Read Online Clash of the Sky Galleons by Paul Stewart, Chris Riddell - Free Book Online

care to dodge the cluster of small boats that bobbed about their heads. At the far end, which jutted out high over the muddy Edgewater, a gnokgoblin was leaning against a boarding-post, the end of a tolley-rope in one hand.
    ‘The sky-shipyards,’ said Wind Jackal. He produced a coin from his pocket and placed it in the gnokgoblin’s hand.
    ‘Right away, Captain,’ he replied. ‘Jump aboard, sirs, miss.’
    Maris went first, climbing up the knotted rungs that stuck out from the post on both sides. At the top, she clambered across into the flat-bottomed vessel tethered there. Quint followed, with Wind Jackal and then the gnokgoblin bringing up the rear.
    Settling himself on a small bench, the gnokgoblin raised the sail, slipped the tolley-rope from the mooring-ring and the little sky ferry - the Edgehopper - leaped up into the air. Quint and Maris looked around them as they rose higher and Undertown fell away beneath them. Suddenly, the maze-like streets and alleys took on a certain order, and the broad sweeping curve of the great Edgewater River as it sliced through the city could be seen. Below, in the dirty swirling water Quint saw shoals of oozefish swimming in neverending figures of eight, while ahead, the glass dome of the magnificent Leagues Palace - home to Ruptus Pentephraxis, the High Leaguesmaster - glinted in the bright early morning sunshine.
    Despite its patched sail, its creaking timbers and the primitive flight-cauldron, filled with flight-rock rubble, that just managed to keep everything aloft, the vessel was in expert hands. It sped like an arrow from the east to the west bank of the river, and then made its way along the curve of the Edgewater. Past breweries and mills it went, and on over the foundry district, with its vast metalworks and factories, with tall smoke-belching chimneys, cramped workshops and cobbled inner courtyards, where heaps of raw materials were piled high beside crates of finished goods.

    A little further to the north, on the edge of the foundry district, Quint could see the distinctive outline of the sky-ship cradles; huge cagelike structures which soared up into the air from square towers, high above theneighbouring rooftops. These elegant pieces of scaffolding were the structures that supported the sky ships being built in the great sprawling sky-shipyards beneath them. It was towards the sky-ship cradles that the Edgehopper was heading.
    Wind Jackal turned to the gnokgoblin pilot and pointed down below. ‘Just over there will do fine,’ he said with a smile.
    ‘Aye-aye, Captain.’ The gnokgoblin leaned down hard on the little vessel’s tiller.
    Quint felt his stomach lurch and, for a moment, regretted his hearty breakfast. The Edgehopper swooped down out of the sky and glided to a halt in a large courtyard surrounded by tall square towers on all sides. With the sky ferry hovering a couple of strides above the ground, the gnokgoblin motioned for his passengers to disembark. Stepping to the ground after Quint and Maris, Wind Jackal tipped his bicorne hat to the pilot.
    ‘Excellent flying,’ he said, tossing the gnokgoblin another coin.
    ‘Learned my trade as a “leaguer”,’ the pilot laughed, pocketing the coin. ‘But I just couldn’t take to being ordered around by high hats the whole time. This way, I can be my own boss …’ He swept the Edgehopper back into the air. ‘Just like you, Captain!’
    The gnokgoblin laughed again as he flew away, back towards the Edgewater River.
    ‘Throwing your money around, I see,’ came a terse, hoarse-sounding voice, and Quint turned to see a leaguesman in a high four-pronged hat, standing at the ornate entrance to one of the towers.
    His rich robes were gathered and fastened above the ankle and he wore ‘mire-paddles’ - flat, wooden shoe-protectors for splashing through the muddy streets. A great cluster of the charms and amulets beloved of leaguesmen formed a cluttered ruff around his neck, and in one hand he carried a