Read an exclusive excerpt from Travis Baldree’s new Legends & Lattes book

Torchlight and Rebel Galaxy co-creator Travis Baldree revealed his first e-book, Legends & Lattes, in 2022, and shortly captured the hearts of fantasy followers. The comfortable story of Viv, an orc warrior who quits her adventuring profession to start out a espresso store, was a New York Occasions bestseller and a finalist for each the 2023 Nebula and Hugo awards for greatest novel.

Baldree offered a glance again at Viv’s first days at a sword for rent in a second e-book within the sequence: his 2023 prequel Bookshops & Bonedust. In that e-book, Viv she spends her time recovering from a devastating adventuring damage by serving to enhance a ramshackle bookshop in a sleepy seaside city. Fern, the foul-mouthed rattkin proprietor of that bookshop, turns into the protagonist of the third e-book in his sequence, Brigands & Breadknives.

Forward of the e-book’s launch on Nov. 11, Tor Books provided Polygon an unique excerpt from Brigands & Breadknives.

And daylight. Painful, painful daylight.

Supine as she was at the back of the wagon, and boxed in on all sides by, nicely, bins, there was nowhere to flee to however up, straight towards that fierce and lethal smile. A route no right-thinking rattkin would select.

The hangover that battered Fern’s cranium confused the entire enterprise to such a level that up was precisely the place she went, although, lurching to a sitting place, flailing with the satchel her arms had been tangled in, and screaming her throat uncooked.

The sharp grin and pink glare had been abruptly three ft away, on the very again of the wagon. By the sick thumping of blood behind her eyes, Fern noticed that each belonged to a goblin with a mop of orange hair and bottlebrush pigtails, clad in some kind of monumental coat made solely of pockets in a riot of mismatched colours.

Improbably, the goblin’s fingers had been sure earlier than her, and as if that weren’t enough, a number of loops of twine had been wrapped round her physique, from her wrists all the way in which to her shoulders, and secured to a ringbolt on the again of the buckboard.

“What… ​what within the faithless fuck?” wailed Fern. With an ungainly leap, she tumbled sideways over the boxboards of the cart and landed onerous on a rutted observe, together with her cloak flipped over her head and her tail pinned beneath her.

She heard birdsong.

And smelled sweaty horse.

And heard a dimly acquainted voice.

“How lengthy have you ever been in there?”

Fern shoved her cloak out of her face and squinted upward, wishing not solely hyperbolically that she had been useless, for a wide range of defensible causes.

Astryx One-Ear stared down at her from an ideal peak, one hand on her hip, the opposite combing via her silver hair.

Astryx narrowed her eyes in recognition. “Cling on, the place do I do know you from?”

With a mighty effort to maintain the contents of her abdomen inside her, Fern scrambled to her ft. She was conscious that her fur was caked with the mud of the street and doubtless one thing horse-related.

She shot a look on the goblin at the back of the wagon, who hadn’t moved an inch and nonetheless grinned benignly on the each of them.

“I’m, uh… ​so, a number of weeks in the past I used to be in a carriage in some marshlands, and, er—”

“Oh. The pescadines. Mute couple within the wagon. That’s it.”

She sniffed the air and caught a whiff of Fern’s remorse, judging by the face she made. “So is that this on function, or did you simply go out within the improper wagon?”

Nonetheless hung up on the concept of herself and the coachman as a pair and her head aching an excessive amount of to formulate a lie, Fern replied, “Little bit of each?” and winced.

Astryx nodded, considered that for a second, after which appeared to dismiss her solely, shifting her consideration to the goblin within the wagon. She pointed. “You. Again up entrance.”

The goblin obliged, leaping nimbly throughout the cargo within the cartbed and up onto the buckboard, the place she dropped onto her butt.

“Is she… ​some sort of prisoner?” Regardless of the sharpness of her smile, she didn’t appear significantly threatening.

Fern crept gingerly off the street and located a grassy swell. She sank to the bottom, hissing as each muscle alongside her backbone shrieked in protest. She had no thought how she’d slept via the night time, provided that she felt like one monumental bruise.

“Bounty,” replied Astryx as she tied the tarpaulin again down.

“Isn’t that a variety of rope?”

“Belief me once I say it was not my first alternative. You need to’ve come aboard in Thune. Sure?”

Fern nodded mutely. Astryx couldn’t see her, going through away as she was, but it surely didn’t appear to matter.

