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Chapter Thirty-Two



Treve was by no means a breathtaking city, but there were still a few towering edifices from earlier epochs. It had been the thriving capital of Steelring for eight centuries, dominating affairs on Far Amitryea for at least half of that time.

But that era had ended seven centuries ago, and the many reconstructions since then reflected both the diminished ambitions and dogged pragmatism of its inhabitants. With the exception of fortifications and watchtowers, buildings rarely rose above three stories, but they were overwhelmingly of whole- or part-stone construction and served by long thoroughfares that ran like spokes away from its modest but well-developed harbor.

Debarking just an hour before dusk, Captain Firinne sent a mate to guide them to the small, solid building that was dedicated to the affairs of Dunarra’s Overseas Expeditionary Couriers. Its shape and conspicuous patrols made it seem more like a blockhouse in a hostile borderland, but Druadaen and the others received a fair, if terse welcome. They received an equally terse explanation that they should return the next day, when Talshane was sure to be available. And when they inquired after the Corrovani sacrist Padrajisse, only one of them had ever heard the name, and she had no idea where that worthy might be found.

At that point, the choice before Druadaen and his companions was either to return to the Swiftsure for another predictable supper and hard bunk, or to part with some billon to spend the night ashore. In the end, they arrived at a unanimous and reasonably economical compromise: to dine on land and then sleep aboard ship.

The mate had no recommendations regarding the city’s public kitchens—it was only his second time in Treve—so they returned to Captain Firinne as Ahearn finished securing Raun in their cabin. Firinne nodded and frowned as she considered their options and finally proclaimed “Shan’s Shanty,” just as Ahearn reemerged.

“That doesn’t sound like an inn,” Elweyr observed hesitantly.

“That’s because it’s not,” she explained. “It’s a tavern. Right near the docks. Only a few minutes’ walk. Even if one has been in their cups.” She shot a fast, appraising glance at Ahearn.

Who was running a broad hand through his thick black hair. “Now, the thing of it is that…well, the last time all of us went to a tavern together—”

“Its food is better than any of the nearby inns, its drinks are fairly priced and not watered, and it’s under the protection of the mariner’s guild.”

“Which means—?” S’ythreni wondered.

“Thieves and brigands know not to show their faces in there. If there’s a crime committed on or near the docks, the guild knows. And it is the guild that metes out the punishment…and they have an ‘eye for an eye’ concept of justice. Literally.”

As one, they all began nodding, but Firinne held up a hand that signaled the addition of an important caveat. They waited.

“The only thing you should bear in mind is that we’re not the only ship from Ar Navir in port. There’s a Kar Krathaun merchantman here, as well. She’s leaving on the morrow, so her crew may go ashore for a last night of liberty.”

Elweyr rolled his eyes and groaned faintly.

“Is that bad?” Umkhira asked.

“It’s not good,” he replied sourly.

Firinne grinned ruefully. “Mind your step around them if you can. Now, I have to settle accounts with the purser, a task I find just slightly less enjoyable than a bout of dysentery.” With a genial nod, she slipped through the weather deck hatchway into the sterncastle.

Once she was gone, Umkhira turned back to Elweyr. “Why must we ‘mind our step’ when in the presence of these, eh, Kar Krathauans?”

He sighed. “Because Kar Krathau has been at war with Corrovane for…well, I guess four centuries now.”

Umkhira frowned. “But we are not sworn to the service of Corrovane.”

“No, but he”—Ahearn broke in, aiming a finger at Druadaen—“is a Dunarran.”

Umkhira nodded cautiously. “So in the case of the Kar Krathauans, it is as the saying has it: ‘My enemy’s friends are my enemies’?”

Elweyr tilted his head slightly. “Well, yes…but it’s more than that. The Kar Krathauans have their own, eh, difficulties with Dunarrans.”

Umkhira nodded. “So they feel wronged by the Dunarrans.”

“Not so much wronged. More like a…an old grudge between families that once feuded. Same with the Crimathans, for that matter.”

She folded her arms. “I do not see why the Kar Krathauans’ dislike of the Corrovani would touch the Crimathans. They—we—are on the other side of a wide ocean.”

Druadaen nodded encouragingly. “It doesn’t make much sense…until you start listening to the local language, and then think back to the speech of the Corrovani captain who came aboard the Swiftsure.”

