River of Spears (Kingdom's Forge Book 0) by Kade Derricks Page A

to fear as well. The grasses stirred and, for a brief second, Dain thought he saw a monstrous scaled tail rise and then fall off to his right. From force of habit, he felt for the hilt of his missing sword, then realized his mistake and shook his head.
    Poor time to be defenseless.
    He glanced at Nico. She stood with her hands held out, ready to cast. He tugged their common chain and she shot him a venomous look. He stared deliberately down at her clamp-covered hand.
    She followed his look and, when she saw the clamp, her eyes widened as if it were a death adder. She turned her eyes back to him, an unspoken apology mingling with the realization and fear there.
    For half an hour no one moved. Sweat beaded up and dripped down Dain’s forehead. He made no move to wipe it lest the chain rattle. The grasses skittered and shook and a loud snort came from off to their left. Then, finally, whatever beast lurked ahead, whatever they had disturbed, lay silent.
    A second crane, one with gray in his hair, led the army back, away from the sound’s source. Later, when they were miles away, he and Dain’s captor stood alone. Both men faced each other. The older man jammed his finger into the younger man’s chest and spoke in firm tones.
    Though he didn’t understand their language, Dain had seen soldiers disciplined before. The old warrior’s expressions reminded him of his father when he had dressed down one of his men.
    At last the older warrior returned to the lead. The younger scowled and stomped off in a huff.
    “Not happy, is he,” Nico commented.
    She hadn’t spoken since Ox’s death. Her voice had grown higher in pitch now that she made no secret of her identity.
    “No, I would say he made a pretty bad mistake back there. Did you see anything?”
    “I thought…no, nothing. Did you?”
    He heard the hesitation. Had Nico seen the tail, too? He was about to reply when the butt of a spear jammed into his side.
    They walked on for another four days. Twice they found small lakes, and on the third day it rained all morning. Their captors didn’t care. Despite the mud, they led them on.
    At last, when Dain thought they had traveled a hundred miles, they emerged into an open field. There was no warning; one minute they were in the stifling grass, and the next they stepped into the clear.
    He looked out and stretched his vision as far as it would go.
    Before them was a city. Not a small adobe village like the one they’d conquered, but a great sprawling city on a hill, with gleaming white buildings bristling skyward like quills on the back of an enormous hedgehog.
    A city of this size must hold at least a hundred thousand Tyberons , Dain guessed, his mouth falling open at the sight.
    Like the village, but on a far larger scale, a patchwork of green fields and orchards reached out from the hill in all directions. Irrigation water poured through deep canals, linking the fields in a perfect web. The field’s runoff collected into a tranquil lake that surrounded the city like a castle’s moat.
    At the clearing’s edge stood a solitary, flat-topped tower. On its roof was a gear-driven tripod and a telescope pointed toward the heavens.
    Dain gawked at it. How could these people, seemingly primitive as they were, create such a thing? The village’s simple adobe huts he could believe. But this…this city, the precise layout of the fields, irrigation, and an observatory? It would take years—no, decades—of planning, coordination, and engineering. The Tyberons had to be much more sophisticated than they appeared.
    The guards led the group around the edge of the fields. They talked among themselves, louder than before. A few laughed—a sound Dain had never heard coming from any Tyberon. They held their spears loose with a casual grace.
    “Look at that pump,” Nico whispered. She stood at his shoulder.
    Dain followed her gaze. Two robed Tyberons, unfeathered and indistinguishable from any other person, stood behind a white stone