Chapter 1962: Gathering Information
Quinlan stayed beside the merchantman’s mast with Black Fang as Narethi passed them with the chart she had rolled up earlier.
"Captain, do you have time to tell us more about the region?"
"Of course, my lord."
Narethi brought the chart back to the crates. She glanced between him and the women gathering around him, then pressed a hand to her chest.
"Ah. How terribly rude of me. I haven’t even given you my name. Narethi, my lord. Captain and owner of this vessel."
Her gaze moved toward the broken rail.
"Most of it, anyway."
"Your carpenter seems determined to keep the rest," Quinlan said.
Hammering answered from below. Narethi smiled at the sound, although her eyes were still sore from crying.
"I’d never hear the end of it if I let her sink after all his work."
She spread the chart across the crate, holding its corners down with pieces of broken timber. Quinlan took his hand from Black Fang’s back and leaned over it.
"Where do you sail from?"
"Sarthal. Here, on the coast." Her finger found a harbour marked beside a broad stretch of land. "I carry goods between the coastal ports. Cloth on this journey, mostly, with tools and some medicines. Assuming the water hasn’t ruined everything below..."
She stopped herself and smoothed a crease in the parchment.
"My apologies. You’re hardly interested in my cargo."
"You have nothing to apologize for. I understand the value these goods hold for you and your crew."
After all, Quinlan was once a dejected salaryman himself.
Narethi looked up at him before a grateful smile returned to her face.
"Thank you."
Quinlan sat on the crate behind him, and Ayame settled beside him with her shoulder brushing his arm. Vex stood on his other side, while Lucille faced them with a cup a sailor had brought her.
Black Fang remained beside the mast, close enough to examine the chart over Narethi’s shoulder.
"Would you recommend Sarthal for a longer visit?" Quinlan asked. "We’d like somewhere comfortable to stay while we explore the region. We’re looking for a safe base location with good food, interesting places, and opportunities to keep ourselves occupied."
"With your wives? Certainly. You could spend a great deal of money enjoying yourselves there."
𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
"That sounds promising already," Ayame approved.
Narethi’s smile grew easier.
"There are merchants from all over, my lady. Whatever you’re accustomed to at home, someone will probably sell it. And if you’re looking for something unfamiliar, you can find that too."
"Blossom wants the unfamiliar food!! Master needs to take her on another food adventure!"
The dogkin called down from the spotter’s basket, her blonde head appearing over its edge.
"I’ll recommend places with generous portions," Narethi promised her, getting energetic tail wagging in return.
Quinlan chuckled, then followed the roads drawn inland from the harbour.
"And beyond the city? We’d rather do some travelling on land after this crossing."
"Then Sarthal is a good place to begin. These roads serve the farming settlements and the caravans coming down to the coast. Farther inland, you have hunting grounds, old ruins, mines... Though I’d recommend a local guide before you go wandering."
She moved her finger away from the roads.
"Some places are dangerous to enter. Others are dangerous to be caught entering."
"Whose permission would we need?" Aurora asked. "We aren’t familiar with your borders. I’d hate to discover we’d offended someone after arriving at their gates."
"That depends where you travel, my lady. Sarthal governs the city and its surrounding lands. Beyond them, you begin crossing into our neighbours’ territories."
Narethi indicated the boundaries in turn, letting them follow each one before continuing.
"These are the ones the caravans supplying us deal with. I can tell you where the usual crossings are, but farther inland I’d ask someone who actually travels there. I wouldn’t trust my own advice with your safety."
Quinlan appreciated that answer considerably more than he would have appreciated a confident guess.
"Who governs Sarthal itself?"
"Queen Zorvanna. The dragonkin ruler."
Quinlan’s eyes left the chart. Across it, Lucille was looking at him, her cup held halfway to her lips.
Dragonkin existed. They had a city, a ruler, and a merchant captain who mentioned them as casually as she mentioned her cargo.
He wanted to ask what they looked like, what they could do, how much of a dragon that name actually promised. Beside him, Vex turned her face toward the chart before Narethi could catch them staring at one another.
Seraphiel’s voice rang through the link.
Serika came around the mast and leaned over the map, resting her hands on her knees.
"I’ve heard of them, but haven’t had the pleasure of meeting any. What are they like?"
"Terrifying warriors, my lady. Strong, and very skilled at using that strength. They’re proud of it, too. If you want their respect, being able to fight is the best place to start."
"That sounds manageable," Serika said, smiling.
Narethi looked at the dried blood on her sleeve.
"After what I saw today, I imagine you’ll get their attention. Though I’d be careful about accepting challenges before you know who you’re dealing with."
"And Zorvanna is their queen?" Ayame asked. "Does she hold lands beyond the territory you’ve shown us? I only see a large city-state."
"No, my lady. The city and its surrounding lands are the only thing she rules."
Ayame glanced at the boundaries again.
"Queen is an unusual title for that holding... How did she come by it?"
"Don’t let her hear you say such a thing," the naga captain whispered under her breath. Then, slyly, she added, "She crowned herself queen. Nobody objected. That’s all there is to it."
