Scorpion Mountain (The Brotherband Chronicles), by John A. Flanagan
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Scorpion Mountain (The Brotherband Chronicles), by John A. Flanagan
Ebook PDF Scorpion Mountain (The Brotherband Chronicles), by John A. Flanagan
From John Flanagan, author of the worldwide bestselling Ranger's Apprentice -- an all-new adventure featuring the Brotherband crew and one of our favorite Rangers! Hal, his Brotherband crew, and the Ranger Gilan have freed the twelve Araluens sold into slavery. Returning to Araluen, Gilan is given a new mission by King Duncan: protect his daughter’s life. Princess Cassandra has survived one attempt on her life already, and now whispers of a second attempt have reached the kingdom. A deadly sect known as the Scorpion Cult is thought to be behind the assassination threat.Not waiting to see if the knife will strike true, the Brotherband again team up with Gilan to track down the would-be killers.In this fifth book in the Brotherband Chronicles, old friends reemerge to take on new enemies as the worlds of Ranger’s Apprentice and Brotherband join forces in battle!
Scorpion Mountain (The Brotherband Chronicles), by John A. Flanagan- Amazon Sales Rank: #22187 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-08
- Released on: 2015-09-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.75" h x 1.25" w x 5.10" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 480 pages
About the Author John Flanagan grew up in Sydney, Australia, hoping to be a writer, and after a successful career in advertising and television, he began writing a series of short stories for his son, Michael, in order to encourage him to read. Those stories would eventually become The Ruins of Gorlan, Book 1 of the Ranger’s Apprentice epic. Now with his companion series, Brotherband Chronicles, the novels of John Flanagan have sold millions of copies and made readers of kids the world over. Mr. Flanagan lives in the suburb of Manly, Australia, with his wife. In addition to their son, they have two grown daughters and four grandsons. You can visit John Flanagan at www.RangersApprentice.comwww.BrotherbandChronicles.com
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One “Whoa there, Tom! Steady on, fellow!” Tom was a plow horse, well past middle age and resigned, like most of his placid breed, to the constant task of plodding up and down, hauling a plow that carved consecutive furrows in the rich earth of Halder farm. He wasn’t accustomed to being stopped in mid-furrow and he turned his shaggy head to look at his owner, Devon Halder. Devon, like his horse, was well past middle age. And the smock that he was wearing was liberally daubed with patches of drying mud. Later that night, when he was asked in the local tavern what led him to stop and and turn around, he couldn’t really recall. Perhaps he had heard the slight sounds of creaking leather and rope, or the rustle of a sail in the brisk wind. Whatever it was, it was enough for Devon to halt Tom and turn to face the river behind him. When he did, the sight that met his eyes sent a sudden jolt of panic through him.
Barely forty meters away, gliding smoothly up the river, was a ship.
His first thought was that she was a wolfship, and Devon was old enough to remember when the sight of a
Skandian wolfship on the river was a prelude to a sudden, savage attack. He tensed his muscles to run and spread the alarm in the nearby village. But he paused at the last second.
The days when Skandians used to raid the coastal and river villages of Araluen were well in the past now.
And besides, on second glance, this was no wolfship.
She was similar in style and shape, sure enough. She was slim waisted and had a look of speed about her.
She didn’t have the broad, capacious lines of a cargo hull. But there was no large square sail such as a wolfship would use. Instead, this ship was rigged with a triangular sail that was mounted fore and aft along the line of the ship, supported by a long, gracefully curving spar that swept up high above the hull.
She was smaller than a wolfship. Also, at her bow post, there was no carved wolf ’s head, with raised
hackles and snarling teeth. Instead, there was a carving in the shape of a bird’s head. And there was a motif of a seabird in flight on the sail—a graceful bird with wings spread wide. A heron, Devon realized.
