Rain spoke up, choosing her words slowly and carefully, her voice hinting at barely subdued rage. “What the warlords did to us cannot be forgiven or ignored. Their reputation for brutality is well earned. What’s more, I do not believe that such folk could go to Mystarria and act like monsters without losing something of their souls. War hardens a man, and in Internook, their folks have been growing hard for generations.” She gave Aaath Ulber a stern look and said, “You do me a disservice by telling comfortable lies.”
Aaath Ulber was surprised by her impassioned outburst, but he was learning that there was more to this girl than met the eye.
More to the point, he could not fault her logic. The folk of Internook had grown hard over the centuries, and perhaps Rain was correct.
“Don’t worry about me,” Rain said. “I’ve taken the worst that the warlords are likely to dish out.”
Aaath Ulber peered into her clear eyes and saw something frightening there: death.
She’s been raped, he realized. Probably more than once.
Aaath Ulber felt more than a little worried. Had he known what she’d endured, he would not have allowed her to come.
So he rowed on in silence. The folks of Internook were great eaters of fish, and as the boat neared land, he saw many a fisherman’s coracle hugging the shore. The fishermen didn’t dare go far in the thick fog.
The blowing of the horn guided him to port, and at midmorning he tied up at the docks.
The port was like many here in Internook. A river had carved a channel into the bay, a channel broad and deep. But the barbarians had hauled in huge rocks and blocked most of the old bay off, forming a funnel that pointed into the shallows. The mouth of the funnel ended with several iron columns interspersed about two feet apart.
In the summer, leviathans—great serpents of the deep—sometimes came in near shore, driving large schools of fish before them: salmon and cod, mackerel and bass. The fish would swim for safety toward the shallows, and be driven down the long throat of the funnel into the bay. Once they were in, the barbarians could drop boards through slats, locking the fish in while the iron bars kept the great serpents out. Thus, the fishing grounds here in Internook were remarkably bountiful.
The fog still held, and so Aaath Ulber was shielded from faraway eyes. He got up and whispered, “Remember, keep well behind me. When you can’t see me any longer, that’s the sign to start following. I’ll take care to make plenty of noise, so that you’ll know where I am.”
He checked his head wrap, then lumbered out of the boat, onto the docks. He began to whistle an aimless tune as he strolled, his heavy feet thumping on the wooden planks.
Here near shore, the sea smelled differently. The fishermen would gut their catches in the afternoons, tossing the offal to the crabs in the bay. So the clean salt smell of the sea had heavier overtones of death and decay.
He passed a few women mending fishing nets on the docks, and as he did, all eyes peered up at him. As he feared, no one as massive as he could hope to make his way through town undetected.
He nodded politely, grunted as he passed, and his face flushed as he felt their stares follow.
At last the wooden docks met the land, and stairs climbed some fifty feet, scaling a rock embankment. He thumped up the stairs. There were fish stalls all about, the heart of the village’s market, and people filled the streets in droves.
For barbarians, he decided, the village was surprisingly well kept. The streets were clean and well cobbled, and the market stalls were painted in bright colors—canary, crimson, deep forest green. Each stall served as the front of a home, and the houses were so close together that many of them shared common walls, thus conserving heat. Wildflowers seemed to sprout up from any little patch of dirt at the front of the houses.
But farther up on the hill, enormous long houses could be seen shrouded in fog, each ringed with tall picket fences. Cows ambled about up there, while chickens and geese scratched in the yards. Each long house was made from huge beams, and served as a fortress for the families that lived inside.
Aaath Ulber bumbled through the market, peering at giant eels that hung from hooks in one stall; he stopped to watch one merchant toss a load of crabs into a huge boiling pot. Everywhere, fishmongers called out, “Cod, cod—so fresh he’s still wiggling!” or “Shark, shark—eat him before he eats you!”
But it wasn’t fish that Aaath Ulber wanted. He was looking for fresh vegetables, perhaps a young piglet.
He stopped for a moment, heard voices up the street to the north, other merchants hawking their wares.
He worked through the crowd, trying not to step on anyone. Everywhere, people stopped to gawk. Most didn’t even bother to hide their stares.
So he strode along, still whistling. He stopped for a moment at a cross street, took an instant to look back, to see if he could spot Rain. But there were too many faces in the crowd, and he didn’t dare search for long.
So he moved forward, hoping that she could see him well enough.
At last he reached a vendor who sold produce—fresh blackberries from the woods, wild mushrooms, hazelnuts, honeycomb—and a smattering of herbs from the garden—leeks and parsnips, carrots and tulip roots.
He grunted and mostly pointed at what he wanted, feigning an accent when he was forced to barter. He paid too much, giving the woman a plain golden ring for a good deal of food, then tucked it in a makeshift rucksack.
He moved on, stopped to buy that piglet he’d been hungry for. He found a nice fifty-pounder, traded it for some steel, and then tucked it up under one arm. The pig squealed like mad. It had been castrated in the not-so-distant past, and apparently feared that Aaath Ulber might try it again.
There is nothing that attracts attention like a giant in the marketplace holding a squealing pig, Aaath Ulber discovered. Every eye turned to him, and it seemed that folks two hundred yards down the street all stopped to stare.
So Aaath Ulber held the pig and scratched its head, trying to soothe it with a few soft words.
He wanted to get back to the boat now, but there was so much more that he wanted here in town. He was hoping for some nice pastries for Myrrima, or perhaps a new dress, anything to put a smile in her eyes. And he wanted cloth to make new clothes for himself and everyone else on the ship. But mostly, his family needed news—and weapons.
So he quieted his piglet, then kept on walking. After purchasing four loaves of bread, which went straight into his rucksack, he found that his piglet stopped squealing altogether and amused himself by sniffing at the sack and grunting quietly.
At last he found a man in a stall who sold knives of all kinds. He stopped.
The man was old—astonishingly old. His face was lined and wrinkled, and his red hair had all gone silver long ago. He wore a beard cropped short, and dressed in robes appropriate for a merchant—not so rich as to garner envy but not so poor as to earn disdain.
Yet there was wisdom in his eyes, and he moved quickly enough when Aaath Ulber stopped to study his wares.
“Do you sometimes feel that something is missing from your life, good sir?” the merchant asked. “Perhaps it’s a knife—something to butcher your pig there? Or would you like to see something larger, something more appropriate to a man your size?”
Aaath Ulber peered at the merchant’s wares. There were long knives with notched blades for cutting bread, and small knives that a woman might use for peeling apples. But what interested Aaath Ulber most were the knives against the back wall. There was a pair of fine dueling knives— not too fancy, mind you. It wasn’t the polished steel that you might find in Heredon, with silver finger guards and scenery etched into the blades. They were cheap, sensible—the kind of knives that some warrior lad might take into battle.
“Do you have anything larger?” Aaath Ulber asked. “A man my size needs a blade to match.”