was a long and stretched-out gangly sort, all knees and elbows. His face was grim and bony, he frowned as though it were a competitive sport, and on the few occasions when he was seen to smile, everyone knew it meant someone somewhere was in really big trouble.

  He basically ran the Hero Academy, from top to bottom, and had done so under many Hawks and Fishers.

  He raised the volume of his grumbling, just to let Hawk and Fisher know he hadn’t forgiven them, kicked noisily at the dusty ground before him, and scowled around at the world as though daring any of it to get too clos
e. Hawk and Fisher finally came to a halt, at the top of a long ridge giving an uninterrupted view out across the plain. The Administrator crashed to a halt beside them, and let out a loud groan that might have been either simple relief or a plea for sympathy. He put both hands on the small of his back and straightened up slowly, while his spine made loud protesting noises. Hawk and Fisher exchanged amused glances. They made a lot of allowances for the Administrator. They had to; it was either that or run like fun every time they saw him approaching. The Administrator rotated his shoulders, slowly and individually, and they made ominous creaking noises.

  “All right,” said Hawk. “You’re just showing off now.”

  “You know nothing about backs! Nothing!” snarled the Administrator. “They should give you a handbook, the moment you hit forty, warning you of all the terrible things that are going to go wrong with your body as you head into middle age. It should be full of useful diagrams and helpful advice, and detailed notes on which drugs are the best and have the least embarrassing side effects. I’m a martyr to my spine.” He sniffed loudly, and looked coldly out across the open plain. “Why are we out here, at this indecently early hour of the morning? God created hours like these specifically to break the spirits of people dumb enough to get out of bed before they were meant to. Everybody knows that.”

  “There are things we need to discuss, you miserable old scrote,” Hawk said cheerfully. “Important things.”

  “The kinds of things best discussed where there’s absolutely no one around to overhear,” said Fisher.

  “You haven’t killed anyone important again, have you?” said the Administrator, wincing. “You know how much extra paperwork that means.”

  “We’ve been good,” said Hawk. “Mostly.”

  “Right,” said Fisher, scowling. “It’s been ages since I got into a decent scrap. I must be getting old. Or civilised. Don’t know which of the two disturbs me more.”