Chapter Eleven
TWO DAYS ON AN IRRITABLE QUADOTH with a broken rib was unpleasant, to say the least.
Still, the agony was not as deep as the pain I felt when we crested an ebony dune and could look down at the port of Shar-Aab.
“Ah, the sea,” I moaned. A weary chuckle from my lover slash companion blew to me on a hot wind. “How I missed it.”
“Does your sarcasm indicate that you are suffering less?” he asked, the distant cry of gulls reaching me now. Razgol shifted uneasily under me, her head moving left to right as if she were working the air for a scent of some sort.
“It indicates that I would rather ride nonstop through a desert on a beast from the depths of hell than board another boat.”
That made him laugh. A short, tired laugh, but a laugh just the same. “We’ll visit a healer after we find the Simin Draya. We shall have your rib mended and then invest in some pearly barnacle paste for the journey to the Blood Fens.”
“Joyous news that.” I sighed, nudging my beast on the sides.
We rode down into the shantytown, not a true, vibrant port as I had been expecting, more a collection of ramshackle homes piled one atop the other beside a rather large collection of docks.
As we rode out of the sands—praise Ihdos and Shamsira—into the rundown port town, the people we passed seemed far less wealthy than those back at Yaza Kee.
Most glanced at us with a glimmer of bad intent.
“The ship sits at the fourth dock,” Teryn pointed out just as my beast made a hard left without my permission. There was no stopping her. Each jarring step made my side ache like a rotted tooth.
I nearly fell off the creature as she raced down a small alley filled with street vendors, crashing into several shoppers, until she found what which she had been seeking.
A large outdoor pen filled with other quadoth.
One in particular stood out from the herd.
It was taller, heavier, and was expelling what looked to be two fleshy air sacs from within its mouth.
A mouth that possessed mighty canines like those on a forest wolf.
The male, I assumed due to its larger size, made a gurgling sound as frothy saliva ran from its mouth.
A skinny man ran up to me, yelling in Sandrayan, as I took the opportunity to leap down before the male camel pushed through the measly rope fencing to romance my quadoth.
Razgol went down like a stone. The quadoth breeder yelled in my face.
I shrugged as the male settled behind the female and bred her, my arm pressed to my side.
Teryn arrived after the deed was done. A long, intense discussion took place while the two furred lovers ambled over to a manger with fresh dry grass to eat.
The two eventually shook hands, and Teryn came to me, his exhaustion evident on his drawn face.
The quadoth seller spat at my boot before storming back to fix his rope fence.
“We will walk to the dock,” he informed me. I quirked a brow. “He wanted the two females as payment for his broken fence.”
“That seems an uneven trade,” I replied, eyeing the man with distrust.
“It was, but I then explained that they were rentals. When I mentioned the name of the woman in Yaza Kee, he stopped insisting on that in repayment, as she is his wife. Instead, I paid him for the rope. We are to get our bags. The walk is not a long one. We’ll find a healer along the way.
Perhaps it was serendipitous that your pretty flower was in heat, for it saved us searching for the breeder in this town. ”
“My pretty flower could have been a bit more coy,” I huffed, joining Teryn in gathering our bags from our rented beasts of burden.
Totes on our shoulders, we made our way through the narrow, dirty streets, gazing at signs on mossy shop fronts.
The lone healer in this seaport was an old dwarf with hair growing out of his large ears and appeared not to have bathed in several seasons.
His shop was a small wooden box of a building that sat over a fish stall.
The stench was overpowering. Whether the smell was from the barrels of dead fish below us or the grimy shaman, it was hard to say.
I doubted his skills but stretched out on a squalid table.
The short man with the long brown beard climbed onto a wooden box, spit into his dirty hands, and then laid them on my side.
Teryn stood nearby. The first jolt of healing power startled me, for I was sure this filthy dwarf was a fraud.
The pain eased slowly as he gently pushed soft yellow magick into my rib.
“Forty coppers,” he said in mainland and then in Sandrayan, I assumed, after the session was complete.
“Forty?!” I sat up and came face to face with a war hammer coated in dried blood and old brain matter. Ah. Right. Pay or die. This did not seem like any healer in Renedith or Celear that I had ever visited. This man—and this port—reeked of more than old fish and unwashed dwarf.