Quinlan pressed his lips together. He could appreciate the simplicity of that arrangement.
Vex rested her forearm against his, studying the city mark.
"Is it mostly dragonkin in Sarthal, then?"
"Oh, no. You’d see far more people like my crew. Humans, naga, gnomes, and more... The dragonkin are few, and they have children rarely. They couldn’t fill a city that size themselves."
She caught the chart’s corner as the breeze lifted it.
"The dragonkin only want to fight. Farming, making clothes, buying cargo and carrying it across the sea... They’d rather leave that to the rest of us. So they let people settle in their city, provided we accept their rule."
"And people came," Lucille said.
"From all over. You can walk past a naga’s shop, buy bread from a human, then take your tools to a kobold for repairs. The port keeps growing because there’s work for all of us."
Narethi glanced toward her first mate, who was helping a sailor secure the damaged rail.
"My mate was born there. So were his parents. He complains every time I take him away from it."
"A family of settlers?" Quinlan asked.
"Originally from the north, he says. Seafarers. Though if you asked where he’s from, he’d tell you Sarthal before you finished the question."
Quinlan looked at the human leaning over the rail.
The man was arguing about how much rope they needed. His home waited ahead of them, on a continent where humans hadn’t even originated.
His ancestors had simply sailed away and made a life somewhere else.
Ayame whispered.
Her shoulder pressed more firmly against Quinlan’s.
They had known there was a world beyond Iskaris. But this man’s family had crossed the world from what must’ve been the northern fjords, home to Dragnar’s and Thyra’s descendants. Seeing him here made their own confinement feel uglier.
’Like our vikings, traveling the world in their boats...’ Quinlan mused inwardly at the image his mind created, then returned his attention to the chart before Narethi could wonder what interested him so much about a sailor tying knots.
"How are foreigners treated? We’d prefer to know the local expectations before we move in."
"If you pay for what you buy and don’t cause trouble, you can live very well. I own my ship. Other families own warehouses, workshops, houses. There’s money to be made, and the city needs people willing to work."
"Does owning those things earn you any standing with the dragonkin?" Lucille asked, lifting her cup.
"It earns me customers. Respect is harder." Narethi’s mouth tightened. "Their soldiers need what we bring in, but being a merchant is still a lesser occupation to them. I’m grateful when they defend our walls... But I’d appreciate it if they could respect the work that keeps their soldiers fed just a bit more."
"The pride of a dragon..." Ayame murmured, reciting what she heard from her childhood books.
Narethi checked the helm, then looked back at Quinlan.
"I hope I haven’t made the city sound unwelcoming. I’ve made a home there and many consider it the center of the world, the port city of freedom. But it’s not perfect. Especially not now, with the neighboring nations ramping up their aggression... You asked what to expect, so I am not holding the bad back."
"And I’d like you to keep answering that honestly," Quinlan nodded. "We’re coming from far away. I’d rather learn the unpleasant parts here than discover them with my wives standing beside me in a street."
"Then... don’t expect your title at home to settle an argument with a dragonkin. They’ll be interested in your strength. Your ancestry may interest them considerably less."
"I see."
Ayame glanced up at him, her smile widening.
Iris spoke wisely.
Ayame and Iris nearly got into a catfight then and there, but a sailor approaching Narethi with a sodden strip of cloth interrupted them. She took it, rubbed the weave between her fingers, and asked him to bring the unopened bales above deck once the carpenter gave permission.
Quinlan waited until the man had gone before pointing toward the salvaged bow.
"Do your neighbours have anything to do with people like our late acquaintance?"
Narethi followed his gesture. The weapon lay where he had set it, its mounting broken and its bolt removed.
"I can’t prove who supplied him. He might have bought it with stolen money. But someone sold him that bow and something capable of blocking our distress calls."
"Someone who benefits when your ships don’t return."
"There are plenty of those. Our neighbouring nations would very much like our harbour, my lord. Until they can take it, making our trade more expensive seems to satisfy them."
She touched the coastal route on the chart.
"More guards, longer journeys, cargo that never arrives. Merchants start asking whether another port would be safer. And while our soldiers watch the borders, they can’t be aboard every ship."
"Hence the need for people like Garron," Quinlan said.
Narethi looked toward the gargoyle resting beside the companionway. His repaired wing was folded close to his body, and a sailor had placed a drink within reach of his good hand.
"Yes. He earned far more than I paid him today."
For a moment, her attention stayed on her wounded defender. Quinlan let her have it.
Then Ayame traced the edge of the city’s territory without touching the ink.
"Does your queen answer to anyone above her? Or would we be dealing with separate crowns throughout this region?"
"Separate rulers, the same Sovereign. The entire continent belongs to the dragon Vorzatha, the Everclaiming. They pay her tribute."
Quinlan stopped following the coastline with his finger.
Lucille asked.
Aurora replied.
Quinlan wanted that distinction settled very badly. He lifted his eyes to Narethi, keeping his question on the arrangements a visiting noble might reasonably care about.
"Does the Sovereign reside in Sarthal too? Would we need to observe any customs concerning her while we’re there?"