Within the Hollow Crown Read Online Free PDF

different skin. But the thing that stuck out in everyone’s mind is that they were different.
    Ask any citizen of Rone, and they’ll tell you that the Turin are primitive barbarians. Ask a Turin, and you’ll hear about the conquering, destructive Rone. The truth lies somewhere in the middle . See, the Turin were here first. They used to wander freely throughout the continent. The Rone are, by comparison, the newcomers.
    So, how is it that these Ronish upstarts control more than three fourths of the continent now? Well, it basically comes down to stone walls. The Turin have a more communal, tribal way of life. They like to share. It takes a village to raise a child, and all that. The Rone like to draw maps. And declare certain plots of land as belonging to certain citizens. Specifically, certain noble citizens.
    First children inherit the stone walls of the father. But there are always those pesky second and third and fourth children. And there was all this land on the continent without stone walls. At first, the Rone and the Turin found ways to barter and sell land between them. But some of the nobles decided that the land was theirs, and didn’t think these simple people were worth the silver. They lived in little idyllic villages, with no stone walls around them. Savages. How dare they?
    And that was the beginning of the Undeclared War. The Lords of the southerners marched in with superior numbers, superior weapons and armor, and an unearned sense of superiority. Most of the history books fail to mention the rape and murder that the more “civilized” Rone participated in. But they felt that burning villages to the ground was an acceptable way of making sure your third son had a plot of land of his own.
    But, hey, let’s be fair. The Turin weren’t saints either. They figured that the way to stop the northern advance was to reduce the number of nobles. Simple math, it seemed. So, they put a bounty on noble sons and pregnant noblewomen. There, the Turin said, dusting their hands off, that ought to make those nobles stop bothering us for a while.
    Alas , the Turin never understood how the nobility worked amongst the southerners. See, the Turin understood vengeance, but they didn’t understand noble vengeance. They expected that, at worst, the husband of the dead, pregnant noblewoman or child would come looking for them. As it turned out, these nobles could summon vast numbers to their banners .
    So the Turin were relegated to the heavily wooded, much colder northern lands. And despite the occasional raid on the Rone farms, an uneasy peace has stood for the last few centuries. But that was about to change.
    Which brings us back to these four people who were climbing, incrementally, to the precipice of the Lunapera. They were an elite unit of soldiers called the Turin-Sen, which loosely translates to, “Best of the Turin.” They didn’t give themselves this name. But they earned it. You don’t believe me? Pick a fight with one of them. I dare you.
    There is one other way in which the Turin and the Rone differ: The Turin know magic. And we’re not talking about pulling bunnies out of hats . This is primal shit. Storms of lightning. Crumbling mountains. Elemental. Vicious. It’s not easy to learn. And it’s even harder to control. But these four soldiers, the Turin-Sen, were the ones who could do it. They were the elite warriors of the sword and the spell. The most dangerous operatives in the continent.
    Their chief instructor in these matters was a man named Argos. Argos had no official rank or title in the Turin Government or Military. It hardly mattered. The Regent, the highest political office, did not inspire fear or unquestioning loyalty like Argos. Add to that his physical and magical prowess, and there was nothing left to argue. Argos was a rank unto himself.
    When the four Turin-Sen reached the summit, Argos stood silhouetted against the crescent moon, his silver-white hair blowing in the mountain