The Black Coast

by Mike Brooks

  “Oh by all the gods, I’m so sorry—”

  “Please, no, do not… Ì am the clumsiest fool in all the Islands.” Hè massaged his leg briefly, then punched it as though blaming it for causing hìm pain.

  Jeya swallowed. “I… probably shouldn’t have done that.” It was very hard to form the words, not least because shé really didn’t want to admit it.

  Hè looked up at her, startled. “Ì disagree.”

  “Oh. Well. That’s good.” Shé hesitated, torn by indecision. Shé really, really wanted to kiss hìm again, but it felt like the moment had gone and hè had made no move to try to kiss hér…

  Hè cleared hìs throat softly. “Might… might Ì ask your name?”

  Jeya couldn’t help but smile. Had shé transgressed some rich person tradition by kissing hìm before they knew each other’s names? “Í’m Jeya.”

  “Jeya.” Hè nodded, and shé could tell hè’d caught the difference in intonation now shé’d gendered hérself. “My name is Galem.”

  Galem. Jeya got to hér feet on an impulse and, wobbling slightly on the uneven footing, made a little bow such as shé’d seen Naridan folk make. “Pleased to meet yòu, Galem.”

  There was a snort from inside hìs hood that was almost certainly a muffled laugh. “And Ì yóu, Jeya. But might we continue this conversation on the other side of that wall? You see, my family’s guards are zealous, and Ì am not supposed to be out of the house…”

  EVRAM

  THE FOREST WAS damp and cold, and Evram had never before thought so wistfully of his hut in Black Keep. It was small, to be sure, with barely enough room for his cookfire and his pallet, but it had kept the rain off and the wind out. He’d also had somewhere dry to store firewood, which was more than the Downwoods could offer. He had no axe, and the green twigs he’d managed to snap off with his hands didn’t burn well. A fire at night depended on finding dead sticks dry enough to use as kindling, which he hadn’t always managed. When he didn’t, he would wake up chilled to the bone. Even when he did find enough for a fire, most of its heat seemed to be sucked into the empty darkness above.

  All in all, he didn’t think he’d ever been so miserable.

  There were small settlements here and there along the road, with strings of brightly coloured flags to keep away evil spirits, and often a fence of sharpened, outward-pointing stakes for the more physical threat of roaming dragons, but never more than a few houses clustered together. Evram had looked towards their walls with longing, but had put his head down and powered on. What if pursuit came from behind, as Shefal had warned? If he was outside, cold and miserable though he might be, he could hear someone coming. Warming himself by someone’s hearth, he might know nothing until the door was knocked in. Could he be certain these woodcutters and charcoal burners wouldn’t betray him if threatened with a blackstone axe? For that matter, could he know they wouldn’t promise him a dry space to sleep, then slit his throat for his coin?

  No, he told himself glumly, best not to trust the safety of his skin and his task to anyone else. So he pushed on, his feet growing increasingly sore with every mile. Each day he rose with the sun and had to find somewhere out of sight to make his camp in the evenings, which still closed in all too quickly at this time of year. Trying to make his way in the deep dark of the Downwoods at night was a sure recipe for a twisted ankle at best, no matter how good the road surface.

  It was the fifth night. His feet were rubbed sore by boots never intended for this much constant walking, his provisions had all but run out, and his stomach was growling as he slouched against a thick whitewood trunk, starting to nod and doing his best to soak up the warmth from the pitiful fire in front of him. He’d have to find someone to buy food from tomorrow, even though that would mean being seen. He was no good at lying, but perhaps he could come up with a simple, believable story why a peasant from Black Keep was walking the North Road this early in the year.

  The next growl he heard wasn’t from his stomach.

  Had Evram been a hero from song he would have stood up and faced into the dark, one hand drawing his belt knife and the other braving the fire’s heat to grip the unburned end of a dead branch. He would have stridden forwards to see what manner of beast had dared approach and either driven it off or slain it, then probably used its hide as a cloak after some unmentioned period of tanning or curing, the practical elements of which the songs so rarely covered.