Teryn stepped forward, dropped a pouch into the healer’s hand, and smiled. The hammer lowered from my nose. I slid off the table, grabbed my bag, and pulled the ambassador down the creaky stairs to the street in haste.
A man ran past with a woman waving a meat cleaver over her head in hot pursuit. Gulls dipped and weaved, and ships tied to the docks moaned as wood butted into wood. The smell of the sea was nearly strong enough to flood the stink of the barrels of jelled cod on our left from my nose.
“This town. Is it a true town?” I asked, barring Teryn from striding off.
“Does it not look like a true town? Are there not buildings and people?” I crossed my arms over my armor.
Armor that, I knew for certain, was nearly as foul-smelling as the dwarven medic.
Teryn, it seemed, was too tired to be clever for any longer.
“This is a port town that is not overseen by any official governmental agencies.”
“So it is a pirate settlement.” He nodded. Several children raced past, all in worn clothes and lacking any shoes. “You are aware that pirates are high on the list of unlawful miscreants that the new navy of Celear wishes to eradicate to ensure the free flow of trade in all of Melowynn’s waters?”
“Yes, my dear, I am aware of that. I helped the vahasi untangle the legalities of the paperwork from the queen and her naval staff.” Oh.
Well, yes, he probably would know of such things.
Also, he called me dear. The softness of that term eased some of my upset over our using this port to sail out of.
“Sometimes, and this is not carved into stone, but sometimes a wise man turns a blind eye to the small wrongs in the world to focus on the larger ones.”
“So you knew this was a port filled with criminals.”
He sighed as if the weight of one of the large ships—probably a pirate vessel—moored at the docks sat on his shoulders.
“I knew it was not a port of high call on the proposed legal ports laid out by our governments, yes. Many a good man and woman have come from this town. Not all is black and white, my handsome guard captain. Surely you know this, as you have dealt with the poor—what the nobles of the mainland would call undesirables—in your time as a guard of Renedith.”
Yes, I knew that. I’d grown to manhood as a whelp roaming the streets looking for a quick filch of a leg of lamb or a loaf of bread.
I heaved a mighty sigh. He had me. The man was far too gifted with words to try to outfox verbally.
I gave him a slight nod. His smile returned.
“Good, I am glad to hear that your time in the castle beside the Ivory King has not eradicated all of your empathy for those who struggle to survive. Now, we must find Porgo and set to sea.”
“This trip has shown me a side of you that I would never have assumed you had.” I reached out to rub a charm dangling from a fine chain off his ear. “Someday I would like to get to know all of you.”
“Someday you shall.” He turned his face into my hand to press a kiss to my palm.
I followed him to the docks, unable to let my guard drop as we pushed around vendors, sailors, drunks, whores, and a few unsavory sorts.
Pirates and illegals—all I was sure. The half of me that upheld the law of Celear as a sworn guard warred mightily with the dirty street urchin that stole anything not nailed down so that he and his mother would not go hungry.
We found the Simin Draya with ease. She was the sleekest ship docked at Shar-Aab. Porgo hurried down the gangplank to greet Teryn with a hug and a bow. His gaze touched on me.
“Huh, still alive. I’m impressed. I had ten gold wagered that a mainlander wouldn’t survive a moon passing in the desert,” the wind whisperer said before striding at Teryn’s side to pass along some vital information.
I was too tired, too hungry, too thirsty, and far too dirty to try to spar with the man.
In a way, I was pleased that I’d proved the bastard wrong.
Costing him ten gold was a bonus. “As soon as you two are settled, we’ll set off. ”
Teryn dropped down under the awning with a huff. I sat in the middle of the ship, my back to a mast, and did my best to ignore the sway of the ship. A small burp escaped me. Gods and demons, I hated being on the water.
“Here.” Porgo tossed me a familiar tin of paste.
Praise Ihdos. I’d been too worried about having my brains bashed out by a cleric—a term I would use loosely for that dwarven healer—to ask about the sea illness paste.
“We have a full day asea. I don’t need you hurling your gizzards all over my deck. ”
“Thank you,” I called to his back, for he was already walking off.
“I think you have earned his trust and friendship. That is good, for he is a man who will always be loyal once you gain his confidence,” Teryn stated with a tender smile before he wiggled back into the pillows to fall sound asleep.