She laughed. “It will have to be in your cabin, my Grieve. We broke my bunk last night!” With an unsettling flirtatious glance, the Norukai woman sauntered out of the king’s cabin, still carrying her bone.
Utros was impatient, grim and serious. He would make his careful plans every step of the way, but this loathsome oaf did not seem to think ahead. “My army is ready to march. Renda Bay is burned, and we must move soon. With our forces united, King Grieve, we could accomplish exactly what we need.”
Grieve scoffed. “I have more than one hundred forty ships. That’s more than the coast can handle. Your army can march inland along the old imperial roads, while the Norukai prey upon the coastal towns.”
“We need more of a plan than that!” Utros said. “This is a war, not a game.”
Grieve tossed down his bone, which was now stripped of meat. He drained a tankard of ale while looking with displeasure at the general. “All war is a game, or else why bother?”
Utros tried to control his impatience. “We must agree on a target. Our main goal should be Tanimura, the heart of the Old World. That is the best way we can destroy the enemy.”
Grieve crossed his massive arms over his chest. “Is there much to plunder in Tanimura? I’ve barely heard of it.”
Utros’s information was more than a thousand years out of date, but he remained confident. “Tanimura is filled with wealth and potential slaves, as many women as you want. Once we capture and destroy that city, we will have won the war.”
King Grieve grunted. “That is all the plan I need. We will each make our way north. After we strike Tanimura, we can take our time and pick clean the carcass of the Old World.”
CHAPTER 66
When Nicci left the ruins of Effren, she directed the fast military ship to stop at Serrimundi so she could check on their defense preparations. From the tension in the air, she knew they all took the threat seriously. Harborlord Otto had dispatched swift patrol ships beyond the rocky mouth of the harbor, and lookouts remained on top of the bluff above the Sea Mother carving. Inside its sheltered harbor, the city remained watchful and safe.
The lookouts had developed a simple but effective means of signaling at great distance, to spread any warning more swiftly. If any patrol ship spotted the Norukai fleet, they could drop and ignite rafts piled high with kindling, pitch, and green wood. The floating fires would produce greasy smoke visible from far away, and the watchers on the bluff could sound the alarm to the city. Norukai raiders would never surprise Serrimundi again.
When her expedition returned from Effren, they brought more refugees to join the crowds that already strained Serrimundi’s resources. Nicci intended to head back up to Tanimura as soon as possible, but she would verify that Serrimundi was secure before she left.
The sheltered harbor remained a blur of activity. By now many of the sunken wrecks had been dismantled to clear a passage for larger trading ships. Rowboats and fishing vessels dodged the burned masts that still protruded from the water. Salvage crews continued to restore the docks while also building up the city’s defenses.
Nicci walked along the harborside in a new black dress, since her old one had been patched and cleaned so many times it had fallen to tatters. The dress fit her well, and she drew the attention of observers as she walked past. Now that her blond hair was growing out again, the strands tickled her neck.
On the new wharf, she found Otto talking with Captain Ganley of the Mist Maiden, which had been too large to sail out safely through the sunken ships. Five other large ships remained at anchor, waiting for their chance to leave, but they were not idle. Salvage crews affixed sheets of beaten metal to the hulls as armor.
The harborlord and Ganley stood beside a stack of crates taller than their heads. Both men turned as Nicci approached. “Thanks to you, Sorceress, my Mist Maiden will be a warship now,” said Ganley, “though I prefer peaceful trading from port to port.”
“Every ship needs to be a warship until the war is over,” Nicci said.
Otto tugged on his wide-brimmed hat, shading his eyes. “By the end of the day, we’ll have a passage clear so the larger ships can leave the harbor.” He sighed. “Part of me just wants Ganley to take my daughter and her children away to safety, so I can focus on guarding my city.”
“They might be safe, but the rest of you wouldn’t be,” Ganley said. “I have my part to play, as do we all.”
“The Mist Maiden is too useful as a warship,” Nicci said. “It will serve as an important defense at the mouth of the harbor if the Norukai make their way past the protective reefs.”
