Master of Dragons

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Arian saw the three black, wedge-shaped sails on the eastern horizon and his heart went cold. They emerged out of nowhere, taut triangles of sable in the dawn sun-glare, moving fast against a running swell.

‘Full sail!’ he shouted.

The crew were already complying. Sailors hauled to unfurl the buffeting mass of white sailcloth. The fabric filled out, catching the brisk easterly, making the ship jerk forwards in the water and cutting a line of foam through the waves.

The Ithaniel was not a warship; she was a light cutter, a dispatch-runner, a jack-of-all-trades employed by Lord Riannon to pass missives and personnel between the hawkships of the main fleet. She was fast, but not the fastest. She carried two quarrel repeaters — one fore, one aft — and a complement of thirty spearmen amidships.

None of that would make much of a difference, for Arian had seen the look of the sails coming after him. He knew the manner of ships they belonged to, and why they ran fast through the contested northern ocean.

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