Godsbane by Dale Lucas

Author:Dale Lucas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2022-04-07T12:30:16+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

There was a large spyglass mounted on a spring-loaded gimbal at the stern of the Aemick’s Blade. Given its length, the size of its lenses and the sky-ship’s considerable altitude above the landscape, it gave any viewer who peered through it a clear, stunning view for a great distance in the vessel’s wake.

Peering through it now, in the depths of the purple twilight that passed for night on Hysh, Thelana saw the plain beneath them stretching away for hundreds of leagues. If she aimed the spyglass just below the horizon, she could make out a broad, scintillating concentration of shadows and lights moving steadily, swiftly over the flat, rolling land behind them.

Dawnriders. Four squadrons, at least, perhaps more.

Settler’s Gain had disappeared from the spyglass’ view an hour or two earlier, which meant that the cavalry now thundering overland in their wake with calm, steady assurance had only left the city in that span of time and were already pacing the sky-frigate, even if they were still far behind. She knew they’d be delayed when they came to the coast and had to board ships to cross the Girdle Sea. Aboard the Aemick’s Blade, the progress of Thelana and her companions would not be so hampered.

But the Dawnriders would make up for it: Thelana was absolutely certain of that. She guessed they’d be hard on their trail for the whole of their five-day sky voyage to the ruins where Nerontes now gathered his army.

Removing her eye from the spyglass, Thelana studied the land beneath and behind them with her naked eye: a broad yellow-green sward of sere grasses, sand dunes and sun-bleached, rocky hills, bordered by a corrugated line of mountains to the north. The view was stunning, but it did little to enliven her spirits. They were being hunted, and they would be hard-pressed to outrun the enemies that followed them indefinitely.

She heard heavy footsteps lumbering nearer and knew that would be the ship’s captain, Wodrik Thunderall. The duardin’s tread seemed to vibrate subtly through the superstructure of the ship in a manner as unmistakable and distinctive as a signature on a contract.

‘All right,’ he said as he approached. ‘We’re underway and the crew’s about to end one watch and start another. What say you tell us where precisely we’re taking you?’

When they’d departed the city, Thelana had provided the captain with a heading – due east – and little more. The captain had accepted her request, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to stave off an explanation indefinitely.

‘Gather everyone on deck,’ Thelana said. ‘I’ll be along shortly.’

Wodrik Thunderall set to it. Thelana lingered at the aft gunwale, staring down at the windswept world beneath them, enjoying the soft light, the pensive silence. Everything looked so peaceful up here, so staid and untroubled. Did everyone down there, sleeping in their homes or hovels or castle keeps, know that the realm itself – everything they’d known and believed in for all their lives – now hung in the balance?

Of course they don’t, she thought.

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