CHAPTER NINE

NOT EXACTLY WHAT IT USED TO BE, BUT MAYBE it’ll be good enough,” William Folville said with a nod, looking down at the section of stone wall that ranged from the embankment on the right side of Castle Reach harbor down toward the partially rebuilt city.

“It’s a start.” Traher Voss stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the harbor as if he were remembering how it had been before the Great Fire, when tall-masted ships of all kinds lay at berth in the waters at the docks and their crews went ashore to spend their hard-earned coin at taverns and brothels.

Many of those ships still lay at the bottom of the harbor where they sank when a green ribbon of fire burned the world. The ships that didn’t sink took off for parts unknown.

Only a few had returned. One made it all the way to Edgeland and came back with a load of convict-colonists who wanted to return to their homeland. Another had sailed up and down the coastline, only to return home with a report of widespread destruction. Donderath was on its own.

“I guess it would be too much to hope that ships heading for Castle Reach might offer their assistance,” Folville said with a sigh. He was just shy of thirty years old, a skinny man with sharp, rodent-like features, a mop of dark hair, and bad teeth.

Voss gave a derisive snort. “What do you think?” Traher Voss was a legend. He was in his middle years, stocky but not fat, broad-shouldered and bald-headed, with strong arms and hands calloused and widened by years wielding battle swords.

Mistrust came naturally to Folville. Before the Great Fire, he had led a band of thieves, pickpockets, and hustlers who called themselves the Curs. As the bastard son of a prosperous merchant and his trollop mistress, Folville had few illusions about life. His mother had taught him what she knew about surviving life on the streets, and when she died young of fever, he learned the rest of what he knew the hard way.

“Between the soldiers General Theilsson sent and the men you’ve provided, it shouldn’t be more than a week before we get the wall finished,” Folville said, changing the subject.

Voss’s eyes narrowed as he looked out over the teams of men, women, and children working along the wall. Some carried stones, others chipped them with tools to make them lie flat, and the youngest ones walked up and down the line with buckets of water and sacks of bread. “How’d you get all those people to turn out?”

Folville shrugged. “I told them the truth.” Fate had dealt him a strange hand, elevating him from the leader of one of Castle Reach’s most successful hoodlum gangs to liegeman to warlord Blaine McFadden and defender of what remained of Castle Reach. It was an arrangement of necessity and mutual benefit.

“I know the city doesn’t look like it used to,” he said. The once-grand port had been burned, drowned, and battered by unnatural storms. Gods, it’s amazing that anything is left, he thought. “But look at it up close, and you’ll see how much work we’ve all done. Knocking down the buildings that couldn’t be saved and taking what we could of the lumber and tiles, shoring up the damaged buildings, using what we could pick from the rubble to fix up the best of what’s left.”

A note of pride came into his voice. “So many people left the city and never came back that there’s more than enough housing for the ones who stayed.” Castle Reach had never been kind to its most desperate residents. He knew that from experience. “They own the city now,” he said with a rare smile. “And they’ll be damned if anyone is going to take it away from them.”

He turned to see Voss giving him an appraising look. Folville ignored the glimmer of impatience he felt at being evaluated. Voss would not be the first to underestimate him, nor probably the last. “They earn food for time worked, and if they need something else—like a pair of shoes or a blanket—we’ll do our best to find it for them for extra work.” He shrugged. “Simple. Fair. There’s so much that needs doing, even the children, elders, and cripples can work.”

Voss gave a grudging smile. “McFadden picked a good liegeman,” he replied, and chuckled at Folville’s surprise. He clapped Folville on the shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet. “You forget that I’ve been running a mercenary army for damn longer than I want to remember. Like herding wild dogs, or teaching wharf rats to march in a row. You’re getting the work done. That’s what matters.”

For years, Voss had made his name and his fortune commanding private armies for Donderath’s squabbling nobility, or lending out his sellswords to King Merrill if the army needed extra, expert soldiers for a special assignment. Yet Voss and his men had been curiously absent in the Meroven War, and Folville wondered if Voss’s alliance with talishte lord Lanyon Penhallow had something to do with that.

Folville walked with Voss down the slope of the embankments toward the city. Much of the original wall that defended the port had been destroyed. In some places, the stones merely needed to be restacked. Other parts had been smashed, swept away in the high waves, or carted off by locals who needed them to shore up their own ruined foundations and cellars.

