Shurq said to Pithy, ‘You and your friend here are welcome to inspect the cargo-but if we’re not offloading that’s as far as it goes, and whether we offload or not depends on the kinds of prices your buyers are prepared to offer.’
‘I’ll prove it to you,’ Brevity said, advancing on Skorgen Kaban. ‘It’s a match all right-I can tell from here.’
‘Can’t be a match,’ the first mate replied. ‘The eye I lost was a different colour from this one.’
You had different-coloured eyes?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That’s a curse among sailors.’
‘Maybe that’s why it ain’t there no more.’ Skorgen nodded towards the nearby dromon. ‘Where’s that hailing from? I never seen lines like those before-looks like it’s seen a scrap or two, asides.’
Brevity shrugged. ‘Foreigners. We get a few-’
‘No more of that,’ Pithy cut in. ‘Check the cargo, dearie. Time’s a-wasting.’
Shurq Elalle turned and examined the foreign ship with more intensity after that peculiar exchange. The dromon looked damned weather-beaten, she decided, but her first mate’s lone eye had been sharp-the ship had been in a battle, one involving sorcery. Black, charred streaks latticed the hull like a painted web. A whole lot of sorcery. That ship should be kindling.
‘Listen,’ Pithy said, facing inland. ‘They beat it back, like they said they would.’
The cataclysm in the making seemed to be dying a rapid death, there on the other side of the island where clouds of ice crystals billowed skyward. Shurq Elalle twisted round to look out to the sea to the south, past the promontory. Ice, looking like a massive frozen lake, was piling up in the wake of the violent vanguard that had come so close to wrecking the Undying Gratitude. But its energy was fast dissipating. A gust of warm wind backed across the deck.
Skorgen Kaban grunted. ‘And how many sacrifices did they fling off the cliff to earn this appeasement?’ He laughed. ‘Then again, you probably got no shortage of prisoners!’
‘There are no prisoners on this island,’ Pithy said, assuming a lofty expression as she crossed her arms. ‘In any case, you ignorant oaf, blood sacrifices wouldn’t have helped-it’s just ice, after all. The vast sheets up north went and broke to pieces-why, just a week past and we was sweating uncommon here, and that’s not something we ever get on Second Maiden. I should know, I was born here.’
‘Born to prisoners?’