Storm Thief by Chris Wooding

Author:Chris Wooding
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic UK
Published: 2013-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

Rail had sat faithfully by her bed for several days, but he had to eat and attend to other matters, and that meant he had to leave her alone sometimes while he went to buy food or use the crude toilets in the tiny settlement nearby. And sometimes he simply had to get out of there, to walk around for a while and clear his head.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he joked weakly at her, each time he got up to leave. Then he pushed aside the drape, and stepped out into Kilatas.

The sight of Kilatas in all its shabby glory always made him feel even more tiny and insignificant. He held on to the metal railing that ran along the path outside the cave and looked across the secret sanctuary, and marvelled at what had been made here.

Kilatas was built within an immense chamber of rock, at the very base of the black cliffs that supported Orokos. Hundreds of feet above, the city bustled on unaware, while down here at sea level lived a community – one of many, no doubt – that existed beyond the laws of the Protectorate. The cavern roof soared high overhead, packed with stalactites, blackened with bats in patches. The greater part of Kilatas was taken up by a huge saltwater lake, from which dozens of bleak islands rose.

Most remarkable was the western side of the cavern, where there was a great natural wall. This wall was only a half-dozen metres thick, and beyond it was the endless ocean and the sunlight, which beamed in through several gaps in the rock. The gaps were high up on the wall, massive jagged rents that allowed the day’s light in to brighten the cavern. Kilatas was always dim, except in the early evening when the sun blazed directly on to the outside wall. But that was the price they paid for their limited freedoms.

The dwellings of Kilatas had been put wherever they could fit. Some, like the one where Moa lay, were just caves cut out of the rock. There were many of them, high up on the sheer sides of the cavern, linked by precarious paths to other parts of the community. In other places, where the walls of the cavern were only a shallow slant, thick clusters of buildings had grown, dozens of huts and simple shacks of wood and metal. They were constructed with whatever was available, using skills learned in the ghettoes.

But most of the dwellings were on the islands that stood in the lake. They clung to the bare rock like limpets. A dizzying network of rope bridges connected the islands to each other, a rickety web stretched across the water.

Beneath all this chaos, among these shaggy clots of civilization growing doggedly on the cold stone, there was one thing that drew the eye, one focus around which the whole hidden community revolved: the shipyard.

It was to the shipyard that Rail was heading now, and he made his way down the winding path that hugged the cliff.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.