Ferin flexed against her captors one more time, but finding their grip impossible to loosen, and with the pain in her navel going away and so clearly not the result of actually being stabbed with a spear or knife, she let herself relax. Hopefully they would too, and give her a chance to escape a little later, when they were off guard. Though with four of them, all strong and wiry, she figured she would probably have a better chance of talking her way out of trouble. They all had knives, she saw. Not fighting knives, but a fish-gutting knife could end a life as easily as any other blade.
“Not my people,” she said. There was a trace of bitterness in that. The other tribes should have respected her as a messenger, but they did not.
“Not yours?” asked Karrilke. “You have the look of the Twenty Tribes, though your clothes are unfamiliar.”
“I’m of the Athask; we are of the mountains, not the steppe,” said Ferin slowly. She was coming fully conscious, eyes slowly moving to take in her situation, to gauge the strength of her enemies. If they were enemies. “Though it is true we usually count ourselves kin to the horse-lovers. Cousins, not sisters.”
“So, cousin of the horse people, my name is Karrilke. What do we call you?”
Ferin was silent for a moment. She wondered if she should simply adopt a name to make it easier to go among strangers. But what name? It was easier again to simply give them what her little not-sister Lilioth called her.
“Ferin,” she said.
“Ferin from the far mountains,” said Karrilke. “What brings you to the mouth of the Greenwash, in a raft of reeds, with a burning pot that reeked of Free Magic?”
“I am a messenger,” said Ferin. “I am taking a message to the other side of the great river, to the witches who live in the ice mountain.”
“There is a bridge upstream,” said Karrilke. “Easier to walk across that than take to a raft of reeds.”
“I tried the bridge,” said Ferin slowly. She was looking at Karrilke’s eyes, trying to gauge who this fisherwoman was, how she would react. “Enemies were watching; I was wounded in the fight. They will be watching still, it being the only bridge. I had to take to the water. And it has worked out, has it not? If you take me to the southern shore, I will give you gold.”
“You don’t think we will just steal whatever valuables you have?” asked Karrilke.
“No,” said Ferin. “I do not think so. Your eyes do not slink about when you talk. Besides, you have the magic mark on your forehead, like the witch in the cave whose message I bear. That is an omen that you will help me.”
“Is it?” asked Karrilke, but she smiled. “A witch in a cave? In your mountains? Who bore the Charter mark?”
“Yes,” said Ferin. “She came from the witches in the ice.”
“You mean the Clayr?” asked Karrilke.
“Yes,” said Ferin. “But I do not say so, because names may call the named, or others who listen for the name, on the wind. Already I know there are many who do not want my message to arrive.”
“The strange fire in the pot, that is the work of what we would call a Free Magic sorcerer,” said Karrilke slowly, as she tried to puzzle out this strange catch from the sea. “But you do not seem to be one yourself. They do not readily take to the water and, among your people, are chained at the neck, are they not?”
“I am no witch,” said Ferin. “The fire . . . it came from a spirit-glass arrow. I would have died of the chill else.”
“I have heard of those arrows,” said Karrilke. “Treasures, are they not?”
“My message is very important, both for my people and your own,” said Ferin. “I carried three spirit-glass arrows when I set out. Now, tell me. Will you take me to the southern side of the Greenwash?”
Karrilke did not answer immediately. She looked away from Ferin, huddled in the blankets on the swaying deck, and out over the sea. The shore could be seen in the distance as a dark smudge on the horizon; they were now north of the Greenwash, so that land was at least notionally claimed by one of the clans. Drifting near this shore, but still too close for Karrilke’s liking, a thin line of very dark smoke rose from the raft.
“We should have sunk it,” she said, half to herself.
“What?” asked Ferin, as the captain grabbed a stay and stood up on the gunwale, to look in all directions.
“We should have sunk your raft and that fire with it,” said Karrilke. “That smoke may invite interest from those it is better to avoid. Now tell me, will you swear upon . . . what do you mountain-folk swear upon?”
“We do not swear upon anything,” said Ferin. “We simply keep our word.”
“Then if you will agree to keep the peace, and follow my orders, we will release you.”
“Will you take me to the southern shore?” asked Ferin. “I will pay.”
“Our home port is Yellowsands, twenty leagues south of the Greenwash mouth. We will take you there. But not until our hold is full of salted batith.”
&
nbsp; Ferin looked puzzled.
“Batith are fish,” whispered one of the crew who held her.
“But . . . but I have said I will pay!” exclaimed Ferin. She began to struggle again, and found the grip of the sons and daughter had not relaxed. “I have gold. Enough to pay for any cargo of fish.”
“I have never sailed home to Yellowsands without a full hold,” said Karrilke. “The fishing has been good; it should take only three, perhaps four more days before we can strike for home.”
“My message is very important!” cried Ferin. “I cannot waste any time! Let me show you the gold!”
“Time is never wasted, fishing,” said Karrilke. “Money is only money.”
“Can you sell me one of your . . . your little boats?” asked Ferin desperately, seeing two dinghies lashed down on the other side of the deck.
“Do you know how to sail one?” asked Karrilke.
“No,” said Ferin. “I would work it out.”
“In any case, we use them for fishing,” said Karrilke. “Now, will you agree to be peaceable and follow orders, and work with us, and in three or four days you will most likely be landed alive and un-drowned at Yellowsands.”
“Most likely?”
“Nothing can ever be entirely certain at sea,” said Karrilke. “Perhaps I should say we will all do our best to see you safe ashore, south of the Greenwash, once we have caught our fill of fish.”
“I see no choice,” said Ferin slowly. “But I tell you, even the delay of three days may mean the deaths of many of my people, and perhaps of yours too. My message is truly important.”
“You are young, and a long way from home,” said Karrilke. “I expect they told you your message is more important than it really is. Otherwise they would have sent an older messenger—”
“I am the best messenger!” interrupted Ferin. “I have been trained since I could walk to be the best at everything. Let me stand and I will show you!”
Karrilke smiled.