Kellanved's Reach

Orjin requested that all those among his force who had worked as labourers for the Quon trading families report to him on its walls and streets. After that meeting, he decided to head to the waterfront district, where the walls were described as ‘more gesture than barrier’.

Two days later, without encountering significant opposition – the Quon Talians clearly not thinking such an expedition even possible, let alone feasible – they came within sight of the north walls of the broad waterfront harbour and warehouse district.

The ‘gesture’ part of the description immediately became clear to Orjin. Walls there had been, formidable and thick, from the old days when the Talians besieged Quon every few years. Now, however, entire sections had been taken apart, stone by stone, no doubt ending up in the buildings of some impressive new family estate.

At Orjin’s side, Prevost Jeral, reviewing the jagged remnants of the north wall, snorted her disgust. ‘That’s a damned disgrace,’ she announced.

‘With the alliance, it came to seem irrelevant,’ Terath, on Orjin’s other side, supplied.

‘Hiring mercenaries only gets you so far,’ Jeral muttered. Orjin looked at her and cocked a brow. She cleared her throat. ‘Present company excepted.’

Workers had been scrambling over the scavenged missing sections, hastily mounting wooden barricades and piling rubble. They abandoned their efforts when Orjin’s broad-fronted chevron approached. A thin line of what must have been conscripted city watch and private estate guards remained at the wall – these put up very little resistance to Orjin and his heavies.

Once he’d stepped down on to a cobbled street, Orjin ordered three columns to spread out and occupy the warehouse district. Here he stood on the main way, amid abandoned wagons and carts of cloth and fine leather hides, salt slabs and boxes of spices – a sampling of all the goods of this, the richest western port of the continent. Orjin planted his sandalled feet, crossed his arms, and waited.

Later that day a delegation approached down the broad avenue. It consisted of three canopied palanquins, each carried by bearers and preceded by what must be elite personal bodyguards. Impressive guardsmen, Orjin thought: Dal Hon giants and armoured northern Bloorian knights – but not soldiers, these. He knew the least of the hill-folk scouts had been far tougher than any of these pampered house guards.

He raised a hand for a halt. ‘Close enough! Leave the bearers and guards behind and approach on foot!’

‘What?’ an old woman squawked from within one palanquin. ‘Leave our attendants behind? Approach on foot?’

Orjin sighed. ‘That’s what I said.’

The palanquin rocked in evident agitation. ‘This is unprecedented! Uncivilized!’

‘Yes it is.’ At his side, Terath, he noted, was openly smirking.

‘Inevitable,’ a deep voice rumbled from the middle palanquin, and it sagged alarmingly as a thick leg in bright silk pantaloons emerged, a dainty silk-slippered foot feeling about for the cobbles.

‘Very well!’ the ancient crone-voice answered, sniffily. The palanquin’s gauzy pastel-hued cloth parted, emitting a gout of smoke, and to Orjin’s surprise out stepped a petite, even dwarf-like young woman, a long-stemmed pipe clamped firmly in her mouth.

The thick leg belonged to a correspondingly large barrel-shaped fellow in rich silks; out of the third palanquin stepped a tall and bearded oldster in unadorned dark robes. The odd trio approached together, the fat one wincing each time a slippered foot touched the stone cobbles.

The tiny young woman drew herself up as tall as she could, raising her chin. ‘We are the elected representatives of the great trading houses of Quon,’ she announced in her smoke-roughened voice. She motioned to the huge fellow, ‘Imogan,’ the thin old one in simple dark robes, ‘Carlat,’ and finally herself, ‘Pearl. So,’ she continued, not even waiting for Orjin to introduce himself, ‘now we must discuss your price.’

Even though Orjin had been fully expecting this, he couldn’t help stiffening at what, to him, was a terrible insult. Terath actually growled her seething rage. He shook his head, looking to the sky. ‘You people … just because you can be bought doesn’t mean others can.’

‘Everyone has a price,’ Pearl sneered, and she blew out a great plume of smoke.

Orjin was glad his arms were crossed as it stopped him from immediately going for his sword. ‘You people need a lesson that there are more important things than coin – and I think I’ll demonstrate it.’ He looked to Terath. ‘Burn the warehouse district.’

The Untan duellist smiled hugely. ‘Immediately.’ And she turned on a heel and jogged off.

The fat merchant, Imogan, raised a hand. ‘A moment, please. Perhaps we may negotiate …’

‘We were negotiating,’ Orjin answered. ‘Your approach was to insult me. Negotiation failed.’

Pearl snatched the pipe from her mouth and jabbed it at him. ‘You cannot do this.’

‘I am. I suggest you gather your labourers and guards to contain the fire so that your estates aren’t consumed.’