Dawn by Tim Lebbon Read Free Book Online

Mages stood on the mole that stretched out across the mouth of the harbor. They were constructing another machine, but this was larger than anything they had made yet. Twice the size of the largest hawk Lenora had ever seen, it seemed to float above the choppy waters, held upright on thick columns of steam. Angel and S’Hivez worked their hands into and around the rock, twisting and molding it to their needs, pumping fresh magic into this miraculous creation. The rock dipped and a roar of steam sent ripples across the harbor. It rose again, the Mages went back to work, then the surface of the water began to bubble and burst as dozens of sea creatures were sucked from beneath. Fish, octopus, a foxlion, shelled creatures and something five times the size of a Krote with more teeth than skin—they all flapped through the air and landed on the red-hot machine, melting into it as the Mages manipulated their flesh and scales, bones and teeth, adding to their creation every second.
    Wings sprouted from its sides, one pointing inland at Noreela, the other stretching above the wilder waters beyond the mole. Eventually, with the machine complete, Angel and S’Hivez cast it down into the waters to cool into its final shape.
    When it rose again, they mounted its huge back, and it lifted them high above Conbarma.
    “There’s so much left to do,” Lenora muttered.
    The monstrous flying machine flapped its wings, sending clots of flaming feathers groundward.
    “Where do I start?”
    It rose higher and higher, and soon it was simply one shadow among many. Even the light from the moons failed to reveal its bulk.
    Now we are both alone, her child’s voice whispered, and Lenora shook her head.
    “Mistress?” a Krote said.
    Lenora looked at her warriors mounted on their machines of war. They looked intimidating, terrifying, lost.
    “Mistress, what now?”
    “Now,” Lenora said, “I need you to find a stock of rotwine and food. Post sentries at the town’s perimeter, but the rest of you will drink and eat with me, and we’ll plan the days ahead.”
    Lenora smiled, suddenly eager for the fight. And quietened the voice in her mind, telling it there was all the time in the world.

 
    Chapter 3
    AS HE APPROACHED another nameless village, Lucien Malini was hoping for a fight. Terribly wounded though he was from the battle at the machines’ graveyard, still he relished the prospect of wetting his sword again. His skin raged red.
    The battle in the graveyard was a day behind him, and with every breath since then he had known that the Mages had won. Magic was back, they had taken it for themselves, and yet blood pumped through his veins, clotting around his wounds, drawing rent flesh back together, stiffening fractured bones, feeding on the rage that was stronger than ever before. In the constant, unnatural twilight that had marked the Mages’ return he felt a sense of cool defeat, but deep down Lucien still had a burning purpose driving him on. He had seen the dead Shantasi melt and flow across the ground, and the implication of what that could mean drove him on. His whole life had been directed toward one purpose. The fact that he still lived, weakened though he was, gave him a sense that could have been hope.
    He moved on toward the village. It was a motley collection of huts and shacks—triangular constructions built low to the ground to weather the storms blowing in from the Mol’Steria Desert. No dwelling rose higher than his head, and it was only the contours of the land that prevented him from seeing right across the village. That, and the dusky light. It should be dawn—all of his senses suggested that—and yet dusk still clung to the sky. There were no smudges of the sun hidden behind the clouds, and the death moon sheened the land with a sickly illumination. In this light, Lucien’s blood was black.
    The Mages’ first effect on Noreela, with the magic he had sworn they would never again possess.
    From the village came