“It is not only the Kaerin we must be concerned with, my disgusting friend.” Audy was shaking his head. “The prelate of the Hatwa, and as your people say, his ass kissers, those that he has surrounded himself with, will have much to lose should we be successful. Their positions, power, and influence flow from the Kaerin.”
“Slave masters?” He snorted.
“More like the politicians you and Kyle have described to me,” Audy agreed, “but, yes. In the simplest of terms, slave masters.”
“Great . . .”
Tama agreed to help, and the Hatwa woman had even shown some enthusiasm. At the moment, though, Jake was far less certain regarding the form the help had taken. Tama’s father, the krathik of her home village, was named Arsolis. Cultural differences aside, it was clear Arsolis didn’t like him. He didn’t know if it was because he was an outworlder, and the chieftain suspected that Jake and his people planned only to take the place of the Kaerin; or if the salty old man was still pissed off that he’d been the one who had taken his daughter away. Jake suspected it was the latter, and he figured if he’d had a daughter who had spent several days with a group of strangers, that included those who professed to be from a different world, he would have been pissed off, too.
During those first few days, he’d kept his distance and stayed quiet as Audy had done most of the talking. Tama had accepted the Jema’s return with a focused enthusiasm that worried him a little. They were a long way off from being able to challenge anything here, and he’d said as much. He’d almost been surprised when Audy had backed him up on that score.
For her part, the Hatwa woman had seemed to accept the fact that the Jema had returned to Chandra to renew their rebellion against the Kaerin far more easily than she had Audy’s explanation of who he and Lupe were, or more to the point, where they were from. But by the time she had led them back to her village for a sit-down with her father, the woman had stopped looking at him like she expected lightning bolts to shoot from his ass. In fact, the looks she had begun throwing in his direction had taken on a different flavor all together. That, now that he thought of it, was probably the real reason Tama’s father was looking at him like he was trying to figure out a way to dump him overboard.
He looked around the deck of the fifty-foot sailing vessel that Arsolis had said could get them into the Legrasi safely. Its large hold was full of charcoal destined for the city’s iron workers. They’d taken an entire day to sail the length of the bay. All the while, he’d been thinking that one of the RHIBs could have made the trip in an hour, in the dark, and been there waiting to get them the hell away from the city in a hurry when shit went sideways. As it was, the local boat traffic, entirely sail driven, had gotten thicker as the day wore on and the city grew closer.
Every boat that passed within hailing distance caused him to think of the 9mm tucked against the small of his back, under the clothes they’d borrowed from the village. Arsolis kept watching him between shouts directed at his crew from his position at the rudder’s till. He tried offering a confident nod back in the man’s direction. In return, the old man hawked up something nasty and spit it out into the dark water of the Baltic Sea. Yep, he was still the guy who had abducted the man’s daughter, and had yet to graduate to liberator or even freedom fighter.
“I don’t think the old man is a fan of yours,” Lupe said, speaking English from where he sat next to him.
“Really? Why would you say that?”
“Seriously?”
He ignored the issue of the old man. “Just keep the radio dry; we may need it.”
Audy and a quick response team were loaded into two RHIBs, about ten miles behind them, hidden within the coastal marshland consisting of a mile’s thick belt of tall reeds and marsh grass. He caught a whiff of something that almost caused him to gag. He looked over at Lupe, who had gone pale.
“Madre Dios!”
He nodded to himself, remembering a certain city in east Africa. “That is a city without modern plumbing.”
“Shit!” Lupe had a fist planted at the base of his nose.
“Exactly.”
The city’s harbor and wharfs crept closer as Arsolis ordered one of the sails taken in. The powerful stench faded into the background, and Jake realized the city must have some plumbing, but they were piping the sewage out to the area of the bay they’d just passed through. To his earthbound twenty-first-century mind, the waterfront of the city had the look of a Canadian frontier town. Everything but the stone wharves and the foundations of the city’s walls was constructed of wood. It made sense; the entire area of the mainland was an ocean of dark forests. Once his gaze slid past the palisade walls and the adjoining area that had been cleared for planting all he could see was a wall of forest.
