Assassin's Apprentice

British Fantasy Award nominee 1996.

A new legend begins...

In a faraway land in which members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody, one young man will become a walking enigma.

Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry, is a royal bastard, cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals – that old art known as the Wit – gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility.

So when Fitz is taken from his warm stable and finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and learn a new life: weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly, as he trains to become a royal assassin.

Meanwhile, the land is beset by a terrible hazard: the Red Ship Raiders who descend from silent ships at dead of night and steal hapless victims from their beds, only to make strange demands of the village elders: pay us the ransom, and we wil kill our hostages. One village leader laughed and refused, therefore, to pay: but the consequences were dire.

It seems the only way to combat the marauders is to use the Skill – the ancient discipline of mind-sharing and thought-suggestion. Fitz is apprenticed to Galen the Skillmaster, a cold, mean-spirited man with a loathing for those who have the Wit. Fitz finds that he has many secrets that must be hidden during Skilling: the Wit, his apprenticeship as assassin, his very soul.

Being a royal bastard is dangerous enough in a court full of intrigue, ambition and treachery; but having both the Wit and the Skill will render him a threat to some and a valuable tool to others, and he must learn to see clearly those who are his friends, and those with malice in their hearts.

Hobb covers portrayed here are from UK editions, by John Howe.