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“What tithe will you demand?” Either she had taken his measure and decided that he respected most those who did not cringe before him, or else she simply did not fear death. “This port was founded by those on whom tithes laid heavy in the southern lands. If you lay your hand upon us too harshly, who is to say we won’t rise up against you in rebellion?”
“Then you will all die.”
Brows were wiped, sweat-drenched despite the cold. Several of the merchants glanced back toward the distant palisade, half concealed by buildings. They knew what grim work went on out of their sight, burying the dead in a mass grave. A portly man staggered forward to the edge of the porch’s shelter to whisper into her ear, but she did not respond to him as she continued speaking.
“Then who is to say we won’t simply abandon this town, sail away come summer, and seek another site from which to trade?”
He regarded her with curiosity. “Are you not afraid that I might kill you for your presumptuousness?”
Her damp fingers flicked the lower edge of her veil, and he caught a glimpse of the hollow of her throat before the veil swayed back into place. “Had you wished to kill us outright or break us down into slave pens, surely those of your soldiers who attacked us yesterday would already have done so. You are meeting with us now because you have another plan in mind.”
“What tithe would you consider a fair one, Riavka, daughter of Sarenha?”
She did not hesitate. “One part in ten.”
“One in six,” he replied as quickly, “and you will create a council among you of six elders to oversee the tithing. A governor of my own people will remain here with a garrison.”
“So be it.” She inclined her head to show her assent. Behind her, the others hurriedly agreed.
“That is not all,” he went on. “I wish to establish another trading port, like this one, along the coast where my own people dwell. I have already chosen a harbor, in Moerin country, in the southern part of my people’s lands. It is sheltered, and there is easy passage from there to sea-lanes that lead as far west as Alba, south to Salia, and eastward to these countries. Do any among you care to build such a port under my protection?”
The portly man had found his tongue, and he stammered out a anxious question. “It is a long and sorry voyage at this time of year, my lord. The lands of the Eika are known to us by report as a rugged, inhospitable country. Few will wish to settle there.”
“Then, truly, I will pick some from among you.” The gathered merchants reacted with such comical expressions of dismay that Stronghand had to suppress an odd urge to laugh, something learned from Alain, who had not been afraid to find pleasure in the foibles of humankind.
Riavka gestured toward the younger of the two Hessi men. “I will send my son and his household.” In the same way water builds up behind flotsam jamming a narrow channel and then breaks through, her words released the others from their paralysis. They began speaking at once, a clamor that irritated Stronghand. The sound of a horn rose high over their noise.
He lifted a hand, unsheathing his claws. At once, the elders stuttered and gasped into silence.
The alert rose again over the waters, made gray by misting rain and tendrils of cloud hugging the distant watery isles. A crimson flag whipped into life on one of the outermost ships, waving once, twice.
He paced to the edge of the quay. Water lapped at the wooden pilings, shushing and slurping to the rhythm of unseen waves. Rain spattered the waters and stilled. Wide-bellied knarrs laden with cargo lay along the quay. Farther out on the bay, the sleek outlines of his own warships rested on unquiet waters, wreathed with fingers of mist.
The surface of the bay eddied in a spot where neither ship nor reef had its place, the wake made by an unseen pod of merfolk, come to call.
He turned to Tenth Son. “Had you any warning of this?” Tenth Son gave a sharp lift of his chin, to signify “no.”
A pair of glittering, ridged backs snaked above the water and vanished. Tails slapped down. The townsfolk yelped and skittered back, all but the veiled woman, who, amazingly, took a step closer in order to see better. She made a noise, unintelligible through her veil, and extended a hand, palm out, as if she could taste their essence through her skin.
Without warning, a big body heaved up out of the water not a body’s length from him, high out of the water like a whale breaching. The flat face took them in, although what it could actually see with those hard, red eyes he could not be sure. The eels that were its hair writhed wildly, eyeless snouts snapping mindlessly at the empty air. It spun with a half turn backward and hit the water with such weight that water sprayed everywhere, a new shower of rain, salty and tasting of the waste that humans so thoughtlessly dumped into their harbors.
He laughed sharply and shook off the water. The Hessi woman took a startled step backward, hastily brushing herself off, but did not otherwise retreat. Her colleagues spilled backward onto the town walkways in fright. Their voices rose like those of startled crows.
A visage rose from the water, pale and stretched, hoisted by the razor-tipped hands of the merfolk. The object resolved itself into a spar, water-logged, wreathed by vinelike leaves tangled around something that resembled a face. Stronghand leaped backward as, with a final heave, the great spar clattered down onto the wooden quay and came to rest at his feet.
The spar was the remains of the mast of one of the living ships of the tree sorcerers. Caught in its leafy spire rested an object so bloated and pale that at first he did not recognize it.
“Ai, Lord have mercy!” cried the portly merchant, voice cracking. “It’s a man’s head.”
Sea worms writhed in and out of the decaying eye sockets. In places the skin had peeled away to reveal the gleam of skull beneath.
“One of the Alban ships did not escape our allies,” observed Tenth Son.
Stronghand stepped over the spar and its rotting centerpiece. The water eddied in cool circles below him. The rain had stopped, and the clouds above the islets lightened perceptibly as the sun tried to beat through.
“This was unexpected. I have not forgotten that Alba awaits.” Truly, he did not understand his mysterious allies. At first, he thought they wanted only the flesh of his enemies to sustain them, but there was a greater purpose beneath their movements, something that spoke of intelligence and a slow-moving, cetacean plan, something swallowed into the depths of the sea, shuddering on tides known only in the deep waters.
What did the merfolk want?
