Chapter Eight.

STAADT.

TWO DAYS NORTH OF BRAHVNUD.

TENTH IRON CYCLE, TWELFTH DAY.

Megan handed Shkai'ra's binoculars back down to her.

"They're telling us to stand off until they give clearance, the sheepfuckers. Piatr!"He looked over the edge of the poop, "Yes, Captain?"

"What reasons do the Thanes have now for such highhandedness?"

"None, Captain, but Yannet says that the Aenir won the trading deal they were competing for from the Stroemfiar. All those who don't own their ships must rent passage from the barge-people and the Aenir had more of what they wanted."

"Fishguts." She swung down next to Shkai'ra. "Akribhan, you'd find this town easy to take, impossible to hold. They'd pick you to death with niggling complaints and finicky ways."

The Kommanza shrugged. "Hang them up, let them argue with the vultures."

"Wonderful, then you'd have to train collars of slaves to handle the river mine. Damn their arrogance. Hai, since this is only a layover, not a harbor stop, we don't have to conform to rules. Shkai'ra, would the brats be up to learning a new skill?"

"Hm. If it's blood you want, well enough, courtly grace and manners, no."

"Oh, nothing strenuous. Damn sheep-herders want us to lose zight waiting on them. Mateus! Oar count! Rough challenge, find out if anyone will match me."

He looked startled then grinned. "Aye! All hands! Any who will match in running the oars?" The crew's attention focused on the deck, and with a clatter the oars came out.

"Challenge? What is this?" Shkai'ra asked. Megan laughed and pulled off her boots. "Only a bit of fun, poking their rules in the eye. We close and maintain just outside the harbor, slow beat. Between strokes the oars are held out and you walk the rank, out over the water from one end to the other. It's a way of showing them that we can handle the ship well enough not to need their damn harbor. And rough challenge means that anyone on board who wants to, can try to match my number of runs. If you fall in the river you lose zight but not much. It'smore of a laugh-with than a laugh-at because almost everyone who does it gets wet."

Shkai'ra looked out at the slow falling beat of the oars and smiled slowly. The ship slowed headway outside the harbor mouth and the oar-master signalled with a double thump. Then the slow-beat began; a crewman began a broken-cadenced song to the beat, keeping time. As Megan stepped to the gunnel the familiar lines brought an amused look to her eyes.

Thy father was a Thanish goatherd; THUMP, Rang the beat. And mother she did bleat. So if you drink with me my friend, Do so in another tavern.

THUMP.

She had the rhythm now and between beats stepped out onto the banks of outstretched oars that gave slightly under her weight. No one strove, this time, to throw her off balance by dipping their oar. She ran the rank once and rubbed the sole of one foot down her other leg to dislodge a splinter and looked back along the deck. "The next verse!" she called, beginning it herself.

"White wine only do I drink; THUMP; Unless it be blood red."

Shkai'ra stepped to the rail and looked down. The arrow-stem of the Zingas Vetri was pointed upstream, just keeping way on her against the current. She was on the left side of the ship, the townward rail, and she could smell the silt in the banks of sediment traps that lined the banks; it mingled with the acrid smoke of the smelters and the sour scent of bad lowland drainage. The water pulled by along the tar-black lapstrake planks of the hull, cold and brown with sediment.

Frowning slightly, she glanced up to see Piatr leaning against a stay and cleaning his fingernails on a knife, whistling with elaborate casualness."If you've got something to say, say it," she said. "If you're a musician, I'm a sea captain."

She sprang sideways out onto the oar. It dipped under her weight and she crouched, toes clinging. Then she skipped to the next, and the next, remembering. It had been the fall hunt, in her seventeenth summer; they'd cut out a small herd of buffalo from the river marshes and run them, riding close to strike with lance and arrow. She'd kicked her feet clear of the stirrups and jumped to a hairy, humped giant-back, on to the next before it could buck, tossing chaos and death a body-length away, from one to its neighbor to the other side of the herd and then vaulting to the ground, running and tumbling and shouting laughter to a sky bluer than birds egg and sharp enough to cut with a knife.

This would be easy.