She frowned. “Yes, the word-sounds are like unto each other. So, are the Crimathans the descendants of the Corrovani, then?”

Druadaen smiled. “More the other way around, if there is any truth in their legends. At any rate, that’s why Corrovane sends ships here to trade, despite the distance; among nations, they are as cousins.”

“And yet the Kar Krathauans cross the same great ocean to this place. Why? To be despised?”

Elweyr’s grin was crooked. “No: to be provocative.”

Ahearn nodded. “I’ll tell you the one thing that I know about ’em: whereas the soldiers and generals of most warlike nations are more bluster than business, that’s not the case with the Kar Krathauans.”

“And they despise cowards,” S’ythreni murmured. “Their own, most of all.”

Umkhira nodded and stood. “Now I understand. I hope we shall see some of these Kar Krathauns. I wish to observe them. Let us heed the captain’s advice and go the tavern with good food and drink.”

* * *

“Well,” drawled S’ythreni, “it appears that the gods of the ur zhog have granted your wish.”

“Bloody hell,” muttered Ahearn, leading them quickly to a table against the same wall as the door through which they’d just entered Shan’s Shanty.

“There are Kar Krathauans in here?” Umkhira asked in a tone that was anything but muted. “Where?”

“Stop craning your neck,” S’ythreni muttered. “They’re already looking at us.”

Umkhira noticed that the entire taproom had grown quiet; indeed, half of the patrons were looking at her. Their faces showed fear, anger, curiosity, sometimes a mix of all three.

“Are my people unknown here?” she murmured as she sat in a chair that had its back to the room.

Druadaen was on the verge of suggesting that was a very vulnerable position, thought the better of it, and answered, “No. But on Far Amitryea, no humans ever make common cause with the Bent.”

An unfamiliar voice asked, “A word, if you please?”

They turned, discovered an elderly man several paces away, as if he were cautiously approaching wild animals. Which, given his frank and horrified stare at Umkhira, might have been exactly what was going through his mind. “Of course,” answered Druadaen, who made to stand.

The other waved him down. “We’re a peaceful place,” he muttered. “The odd bar fight over a spouse or a wager, mind ye, but nothing that results in loss of life or limb.” Now he was trying very hard not to look at Umkhira.

“So we have been told,” Druadaen said calmly, “by Captain Firinne of the Swiftsure. Who recommended your tavern above all others.” He offered a faint smile.

“Aye? Captain Firinne?” It was unclear if he was surprised or puzzled. “Well, if it’s as you say, then you’re right welcome here. All of you. So long as you…well, leave us as you found us, if you take my meaning.”

“I shall not disrupt this place,” Umkhira said frankly, and again, perhaps a bit too loudly.

He stared at her as if she were preparing to devour him at a single gulp.

Umkhira straightened—rather majestically, Druadaen thought—and assured him, “As I am a guest here, it is my duty to defend your tavern, not despoil it. This is the way of my people.”

The owner goggled at her. “Why…why that’s well said.” He glanced at Druadaen. “She’s not from here, I wager? And so well spoke…for a pek.”

S’ythreni put her face in her palm; Ahearn rolled his eyes; Umkhira’s brow came down.

Druadaen stood. “Sir, it may not be known to you, but pe…that word is very offensive to my friend. She is a Lightstrider, an ur zhog, and is not only well spoken and brave but flawlessly polite and honest. More so than most humans.”

The barkeep’s responding gulp was so long and loud that Druadaen momentarily feared he had truly swallowed his tongue. But it finally made a voluble reappearance: “Now, I had no intent to give offense. And she’s a what? A Lightstrider?”

Umkhira had calmed—slightly—but shook her head as she glanced at Druadaen. “I feared this when you said that there is no contact between Bent and human in these lands. If any ur zhog were ever here, we have long since ceased to be.”

Druadaen reached out a hand to the owner’s shoulder. “If we are not welcome here, we will leave. But we would prefer to stay. The choice is yours.”

The look on the old fellow’s face was similar to the one Druadaen had seen on Couriers and Outriders about to plunge into their first combat. The shoulder beneath his palm was trembling: possibly with fear, but more likely, the palsy of age.

