Free The Assassin Princess (Lamb & Castle Book 2) by J.M. Sanford Page B

horizon where the dark figure of a Flying City broke the rainclouds, a dark speck like a distant bird, moving slowly.
    Greyfell instructed Bessie to spend the next couple of hours practising with the wings, and then to rest. “That spell's no more than a toy, so you'll have but a few hours tonight to learn what you can in Ilgrevnia,” he warned. “Be back at least an hour before sunrise – here on deck, or for God's sake at least on solid ground somewhere.”
     

7: THE PIRATE CITY
    The network of Flying Cities had taken Amelia and her companions to the very borders of civilisation. They descended via a small skyship, and on the way down, Amelia stared in amazement at the mist-cloaked mountains to the north. They'd landed before she realised how this node differed from the others she'd visited: no merchant town stood there in the shadow of the City above. As Harold and Percival unloaded what little luggage they had from the skyship, Amelia turned full circle to take in the view. Nothing more than grass and gorse and rocky hills. No shops or houses that she could see, not so much as a barn, although a few shaggy red cows stood at a distance, ambivalent to the thin drizzling rain. She thought for a moment she saw a sprinkling of snow across the sparse thorny bushes, but then realised the white points were tiny flowers in their thousands.
    The bells of the City sounded far above their heads, muffled by the distance and the thick clammy atmosphere. Amelia looked up, reeling a little at the vast scale of the rock above their heads, and watched the skyship ascend until it disappeared in the shadow of the City. She sensed then that she'd never get over the sheer size of the Flying Cities – the shadowy bulk that blocked out the sky. As she stared, the City began to move ponderously away. It had little reason to stay for long in this forsaken part of the world.
    Amelia’s pet fire sprite Stupid had followed her on her journey, until she’d had to cage him to keep him out of trouble. Now she considered letting him out of his cage for an hour or two so that he could do whatever the fire sprite equivalent of stretching one's legs might be, but he hunched right down in the bottom of the cage, woefully unimpressed with the drizzling wilderness, his usually green flames turning a thin unhappy shade of yellow.
    “Marvellous,” said Percival glumly, as the City began to move off, uncovering a sky blanketed in cloud. “Not a scrap of cover for miles around.”
    “A bit of rain never hurt anyone,” said Meg. Rain aside, she'd been looking forward to the prospect of fresh air after their stay in the crowded City. “Though you'll have to watch you don't rust, Perce.”
    “I might, before the wretched and infamous Ilgrevnia ever materialises,” Percival grumbled. “And my concern was that when she does come, we'll be sitting ducks out here in the open. Come now, Meg, you still haven't shared your plan with us.”
    Meg took a deep breath, and Amelia suspected immediately that her mother didn't really have much of a plan. “The less people we send up there, the better our chances of going unseen. So, Amelia will go up –”
    “What?”
    “It's all right, dear, I'll be after you soon enough. Perce and Harold will stay on the ground, though, for causing a nuisance and a distraction if need be. They're both well qualified for it.”
    “I can't go up there alone!” Amelia cried.
    “How do you propose she's to get into the City?” Percival demanded, before Meg could say anything else.
    Meg grinned. “Now, there's another reason we can't all go up at once…”
    ~
    Harold's piercing whistle echoed across the foggy wet grassland. Amelia prayed that it might get no answer, but they soon heard a shriek from high above, and a moment later, a dark winged figure came into view.
    Harold beamed. “What a good boy he is, following us all the way here.”
    The tame wyvern alighted on a rocky outcrop, settling down and folding his wings as