  Evram had far more common sense than such heroes, however, which is why he immediately scrambled to his feet and leapt for the gnarled, knotted and, above all, easily climbable trunk of the whitewood behind him. Blistered feet, aching joints and suddenly-banished drowsiness notwithstanding, he was more than twice his own height above the ground within a few moments, albeit moments in which he’d been expecting to feel the searing pain of claws in his back, or teeth around his ankle.

  Here the whitewood’s trunk divided into the first of its main branches, each one at least as thick around as his own waist, and he looked down at the ground from a position of some stability. He could see nothing at first in the flickering shadows cast by his fire save for the surrounding undergrowth, and wondered whether he’d jumped like a child at a figment of his own imagination.

  Then he saw the eyes.

  Golden and glimmering, reflecting the firelight like a pair of tiny lanterns, the eyes bobbed and swayed as their owner moved its head to view his fire from different angles. He could see the vague shadow of the body, but it was too far back from the light to make out any detail. It had to be a wild dragon, probably a predator. Evram’s bladder swelled inside him as he realised how close he’d been to falling victim to it.

  A low, whickering call came from the right, and Evram realised in horror that there was more than one. He craned his neck to see and, sure enough, another pair of golden lights glinted and flashed as the creature slunk through the bushes with barely a rustle to mark its passing over the pop and snap of burning wood. At least two, calling to each other: pack hunters. Rattletails perhaps, or razorclaws.

  Evram hoped they weren’t razorclaws.

  As suddenly as they’d appeared, the eyes were gone. Evram strained his own eyes peering into the darkness and held his breath listening, but could get no clue where the dragons were. It didn’t matter: he wouldn’t be climbing down this tree until the morning, not unless his fire burned out of control and the whitewood caught.

  Evram wrapped his cloak around himself and pulled his hood forward as far as it would go. Then he settled back as best he could, where two of the branches left the trunk close enough together that there was no risk of him falling between them, and resigned himself to a night even more miserable than the ones he’d already endured.

  SAANA

  IT WAS FIVE days after they’d given Ristjaan to the waves, and Saana had done her best to avoid Daimon Blackcreek since.

  It hadn’t been completely possible, of course. She could see Zhanna at sundown, when her daughter was allowed to walk the front wall of the castle and wave down to Saana to prove she was still well. They’d shouted back and forth in Naridan, so as not to arouse the suspicions of the guards accompanying her. Blackcreek was there on the second evening, but not since, for which Saana was glad.

  Then there was the fact she needed to organise her folk as best she could to work in this new land, because Blackcreek had the right of it: the clan’s only hope of survival lay in showing the Naridan’s war leader—the Marshal, as Blackcreek referred to him—they were more valuable than they were a threat, whenever he might appear. This meant finding out which Naridans did which jobs, and negotiating who would join them. Saana used Nalon’s assistance as much as possible, but some Flatlanders clearly thought him a traitor, and he wasn’t the most ingratiating of men in any case. Sometimes Daimon’s authority had been needed, and then there’d been nothing for it but to seek him out.

  Of course, sometimes there were other problems.

  She’d come to the castle and had been esco
rted through it by Ganalel and Ita, two of the guards. Ita was young and somewhat overawed; Ganalel was old and sour, and had passed more than one comment Saana felt sure was intended to provoke her to violence. She’d resisted, but not by much.

  It turned out that the Black Keep itself, the roof of which Saana had seen rising above the fortress’s walls, was apparently simply a defensive structure in which the nobles would take refuge if their home came under serious attack. Their day-to-day quarters were a series of one-storey buildings on the typical Naridan wooden stilts, arranged around courtyards of planted shrubs and washed gravel. They were bedecked with strings of small, colourful flags that presumably held some significance, and many of the beams and plaster walls were painted with frescos of glorious colour.

  And everywhere, dragons.