“We’re a day and a half out, and three days to the following city.”

“A day and a half?” Fern exclaimed.

“By cart.” Astryx was unperturbed. “There’s a village again that means that we handed within the night time. You need to be all proper. Secure nation. Heat spots to sleep.” Astryx completed what she was doing and turned to look Fern over. “Any meals?”

It dawned on Fern what was occurring. “No,” she replied in a really small voice.

Not that meals gave the impression of one thing she needed once more anytime quickly. Her eyes squeezed with each heartbeat, and her guts didn’t just like the rhythm.

The elf rummaged beneath the buckboard and withdrew a hunk of thick-rinded cheese and a chunk of bread that appeared like it will clunk if dropped. Astryx held them out towards Fern with out one other phrase.

She didn’t appear aggravated or offended. However she didn’t appear , both.

She would possibly as nicely have been ready for her horse to complete relieving itself.

Which, sure, it was at the moment within the technique of doing.

Picture: Tor Books

Fern carried out some psychological arithmetic. A day and a half by horse cart. On foot, that was…

Together with her head in her fingers, she whispered, “Questioning my existence from the consolation of a heat mattress sounds fairly gods-damned fantastic proper about now. Fern, you ninny.”

“Hm?”

The elf’s hm was as exactly calibrated as Cal’s.

She hefted the meals meaningfully.

Fern tried for an endearing however barely pitiable smile. “Is there any likelihood I can persuade you to take me to the following city or crossroads or someplace I may e-book passage again . . .” Fern trailed off, and her eyes widened. She patted at her waist with the sudden realization that she was sporting neither her belt, nor her purse. In a wild burst of optimism, she flipped open the satchel and rifled via it, hoping towards hope that—

Nope. Not a lot as a lonely copper bit gathering mud on the backside. Solely parchment, pencils, and a e-book she’d already learn that was meant for any person else.

Astryx had no hassle guessing her ideas. “Looks like the stroll could be the perfect wager.”

It was very clear that the legendary Astryx One-Ear had no intention of retracing her steps to return a hungover rattkin to her shambles of a life. In a narrative, the heroine would have gallantly modified her plans to usher a naive villager again to the protection of their very own house, regardless of how inconvenient or clearly impractical that could be.

This clearly was not a kind of tales.

“Luffing shunks!” chirped the goblin.

Each Astryx and Fern switched their consideration to the lady on the buckboard.

“My ideas precisely,” muttered Fern, who knew a variety of goblin profanity.

“You realize what she’s saying?” Astryx cocked a forehead at her.

One thing canny in Fern that wasn’t solely debilitated by alcoholic low tide mentioned, “Oh, certain. Why?”

“You communicate goblin?”

“Does she not communicate Territories?” Fern neatly prevented the query.

Astryx frowned. “Not as far as I can inform. What’d she say?”

“Properly,” Fern hedged. “Nothing well mannered.” Not that politeness had ever ruled Fern’s speech earlier than.

“By no means actually obtained on with the goblin tongue myself. They didn’t even have one 5 hundred years in the past. I perceive it’s principally curses, so, that sounds about proper.”

Fern thought that if she had lived for a thousand years, she might need picked up a number of extra languages that had been related to her line of enterprise, however was smart sufficient to not say so.

As an alternative, she mentioned, “Look, I’ve obtained a proposal. For the sake of argument, let’s assume you’re taking me with you to the following actual cease. I can hearken to what she’s obtained to say? That’s sure to make issues simpler for you, and as a bonus, I don’t expire by the aspect of the street on my means house.”

The elf pursed her lips in hypothesis. “You continue to don’t have any cash. How are you planning to rent your means again?”

Fern unfold her paws. “You don’t have to fret about that, proper? I’ll simply must discover a option to scrape collectively the silver once I get there.”

“Mmm. What’s your identify?”

“Fern.”

“And what’s it that you simply do?”

“I’m a bookseller,” replied Fern, which didn’t appear very helpful in the mean time.

Astryx appeared skeptical. “That doesn’t bode nicely to your prospects.”

Fern privately agreed, however mentioned, “I’m a really resourceful bookseller . . . ?”

There was an extended silence, throughout which the draft horse cropped a number of mouthfuls of grass from the verge and flicked away a number of bothersome flies.

“Ta shunka,” declared the goblin.

Astryx glanced between the 2 of them after which raised each brows at Fern expectantly.

Fern sighed. “It means, ‘you’re fucked.’”