Half a King

Shadikshirram’s gaze wandered to the storekeeper. “I keenly await your counter-proposal.” He blinked, mouth half open, hands helplessly twitching, and the captain rolled her eyes. “There are so few heroes left these days. Trigg, you conduct our one-handed ambassador to a parley. Ankran, you toddle along with them.”

“Me?”

“How many cowards called Ankran do I own? You trade for the stores, don’t you? Go trade.”

“But nobody trades with the Shends!”

“Then the deals you make should be the stuff of legend.” Shadikshirram stood. “Everyone needs something. That’s the beauty of the merchant’s profession. Sumael can tell you what we need.” She leaned close to Yarvi, blasting him with wine-heavy breath, and patted his cheek. “Sing to ’em, boy. As sweetly as you did the other night. Sing for your life.”

That was how Yarvi found himself walking slowly towards the trees, his empty hands high and his short length of chain held firm in Trigg’s meaty fist, desperately trying to convince himself great dangers meant great profits. Ahead, more Shends had gathered, silently watching. Behind, Ankran muttered in Haleen. “If the cripple manages to make a trade, the usual arrangement?”

“Why not?” answered Trigg, giving a tug on Yarvi’s chain. He could hardly believe they were thinking about money even now, but perhaps when the Last Door stands open for them men fall back on what they know. He had fallen back on his minister’s wisdom, after all. And a flimsy shield it seemed as the Shends got steadily closer in all their painted savagery.

They did not scream or shake their weapons. They were more than threatening enough without. They simply stepped back to make room as Yarvi came near, herded through the trees by Trigg and into a clearing where more Shends were gathered about a fire. Yarvi swallowed as he realized how many more. They might have outnumbered the whole crew of the South Wind three to one.

A woman sat among them, whittling at a stick with a bright knife. Strung around her neck on a leather thong was an elf-tablet, the green card studded with black jewels, scrawled with incomprehensible markings, riddled with intricate golden lines.

The first thing a minister learns is to recognize power. To read the glances, and the stances, the movements and tones of voice that mark the followers from the leader. Why waste time on underlings, after all? So Yarvi stepped between the men as if they were invisible, looking only into the woman’s frowning face, and the warriors shuffled after and hedged him and Trigg and Ankran in with a thicket of naked steel.

For the briefest moment Yarvi hesitated. For a moment, he enjoyed Trigg and Ankran’s fear more than he suffered with his own. For a moment he had power over them, and found he liked the feeling.

“Speak!” hissed Trigg.

Yarvi wondered if there was a way to get the overseer killed. To use the Shends to get his freedom, perhaps Rulf’s and Jaud’s as well … But the stakes were too high and the odds too long. The wise minister picks the greater good, the lesser evil, and smooths the way for Father Peace in every tongue. So Yarvi dropped down, one knee squelching into the boggy ground, his withered hand on his chest and the other to his forehead in the way Mother Gundring had taught him, to show he spoke the truth.

Even if he lied through his teeth.

“My name is Yorv,” he said, in the language of the Shends, “and I come humbly upon bended knee, stranger no longer, to beg the guest-right for me and my companions.”

The woman slowly narrowed her eyes at Yarvi. Then she looked about at the warriors, carefully sheathed her knife and tossed her stick into the fire. “Damn it.”

“Guest-right?” muttered one of the warriors, pointing towards the stranded ship in disbelief. “These savages?”

“Your pronunciation is dismal.” The woman flung up her hands. “But I am Svidur of the Shends. Stand, Yorv, for you are welcome at our hearth, and safe from harm.”

Another of the warriors angrily flung his ax on the ground and stamped off into the brush.

Svidur watched him go. “We were very much looking forward to killing you and taking your cargo. We must take what we can, for your High King will make war upon us again when the spring comes. The man is made of greed. I swear I have no idea what we have that he wants.”

Yarvi glanced back at Ankran, who was frowning at the conversation with the deepest suspicion. “It is my sad observation that some men always want more.”

“They do.” She sadly propped elbow on knee and chin on hand as she watched her crestfallen warriors sit down in disgust, one of them already bunching moss to scrub off his battle-paint. “This could have been a profitable day.”

“It still can be.” Yarvi clambered to his feet, and clasped his hands the way his mother did when she began a bargain. “There are things for which my captain would like to trade …”

15

UGLY LITTLE.…SECRETS