The Godbreaker: The God-King Chronicles, Book 3 by Mike Brooks

Author:Mike Brooks [Brooks, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780356513959
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2022-06-22T16:00:00+00:00

Stonejaw

Zheldu Stonejaw had wondered how long it would be before the Flatlanders actually tried to mount some sort of proper resistance to The Golden’s arrival, and she got her answer the day after they sacked the first town since leaving the coast. The wind had dropped, but the smooth surface of the river was so much more welcoming to paddling than the waves of the ocean that the fact the current was against them barely mattered. Their ships forged upstream, powered in part by Naridan muscles. Those Flatlanders who had decided to throw in their lot with The Golden were hardly familiar with the techniques of yolgu paddling, but they wanted to keep getting fed, and so they obediently began to imitate the crews.

Naridan ships on the river were clearly not expecting the invasion, and Zheldu saw three overhauled and boarded before the sun was a handsbreadth above the horizon. However, it was close to noon when she spied movement on the river’s northern bank.

“Dragons,” Korsada the Dry said, shielding her eyes against the sun. “Dragons with riders.”

Zheldu squinted towards the shore. They had left the estuary behind, but the river was still wide enough that the main body of their fleet could be out of arrow range from either bank, so it was hard to make out any details. All the same, dragons were large creatures, and there were several of them. They had seen a small wild herd shortly after dawn, which had prompted a false alarm, but this time the sun was glinting off metal.

“Scouts?” she asked the air in general. She looked farther to the west, but a bend in the river, and the road that ran alongside it, meant she could not tell if there were more Flatlanders coming.

“They seem agitated enough,” Korsada commented, then chuckled. “Look, there they go!” The dragons had turned, and were hastening away in a rolling gait that looked almost comical from distance. Zheldu, who had seen the damned things close up, knew exactly how fast they could cover ground, and how hard they hit when they reached you.

“Scouts,” she said, her suspicions confirmed. The Storm’s Breath was one of the frontrunners in The Golden’s fleet, and she could not be sure that anyone else was paying attention, so she snapped her fingers at Kuadan Gaptooth. “Pass the word back: there could be enemies on the northern bank before long.”

Gaptooth nodded, and picked up the signal sticks that allowed Tjakorshi ships to communicate back and forth without relying on shouting: invaluable when the noise of wind and waves could render your voice inaudible even to someone on the other side of your own vessel. Others picked up the message, and word began to spread throughout the fleet. Zheldu saw the Flatlander Livnya look up from her paddling and watch Kuadan curiously, and stepped into the woman’s line of view.

“Looking at something?” Stonejaw demanded, and even though Livnya could not understand her – unless she had rapidly added Tjakorshi to the

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