The Spikatur Cycle

Chapter eleven

Chapter eleven

A shot at a swordshipOne thing you could say for Unmok the Nets — he was a businessman. He discharged the useless lumber — the shaven-headed Gon would have been a nuisance, but Froshak the Shine clicked his sailor knife up and down in the sheath. The Gon departed. Unmok worked at a high pressure. The thomplods were loaded into a second vessel, little more than a sailing steerable raft for coastal navigation, fees were paid, bribes were distributed, stores taken aboard, and we set off northward around the west coast of Hyrklana.

Everyone was jumpy.

Hyrklana is a large island shaped rather like a pear, or a flint arrowhead. From north to south it measures around thirteen hundred miles and across the broadest part just over eight hundred. The coast of Havilfar to the west cu