  Not the real thing, but depicted over and over again in artwork. It took Saana’s eyes a few moments to work out the shapes, but then they sprang out at her. There were small, lean ones and large, bulky ones; on two legs and on four, with horns and with claws, some with mouths open to display sharp teeth and one with what looked like a club for a tail; long necks and short; ones that flew on broad wings, and one emerging from a cave or burrow in a hillside. She could see the ones she knew, but there were many others besides. And there were some, she reflected as she eyed one with what looked to be particularly long claws, she definitely didn’t want to meet.

  Osred the steward emerged from the main door, frowning. He hadn’t accused Saana of trying to poison his lord again in the days since her arrival, but she could tell this chief servant had no love for her, which wasn’t surprising. He gave one of the little bows of his people, echoing the deeper ones made to him by Ita and Ganalel, but didn’t take his eyes from her.

  “Chief Saana,” he said, a little warily.

  “Steward,” she replied, without bowing. Nalon had tried to explain the subtleties to her but she still hadn’t understood it, and was hesitant to try the custom unless she knew she could get it right. “This man wishes to see Lord Daimon.”

  “This way, please,” Osred said, straightening and turning. Ita and Ganalel didn’t enter the house, so Saana climbed the stairs alone.

  She found herself in a hallway that ran down the centre of the building yet was strangely light. Pale walls on either side of her were decorated with artwork depicting plants, birds, and more dragons, but they weren’t stone, or wood. She thought they were glowing at first, but as she took another step she realised there were windows behind the walls, and the light from them was shining through somehow. She stopped and reached out a finger in wordless curiosity: the surface bent slightly at her touch.

  “What is this?” she asked, unable to disguise her wonder.

  “Paper,” Osred replied, although the word meant nothing to Saana. “You do not know paper?”

  Saana shook her head. “Where does it come from?”

  “Trees.”

  Saana narrowed her eyes, trying to work out if he was making fun of her, but she could detect no mockery. Distaste, perhaps, but not mockery. She withdrew her finger and tucked her thumb into her belt, then gestured at him to continue walking. The strange paper walls didn’t seem to have any role in holding the ceiling up: that was done by thick wooden pillars of planed tree trunks standing at even intervals. Indeed, as Saana looked closer at the paper surfaces she could see tiny gaps at the edges and realised what she’d thought of as walls might in fact be moveable screens, so the large space could be rearranged as needed.

  Osred paused at an opening, and cleared his throat. “Chief Saana to see you, Lord.”

  Saana didn’t hear the reply, but Osred beckoned her and she obliged. The steward stood aside to allow her in, and she found herself in the chamber of the Lord of Blackcreek.

  It was bright and airy, and warmed by a crackling fire burning in a metal grate. Daimon’s blades, one long and one short, rested in their white wooden scabbards on pegs on the external wall. The main feature of the room was a large wooden desk, and sitting behind it on a heavily carved, high-backed chair, wearing a thick black and green robe, was Daimon Blackcreek.

  The man who’d killed Ristjaan the Cleaver, and had taken her daughter hostage.

  Saana thought she’d been prepared for it but, as with every time so far, she was wrong. The memory of that first night rose up from the depths like a krayk scenting blood in the water, and with about as much mercy. She felt her heart quicken, and had to make a conscious effort to prevent her hand straying to the sheathed dagger on her belt.

  “Chief Sattistutar,” Blackcreek said, inclining his head slightly. “Greetings.”

  It took Saana a moment to realise he’d spoken the last word in Tjakorshi. His accent was strange, but it was definitely a formal greeting, such as might be made from one clan chief to another. The surprise of it blunted her anger for a moment, and she stumbled over her Naridan words. “This… yes. Greetings.” She nodded her head in imitation of him, determined not to let this man outdo her.

  “Please, will you sit?” Blackcreek asked, gesturing to another chair on her side of the desk. It was smaller and less ornate than his own, but Saana had already gathered that chairs were common among the nobles of Narida. In Tjakorsha, chairs were only used when a chief was passing judgement; otherwise, most everyone sat on the floor, or on low stools or benches. So she sat, forcing herself to remember he was not offering her insult by treating her as a criminal but, from what she’d gathered, was showing her courtesy.

