Arazan's Wolves (Ranger's Apprentice: the Royal Ranger, 6, Band 6) - Hardcover

Buch 6 von 7: Ranger's Apprentice: Royal Ranger

Flanagan, John

 
9780593463840: Arazan's Wolves (Ranger's Apprentice: the Royal Ranger, 6, Band 6)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593463846 ISBN 13: 9780593463840
Verlag: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

International bestselling author John Flanagan returns to world of Ranger's Apprentice in the sixth installment of the Royal Ranger series in which Maddie and Will must travel to Celtica to investigate a series of dire wolf attacks and a dangerous sorceress.

When Maddie and Will get a message that dire wolves—huge misshapen changelings, much larger than regular wolves—have been marauding and attacking through the hills and valleys of Celtica, the Rangers are sent on a mission to unravel just who or what is behind these dangerous creatures.

Will isn’t anxious to return to Celtica, especially approaching the Rift. And as they travel, Maddie must grapple with their growing dealings with the spiritual and supernatural. But they are Rangers—and they will do whatever it takes to accomplish their mission. After they receive some offers of help from locals, Will and Maddie learn the name of the sorceress behind these strange and dangerous attacks, Arazan, along with the location of her hideout.

On the way to take her down once and for all, the Rangers must face direwolves, wargals, dark magic, and more. And as Arazan’s desires lead her to the most evil of powers, Will and Maddie must form a plan of action that can outwit not just the sorceress but the darkest forces from the beyond.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JOHN FLANAGAN grew up in Sydney, Australia, hoping to be an author, and after a successful career in advertising and television, he began writing a series of short stories for his son, Michael, in order to encourage him to read. Those stories would eventually become The Ruins of Gorlan, Book 1 of the Ranger's Apprentice epic. Now with his companion series, Brotherband, the novels of John Flanagan have sold millions of copies and made readers out of kids the world over. Mr. Flanagan lives in the suburb of Mosman, Australia, with his wife. In addition to their son, they have two grown daughters and four grandsons. You can visit John Flanagan at www.WorldofJohnFlanagan.com