She put her hands on her hips and skipped, doing a half turn in the air; almost missed the next oar; recovered with a cat-twist; ran the last three and swung inward to the deck. She tossed her head to feel the river wind through the thick, fine-textured mass of her hair, cool on her flushed cheeks, panting slightly. She nodded to Megan.

"It has its points. Who's next?"

"Piatr," she said. Shkai'ra turned in surprise. The one-foot?

Running oars? He wasn't running. With the final line of the verse, he leaped and began the next, hanging from under the bank he moved the rank hand over hand. "... with three Ieus camels," he sang off key as he tumbled over the rail next to them.

"Hello!" He said jauntily. "Its what I have to say, and you're right, you are no sea captain." With a splash, Stanver slipped and fell, spraying them with cold water. Amidst laughter they threw him a line off the stern of the ship. Shkai'ra looked Piatr up and down, put one foot on the rail and looked over into the water. "Wet damn river isn't it?" she said. He chuckled. Megan cast a glance at the harbor. The row-tug was on its way.

Suddenly it was good to be home.

"Mateus! Race!" She whirled and jumped for the outriver sideof the ship, calling over her shoulder. "That song would bring them quick, they can't hear the words but all anyone has to hear is the tune!"

A sudden grin split her face and she leaped back and forth between two oars, once, twice, then darted forward. She caught a glimpse of Mateus's head opposite, racing the other way and laughed, skipped an oar, and in trying again missed. She came up spluttering and laughing, caught the rope with one hand. The current swung her back, close to the other head bobbing in the water. "I missed," Mateus said, then, unsure of her laugh, smiled slowly.

On the deck Megan wrung out the edge of her tunic as Piatr, Shkai'ra and now Sova went into the water with flailing limbs trying to catch balance. The song was degenerating, the oar-banks growing uneven as more of the crew succumbed to laughter.

"Flap harder with the arms! You might fly!"

"Not so much noise, you'll scare the fish!"

"Fish, nothing! They'll scare the Thanes!"

"With bait that size who knows what we'd catch!"

Megan leaned over and looked at the cluster of heads around the rope, strung out like beads on string. "Stop making so many waves!" she called down to them with mock anger. "The ship is rocking!" Then she sobered. The tug was there.

"All right! Well done! Oarmaster beat two-stroke. Let's get my Vetri into anchor." She turned and offered the others a hand over the stern. "Wet fun," she said. "Zight be damned, it was still fun."

STAADT RIVER MINE.

SAME DAY.

The throbbing whine of the water-driven turbine echoed and re-echoed in the narrow street. High walls to either sideconcealed smelters, brickworks, carpenters' shops, stables, the multifold outbuildings necessary to a large manufactury; ahead was the blank granite square of the river mine itself. Shkai'ra rubbed one hand across an ear, peering over the shingled roof to the maze of diversion channels and canal docks beyond; they would be lost to view as the road swooped down to river level.

She could see young workers scampering monkey-agile, closing and opening water gates; a heavy silty smell filled the air, struggling with the sulphurous stink of the refineries, tang of fresh-sawn pine...

Must stink to Zoweitzum in the summer, she thought; it was cool even in late afternoon, now. To the man beside her: "So what did the factor say?"

"What?" Piatr started out of some private thought, almost missing a hobbling stride. "The mine-kin would rather deal with the owner than an agent; Habiku pushed them, and they tore up his contract." He paused. "Habiku..." His voice filled with what a stranger might have heard as love.

The whine of the turbine died, and Piatr's tone became brisk.

"The mine-kin are hard to deal with. Don't even look as if you're trying to steal their secret. Wringing copper and silver and gold out of riverwater is an art well worth killing for."

"Do I look like a miner?" she said, slapping her breastplate.

She was in the head-to-toe harness of a Kommanz lancer, and the fanged skull of Stonefort Keep grinned redly beneath the fingers of her gauntlet.

"Anyone," he snapped impatiently.

She shrugged. "We'll just talk at a distance, then. And quickly; Megan will be feeding that Thanish harbormaster to the fish by now, and we'd best hurry if we want to help."

Piatr turned to her with a grin that froze at her expression as she looked over his shoulder. They had reached the end of the approach road; the door of the river mine was before them, a blank wall to their right; to the left was another laneway, makingan L-shape.