But the four circular wood-and-metal-reinforced shields arrayed down the starboard bulwark were unmistakably Skandian in design, although he noticed that a fifth shield, set level with the helmsman’s position, was shaped like a triangle. The crew, those he could see, were dressed in Skandian fashion—with leather and sheepskin vests and leggings held secure by crisscross bindings. Yet he saw none of the horned helmets for which the Skandian sea wolves were well known, the sight of which would strike fear into any honest farmer’s heart. Instead, several of them wore dark woolen watch caps, rolled down to cover their ears against the cold. As he watched, the figure at the helm raised a hand in greeting. Devon shaded his eyes to look more closely at the helmsman. He appeared to be quite young, and relatively slim for a Skandian. The person beside him was more like a typical sea wolf, Devon thought. He was bulky, with wild gray hair blowing in the wind. As Devon watched, he realized that the second man had a wooden hook in place of his right hand. Definitely a sea wolf type, he thought. But then the man made a similar gesture of greeting. Devon returned the wave cautiously— his suspicions were still raised. Small as she might be, this was definitely a cruiser, a raiding ship. She was fast, lean hulled and potentially dangerous. And, as the shields arrayed down her bulwark attested, her crew were fighting men. He watched her closely as she sailed past, gradually pulling out into the center of the river to round the approaching bend. The helmsman and his companion lowered their hands and seemed to lose interest in the elderly farmer and his plow horse. “That’ll give him something to talk about in the tavern tonight,” Thorn said with a grin. “Probably the most exciting thing that’s happened to him since his plow got stuck on a tree root five days ago.”Hal raised an eyebrow. “Us? Exciting?”
Thorn nodded, scratching his rump with the blunt end of his wooden hook.
“He was a graybeard. He’d remember the times when the sight of a Skandian ship meant a raid. I’m
surprised he didn’t go pelting off to raise the alarm when he saw us.” Thorn had no idea how close the farmer had come to doing just that.
As they rounded the bend and the farmer and his horse disappeared from sight, Kloof planted her forepaws
onto the starboard bulwark and gave out a single bark. Then, content that she had asserted her superiority over all things Araluen, she dropped back to the deck, slid her front feet and flumped down onto the planks. For a few seconds, she watched Hal out of one eye, then she sighed and settled back to sleep.
Hal cast his gaze over the tilled fields and green forests that lined the banks of the river. It was attractive
country, he thought.
“Did you ever raid in Araluen, Thorn?” he asked.
The old sea wolf shook his head. “Erak preferred to raid the Iberian coast, and sometimes Gallica or
Sonderland. And now that I’ve seen Gilan in action with that bow of his, I’m glad he did. Maybe Erak knew something. Imagine facing half a dozen archers with Gilan’s skill and speed.”
“Facing one would be bad enough,” Hal agreed.
Stig was sitting on a coil of rope several meters away, idly putting an edge on his already razor-sharp saxe
knife as he listened to their conversation.
“D’you think Gilan will be at Castle Araluen yet?” he asked.
Originally, they had planned to leave Cresthaven Bay at the same time as the Ranger, who was riding
overland back to the capital. But they’d had a long, hard voyage south to Socorro and Hal wanted the Heron in tip-top shape for her first appearance at Castle Araluen. There were some sections of running rigging that had frayed and needed splicing and repairing, and there was a large, splintered gash in one of the planks on the waterline, where they had nearly run aground pursuing Tursgud’s renegade ship Nightwolf through the shoals. It took half a day to plane that smooth and repaint the timber so there was no sign of the damage.
In addition, Edvin wanted to replenish their stores and fresh food and suggested that they should do it at Cresthaven, where the village was contracted to supply their needs as part of the duty ship agreement. “No point spending our money elsewhere when they’ll provide it for nothing here,” Edvin had said, and Hal agreed. As a result, they sailed out of Cresthaven and headed north to the river mouth some two days after Gilan had ridden off, waving farewell as he topped the rise above the bay where they were moored. “He should be,” Hal replied to Stig’s question. “It’s a little over a day’s ride and I’m told those Ranger horses cover ground at a prodigious rate.” “He can have the welcome committee ready for us then,” Thorn added. “Maybe this king of theirs will come down to the jetty to greet us.”Hal smiled sidelong at his old friend. “From what I’ve heard of kings, they don’t stand around on windy
jetties waiting for roughneck sailors to arrive.”
“Do you consider yourself a roughneck?” Thorn asked. “I’ve always thought of you as quite sophisticated.”
“I may be. But you’re roughneck enough for all of us,” Hal told him and Thorn grinned contentedly.
“Yes. I’m glad to say I am.”
Farther forward, in the waist of the ship and with no responsibilities to attend to during this current long
reach of the river, the twins were bickering, as they were wont to do. They had been silent for some time, much to the crew’s relief, but that was a situation too good to last.
“You know that brown-eyed girl who was sitting on your lap at the welcome-home feast?” Ulf began.
Wulf eyed him suspiciously, before replying. “Yes. What about her?”
Ulf paused, smiling quietly to himself, preparing to throw out his verbal challenge. “Well, she fancied me,”
he said.
Wulf looked at him, eyebrows raised. “She fancied you?”
