Golden Age (The Shifting Tides, #1)(65)

Seeing an opportunity to learn about the warships’ construction, Dion walked over, discretely watching from behind the stout, muscular man as he gruffly ordered the slaves to hammer wooden dowels through an expanse of planked flooring.

He decided that if Xanthos were to build a navy they would first need to make some of these sheds, sunken into the ground and stepped at the sides so that workers could access the vessel from all quarters. He saw that they would need a great deal of timber; but there were countless pine trees in the mountainous wilds near the Gates of Annika. People would need to learn specific tasks: from cutting the planks into regular sizes to warping them so they would bend. Currently Sarsican or Phalesian shipbuilders built vessels for Xanthos. That would have to change.

He watched in fascination, then realized that the stocky man was looking at him. He also realized that the man was a woman.

‘What do you want?’ she barked.

Her hair was cut close to her scalp, a look that Dion had never seen on a woman and was so unfamiliar that for a moment he was stunned into silence. Exposure to the sun had bleached her hair near white and at the same time tanned her skin to a reddish brown.

‘I . . . I’m here to enlist,’ Dion said, finally finding his voice.

She proceeded to growl a series of rapid questions. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Dion.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘A small village on an island in the Maltherean. You won’t have heard of it.’

She grunted. ‘What are your skills, Dion of No-land?’

‘I’m a good sailor. I’m skilled with a bow. I can ride a horse.’

She scratched a white scar just under her right eye. ‘Ever shot from a chariot, Dion?’

He frowned. ‘No.’

‘Can you drive a chariot?’

Dion’s frown became even more furrowed. ‘No.’

‘Not sure if you’ve noticed, but horse riding is about as useful to me as the ability to drive and repair a chariot.’ She strode over and looked at the bow he clutched. ‘Give it to me,’ she held out a hand.

Dion handed it to her.

‘Strange weapon,’ she said. ‘Nothing like what I’m used to.’ She held it up at the sky. ‘Short. Different materials shoved together. Doesn’t look like much.’

She tested the draw and gave a slight sound of surprise, then handed it back. Her brows came together. ‘Who did you steal it from?’

‘I didn’t steal it,’ Dion said firmly.

‘Your family rich?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Yet you somehow end up here in Lamara, looking for work in the sun king’s navy.’

‘Family feud,’ Dion invented.

The stocky woman grinned. ‘And it’s clear you’re not the one who inherited your father’s wealth.’ She changed tack. ‘Have you ever hunted wildren, Dion?’

He thought about the fury he’d killed on the shore at Cinder Fen, and the arrow he’d placed in the head of the coiled serpent before its larger cousin arrived. ‘Yes.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I build boats as well as sail them, so I’m busy now, but come back an hour before sunset. Ask for Roxana. Everyone knows me.’

Roxana suddenly turned and swore as she saw something the slaves were doing on the boat. Considering himself dismissed, Dion began to walk away.

‘Oh, and Dion?’ she added.

‘Yes?’

‘Let’s hope you’re brave. The reason I need men is because I lose so many. But the sun king pays good bonuses for dead wildren.’

She grinned, and Dion left her to her work.




Dion’s room was on the third story of the House of Algar. It was simple but clean, with a linen bed pallet stuffed full of straw for sleeping and a small chest for possessions. A thin curtain covered the window and the room was high enough to provide a view of the streets around the palace and block some of the city’s noises and smells.

He spent the day watching from his window, wondering if the fates would smile on him and he would see the first consul’s daughter. He examined passing groups of soldiers and countless women in shawls and veils, but when late afternoon came and he hadn’t seen her he wasn’t surprised.

He pondered time and again what Kargan and Solon would have done with her. Chloe would have been questioned, undoubtedly, and with such men questioning often involved torture. But would they torture the first consul’s daughter? If they harmed her they would lose some of their negotiating position. Surely she would be in the palace, safe and well.

But he wasn’t certain that their plans involved using Chloe as a bargaining chip. If all they wanted her for was questioning, or if Kargan had taken her on a whim with the sun king having little use for her, she could already be dead.

Dion abandoned this line of thought. He had to assume she was alive.

Realizing it would soon be sunset, he attempted to make his way to the harbor without Anoush to guide him. He was glad he’d given himself plenty of time, becoming lost until a tea seller gave him directions. He arrived at the naval yard just in time, as a radiant orange sun dropped to within a finger’s width of the horizon.

Passing through the guards, he found Roxana standing close to the water’s edge on a cleared patch of hard sand, directing slaves to place straw targets at set distances from a line of red rope. As Dion approached she gave him a short nod but continued with her work. Nearby he saw two other archers, both dressed in similar tunics and trousers, but carrying bows that were plainer and longer than his. Away from the red line, a dozen armed marines watched with arms folded over their chests.