"Piatr, I don't think those are miners either," Shkai'ra said softly. He turned his head. There were four, city bravos from their looks. All young, but with scars enough to show their trade; chunky, fair men in leather knee-breeches, bright shirts and three-cornered feather hats. They carried small round bucklers and sickle swords, blades that rose straight from the guards before belling out in a double-edged curve.

Shkai'ra's shield slid from her back; she thrust her arms through the grips and brought the rim up under her eyes; the long curve of her saber slid free of the sheath with a soft hiss, rising with delicate precision over her shoulder.

Possible, ran through her mind, a cool appraisal that filled her forebrain with calculation; she could taste the hot salty bubble of excitement that ran below it. They've no harness and they're brawlers, not soldiers. Not used to fighting a different technique. Her pupils widened.

Piatr limped to cover her shield side, drawing his belt knife.

"Nia, bh'utut!" she snarled in Kommanzanu. Then in Zak: "No! In there, into the building-I can hold them in the doorway."

He looked at her, surprise in every line. "What? They're Thanes." His voice roughened and he settled into the knifefighter's crouch. "I owe them," he said softly, then a grin flashed across his face. "And what would I tell the Captain if you get killed?" He moved back to the point where he was clear of her but could still cover her back. "She'd kill me!"

Shkai'ra giggled, the high-pitched, mocking titter that was her folk's reaction to the fact or threat of death. "I can't fight with a cripple to guard," she said, panting slightly, lips wet. "Get in that door before I kick you in!"

She elbowed him back and pushed; he rebounded from her backplate into the doors, and through them. The river mine had made examples enough not to need bars against uninvitedguests. The Thanes jogged forward, spreading out, not wasting time with words. Shkai'ra settled into the portal, slightly back from the entrance; it was barely twice the width of her shoulders, narrow enough that they could come at her only one at a time.

She barely heard Piatr's squawk, "Cripple!", before the first Thane reached her. She could see the cracked front tooth of his grin as he slashed low. Her face was twisted in the semblance of a smile as she jumped, then stamped hard on the blade under her boots, pulling the Thane forward. His face just had time to register shock as the sabre carved through his neck. The second pulled back not to stumble over the body of the first, cast a glance at his comrades and they spread out to either side.

They're trying to force me back, Shkai'ra thought, waiting for them to come and die. There was an uproar rising behind her, shouts and cries of "Outkin!"

"Take him!"

"Stop... ouch!"

"Hey!"

"Grab him, you steerfucker!"

"OOF!" that she paid no mind to. Then they were on her, working together to try and bring her down or force her back.

SSShrashh, her sword screeched off the small buckler of the one to her left; she stepped in as he wobbled, off balance. He leaped back, not far enough and she opened him across the belly.

The others' blades jarred her shield as she stepped again and forced them back. "Damn, verdamnt Zak lover..." one panted.

"Shkai'ra!" Piatr's shout came from behind her. "Duck!" She bent her head, twisting to one side as the Thane hacked with the curved blade, hoping to get around her shield, slammed the edge into his face and flung up an arm to ward off stone chips that flew from the wall from where the thrown sledge hammer had hit, just above her head.The Thanes were gone, overborne by the crowd of miners that ringed them, Piatr backed to the wall beside her. "No!" he cried as her sword came up. "Don't kill anyone here! We have business!"

The saber made a ripping noise in the air as she whipped it back and forth to keep the mob at bay. "Tell them!" she snarled.

The thrown hammer wasn't the only one in the crowd. In hard, calloused hands were shovels, chains, rakes, lumps of rock and cargo hooks, hefted and ready to use. "I don't care about your whulzaitz river mine!" She could take many of them with her, but sheer weight of numbers would tell. It was no end for a warrior, beaten to death by workers with tools.

There was a heaving in the crowd; a spray of burly labourers staggered aside and the Minemaster stood before her, heavy, middle-aged face red between greying muttonchop whiskers.

"Vat is der meaning of this?" he shouted, the shiny skin of his scalp glistening through thinning hair.

Shkai'ra snapped her saber to one side, clearing it of blood and spattering the foremost of the miners with a spray of salty droplets. One of the bravos was still moaning at her feet.

Irritated, she booted him in the back as she wiped her sword clean.