Ulf nodded emphatically. “So you noticed too?”
Wulf snorted in annoyance. “I wasn’t agreeing,” he said. “I was querying you. That was why I raised my
voice at the end of the sentence. It signified that I was saying, What do you mean, she fancied you?”
“I mean she found me attractive—actually, very attractive. It was obvious, after all.”
Wulf paused for several seconds. “If it was so obvious that she fancied you—that she found you attractive
—why was she sitting on my lap?”
Ulf waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “That’s what makes it so obvious. She wanted to make me
jealous, so she played up to you. She was playing hard to get.”
“Well, she played it very well. You certainly didn’t get her,” his brother told him, with some heat in his voice. He had noticed Ulf admiring the girl early in the evening and had swooped, successfully, before his brother could act. Lydia, who was leaning on the bulwark several meters away, groaned audibly as the exchange continued. Ulf laughed. “I could have if I wanted to. She was overwhelmed by my devilish good looks.” “Devilish good looks? You’re as ugly as a mange-ridden monkey,” Wulf told him. But his brother was already shaking his head. “It’s odd that someone as unattractive as yourself would say that,” he replied. “That was why she chose to sit with you when she planned to make me jealous. She chose the most unattractive person she could see.” “Then obviously,” Wulf retorted, “she couldn’t see you.” Of course, what made this discussion puzzling for the rest of the crew was that Ulf and Wulf were identical in every respect. For one of them to call the other ugly was for him to call himself ugly as well. But they never seemed to grasp that fact. As they continued speaking, their voices, at first lowered, rose in volume so that the entire crew could listen to their meaningless drivel. Hal decided that enough was enough. “Ingvar?” he called. The massively built boy was sitting forward of the mast, leaning back against it, his long legs splayed out on the deck before him. He turned and peered back toward the steering position.“Yes, Hal?”
“Would you say that sailing down a river counts the same as being at sea?”
The rules of the ship were that if the twins carried on one of their idiotic arguments at sea, Ingvar was
within his rights to throw one of them overboard. In fact, some of the crew felt, he was obliged to throw one overboard. Usually, a reference to this fact was enough to stop the mindless discussions they enjoyed so much.
Ingvar shrugged. “Eh? Oh, I don’t know. I suppose so.”
His voice was distracted and flat. Lydia, a few meters away, noticed this and turned to look at him,
frowning. Hal mirrored the expression. Usually Ingvar was good tempered and cheerful. Now he sounded listless and bored. Hal wondered if something was on the big boy’s mind.
Ulf and Wulf fell instantly silent. These days, they were never quite sure how much rope Hal would give
them before he ordered the huge Ingvar to toss one or the other, or even both, overboard. Discretion was the better part of valor in such a case.
Hal noted that they had stopped arguing, and he nodded in Ingvar’s direction. But the young giant wasn’t
looking his way anymore. He had resumed his seat against the mast, and Hal heard him give vent to a loud sigh. Hal looked at Stig, who was also watching Ingvar curiously.
“Have you noticed Ingvar’s been acting strangely for the past few days?” Hal asked his first mate.
Stig nodded, a slightly worried look on his features. “Something definitely seems to be on his mind. I’ve
been wondering . . .”
Whatever it was that he had been wondering was forgotten as the ship swept past a high bluff. In the near
distance, set among tailored and carefully tended parkland, stood the majestic, beautiful Castle Araluen, a mass of graceful spires, soaring turrets, flying buttresses and fluttering pennants.
“Gorlog’s earwax!” Jesper said. “Will you take a look at that!”
