The Immortal Storm (Sky Chaser Book 1) by S.D. Wilkes Read Free Book Online

abruptly. Clearly questioning this Starmaker was taboo. “Arcus is good and kind. Arcus said one day I will get a real body. Then I would be able to walk and dance and feel the sun on my face. Just as I once did.”
    For a moment Ember's words hung in the night air. Words heavy with sadness and bright with the promise of hope. The skin under Kite's collar tightened, making him shiver involuntarily. These weren't the words of a machine. They were the words of a child.

 
     
     
     
     
    8
Mariner’s End
     
    The Undercloud was black as dried blood when Kite set out from Dusthaven. Guided by the rattling bones markers he tacked the sandboat onto the Bone Roads. Electrical flickers scurried across the dunes, playing tricks with his sleep-sore eyes. Each breath of greasy, warm air burned his nostrils. Mornings in the Thirsty Sea were always the worst.
    Stirred up by the storm winds chemicals clung to the air as oil floated on water. A drunken pilot from Iron Hill had once tried to convince him Foundation’s ascenders pumped toxins into the air. But then Ersa told him the foolish men of the old world had polluted the sea. Now those same poisons were being served up by the Undercloud in a deadly dust. Maybe he’d never know which story was real. But the ache in his lungs told him all the truth he needed to know.
    Further down the western track a dust cloud spiked Kite’s attention. All kinds of craft cluttered the westward path through the dunes. Windcutters with buzzing propellers and three-wheeled land-yachts. Even a shuddering, square-rigged duneclipper with container-high studded wheels. All of them chewing up the red dust into blur.
    Slowly the reason for all this activity dawned on him - the Monitor . News of the wreck must have spread with a fire’s fury. But as Kite uneasily passed by the crash site it was obvious that the Savage Salvage Company wasn’t going to risk their prize.
    Tom Skulls sneered from a ring of hastily erected flagpoles. Gutter’s crew held the dune-tops, armed with machetes and hooks. Skirmishes had already taken place with clutches of the bloody wounded regrouping on the roadside. The frenzy didn’t surprise Kite. You had to be mad to risk your neck against Gutter’s blades but these were desperate men and a bucket of oil-soaked sand could feed a scavvy family for a week.
    Ersa snorted at the scene. “Vultures,” she said. “Onward boy, there’s nothing for us here.”
    Only when they’d put three leagues between them and the crash site did Kite's nerves finally began to settle. His mind was still rattling with things Ember had told him and carrying such a dangerous item in his bag was making him jittery. Being found out by Ersa was one thing. Being found out by the Savages would cost him his life.
    By the time they arrived at the rubble heaps beneath Mariner’s End Kite was already exhausted. Stiffly he clambered down from the deck, wringing his blood-thick arms. The cliffs soared a hundred feet above; vertical slabs of dirty chalk glistening with seams of glassy blue flints. At the top, shrouded in the amber haze, the ruin of the old harbour wall jutted out, waiting for the ghosts of sea trawlers to one day return to port.
    A fresh fall had left a scatter of salt-white rocks to explore. Sieving the scree was crushing work. On all fours Kite picked out barbed fishing hooks and fat lead weights, brittle clam shells and nuggets of coral. Ersa sheltered on the sandboat’s deck barking out instructions when she spotted a silvery glint in the half-light. Kite hated it.
    As the morning wore on the temptation to secretly consult the Weatheren's map grew strong. How easy it would be to pick out one of those unexplored wrecks and suggest a course. They’d find more scavenge there than buried in this rubble that’s for sure. But Kite resisted the urge. Such new-found knowledge would only arouse Ersa’s suspicions.
    Then there was Ember.
    The Cloud Room? The Starmaker? All of it starting to