“How many people in the city?” He shouted the question at Arsolis, who just shrugged in response.
“It is the largest of our cities, some fifty or sixty thousand,” he shouted back after a moment.
“That’s a lot of shit . . .” Lupe mumbled next to him.
He and Lupe stayed out of the way as the local crew tossed ropes to the men waiting on the stone quay and pulled the cargo ship in tight against bumpers made of bales of sea sponge wrapped tight with layers of cordage. Three empty horse-drawn wagons were waiting for them. A company-sized group of laborers, looking dejected and miserable, held tightly woven baskets and waited behind the wagons to begin unloading the hold by hand. Jake felt like he’d traveled through time. A man holding a whip stood in the back of the middle wagon.
“Arsolis!” the man bellowed. “This load had better be heavier than your last.”
“Grenia!” Arsolis waved a hand in reply. “My boats are always heavy, and you know it!”
“You paying to tie up? Or you want me to take it out of your quota?”
“You know I’ll pay. I don’t trust your fingers.”
Grenia laughed and turned on his laborers. The whip whistled and cracked, splitting the air above the group. “Move!”
Jake was pulled back by Arsolis from where a line of laborers swarmed over the side of the boat and set up a daisy chain; a human conveyer belt that ran across the deck and disappeared down into the hold. Baskets of charcoal began moving back up the deck and across to the wharf, to be dumped into the first of the wagons.
“You look strange,” Arsolis said to him quietly. “Like you’ve never seen men work before.”
“Not as slaves.”
“They are not slaves. They are property of Grenia’s iron works.” Arsolis nudged him forward with his chin.
He jumped off the boat and waited for the old man to land next to him, wanting to ask the question of how somebody deemed property wasn’t a slave, but he held his tongue.
“Who’s the warrior, Arsolis?” The man with the whip managing his workforce stood with his fists planted on his hip.
With the way the old man was looking at him, he knew Arsolis was having second thoughts.
“My daughter tires of mourning, and he needs to learn the trade. This is Jakas.”
Jake squinted for a moment at Lupe; it sure sounded a lot like Arsolis had just called him “Jackass.” Lupe looked to be biting his cheek to keep from laughing.
He waved a hand in greeting as he’d seen the old man do, but remained silent. Jake was acutely aware of the other four Jema who had accompanied him, their positions relative to him and the slave driver, who just regarded him a moment in silence before offering him a nod of his head.
“Come.” Arsolis waved at his crew, his real crew, as well as Jake and his Jema escorts. “We need fish salt and maybe a drink.”
“I don’t think he liked me,” Jake said as they moved down the quay to the wharf front.
“You are arrogant,” Arsolis stated flatly. “You carry yourself like a High Blood. It will be noticed.”
He glanced over at Hyrika in question as the Jema woman made a sound somewhere in her throat. She returned his stare for a moment before nodding in agreement.<
br />
“You need to learn to be an illegal, Esse. Blend in.”
He ignored Hyrika and turned to face Lupe. “Watch it, Skippy.”
He faced Arsolis, and jerked his chin towards the end of the quay, where it sprouted from the stone-faced wharf under the wooden walls.
“Where to now?”
“We will go eat and drink,” he said plainly. “As we do each time we come here.”
“Sounds good.” He nodded. “Will you point out when you see a Kaerin?” He looked to Hyrika as well. The Jema should be able to spot them just as easily. He wanted to know what they were up against. To see what type of people had managed to conquer an entire world.
“There will be no need.” Arsolis regarded him as if he should know this. “And it would be stupid . . . dangerous to point at them.”
He started to explain that he hadn’t meant to actually point when Arsolis waved the group forward. “You will walk behind me,” the village elder said over his shoulder. “Keep your eyes in your head.”
