“Let’s get back to the deck,” I order. “The silverbacks are worth a whole lot of copper too.”
We race back up the creaky wooden steps and start collecting the huge silverbacks.
“Isen,” I shout to the tiny old man in the crow’s nest thirty feet over my head. “Mark the coordinates of this spot.”
“Aye, Captain,” he shouts back.
I’m going to have to come back here. If every season is as good as this one, I’ll be the richest merchant on Keldmoor Island before I enter my third decade of life.
My crew has the silverbacks under control, so I roam through the pile, picking out the tiny pebblefish and yellowflicks, admiring their colors before I toss them back into the water.
Drakor looks at me curiously. It’s his first season with us. I hired him because he was built like a castle wall—thick and strong and practically immovable. I thought that strength would come in handy on the ship, but he’s slow and he nearly knocked Petr overboard three days ago when he was rushing to the edge of the ship to puke. He’s from the inland and doesn’t have his sea legs yet. I think he’s spent more time puking than working.
“Why are you bothering with that?” he asks as I gently pick a tiny yellowflick off the deck and toss it back into the ocean.
“I take no pleasure in killing,” I tell him as I pick up two gasping pebblefish. He follows me as I hurry to the side of the ship and drop them into the calm water. “We have to kill silverbacks to survive, but these guys are too small to eat or sell. I don’t want to kill them for no reason. Every creature deserves to have a life.”
“Even Sea Wraiths?” Edrik asks, laughing.
I notice Drakor’s face going pale. He’s terrified of Sea Wraiths. Luckily, we haven’t crossed any on this trip yet. I touch the emerald sword hanging from my waist just to make sure it’s still there.
“Sea Wraiths have no life,” I say. “That’s what makes them so dangerous.”
“Are we going to see any?” Drakor asks, looking like he’s about to start trembling.
“Oh ya,” Petr says in a creepy voice. “Tons of dem. They’s gonna be coming at night, while you’s sleeping, and feast on your heart while it’s still beating inside ya chest.”
Drakor’s big brown eyes dart to me. I shake my head.
“If they come,” I tell him softly. “We’ll deal with them like we always do.”
“How do you deal with a ghost?” Drakor asks. He still hasn’t blinked. Or taken a breath.
“We feed dem tha new guy,” Petr says in that ghastly voice. “Why you think you’s here, inlander?”
The crew all snicker and laugh as Drakor backs up, looking terrified.
“You’ll be fine, Drakor,” I say in a firm tone. “Let’s get back to work. The faster we fill up that cargo hold, the faster we get back onto land where the Sea Wraiths can’t get us.”
“And the faster I get to go to the brothel with my pockets full of copper,” Valther says with a booming laugh.
“And the faster you have those pockets emptied,” Briallen adds.
“At least I’ll have my balls emptied too,” he says, and the guys all start laughing crudely.
Briallen shakes her head. “Disgusting.” She’s my younger cousin and the only girl on my crew. She’s one of the toughest girls I’ve ever met, and you have to be to work on the Evermere Ocean with this surly group of men.
“Back to work!” I shout, clapping my hands.
The guys start moving at once, grabbing silverbacks and carrying them down to the cargo hold. It’s lunchtime by the time they’re done and their appetites are ravenous. They descend on the food that Zephan prepared like savage beasts.
Good. They’re going to need their energy. They don’t know it yet, but this afternoon, we’re headed to the rougher waters near the coast of the Stormfur Kingdom. We have enough silverbacks for this haul. What we need now are some bouldercrabs to round out the menu.
They live on the bottom of the sea floor in the coldest, roughest waters. They’re as big as Drakor’s hands and will fetch a pretty coin.
This will be Drakor’s worst nightmare. Not only is the water violent and rocky. It’s where the Sea Wraiths wander. They like it cold.
It’s time to test the inlander and see if he’s man enough for my crew. I don’t have high hopes for him. I’ve seen tougher men than him quit as soon as they set foot on shore after their first trek onto the ocean. But I’ve also seen weaker men stick with it and become fine sailors. Edrik being one of them. He was the son of a shepherd, as thin as a twig, and he begged me for a job. I refused, but he was as clever as he was determined. When we were out at sea, far from the shore, he emerged from his hiding spot in the vault and told me he’d work for free to prove himself.
