The giant drew a deep breath, taking a long draught of air. “There’s a port,” he said. “I can smell cooking fires.”
He has a good nose, Myrrima thought. The warrior clans bred like hunting dogs, and they gave him a good nose with all the rest.
“Aye,” Myrrima said. “If you listen close, you’ll hear foghorns braying in the distance.” She shot him a worried look.
Aaath Ulber stood silently until a horn sounded, long and deep. “Internook,” he said softly. “We’ve landed in damned Internook.”
He gave her a worried glance. They’d had nothing but bear meat to eat for the past few days, an old boar, sour and rancid.
Myrrima said, “I think that I should go ashore, purchase some fresh supplies.”
Aaath Ulber held his tongue for a moment, peered at her from the corner of his eye. She knew that he would argue. He loved her too much to let her take the risk.
“I’ll be the first to go into town,” he said.
“Why you?” Myrrima demanded.
“I’m the biggest,” he said. “If anyone gives me trouble, I’ll be able to squash them.”
She had known that he would make that argument. “You’re the biggest—and the easiest to spot,” she said. “You’ll attract too much attention.”
“Your dark hair will attract almost as much attention. And you speak with a Heredon brogue. I’ve always done a fair impression of an Internook accent.”
“Fair enough to mock the warlords at a drunken feast, but this isn’t a feast, and these are not our friends. They’ll spot you in minute!”
“Last that I heard, it wasn’t against the law in Internook to be a Mystarrian,” Aaath Ulber growled.
“Last I heard, the warlords of Internook were using Mystarrians for bear bait in the arena.”
“Let them,” Aaath Ulber said. “The last bear that I tangled with didn’t do so well.”
“Maybe we should just keep sailing,” Myrrima said. “I have an ill feeling about this. In two more days we could be in Toom.”
Aaath Ulber stood over her, put his huge hand on her shoulder. He was trying to be gentle, she knew. He was trying to ease her mind. But it felt clumsy and wrong somehow. His hands now were as big as plates. They felt like the paws of some animal. There was a distance between them that could not be crossed, and when he touched her now she felt more isolated than ever.
“We need ale,” Aaath Ulber said, “at the very least. I’ve heard that we cannot trust the water here. Ale, a few vegetables, a couple of hens. I can go to the morning market and be out in an hour. I won’t talk much, just grunt and nod and point.”
“That was my plan exactly,” Myrrima smiled.
“Mmmm?” he asked. He pointed at her, jutted his chin, and grunted, as if to say, “I want that one.”
Myrrima laughed.
“See,” Aaath Ulber said, “I’ve been practicing all month. I’ve got it down to an art.”
Myrrima didn’t agree to let him go. Aaath Ulber simply went to one of the two away boats, lowered it over the side, and climbed down in. When he settled into it, he looked far too large for the small vessel. It threatened to sink under his weight.
Rain came rushing out of her cabin at that moment. “Wait,” she cried. “I’m coming with you.”
“You?” Aaath Ulber asked.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” she said. “With my blond hair, I’ll fit right in.”
Aaath Ulber opened his mouth to argue, but Rain shushed him. “I’ll follow you, keep a good distance. And if there is trouble, I won’t intercede. I’ll just let the others know.”
Myrrima studied the girl. She had the right hair color, but she wasn’t big-boned enough.
Rain’s plan made sense, but a wave of foreboding stole over her.
As Rain scrambled to get into the boat, Myrrima said, “Maybe I should come, too. . . .”
Aaath Ulber said tersely, “The others need you more than I do. Keep a fog wrapped around the boat, like a fine gray cloak. I’ll be back soon.”
He took the oars and began to paddle away, toward the distant bray of a foghorn. Myrrima demanded. “How will you find us when you’re done?”
“Easy,” Aaath Ulber said. “I’ll just look for a broad patch of mist on the ocean, and aim right for the heart of it.”
He smiled up at her, then pulled hard on the oars once, twice, three times—and the mist swallowed him.
Aaath Ulber rowed toward shore on the little ship’s boat, with Rain seated in the back of the boat, doing her best to look brave.
“Don’t worry,” Aaath Ulber told Rain. “Everyone will be looking at me. No one will be looking at you.”
He considered how very little the young girl knew, and realized that Rain could use more instruction. “When we get to the dock, wait until I’ve gone a good hundred yards before you begin to follow. Understand?”
“I’ll be fine,” Rain said.
Aaath Ulber recognized that Rain seldom had to be told a thing more than once. She had a keen memory, and a good wit when she wasn’t too shy to speak. But right now, her life would depend upon how well she performed.
For a moment there was little sound, only the splashing of oars as he dipped and pulled, dipped and pulled. Then a great horn sounded off toward shore. Other than that, the only sound was the waves lapping against the boat, and the only sight was the gray fog above and the waves beneath as they lifted the boat gently and then let it fall. The water was clear, with a bit of kelp floating here and there, and some small yellow jellyfish.
“When you follow me, keep your head down, and your hood up. This may not be the largest village in Internook. The men and women of the place, they’ll think that you’re some girl from the outskirts of town or a nearby village. But folks your own age—they’re the ones you have to watch out for. They’ll mark you as a stranger.
“Don’t speak to anyone. Try not to look like you’re following me. That means that you don’t watch me. You might stop and look in the windows of a shop, or stoop over to tie the straps to your boots, or pet some stray dog. But you don’t follow me with your eyes, understand?”
He waited for Rain to nod.
“Now, tell me what you’re going to do when we get into town?”
Rain repeated the instructions nearly perfectly.
Yet he worried. Rain’s face was pale with fear. Bone-white skin was common up here in the North, and so he figured that she wouldn’t look too out of place. Her hair color and eye color were right. The folks here all had yellow or red hair.
What bothered him was the fear in her eyes, the tight lips, the way her shoulders hunched in on themselves, the way her breath came shallow.
“I want you to try not to be afraid,” he suggested. “Your fear is what will give you away. Keep your head down but your back straight and tall, your shoulders wide. When you see someone, smile as if you were greeting an old friend. And when you walk along the streets, think of better days, and happier times ahead.”
Now he had to broach the subject that most concerned him. “The warlords of Internook aren’t bad folks, if you’re one of them. But they breed like rats, and so for five hundred years they’ve been eager to hire their young men out as mercenaries. There are families here so poor that they raise children just to sell them. When a young man goes to war, he only receives wages after a campaign has ended, and if he dies in battle, that payment goes to his family. Many a father and mother have sent out their sons hoping for nothing more than to get gold from it, and to see their children all slaughtered.
“So the folk of Internook have gained repute over time for their brutality, for their warrior’s spirit. The rest of the world sees them at their worst. But I think that in their own homes, they may not be so bad. . . .”