Chagrined, Jake tried to do as he was told and make himself small. He glanced at Hyrika, who shuffled along next to him, focused on where she was putting her feet. He had the random thought that sunglasses, would they not have announced him as an alien, would have been great to hide where he was looking. He took in the local Hatwa moving up and down the quay, as well as other ships’ crews watching them as they passed. They all looked different; there were half a dozen ethnic groups on display, and to him they all looked as threadbare and ragged as the Hatwa in his own party. Jake thought he did a good job of suppressing his surprise when he spotted a small group of ethnic Asians, who looked Korean or possibly Japanese. That particular ship’s crew wore long, ankle-length homespun robes that he associated with the Persian Gulf on Earth.
He nudged Lupe with an elbow. “Definitely not in Kansas, Dorothy.”
Lupe just looked at him in confusion. “What?”
“Never mind.”
He did his best to keep his head down, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t on a swivel. He noted what could only have been a warship tied to the quay opposite them. A pair of small, stubby-looking cannons sat on its deck. He imagined others were behind what looked a lot like covered gun ports.
“Whose ship is that?”
“Hatwa,” Hyrika answered quickly. “You see the blackbird? It is Hatwa.”
“Larsda.” Arsolis turned his head in Hyrika’s direction as he spit out the unfamiliar word.
Hyrika turned to him, and repeated the word . . . “Larsda, not a blackbird,” she said in Chandrian.
Jake looked more closely at the blackbird on the white flag hanging straight down from one of the spars on the ship’s mainmast. A crow? he wondered. Maybe a raven. Nobody would use a crow for their national—or clan symbol, would they? He’d ask Audy when they got back; he knew Hyrika didn’t have the English skills to be able to tell him.
It didn’t matter to him, not nearly as much as Arsolis’s reaction to the flag had. The village elder was Hatwa through and through; they all needed to keep that in mind. He may hate the Kaerin; he imagined they all did, regardless of clan. But the man’s loyalty was going to be, as expected, to his clan. Audy had warned him this would be the case.
The stone quay was at least fifty feet wide, and a good 150 yards long stacked with goods being loaded and unloaded from ships. The quay was one of three such fingers of dark gray stone blocks stretching like fingers out into the harbor. As near as he could tell, the single Hatwa warship, something between a small frigate and a sloop, was the only one he could see possessing any sort of armament. Of the rest, most were small cargo ships, similar to the one owned by Arsolis’s village, or smaller fishing boats. He’d spent enough time on the water, even before joining the Navy, to be able to recognize the sail plans and rigging to be every bit as sophisticated and efficient as what small sailboats on Earth utilized.
It was like the Jema’s heavy breach action rifles. Single shot, using paper cartridges, sure, but the craftsmanship and accuracy were as good as anything of similar technology produced on Earth. These people weren’t stupid; they’d taken the tech the Kaerin allowed them as far as they could. He needed to keep that in mind. This was the same world that had produced Audy, Kemi, and Jomra, as well as half a dozen other Jema he’d gotten to know well. They were all sharp as hell, scary smart in Audy’s case—not that he’d ever tell him that.
A duo of Hatwa clansmen, long-rifles held against their shoulders, short swords similar to the Jema bouma at their waists, stood facing each other where the quay met the wharf. They looked as bored as anyone standing guard, until he saw first one, then the other come to attention.
For a moment, he was surprised that Arsolis, a chieftain of the worst excuse for a village he could imagine, would garner such respect; or any, if he really thought about it. Arsolis’s village, Varsana, was in effect nothing but a big farm, a rotting fleet of fishing boats, and some sheep. He was mentally shaking his head at the image of these warriors coming to attention for Arsolis when he saw them.
Coming down the wharf from their left on a perpendicular course was a trio of Kaerin warriors, clearing the way for a middle-aged Kaerin woman. Arsolis had been correct. Pointing them out wasn’t necessary. The Kaerin warriors carried themselves no differently than how he imagined a well-ordered, disciplined motorcycle gang would amid a crowd of millennial tree huggers or any other group they held as lesser life form. The combination of fearlessness and superiority on the faces of the Kaerin was palpable.