"It means," she said, "that two peaceful travellers coming to talk business were accosted by cutthroats on your doorstep, then set upon by your underlings when they sought refuge. Die, damn you, and get it over with!" she added in an aside to the Thane at her feet, following with another kick.

The Master-miner stared at her. "Peaceful? Und der is reason that such as dis should attack you?" He stepped forward, almost to within range of her sword tip. "Ve have no quarrel with you but with him." His hand snapped out to point at Piatr. "He vas inside and is not montagee. So why do you protect him, 'peaceful traveller?' "

"Thanks for pushing me there, Firehead," Piatr whisperedand stepped forward as she spoke.

"Because we ship together. It's reason enough."

"Masterminer Verner," Piatr said quietly. "You know me. In the seconds I was inside I could not have seen anything that I understood. And I had no desire to be there, as your people can testify to." He nodded at one or two nursing bruises, just beginning to show.

"Iz no matter," the Masterminer said. "You are out-kin. Ve cannot allow out-kin to leave, having entered."

Shkai'ra rolled her eyes up. The Thane at her feet gurgled and was still. "I'll talk easier if you put down the shovels and rakes and tools of destruction," she said.

"I do have an idea that might solve our problem..." Piatr nibbed the side of his nose with a finger. Shkai'ra looked at him, then at the miners.

"Right," Shkai'ra said, looking down at the nick in her wrist.

"You get to explain to Megan why we're late, brother. And why we're both very suddenly montagee." She fingered the small brown mark of a fish at her throat.

Megan was pacing the aft-deck when they got back. "Why-!"

Her voice died as she took in the two mine-kin marks.

"I... ah... I have something to tell you, Captain..." Piatr began.

"No you don't!" Shkai'ra interrupted and stamped past them both to go below. "One-foot, don't say anything, I changed my mind. Nothing happened. Not one zteafakaz thing happened in this silt-stinking, louse-ridden huddle of flea's droppings you call a town. Nothing! Francosz, in the rigging, snorted and Sova stifled a giggle. From below came the sound of a slamming door and a vengeful splash as another of Ten-Knife's offerings was pitched out of the stemcastle window. Piatr grinned sheepishly. "

The Masterminer agreed," he said quickly as Megan opened her mouth. He stepped back. "I've got work to do, Captain."As he swung down the ladder he heard a snort and Megan called after him, "I sent you to bargain with the miners, not get adopted by them!" He chuckled then.

The sun had set, and the night was very clear; the deck crew moved quickly about their tasks. The wind was only just enough to push the canvas taut, and even the nightbirds were silent; the only sounds were the low chuckle of water parting before the keel and a soft chorus of creaks and hums from hull and rigging.

There was a smell of wet and chill, a vagrant hint of woodsmoke from some peasant's steading; the banks of the river were low here, and the light enough to see stands of sere, dead rushes. The river was broad and smooth, with an almost oiled sheen to it, like a rippled surface of black silk glowing slightly, the reflection of the stars deep within it.

The captain of the Zingas Vetri raised her face to the sky and her breath caught at the clarity of it, a road of shining silver dust across the sky from east to west, with the north star and the Gourd ahead. And another star, low on the northern horizon, very bright, bright enough to make a fairy light-path down the long reach of the northing Brezhan, as if she could leap from the bows and tread along a path of shining music to- "Shamballah," she murmured. Megan lowered her spyglass and sighed, the stiff set of her shoulders relaxed somewhat. Then she called over her shoulder, "Shkai'ra, you might be interested in this."

"... fifty. Up. Stay up on your knuckles. Don't move." Shkai'ra looked from the deck to the poop. "I'll be there, will it wait?"

"Yes."

The Kommanza turned to the two children. "Up! Sponge down. I'll be down to check on you in a moment." She swung up the ladder, landing soundlessly as Ten-Knife beside Megan, who handed her the spyglass.

"Have a look at the brightest star, there on the horizon." She smiled. "We call it Shamballah, it means Paradise," she said in Kommanzanu."Ztrateke ahKomman, that's a bright star," Shkai'ra said.

"Noticed it since we made northing of Brahvniki." The Kommanza trained the glass. "Well, I'll be a sheepfucker! That thing has a disk." A soundless whistle. "And... tell me I'm imagining this, kh'eeredo. Are those panels-square?"