The Speaker By Traci Chee

The Speaker By Traci Chee

Prologue: A The Dreams rcher was dreaming again, and in the dreams he had no name. He didn’t remember when he’d lost it, but now the men called him boy or bootlicker or nothing at all. He stood in a circle of stones, large and pale as skulls, while men and women jeered at him from outside the ring, their faces turned into hideous masks by torchlight. When he shifted, bits of gravel dug into the bottoms of his bare feet. “This your new candidate, Hatchet?” a man sneered. He had black deep-set eyes and sallow skin. “Got him in Jocoxa a couple months back,” Hatchet answered. “Been training him up.” Hatchet—stout build, ruddy skin, always picking at half-healed scabs. The nameless boy touched his neck, fingers grazing the scars at his throat. Hatchet had burned him. The sallow man smiled, his teeth sharp and small like a ferret’s. “Argo’s already put down four underfed whelps like this one.” Turning, the boy with no name found Argo standing on the other side of the ring, the light flickering over four raised burns on his right arm. Through the short coils of his beard, he wore a slack-jawed smile. The crowd began clapping and whooping. A signal, maybe. Argo strode toward the nameless boy, who tried to step sideways. But he stumbled. “Watch it!” Hatchet snapped. The boy with no name was turning, bewildered, trying to find Hatchet’s watery eyes in the crowd when Argo attacked.

Download Here

OR

Download Here