The “enthralling epic adventure” (Terry Brooks) in the New York Times bestselling fantasy trilogy following the invasion of the realm of Corona as resistors begin to fight back for their land from the legendary million-selling author and creator of Drizzt Do’Urden. In Pinquickle’s Folly , New York Times bestselling author R. A. Salvatore returns to his signature world of Corona, introducing a new part of the southern coast never written of before as a great starting place for new readers being introduced to the world for the first time. The first adventure in the Bucaneers trilogy begins in the free sea outside of the control of the usurping Xoconai empire, where the dwarven Powrie pirates and merchants sail. But the golden-skinned Xoconai have begun to encroach upon these waters behind the rapacious attacks of the frigate Crocodile , helmed by Captain Aketz. But when forced to submit, these sailors choose to live, free to do as they please, without some fool or another pretending to hold power over them. Fantasy master R. A. Salvatore brings together a misfit band of Xoconai, powerie, and human sailors—once enemies, now fierce friends with a common enemy, and the spark of rebellion in this action-packed piratical adventure. As one of the fantasy genre’s most successful authors, R. A. Salvatore enjoys an ever-expanding and tremendously loyal following. His books regularly appear on The New York Times bestseller lists and have sold more than 30 million copies. Salvatore’s most recent original hardcover, The Two Swords , book three of The Hunter’s Blades Trilogy debuted at #1 on The Wall Street Journal bestseller list and at #4 on The New York Times bestseller list. His books have been translated into numerous foreign languages, including German, Italian, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Turkish, Croatian, Bulgarian, Yiddish, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Czech, and French. Chapter 1: The Whispering Swells CHAPTER 1 THE WHISPERING SWELLS The two figures moved slowly along the uneven and rough stone stairway that ran up the side of the high hill. Although winter was on in full, the vernal equinox still several weeks away, the sky was cloudless and the air comfortably warm. The smaller of the pair, a young woman named Quauh, her Xoconai face coloring beaming in the brilliant sunlight, hopped lightly from stone to stone, moving as if she had too much energy within her lithe frame to maintain such a casual pace. The other, an old man, kept moving slowly and steadily. He had seen nine full decades of life, and making this climb at all for one of his age was quite a remarkable feat. But he kept going, his breathing steady, calmly lifting one foot before the other, using the rope line strung down on the side of the eight-foot-wide trail for support. The Basin Overlook was quite deserted this day, with most of the people in prayer in the many golden-domed temples through the Tonoloya Basin. “Come, Lahtli Ayot,” Quauh said when she went over the last step, only a short rising path before her to the highest point of the Basin Overlook. She glanced back to make sure her old uncle, or lahtli, was moving well, then verily ran up the last expanse to the circular clearing, which offered a full view of the great homeland of the Xoconai. She closed her amber-colored eyes and took a deep breath when she entered that circle, basking in the smells of the desert flowers carried on a strong and warm wind from the northeast this day. She was only a few hundred feet above sea level, she knew, but still, in this low basin, the view… ah, the view. To the west, she saw the distant sea, some eight miles away, the far horizon indistinct and hazy from the ocean mist layer that was so common this time of the year, as winter surrendered to spring. She let her gaze linger there, for always and ever was Quauh called to the great ocean. Eventually, she turned a slow circuit to the right, to the hills in the northwest that formed the northern barrier of the basin, a similar distance from her as the sea. She turned her gaze to the greater mountains lining the east, smaller ones nearby, but moving back more than a hundred miles to high peaks that were still capped in snow. She finished her circuit, turning to the southwest and the haze, and a line of hills that completed the basin wall. Every view proved beautiful and distinct, showing several large cities within these mountain barriers, clusters of shining golden domes and decorated minarets, and thicker bell or horn towers. This was Tonoloya, the land of the Xoconai, some thirty thousand square miles of oceanfront, deserts high and low, with a palisade of mountain peaks protecting it on every side that was not the sea—and on the sea, the Xoconai feared no enemy. When she completed her panorama view, Quauh turned back to the rise, smiling widely to see her uncle plodding along. He wasn’t even breathing heavily—the man had mastered the art of pacing himself. Quauh had see