The Black Coast

by Mike Brooks

  It was at this point that Thorn, who’d been clambering around amiably enough in the depths of her hood, decided to see what was going on. He clawed his way up and onto Zhanna’s shoulder, and her mother’s eyes fair popped out of her skull.

  “What in Father Krayk’s name—”

  There was nothing for it. “This is my dragon,” Zhanna said quickly, and mentally gritted her teeth.

  “Your dragon,” Saana repeated.

  “Yes,” Zhanna confirmed, waiting to see if more information was going to be welcome or unwelcome.

  Her mother’s jaw worked, but if her expression didn’t exactly clear, it didn’t grow worse. “Why do you have a dragon?”

  “It’s a baby,” Zhanna said, eyeing her mother for warning signs. “It’s a rattletail; they take them hunting, apparently. It wasn’t doing well and I asked why they didn’t look after it themselves, like we do with crow chicks. Daimon gave it to me to look after, so that’s what I’m doing.”

  “Daimon? Daimon Blackcreek?”

  Zhanna nodded. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to have used his first name, but what else should she have called him?

  Saana looked over her shoulder in the general direction of the lord’s quarters, where she’d presumably come from, then back at Zhanna. “What happens if it doesn’t live?”

  Zhanna drew herself up, annoyed. “It will live. I never let a crow chick die!”

  “Dragons aren’t crows,” her mother pointed out.

  “That’s exactly what the huntmaster said,” Zhanna snorted. “Only he said it in Naridan.”

  Saana’s left eye twitched. Then, almost unwillingly, she smiled slightly. “So you’ll be looking to prove us both wrong, then?”

  “If raising a dragon was hard, a Naridan couldn’t do it,” Zhanna said firmly, although she wasn’t sure that was true. She certainly had no dragon magic like Tavi did. She’d tried to loiter near the stables after the incident with the rattletails, but she’d only heard some indistinct chanting and smelled some form of smoke. However, it had worked well enough: the huge longbrows were now up and about, and munching their way through a stupendous amount of hay every day.

  Her mother was frowning again, so Zhanna smiled at her as she reached up to tickle Thorn’s jaw. The baby dragon hissed faintly, apparently enjoying the sensation. “Mama, you want them to accept us, don’t you? What if I show them a Tjakorshi can raise a dragon? That would help, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would.” Saana looked over her shoulder again, towards the unseen Daimon. “He’s clever, I’ll give him that. But…” She shook her head.

  “Mama, all will be well,” Zhanna told her, as firmly as she thought she could get away with. “Truly, it will. But I think either those three all want your hand, or they want you to go with them.”

  Saana looked down at Osred, Ganalel and Ita, all of whom were shifting uneasily, and laughed. “You’re right.” She turned back to Zhanna once more, her eyes searching. “Are you sure you’re well? And that you will be well?”

  “Mama, go and take care of everyone else,” Zhanna said, trying to keep her patience.

  “Very well,” Saana said, and stepped forward to give her another hug.

  “Be careful of my dragon!”

  “I’ll be careful of your dragon,” her mother muttered, then sniffed. Her face was conflicted as she pulled back again. “You don’t smell like you any more.”

  Zhanna frowned. “I don’t?”

  “You’ve not been out fishing with Jelema since we got here. You barely smell of the sea now.”

  That hit Zhanna harder than she expected. She managed a smile. “Perhaps I’ll soon smell of dragon instead.”

  Saana nodded, but didn’t smile back. “I love you,” she muttered as she turned away and began to descend the wooden steps again.

  “I love you too,” Zhanna called after her, as Osred said something hesitant to her mother in Naridan, and the two guards fell in uncertainly on either side. She watched the mismatched foursome walk away, while Thorn patrolled back and forth across her shoulders.