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful. GOOD BOOK BUT!! By punkfan from nj GOOD BOOK BUT!! I wish there was another star for the rankings, because I did love this book but not as much as book 3 of Brotherband. I do not like to compare the two series, Ranger's Apprentice and Brotherband, because I try to separate the two as much as possible. However, I will always like RA more but BB is still a good series. Here's my huge problem with this book, the same with book 4 "Slaves of Socorro". Flanagan is teasing us RA fans way to much!! We have three great books about a new group from a different part of Flanagan's world (Skandia) and having adventures focusing on boats and pirates, and yes I love it! Something new, something different to help me get over RA being done, but still read Flanagan's great works and still be able to live in his world.But here is the tease. He is bringing RA characters into play, but there all the secondary characters (Primary characters being Will, Halt, Horace). I would rather keep the two series completely separate or bring them together completely. I would get upset reading this book when Gilan thinks about something that Halt always use to tell him. Or when characters in Arrida say how great Will Treaty is. Flanagan gives us the secondary characters (Gilan, Cassandra, Duncan, Crowley) which I am fine with, but then Flanagan brings up the primary characters a lot and its just a tease! I believe that they are unnecessary lines in the novel and are no help to the story. Instead they just tease us RA fans.My one confusion with the book is that Flanagan messed up the timeline during this novel. BB and RA take place at the same time, which I find interesting but enjoy. The timeline is messed up because Flanagan writes that Cassandra and Horace are married, which does not happen until at the end of book 10. Duncan says that his special task force (Will, Halt, Horace) cannot handle the Scorpion Cult because they are in Hibernia handling an insurrection (the Outsiders, Book 8). So I believe that this is a mistake. I'm fine with this mistake , I'm more writing it so others who may be confused, know that there not alone. BB book 5 takes places during RA Book 8, and Horace does not propose to Cassandra until the end of book 10.PLEASE DO NOT THINK I AM DISSING FLANAGAN AND BB. I love reading these books, I get them right away when I they are released and I enjoy the books greatly. RA will always be better to me, and I simply wish that Flanagan would either keep them separate completely or bring it together completely.My last remark is from a review I read on here from someone else saying how RA missions were always more meaningful than BB missions. RA, saving Araleun from Morgorath, the Picta invasion, all being killed in Nihon-Jan. BB trying to get a Skandian artifact, then doing missions for Araleun. But here is my rebuttal to the author who said this. The Herons, the main group in BB, are on a BOAT!! What do you want Flanagan to write about? 12 people on the Heron go invade a whole country? Erak does not allow much raiding anymore, and the Herons will defiantly not be raiding I think. Also Flanagan writes about missions to protect, not to attack, so the Heron won't be going to attack somewhere else. Also, Flanagan needs to write about the boat, and naval battles, because if he does not than BB is exactly like RA just with different characters. I bet that no one wants that. So that explains why the Herons fight pirates and slave holders, because a boat will always be involved and allow for naval battles. I am fine with the BB antagonists and enemies! Zavac was a perfect enemy who I rank right next to Tennyson (Most dangerous enemy to Ra, because he almost killed Halt).This book is another great work by Flanagan, that involves land and naval battles. The Scorpion Cult was a scary enemy, and Flanagan described them in a very scary way, which I enjoyed. I wish Gilan had a tougher duel, but that's ok. No duel will ever be as great as Horace and Morgarath. Please read this book, and read this series. It is great and I am forming a bond with all the Heron crew, just like what happened with RA. I hope the series continues and the Herons continue to help keep Flanagan's world safe from harm. Good job Flanagan! Just please stop teasing me with RA lines about Halt, Will and Horace.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful. I love them. The people in them are good By Baltoreader I have purchased all of John Flanagan's books, Rangers Apprentice and Brotherband. I love them. The people in them are good, they try to do the right thing, not just randomly kill people like other series.I hope this isn't the end of the series. Can't wait for the next one (I hope)
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Oh, how I missed Gilan... John Flanagan and his perfection strikes again! By Lynette @ Escaping Reality - One Book at a Time Check out my full review on my blog! I loved this book. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed so hard at a book. Only a few highly skilled authors can actually make me laugh out loud — John Flanagan most definitely being one of those. Add to that, a healthy heaping of beautifully written high fantasy, and I do adore YA high fantasy because it is so rare, and characters that you fall in love with… well, let’s just say that the world Flanagan creates is one you will want to return to time and time again.My brother, an author, said something about the climax happening at the 50% mark rather than the 75% mark, and how that makes this book not QUITE as good as the others. Personally, though? Though I understand the reasoning behind that, I kinda thought it was cool how this was done. Like a real mission, real life. Wasn’t quite what you expected. So if you’re super into the ‘science’ of writing, maybe this won’t be your personal favorite book that John has ever written ever, but even he was forced to admit that is still amazing. Plus there was that awesome King Duncan avs. Thorn scene. You don’t wanna miss that. And — Gilan! Duh!If you haven’t read any of John Flanagan’s books, please, please, please, go check out my review of his very first one — I promise, you’ll thank me later. If you are a fan, and want to know what I thought of the book: well, it was pretty dang good. You get to see some major character development, and a lot of fun character dynamics and interactions. Add to that sword play (or murder, depending on who you are), strategy and battle scheming, inventions, wolfships, and a Ranger’s bow and you have the recipe for a non-stop action read. It was brilliant, and I loved every second of it! I recommend this book for ages 9+.
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