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1
The three brothers had been hard at work since the sun had shown the first traces of pink over the hills to the east. Now it was slowly sinking to the rim of the western cliffs, and Owen ap-­Jones, the eldest of the three, straightened his back painfully and leaned on the handle of his hoe.
“That’s enough for today,” he said.
Wearily, he surveyed the field he and his brothers had been working on all day. It was poor ground, hard and filled with rocks, and difficult to till. The task wasn’t made any easier by the quality of the tools they had to use. The metal was soft and easily deformed. Owen glanced down at the blade of his hoe and frowned as he noticed three new notches in the edge and one section where the blade had curled back on itself. He’d have to hammer that out overnight and file out the notches before the tool would be serviceable again. Even though the field wasn’t a big one, he estimated that it would take them another two days’ hard labor hacking rows, removing rocks and turning the thin topsoil before they could begin to plant their crop of beans.
He shrugged. Life as a farmer in Celtica was hard. The land was better suited to mining. But there were no deposits of ironor silver on their land, and their only choice was to farm or starve.
Gryff and Dai, Owen’s younger brothers, both stopped working as he spoke.
“Curse this ground,” Gryff said bitterly. He kicked at a rock close by his foot, sending it skittering. “We’ll spend hours, days, hacking away at it, and for what?”
Neither of the others answered, so he continued. “For beans. Beans! Who can live on beans?”
Dai shrugged. “Well, we do,” he replied.
Gryff was the youngest brother and was inclined to be the moodiest of the three. Owen and Dai had learned to accept life as it came. Complaining about their lot, they knew, was a wasteof time and energy. Life was what it was, and no amount ofwhining or ranting would change that. Their father had died at a relatively young age, worn out from the effort of tending their field and providing for his family. At least, Owen thought, the three brothers could share the work.
“Let’s go,” he said now, putting an arm around his young brother’s shoulders. “Mam will have supper ready for us.”
“Bean soup,” Gryff muttered angrily. Although, at the thoughtof food, his stomach rumbled. They had eaten at midday, stopping for half an hour for a meal of bread and cheese washed down with watered ale. There had been no breakfast. The farm could only provide two meals a day, both of them simple and without any appetite appeal.
“Bean soup, bread and cheese,” he continued, listing the unvarying contents of their daily menu. “Who can live on that? The miners eat meat twice a week, and they have porridge on the other days.”
“So they say,” Owen replied. He wasn’t sure that the miners in their village of Poddranyth were completely trustworthy about the quality of the meals they enjoyed. Miners were notoriously mendacious. Still, he thought, they probably lived better than he and his brothers did.
“We should be ready to plant in another two days,” he said, hoping to change the subject.
“Two days!” Gryff exclaimed. “Two days grubbing and hacking and hoeing. If we had a donkey and a plow we’d get it done in half the time!”
“We don’t have either,” Owen said in a reasonable tone.
But Gryff wasn’t to be diverted from his litany of complaints. “David ap-­Davis has both. He could lend them to us!”
David ap-­Davis was another farmer in Poddranyth. But he had three fields, all on better, more fertile ground than the single rocky plot that the ap-­Jones brothers worked. As a result, his crops were larger and he could afford to sell some of his extra produce to the miners in the village.
“He’d charge us for them,” Dai put in gloomily.
Gryff’s anger flared once again. “Aye, that he would! And at a crippling price! He’d never think of lending them to help us.”
“Why should he?” Owen said. “A mule only has so many hours of work in its life. And chances are our rocky ground would damage the plow. He’d have every right to charge us.”
There was no real answer to that, Gryff knew. But his brothers’ stolid acceptance of the life they shared continued to annoy him. He glared at the rocky ground as they trudged away from the ­half-?­prepared field toward the village. It was a ­two-?­kilometerwalk, and mostly uphill. Their elongated shadows preceded them,rippling strangely over the uneven ground.
Owen sighed, glad that Gryff’s complaining had finally died away. It was the same every day. His brother would continue to complain about their lot until he came to realize that complaining would never change it. It was their fate to labor in the rockyearth, hacking and ripping at it with their inefficient tools, planting a new crop each season and subsisting on what they couldgrow. They had the field and three goats, who provided them with enough milk for their cheese and a little extra to trade for flour. In addition, their mother kept half a dozen hens who gave them a meager supply of eggs and, on rare occasions, a bird to roast or boil.
And that was life for a farmer in Poddranyth: an unvarying, repetitive pattern of exhausting work, constant, nagging hunger, boredom and weariness.
There was little joy in it. But it was what it was. And Owen knew there were others who were in even harder straits than the ap-­Joneses. Eventually, he thought, Gryff would come to realize it and accept it.
They crested a hill on the path. On one side of the narrow road, the ground fell away in a steep, ­shale-?­covered slope into a valley. On the other, the cliffs rose sheer and bleak. In the distance, a kilometer away, they could see the gray huddle of houses that made up Poddranyth. There were a score of ­them—?­all similarly built from stone and weathered timber, with dried mud sealing the gaps between the uneven surfaces. The ­shallow-?­pitched roofs were covered in ­split-?­stone shingles, and smoke rose from most of the stumpy chimneys.
“Nearly home,” said Owen, with a note of relief in his voice. At least the house would be warm, and that would be a welcome sensation. The perspiration of the day had soaked his clothes, and it was cold under the evening wind. If Ma’s chickens had provided a few extra eggs today, they might be able to trade for a jar of ale from the small tavern that served the village. It didn’t often ­happen—?­the hens were as poorly fed as the ­family—?­but he could hope. Maybe he ­could—­
The thought of home comforts was interrupted by a ­low-?­pitched, ­blood-?­curdling growl. The hair on the back of Owen’s neck stood on end in a primitive reaction to the sound. He stopped in his tracks and looked around, noting that his brothers had also come to a halt.
“What ­was—­” Gryff began, but Dai nudged him with his elbow to silence him.
Instinctively, the three brothers edged closer together, gripping their hoes protectively, raising them not as tools but as primitive weapons. They stood back to back, facing outward as they searched their surroundings for the source of the threatening sound.
It came again, louder this time and with a definite note of challenge in it, as if reacting to the sight of the men’s hoes. And again, the brothers’ blood ran cold at the sound.
“Look,” said Owen, gesturing at the cliff...

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Verlag
Viking Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593463846
ISBN 13 
9780593463840
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
247
Kontakt zum Hersteller
VIKING BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
https://www.vtech-jouets.com/

Fahrenheitstraat 22
DC Weert
6003
Niederlande

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