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Book Details

The Third Book of Swords

71.4% complete
Copyright © 1984 by Fred Saberhagen
1984
Fantasy
Unknown
Never (or unknown...)
See 2
19 chapters
Epilogue
Book Cover
Has a genre Has an extract In my library In a series 
15019
 Book of Swords*
#3 of 3
Book of Swords*     See series as if on a bookshelf
A fantasy series by Fred Saberhagen.

1) The First Book of Swords
2) The Second Book of Swords
3) The Third Book of Swords
No dedication.
Up at the unpeopled borderland of cloudy heaven, where unending wind drove eternal snow between and over high gray rocks, the gods and goddesses were gathering.
May contain spoilers
Dying, in what seemed to him the first cold morning of the world, he groped for fire.
No comments on file
Extract (may contain spoilers)
The chase under the blistering sun had been a long one, but the young man who was its quarry foresaw that it was not going to go on much longer.

Since the ambush some twenty kilometers back had killed his three companions and all their riding beasts, he had been scrambling on foot across the rough, barren country, pausing only at intervals to set an ambush of his own, or when necessary to gasp for breath.

The young man wore a light pack on his back, along with his longbow and quiver.  At his belt he carried a small water bottle - it was nearly empty now, one of the reasons why he thought that the chase must soon end in one way or another.  His age would have been hard to judge because of his weathered look, but it was actually much closer to twenty than to thirty.  His clothes were those of a hunter, or perhaps a guerrilla soldier, and he wore his present trouble as well and fittingly as he wore his clothes.  He was a tall and broad-shouldered young man, with blue-gray eyes, and a light, short beard that until a few days ago had been neatly trimmed.  The longbow slung across his back looked eminently functional, but at the moment there were only three arrows left in the quiver that rode beside it.

The young man had fallen into a kind of pattern in his movement.  This took the form of a trot, a pause to look back over one shoulder, another scramble, a quick walk, and then a look back over the other shoulder without pausing.

According to the best calculation he could make, which he knew might very easily be wrong, he still had one more active enemy behind him than he had arrows.  Of course the only way to make absolutely sure of the enemy's numbers would be to let them catch him.  They might very well do that anyway.  They were still mounted, and would easily have overtaken him long ago, except that his own ambushes set over the past twenty kilometers had instilled some degree of caution in the survivors.  These high plains made a good place for ambush, deceptively open-looking but cut by ravines and studded with windcarved hills and giant boulders that looked as if some god had scattered them playfully about.

By this time, having had twenty kilometers in which to think it over, the young man had no real doubt as to who his pursuers were.  They had to be agents of the Blue Temple.  Any merely military skirmish, he thought, would have been broken off long before this.  Any ordinary patrol from the Dark King's army would have been content to return to camp and report a victory, or else proceed with whatever other business they were supposed to be about.  They would not have continued to risk their skins in the pursuit of one survivor, not one as demonstrably dangerous as himself, and not through this dangerous terrain.

 

Added: 12-Jul-2025
Last Updated: 23-Jul-2025

Publications

 01-Aug-1985
Tor Books
Mass Market Paperback
In my libraryOrder from amazon.comHas a cover imageBook Edition Cover
Date Issued:
Cir 01-Aug-1985
Format:
Mass Market Paperback
Cover Price:
$2.95
Pages*:
320
Catalog ID:
55307-1
Internal ID:
43984
Publisher:
ISBN:
0-812-55307-1
ISBN-13:
978-0-812-55307-9
Printing:
1
Country:
United States
Language:
English
Credits:
Howard Chaykin  - Cover Artist
Victoria Poyser  - Cover Artist
Coinspinner, Farslayer, Mindsword, and nine more...  The gods gave the Swords of Power to humankind for a game - but the swords can kill gods as well as mortals.  And as the gods begin to die, the mortals find that life is not what it seemed...

THE THIRD BOOK OF SWORDS


"Fred Saberhagen has always been one of the best writers in the business...  THE FIRST BOOK OF SWORDS has adventure and intrigue, a carefully rationalized background... most of all it has Fred Saberhagen's narrative gifts."  - Stephen R. Donaldson, Author of THE ONE TREE

"Hoist with their own petard by setting humans up as pawns in their game of swords, the gods now face their own destruction in the violent, thrilling conclusion to Saberhagen's Swords trilogy."  - BOOKLIST

"Fred Saberhagen has proved he is one of the best."  - LESTER DEL REY
Cover:
Book CoverBook Back CoverBook Spine
Notes and Comments:
First trade printing: August 1984
First mass market printing: August 1985
First printing assumed
Canada: $3.50
Canadian ISBN: 0-812-55308-X

Other book covers for this series run

Image File
01-Aug-1985
Tor Books
Mass Market Paperback

Related

Author(s)

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*
  • I try to maintain page numbers for audiobooks even though obviously there aren't any. I do this to keep track of pages read and I try to use the Kindle version page numbers for this.
  • Synopses marked with an asterisk (*) were generated by an AI. There aren't a lot since this is an iffy way to do it - AI seems to make stuff up.
  • When specific publication dates are unknown (ie prefixed with a "Cir"), I try to get the publication date that is closest to the specific printing that I can.
  • When listing chapters, I only list chapters relevant to the story. I will usually leave off Author Notes, Indices, Acknowledgements, etc unless they are relevant to the story or the book is non-fiction.
  • Page numbers on this site are for the end of the main story. I normally do not include appendices, extra material, and other miscellaneous stuff at the end of the book in the page count.






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Presented: 26-Aug-2025 12:43:26

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