  DAIMON

  THE INCARCERATION OF his father and brother had been a problem for Daimon, in more ways than one. As both had greater claim to the title of Lord of Blackcreek than he, leaving them free would be a recipe for disaster and confusion. He’d had Gador fit two rooms in the keep with strong bars on the outside of the doors, and had ordered a hole knocked in the thick wood of each door to allow food and water to be passed through without risk of either Asrel or Darel being able to attack a guard and steal their weapon. Although the Code had caused him much grief, Daimon was not ungrateful for it: he suspected his father would have refused food and even water on principle, but it was dishonourable for a sar to allow himself to become weak or infirm, even if imprisoned.

  “Stew again?” Darel asked from the other side of his door. It was midday, not long after Sattistutar had stormed out of Daimon’s chambers, and Daimon was sitting cross-legged outside his law-brother’s room.

  “You cannot take your own life with a spoon, brother,” Daimon replied. In truth he suspected Darel could find a way, but he’d spoken the truth to Sattistutar: the only honourable death for a shamed sar was by blade. He supposed Darel could keep the spoon and sharpen the handle to a point capable of piercing his own heart, but even that probably wouldn’t qualify.

  “How goes your peace-making with the savages?” Darel asked. He had still not addressed Daimon either by name or as his brother since the Tjakorshi had arrived, but at least he would speak. Only empty bowls, full chamber pots, and stony silences came back through Lord Asrel’s door.

  “Your brother is surprised you have an interest,” Daimon admitted.

  “For some reason, scrolls and books fail to hold this lord’s attention at present,” Darel replied dryly.

  “Your brother shall see if he can procure new ones when the spring traders come,” Daimon offered.

  “This lord would appreciate that,” Darel replied, after a pause. “However, you haven’t answered his question.”

  “Have you looked from your window of late?” Daimon asked him. He’d placed Darel into a room on the north side of the keep, while their father was on the south side. Bars fixed into the stone around the windows were intended as a defence against the most determined attackers, but they served equally well to keep problematic sars locked in.

  “Yes,” Darel admitted.

  “And have you seen two peoples working the fields as they prepare to plant seed? Or driving sheep to graze the salt marsh?”

  “Yes,” Darel said again.

  “Then perhaps you have answered your own question,” Daimon said gently. “There have been problems, it is true. Tempers have flared, misunderstandings have occurred. But if our own people were perfect we would have no need of the reeve and his men.”

  Darel coughed gently, as he always did just before he volunteered some telling argument.

  “And the shouting this lord heard a while back? He could not make out all the words, but that sounded like you arguing with the Raider chief.”

  Daimon sighed. “You are as perceptive as ever, brother.”

  “You brought her into our home?”

  “You would have me speak with her in the street as though we were lowborn?” Daimon asked. “She—”

  “She is lowborn!” Darel exclaimed. “She’s worse than lowborn, she’s a Raider!”

  “But your brother is not lowborn!” Daimon snapped, although something inside gnawed at him—the thought that he had been, he was now, and he always would be. “He received her in his study, as we might with a visiting lord.”

  “But she is not—”

  Daimon cut him off wearily. “Your brother knows she is no lord, but what would you have him do? There is no etiquette for the situation he finds himself in.”

  “What caused your argument?” Darel asked.

  “It appears the Tjakorshi are… considerably opposed… to the concept of men that love
men.” Daimon paused, feeling the tension in his stomach. Daimon had never yet seen a man he had desired, but his brother was quite the opposite.

  “And when you say ‘considerably opposed’, you mean…?’

  “She responded with utter revulsion.” Daimon stared gloomily at the floor. “It probably was not helped by circumstances—that idiot Nahel apparently made a drunken pass at one of them—but even so, your brother despairs. He thought they were more civilised than this, despite all appearances.”

  Darel said nothing. Daimon understood. It must be hard to hear that someone hated you, not for what you’d done but simply for who you were, something over which you had no control.

  “You know, that might actually make sense.”

  Daimon blinked in surprise. “Your brother does not follow,” he admitted.

  “There aren’t that many of them, are there?” Darel said thoughtfully.

  “There are more of them than there are of us,” Daimon pointed out. “That is why your brother did what he did.”

  “That depends what you mean by ‘us’,” Darel mused. There was the faint scraping noise of cloth on wood as he shifted position on the other side of the door. “In the town, yes. She said she had two hundred and fourteen?”