The barkeep shook himself and looked up into Druadaen’s face, as if seeing it anew. “Why, you and your friends shall stay right where you are. What shall I bring you?”

* * *

The evening progressed pleasantly enough. Half of the patrons were locals, as was obvious from their easy and boisterous camaraderie. But there were other strangers like themselves, many from the smaller or greater ships that rode at anchor out in Treve’s deep bay or tied to her sturdy wharves.

And then there were the Kar Krathauans. There were four of them, three of whom wore dragon-emblazoned livery of some kind and were in gambesons: near-proof that they had left much more substantial armor behind. They were, however, armed with swords that were broader in the tang but smaller at the tip than those Druadaen was accustomed to.

The fourth of their number did not have their features nor their martial presence, and so, Druadaen speculated, might not be a countryman of theirs. By far the most garrulous, he was also the most expressive. He was also the only one who frequently glanced at Druadaen and his companions, wearing an expression both contemptuous and resentful. But the three Kar Krathauans with him barely reacted to whatever gibes and detractions he was muttering. Druadaen, like the others, affected not to notice him.

But they remained peripherally aware of his muted declamations, and so were unsurprised when, on his way back from the privy, he swerved toward their table.

“Ah, gabar guts,” mumbled Ahearn testily, “here we go.”

The lean man stopped as if surprised, a full table still between him and Druadaen. “Well, now, what’s this?” He looked around at the patrons immediately surrounding him. “Why didn’t any of you fine people tell me a circus was come to Treve?”

The few smiles his remark earned were either nervous or uncomfortable.

“No,” he seemed to realize on a second, closer consideration of Druadaen and his companions. “Not a circus, after all. It’s more of an invasion, isn’t it? After all, that is a Dunarran ship in port, and we all know what they do best: conquer other lands!”

Rather than paying attention to the fellow’s insipid insults, Druadaen had been concentrating on his accent. He was almost certainly from Caottalura, a frequent—albeit odd-bedfellow—ally of Kar Krathau.

Disappointed by the lack of response from either Druadaen’s companions or the patrons, he stepped closer. “But it seems the Imperial Eagle must be molting, if these are the most fearsome invaders it can deposit on these shores. Human riffraff, an aeosti, an arse-scratching cave dweller, and just one stripling from the bosom of Dunarra itself. Here to plant the tattered old imperial flag, no doubt. Tell me, just what have you come here to accomplish, Outrider? World conquest? Again?”

Umkhira stirred in her chair. As she did, Ahearn shook his head once, sharply. At the same moment, the oldest—and largest—of the three Kar Krathauans rose wearily and paced over to their table.

When he’d come to a stop, Druadaen looked away from the slender japester and nodded at the newcomer. “I have never understood the Kar Krathaun toleration of allies such as Caottalurans.”

The man’s dark brows lowered. “We share common interests.”

“Particularly against imperial pretenders,” the much leaner man sneered.

Druadaen kept his eyes on the Kar Krathauan. “So that is your point of allegiance with this Caottaluran? Resentment over the Consentium’s debatable action, now two millennia past?”

The man’s frown didn’t disappear but became strained. “We set our own course and mean to have our lands back from the Greyblade usurpers. Those who side with them are our adversaries.”

Druadaen nodded. “Fairly spoken.”

“You agree with him?” S’ythreni wondered aloud.

“No, but he speaks what he holds to be true, frankly and without insult.” Druadaen shook his head. “All too often, it seems, honorable warriors find themselves in association with jackals who have less stomach for drawn swords than baiting words.” He shrugged. “But no surprise there: raillery is invariably the preferred weapon of cowards.”

The Kar Krathauan’s only reply was a single twitch of his lower lip.

But the Caottaluran’s response was a swiftly drawn dagger. He aimed the point of the slightly curved blade at Druadaen. “Who are you calling a coward, Dunarran?”

Druadaen shrugged, found it strangely easy to smile. Partly because although the Caottaluran had more mettle and skill than he’d thought, he also saw sloppy execution in the rapid drawing of the dagger. Sloppy enough that he was not a profound threat. Still matching the Krathaun’s steady gaze, Druadaen shrugged. “I did not insult any individual, but rather, a kind of person. The kind that uses words like needles…but who is always ready to hide behind the blade of a more resolute ally.” He glanced sideways at the Caottaluran. “I’m sure you know the type.”

