Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) by McKenna Juliet E

Author:McKenna Juliet E. [Juliet E., McKenna]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Solaris
Published: 2012-02-25T19:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Nadrua Town, Pastamar Province, in the Kingdom of Solura

9th of Grelemar (Soluran calendar)

‘HAVE YOU SEEN him? His name is Kusint. He’s of Forest blood, though not of the Folk, as I think the saying goes.’

Corrain hadn’t realised until he’d started this quest that he had no idea of Kusint’s family name. Nor if the Forest Folk used such courtesies.

‘If you do see him,’ he continued doggedly, ‘tell him that I am here. That I will be waiting by the stone pillar in the market place every day at sunset.’

The bargeman nodded but he still didn’t answer.

Corrain persisted. ‘There will be silver coin for whoever gets my message to him.’

He didn’t make the mistake of patting a purse to show where he carried his money, jerking his head back towards the town instead, to hint at a safely stashed coffer and perhaps associates, for the benefit of any watching would-be thief.

The man simply nodded again. Corrain was less and less convinced that the Soluran understood him. It was time to move on, he decided. ‘Good day to you.’

The bargeman’s face brightened. ‘Good day,’ he said in heavily accented Tormalin.

Now it was Corrain’s turn to nod wordlessly before he walked away. He paused after twenty paces or so and looked up and down the wharves, searching for any ship whose crew he hadn’t yet spoken to.

A morning sitting idle in the inn where he’d found a lodging to spend the Archmage’s coin had been more than enough for Corrain. He’d spent these past four days, morning, afternoon and evening asking for word of Kusint. Asking as best he could anyway, not knowing any of the local tongue.

Regardless, he’d visited every merchants’ warehouse and made the rounds of all the taverns. Awake before first light today, he had come down to the river in hopes of news. He was intent on sending messages far and wide.

Because Kusint must have ignored that letter which Planir swore had been delivered to him. The Archmage had said the lad was in some village whose name meant nothing to Corrain but it was supposedly within a day or so’s travel of this town.

Well, Corrain wasn’t about to give up. Perhaps the lad could be persuaded to come and find Corrain if enough people told him he was truly here in Solura. Even if the Forest lad only wanted to punch his treacherous face so long and so hard that he’d still be dizzy at Solstice.

He paused to take stock. As far as he could tell, Corrain had approached all the sail barges currently tied up alongside the extensive wharves. If this town was no match for the port city of Issbesk down on the coast, where this apparently endless river flowed into the Soluran Sea, Nadrua was as big as Ferl or Trebin and profited from twice or thrice as much trade as either of those towns.

So Corrain had guessed that plenty of the boatmen would speak some Tormalin. The crew of the barge which he and Kusint had ridden northwards earlier in the summer had done so.

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