  Daimon smiled. His brother’s attention to detail was something he’d always admired. “Two hundred and fourteen warriors, she said. Two hundred and thirteen, since your brother killed Ristjaan the Cleaver. But there are more than that: she was only counting those who would fight, although admittedly that is most. There are old people and children too, though.”

  “By the by,” Darel said dismissively. “If all the people on the Blackcreek lands were gathered together, we would outnumber them. Against the population of a large city they would be one sheep in a flock. Against Narida as a whole, a drop in the ocean.”

  “True,” Daimon acknowledged. That was both comfort and source of fear to him. The Southern Army could annihilate the Brown Eagle clan with no problem, now they were settled in one place instead of striking and then retreating to their ships: the issue so far as Daimon was concerned was that they’d probably also slaughter the inhabitants of Black Keep for consorting with the enemy.

  “When the Raiders speak of themselves as a group, do you get the impression they also refer to the other clans, left behind on their islands?” Darel asked. “Or do they only mean themselves?”

  “Your brother had not considered it,” Daimon admitted. He pondered briefly. “He believes it would be the latter. They all lived on the same land and believe they share the same origin, but Sattistutar has never expressed any form of kinship with the other clans.”

  “Hah!” Darel sounded pleased for the first time in a week. “The continuation of the clan must be their primary concern, then, and stuck on an island and surrounded by people they feel no kinship with, they’ve always had a limited amount of people to do it. Your brother imagines cross-clan marriages occur rarely.” He paused briefly. “And probably with a considerable amount of either ceremony, or potential for violence. Or both.”

  “But that doesn’t explain the extreme nature of her reaction,” Daimon said.

  “Oh, they probably do not think about it in those terms,” Darel said dismissively. “Perhaps some chief made an issue of it years ago, and over time it passed into superstition. Do they even have a written language?”

  Daimon was starting to feel like he had in his early years, being tested on his letters and coming up short again and again. “Your brother does not know. Sattistutar seemed unfamiliar with paper, though.”

  “Probably not much of one then, if at all,” Darel mused. “Oral history can lead to a huge distortion in events. Do you know, some of the Morlithian tribes on the other side of the Torgallen Pass—”

  It was like Darel had been saving up all his words, and now they spilled forth in an uncontrollable flood. The Torgallen Pass was hundreds of miles away, where the mighty River Idra cut clean through the Catseye Mountains separating Narida from the Morlithian Empire beyond. Neither of them had ever been anywhere near it, or probably ever would. Daimon chuckled and shook his head, amused once more at how Darel’s mind jumped around.

  “Darel, your brother would love for you to educate him further,” Daimon said honestly, “but he has duties to attend to. He must put the fear of Nari Himself into Nahel, for starters, and come up with some suitable threat for what will happen if he lays his lips on anyone again without first being completely sure he has their consent, be they Naridan or Tjakorshi.”

  “You might want to speak to Samul and Menas,” Darel offered. “And Bilha, and Amonhuhe. They should be warned about the Raiders’ attitudes.”

  “They do not need to be warned of any such thing,” Daimon replied sternly. “Your brother will not have our people feeling we need to hide our way of life. He allowed the Tjakorshi to settle here, not dictate how we can live.” He got to his feet, surreptitiously rubbing his backside.

  “Daimon,” his brother called.

  “Yes?”

  “Thinking of Amonhuhe… the Smoking Valley people have not appeared yet?”

  “Not yet,” Daimon replied. “They should be here any day: the Festival of Life is in a week.” The mountain folk would appear every spring to trade pelts for salt and fish oil, always at about the same time, despite their apparent disdain for any form of official calendar or date-keeping. They were theoretically Naridans, but only insofar as Nari had laid claim to the mountains and everything in them: they were a different people who’d been living in the high places long before even the time of the first God-King, and no lord Daimon knew of counted them amongst his common folk, or tried to tax them. Indeed, many were openly hostile to lowlanders. The Smoking Valley people were something of an exception, to the point that many of them learned Naridan, and a woman called Amonhuhe had stayed in Black Keep one year and ended up taking a woman called Bilha as her wife.