She was pleased to see that hundreds of the initial Effren refugees were now armed and practicing maneuvers in an open area where two warehouses had burned down during Kor’s raid. The men and women, still dressed in rags, wore hodgepodge armor, chain mail, leather, even some plate. They fumbled through their training, clumsily wielding swords, but getting better, hour by hour.
Nicci nodded toward the recruits. “Their sheer numbers will help build a defense force if the Norukai come ashore here again.”
“I intend to stop that from happening in the first place,” Harborlord Otto said. “With our new armored warships we will block the mouth of the harbor. They will never get past the Sea Mother into the city proper.”
Ganley set his jaw. “A line of five large vessels will prevent any invaders from entering the harbor.”
Nicci was impressed. “A significant improvement from how lax you were when I brought my first warning.”
Leaving the two men, she walked to the next pier, where she saw an old man in a loincloth, his head shaved clean and his skin so tanned it looked like hardened leather. With unexpected flexibility, he sat cross-legged on the end of the dock. Four young men dove underwater in front of him. Stone weights of various sizes rested on the dock beside the old man, and the young divers each took one and plunged deep, as if they were intentionally drowning themselves. After a remarkably long time, they would swim back up to the surface, struggling to carry the weights. The old man gave a nod of appreciation when they returned the stones to the dock, but he offered little praise as their teacher.
Nicci saw that his bare chest was covered with line after line of tattooed circles, more than she could count. Her lips twisted in an instinctive frown. “You are wishpearl divers.”
When he raised his head, ropelike tendons stood out on the old man’s neck. “I am the best wishpearl diver. My name is Loren, and it is my burden to train these whelps and find out which ones have the lungs to follow in my path. Some of them die.” He shrugged. “Then I have to go down to retrieve the stone weights myself so the next trainees can use them. It’s quite a bother.”
With an outburst of exhaled air, a young diver splashed back to the surface and slammed the stone weight on the boards in front of the old teacher. Loren said, “Obviously that was too easy. Try a heavy one next.” He handed the young diver an impossibly large stone, which instantly dragged him under.
Nicci frowned at the rippling water. “I have had dealings with wishpearl divers before, not all of them positive. I am Nicci.”
Loren snorted. “Everyone in Serrimundi knows who you are, Sorceress. Not all of my dealings with the divers are pleasant either. None of the trainees comes close to my ability yet, so they have no reason to be arrogant.”
“You sound overly proud of your own achievements,” she said.
“Pride is perfectly acceptable when it is based on true accomplishment.”
All five divers pulled themselves to the surface and hung on the end of the dock, looking at their trainer. “We did every task you set for us, Loren,” said a broad-faced young man. He looked up at Nicci with a predatory grin that reminded her of a shark. She gave him a similar grin in return, and he flinched.
“Then I will set you more tasks,” Loren said. “You aren’t exhausted enough.”
Nicci turned to the old trainer. “Why don’t you tell them to work on the sunken wrecks? Have them do something useful for their city.”
One of the young men treading water said, “Wishpearl divers don’t do menial labor!”
Loren’s darkening expression instantly showed that the young man had given the wrong answer. “You will do whatever labor I tell you!” He pointed to his tattooed chest. “You are not wishpearl divers until I say you are. You still have baby lungs! Inhale a bit of humility.”
During the previous Norukai attack on Serrimundi, Nicci had shamed four wishpearl divers into helping her. They had carried shielded bottles of wizard’s fire, which sank several serpent ships. It almost made up for her despicable first encounter with the arrogant men aboard the Wavewalker, when they had poisoned her and tried to rape her.
Loren leaned over the end of the pier and barked down at his students, “Listen to the sorceress. Go help with the work in the harbor. You will serve Serrimundi.”
“Why should we do that?” sneered the arrogant diver. He kept glancing hungrily at Nicci.
She said, “Because you will receive something better than riches. You will prove you are useful.” The trainees scowled at her as if that were the last thing that interested them. “And if the Norukai overwhelm Serrimundi, they will not be inclined to buy wishpearls?.?.?.?if any of you survive.”
“Go, clear the sunken wrecks!” Loren commanded. “And when you are finished, I may let you have women again.”