Jake was immediately taken back to the sixth grade, before he’d hit his growth spurt. He’d always been a scrapper, always picking fights, and getting his ass kicked by boys who had been bigger, stronger, and sometimes older than him. He’d been too proud and maybe too stupid to back down from anybody who had thought they were tough, not when Jake had known he was. Looking at the Kaerin, seeing the crowd avert their eyes and fall over themselves getting out of the way, that same anger flared up in challenge. Just as quick, thirty-four-year-old Jake remembered he was on a mission, and dropped his gaze.
“Let it go, dumbass,” he whispered to himself in English.
“I didn’t do nothing,” Lupe whispered back.
“Talking to myself.”
He glanced back up just as the entourage passed the quay’s opening onto the wharf, and he took in the Kaerin woman being escorted. She was probably in her late fifties, and if her bodyguards held derision for the crowd around them, she didn’t appear to even see them. Dressed in a heavily padded, bright blue quilted silk robe, she could have been walking through a forest for all the attention she paid the press of flesh parting the way in front of her guards.
Jake’s mission brain switched on; the Kaerin, at least these were Caucasian, a head taller in most cases than the Hatwa around them. That alone wasn’t surprising; he and most of the Jema towered over the locals as well. The Kaerin warriors carried bolt-action rifles, multi-shot revolvers on their hips, and long swords. The blades looked to be hand-and-a-half bastard swords—hanging on their backs, pommels sticking up over their right shoulders. No packs, no supplies; these were guards and not far from wherever they billeted.
A Hatwa laborer carrying a wicker basket of what looked like turnips was slow in stepping out of the path of the Kaerin bow wave. The lead Kaerin warrior delivered a backhand blow as if he were swatting at a mosquito. The hapless Hatwa was sent sprawling into his fellow clansmen, crashing to ground and spilling his cargo. No one dared help the man up. For his part, Arsolis veered left and gained the crowded wharf road behind the passing Kaerin. If he even noticed the Kaerin, it didn’t show.
Jake glanced over at Lupe, who was looking at him. The man mouthed the word wow.
“I thought they’d be taller,” he whispered; not quietly enough, as Arsolis rounded on him and just glared back at him in anger. The chieftain spun to Hyrika and then back at him as if to say, “Control your pet.”
Hyrika just raised one of her eyeb
rows at him in that Spock gesture all the Jema could do. He’d learned firsthand from Audy that it usually meant they were annoyed at you.
“I’ll be good,” he said, jumping back into Chandrian.
They passed underneath the palisade walls through a set of wide-opening, thick wooden iron-banded gates, standing opened to the outside. What he’d taken for a simple log wall from the outside was in reality a good ten feet thick. Two parallel rows of massive logs, covered in whatever went for creosote in this place, made up the interior and exterior walls. The intervening space was packed solid with some sort of fill. He guessed stone and gravel from the small piles of spillage between each of the massive logs.
If seeing the state of the harbor itself had been akin to time travel, the interior of the city finished the trip. He came to a surprised stop, taking it in until one of the other Jema in their group ran into the back of him and forced him to start walking again. The wide cobblestone boulevard was lined with buildings, clapboard exteriors above stone or sometimes brick first floors. Nothing seemed to go higher than three floors in height, but most of the second floors were larger than the ground floors, causing the size of the sky above the street to shrink. It was a madhouse of what he assumed was commerce. Arsolis had said it was a market day; the one day during the week when the Hatwa could be about their own business and not working.
Jake saw people laughing, arguing, even a fight. There was a great deal of haggling taking place at most of the stalls they passed. There were no more Kaerin that he could see, and he was looking. He knew he was probably the analogue of the clueless American traveling to Paris for the first time, wandering around with their head stuck in a map and drawing every pickpocket in sight.
Somehow, he didn’t think this place would suffer street crime. His foot slipped in something, and he didn’t have to glance down before he smelled the ammonia bite of horseshit. It was just a sharper edge to the general miasma of the place, which smelled a lot like a city bus he’d taken in Mumbai one time, only without the odors of curry and exhaust from several million two-stroke motorbike engines.
New Shores: The Eden Chronicles - Book Three Page 15