  “What is that?” she asked, pointing to the rectangular object on the desk. It seemed made of wood and was perhaps as long as her forearm, slightly less across, and as thick as both of her hands laid on top of each other.

  “This?” Blackcreek looked down at it. “The Blackcreek ledger. This lord has been trying to come to terms with the records of our lands.” He smiled, although Saana didn’t think there was much mirth in it. “He must confess his brother always had the better of these matters, just as this lord, in his turn, is more skilled with a blade. Osred has assisted this lord greatly, but Father oversaw our affairs, and so this lord feels he should do the same.” He opened it, and Saana saw only the edges were made of wood: the inside was countless thin, pale leaves, many of which had markings on.

  “Is that… paper?” she asked, glancing sideways at Osred. The leaves were much thinner than the screens, but it was the only possibility she could think of.

  “Of course,” Blackcreek replied with a frown. “Do you not have paper?”

  Saana just shook her head. “What is this for?”

  “To keep records,” Blackcreek repeated, clearly confused. “How do you know who owns what?”

  Saana snorted. “If a person cannot remember what they own, they probably do not need it. This man has goats and chickens, and she knows how many of each. Although she cannot remember the numbers in your tongue,” she admitted.

  Blackcreek rubbed at his chin. “And do your people… pay taxes to you?”

  Saana shook her head, confused. “This man does not understand that word.”

  “Do they have to give you money, or grain, or animals?” Blackcreek persisted. “In payment for living on your land?”

  “They do not live on this man’s land,” Saana said, wondering what in the depths the boy was talking about. “Not now, of course, but not before either. Zhanna and this man lived on our land. There was land enough for all, so long as the Seal Rock clan stayed their side of the ridge.”

  Blackcreek didn’t say anything for a few moments, just looked at her with his dark eyes while one finger tapped out a rhythm on his desk.

  “Things may be more different between us than this lord thought.” He gestured behind him and to his right, which Saana realised must be in the direction of the keep. “Everything you can see from our stronghouse is Blackcreek land. It belongs to this lord’s family.”

  It was Saana’s turn to say nothing, while she tried to comprehend what he’d just said. The Black Keep was tall, a
nd she’d be able to see a long way from it. Over the river to the south, where the moors began to rise. The strip of salt marsh to the east, where Naridan and Tjakorshi shepherds were grazing their flocks. To the west and north, fields being ploughed and sown, then forest, and then, far to the west, mountains.

  “All this land is yours,” she repeated.

  “Yes,” Blackcreek said. He closed his ledger again with a rustle of paper. “And everyone who lives here does so at this lord’s sufferance. Many have bought their own land from his family. Some live on his land, and in return they work it for him.” He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. “One of the things that this lord… that we will need to decide, is what will happen with your people.”

  Saana frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Your people cannot just live here,” Blackcreek said soberly. “This lord must account to the Marshal’s inspectors for his lands. Do the Brown Eagle clan work on Blackcreek land in return for somewhere to live? If so, the inspectors will expect yields to be higher. Does this lord permit you to clear an area of the forest and grant you your own lands? Your people will be expected to pay tax, not to mention the unrest that this would cause in the lowborn who have been granted no such privilege.”

  “But why do you need all this land?” Saana asked him, perplexed. “Why do you prevent your people using it for themselves? How do you prevent them? They are many, and you have only few guards.” She bit down on her tongue, suddenly aware the lord and his steward might think she was intending to get Blackcreek’s “lowborn”, as he called them, to rise up against him.

  “The Blackcreek family’s title was granted by the God-King,” Blackcreek said. “We have bequeathed some small freeholdings on others, but only those who have shown themselves worthy of such favour. It is our duty to ensure the land remains prosperous, and so we must be careful who is allowed to own it.”