“How’s the leg?” Folville asked one man, who nodded as he carried stones to fix a breach in the wall.

“Don’t hurt me as much as it did. I can move it,” he said, sticking out his leg and bending his knee a few times for show.

Folville grinned. “Good for you. Glad to hear it.”

He moved down the line a few more feet, and a woman hailed Folville. “Cap’n! Thank you!”

“Glad to help, Daris,” he said, continuing to walk. All the way down the line, people hailed him.

“You’ve managed to drive out the Red Blades and the Badgers?” Voss asked.

Folville nodded. “Cost some lives, I’ll tell you that. Red Blades ran the Lower Nine for years, and they didn’t much like giving it up,” he added with a lopsided grin. The Blades and the Badgers had once been the rival hoodlum gangs to Folville’s Curs.

“Badgers used to have the dockworkers and the seawall guards to back them up, and when they all went away and the trollops they ran couldn’t make money ’cause there weren’t any sailors in port, lots of the Badgers up and left, thinkin’ there might be better times or at least more food elsewhere,” he added.

“But you stayed.”

Folville drew a deep breath. “Yep. The Curs aren’t going anywhere. My folks saw what Lord McFadden did during that last big storm, how he got us warning before the blow, and saved folks himself. Ain’t none of the highborns done that for us before.”

Voss nodded. “Captain Hemmington and Captain Larson speak well of you and your organization.”

Folville gave a sharp laugh. “That’s funny, now. Never had guards say a nice thing about us before this. Usually, they were tryin’ to run us out of wherever we were.” He paused. “But those two, they’re all right. For soldiers, I mean, regular ones, not mercs.” He realized he was bungling it. “You know what I mean.”

Voss chuckled. “Yeah. I think I do.”

Folville looked down at the waterfront. A mix of soldiers and city dwellers labored there. A half-built wharf jutted from the shore. At the shoreline, men hauled rocks and mixed mortar to repair the seawall.

Voss’s voice brought Folville out of his thoughts. “You rebuilt the lighthouse?” he asked, frowning as he stared at the tall wooden structure on the spit of land that jutted farthest out to sea. Before everything fell apart, the Castle Reach lighthouse had been the tallest and brightest on the Eastern Shore, marking the most prosperous port in the Ascendant Kingdoms. “Who do you think is going to see it? By all accounts, the rest of the Continent is hurting as bad as we are.”

Folville grinned. “It’s not to bring ships in. It’s to keep ships out. There’s no light in there. Lord McFadden helped us find some powerful far-seers,” he added. “We have one up there day and night, scanning the water for ships. Just in case anyone decides to pay us a visit.”

“And if they do?” Voss asked.

Folville’s grin was tight. “We’ll do our best to be ready for them,” he said. “Every day, we send out men in boats to go up and down the coastline and watch for ships. Not to lead them in but to warn us before they come sailing into the harbor like they own the place. Between the mages and the boats, I figure it’s the best early warning we’re likely to get.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And while we’re doing everything we can, I sure would appreciate help from your men and General Theilsson’s soldiers.”

Folville gestured to the townspeople at work on the seawall. “There’s more work to do than anyone could finish in a lifetime. And it’s still a chore to feed everyone. We organized some teams to farm the land just outside the city walls. Same with the fishermen. We’ve got relays of men going out in small boats and bringing back what they can, but there are a lot of mouths to feed, and they’re hungrier with all the work they’re doing. I gotta say it hurt sending all that stuff on the Nomad when we got people in need here.”

Voss nodded. “Aye. McFadden explained why we had to do it. I’m just glad we got her out of the harbor safely. And we’ve done our best to bring in whatever supplies we can to make up for what shipped out.” He raised his face to the sea wind. “In the meantime, my men will be here, and so will the soldiers General Theilsson sent you. Defeats the purpose if we fight off the warlords inland and lose the harbor, don’t you think?”

Folville relaxed, just a bit, and let out a long breath. “Glad to hear it. The townspeople want to help. They’re afraid of outlanders coming in and taking what they’ve worked so hard to rebuild. But they’re not soldiers. I can take the most promising ones and turn them into sentries and patrols, but if there’s real fighting to be done, they’ll be overwhelmed.”