In the moment of silence that followed, Druadaen went outside himself as his parents had taught him. He remained ready, but for a single instant, widened his perception to the entirety of his surroundings as a detached observer.

And realized that there were two armed men at a nearby table who had been the only ones in the room who had not turned toward, or otherwise took notice of, the increasingly tense exchange.

So when the Caottaluran tried to combine a sudden slash with a hasty backstep, Druadaen was up in the same moment, pushing his chair back with his calves—and then spinning into a long, leaping stride toward the two suspiciously oblivious men.

Who, just starting to rise and draw, were startled by his sudden charge and the longsword that was clearing its sheath.

Druadaen had a glimpse of Ahearn already on his feet, sword drawn in the direction of the Kar Krathauan, who was doing the same with a resigned look and a smothered sigh.

The Caottaluran had taken a further step back, winding up in a stance not of a knife-fighter, but a mantic. Umkhira was surging up from her chair but had only brought a hatchet. S’ythreni, on the other side of the table, was coming around Druadaen’s empty chair, but would not reach the Lightstrider’s flank before the two other Kar Krathauans had met her in a headlong rush from their own table.

Druadaen chose the more surprised of the two men with whom he was closing, prepared to feint with a shortcut that he would then wrist-roll into a thrust—

Blinding light filled the taproom. Gasps broke through the terrified silence of the moment before.

“Hold!” boomed a voice that would have suited a king’s herald.

Druadaen regretted ceding his advantage over the two men but checked his thrust. The only sound was the Caottaluran’s deep gasps for air, punctuated by sputtered curses in his own language.

Druadaen turned toward the source of the light. A tall, almost gaunt woman of middle years stood in the far corner of the tavern, holding aloft a steel-shod stave. Its cap was a pinpoint of intense, almost painful, white light.

“It is unlawful to draw weapons in this public house,” she said. Although her slow, solemn tone made it sound like more of a pronouncement than a statement.

“I was insulted! I challenged the Dunar—”

“Your insults were direct, Caottaluran, and they preceded those you impute to him,” she corrected loudly. “And you did not challenge before you attacked.”

“Such matters are handled otherwise, where I am from.”

“If by that you mean Caottaluran society practices ambush and assassination as part of its ‘honor code,’ why yes, I believe I have heard something like that. But you know the rules of this place. As do your comrades.”

The Caottaluran clutched his throat briefly, flashing rage-narrowed eyes at Elweyr’s raised fingers before making his reply. “You have no knowledge of what I knew and what I did not, hag!”

“Ah. More insults,” the woman croaked. “So, perhaps you are hoping that I shall challenge you, now? I shall, if you wish. Here, in front of these many witnesses. And we may settle the matter outside without delay.”

The Caottaluran raised his chin. “And how does one duel with the miracles of a consecrant?”

“By using your own mantic powers,” Elweyr observed drily. “However modest they seem to be.”

Still rubbing at the base of his windpipe, the Caottaluran’s intended rejoinder was interrupted when the Kar Krathauan’s free hand came down with a clap upon his thin shoulder. “Enough,” the broad, dour warrior intoned. He sheathed his sword and glanced at his purported ally. “If you wish to injure your own pride with such mewling, that is your affair. But we will not remain with you if you only mean to exchange barbs, rather than blows. So duel or desist, but otherwise, we depart. The choice is yours. Make it now and state it clearly.”

“We shall depart,” the mantic muttered, his voice quavering with rage. “But I have a long memory, sacrist.” As he sheathed his dagger, it reflected light as if a moving snake had somehow been incised upon it. He stepped back so he was alongside the Kar Krathauan. “And I shall certainly remember you, too, Dunarran.”

“Of that I have little doubt.” Druadaen shifted his gaze to the man’s dour companion. “Your honor is an adornment to your people.” The warrior’s eyes widened slightly. “But your choice of allies is unfortunate.”

The Kar Krathauan shrugged as he moved toward the exit, giving Druadaen’s table a wide berth. “Our choices are our own. And your counsel is neither wanted nor needed.” He nodded as he opened the door into the night, his men and the Caottaluran hard on his heels.

Druadaen turned to the tall woman as her blindingly bright staff began to dim. “Sacrist Padrajisse, I presume?”


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