  “See if you can convince Sattistutar to stand with you in welcome,” Darel suggested. “And bring news of what happens. Your brother would like to know how they take to each other.”

  Daimon nodded, even though Darel couldn’t see him. “Your brother will. Be well, Darel.”

  He headed for the stairs, a faint smile tugging at his lips. The despair and anger he’d felt earlier had lifted from his chest somewhat, and in its place was something he could only define as hope. Not about the situation with Sattistutar and her people—that hadn’t changed in any way—but something more important, more personal.

  Darel had, intentionally or otherwise, referred to himself as Daimon’s brother today. Even more critically, Darel’s incessant curiosity had won out over his misgivings and he’d started asking questions. Once he started worrying at a problem he wouldn’t let go until he’d solved it, and you couldn’t solve a problem without understanding it. Daimon had dreamed of being a legendary warrior, but Darel had always wanted to be known as a man of learning. What greater prize than being the first Naridan to truly understand the Raiders?

  Daimon held out hope his father might one day see beyond his honour to what was possible, but he wouldn’t stake money on it. Darel, on the other hand… let him think of the Brown Eagle clan as a puzzle rather than an enemy and, so long as they behaved themselves, he’d probably forget any notion of trying to drive them back into the sea. What Daimon wouldn’t give to have his brother back by his side (and, for preference, taking care of the ledgers).

  “This might,” Daimon muttered to himself as he reached the ground floor, “might just work…”

  SAANA

  “I’M NOT SURE this is going to work.”

  Saana had called a meeting of the clan’s council, and they were sitting in the strange, raised house she’d taken as her own. Saana had to hand it to the Naridans, they knew their woodwork: the planks of which it was built were so well-fitted, barely any draught got in except at the shuttered windows, and the soil in the fire pit didn’t fall out onto the ground beneath.
r />   It was just a shame they were so tolerant of disgusting behaviours.

  “He didn’t understand it’s wrong?” Esser asked incredulously. She was a sturdy woman, older than Saana, with darting dark eyes equally adept at spotting wandering sheep or misbehaving clansfolk. She wasn’t the leader of the witches as such, but she was the one most of the clan would least like to cross, and that amounted to more or less the same thing. “I thought you said the boy was intelligent!”

  “He’s bright enough,” Saana replied gloomily, staring into the dancing flames that warmed the room. “That’s what’s so frustrating. He seems intelligent, then throws out dangerous talk like this!”

  “We should expect no better from a godless people,” Ekham said sadly. He was a shipwright who often worked with Otzudh, and he read his signs in the growth of the forest trees. He’d already expressed concerns about how well he’d manage in this strange land, with its trees he didn’t know, and whether Father Krayk would still recognise the clan as his children or whether they’d become godless in turn.

  “They’re not godless,” Tsolga Hornsounder cut in. The old woman wasn’t a witch, but she had a place on the council partly through respect for her age, partly through respect for the sheer amount of fights she’d lived through, and partly because there was every chance she’d just interrupt them anyway. She shifted uncomfortably and hissed, presumably at some complaining joint or muscle. “They’ve got at least one.”

  “A man,” Ekham argued, tugging at his beard in annoyance. “A dead man they’ve raised up and treat as a god. You can’t tell me that’s right.”

  “Perhaps it’s right for them,” Kerrti interjected. She was the youngest witch, and the one Saana harboured the most fears for. She doubted many Flatlanders would suspect that Esser the shepherdess or Ekham the shipwright were witches—she got the impression their roles would be thought too practical—but Kerrti knew herbs and charms to heal the sick. As Saana understood it, that could be enough to cast suspicion on the young woman, despite the fact Tjakorsha had plenty of healers who weren’t witches. She wondered whether dark-bearded Ekham would be feared by the Naridans if he was the one who knew how to heal people, or whether he’d be accorded some form of respect. She suspected it would be the latter, because he was male.