Voss clasped his hands behind his back as he walked. “Yes—and no. Never underestimate a cornered rat. No offense intended,” he added with a wolfish smile. “Don’t think of your people as soldiers. Think of them as street fighters. You know that word.”

“By Esthrane’s tits, the Curs are the best at street fighting,” Folville said. “Never lost a battle on our home streets.”

“And that was against an enemy that hailed from Castle Reach, and knew the territory,” Voss replied. “Any outlander who comes into the city, either by land or sea, won’t know these streets like you do. You’re right: Ordinary citizens make lousy soldiers. But force an enemy to take a city house by house, and the game changes,” he said, a predator’s glint in his eyes.

“Regular folks get angry when someone comes into their streets and their houses,” Voss said. “I’ve seen women beat men twice their size senseless with frying pans and children lead soldiers into ambushes or slit throats at night. People fight harder for what’s theirs. Prepare your people for that, just in case, and no one can take Castle Reach from you.” He paused. “And to make sure of it, you’ll have soldiers to help as well.”

“I hope you’re right,” Folville said as they left the embankment and headed down along the waterfront. “Because if Castle Reach falls, so does the inland, and Warlord McFadden’s hopes for Donderath with it.”

From here, Folville could see the shipworks, down by the unmistakable red roof of the Rooster and Pig Tavern. Once the pride of Donderath, the shipworks had built many of the kingdom’s largest sailing ships, vessels that plied the seas bringing cargo back from the Cross-Sea Kingdoms and beyond, or taking prisoners north to Velant and returning with their holds full of crates of gemstones and barrels of salted herring.

The shipworks had collapsed in one of the last monstrous storms. Now, teams of men moved over the ruins like ants, clearing away rubble, cleaning debris out of the berths, rebuilding the scaffolding and docks so that someday soon, shipwrights could repair the large ships that had survived the storms, and build anew. Someday, but not now, Folville thought. Castle Reach was not yet ready for outsiders.

As they reached the walkway behind the seawall, a woman strode toward them. Betta was Folville’s sometime lover and longtime second-in-command. She had dark hair cut chin-length, features that were too sharp to be conventionally pretty, and hard, blue-green eyes that never missed anything.

“Sentries just got back from the midday shift,” she said, not bothering with greeting or preamble. “I think you’re going to want to hear what they’ve got to say.”

Folville glanced to Voss. “Care to join us?”

Voss nodded. “If there’s something going on, my men will need to know about it.”

“They’re back at base,” Betta said, then turned and walked away, certain that the men would follow. Folville could not help noticing the sway of her hips and the way her shoulders moved when she walked. Damn, it’s been too long.

Betta led them past hundreds of soldiers and city dwellers working in teams on projects all along the waterfront. The late summer air smelled of salt spray and dead fish. Hearing the waves against the seawall was a comfort to Folville. Dangerous and fickle as the sea could be, the waves were constant, steady, and sure. He had fled from the worst of the storms, waited out the sheeting rain and the gusting winds, climbed to high ground to keep from being washed away in the floods. Still, there was nowhere else he would rather be than Castle Reach. It wasn’t much, certainly no longer in its glory, but it was home.

‘Base’ was a solid stone building three stories high on Hougen Square, in the center of Castle Reach. “This is your headquarters?” Voss said with a hearty chuckle.

Folville could not resist a grin. “Yeah. It’s not going to burn down or float away, and I figure if it survived the Cataclysm and all the magic storms, it can last a while longer.”

“I like the way you think,” Voss said, still chuckling. “Takes some nerve, boy, to call the king’s tariff house your own.”

Folville shrugged. “He’s not using it, seeing as there is no king,” he replied. “And if we get a king, I’ll give it back.” He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe.”

All those years as an urchin in Castle Reach, Folville had crept through Hougen Square, mindful to stay out of sight of the king’s guards around the tariff house. It had been grand and imposing, white marble gleaming in the sun, and the glimpse of its sumptuous interior when the doors opened was a reminder of King Merrill’s power and wealth.

Now, the tariff house was scarred with soot and the high-water marks of several floods. Betta led them up the worn steps, and two of Folville’s guards opened the heavy, carved oak doors for them. The regal furnishings, fine tapestries, and glittering crystal had long ago been looted or destroyed. Yet even without the trappings of monarchy, the grand old building had a shabby pride about it and a sense of strength and permanence that gave Folville a measure of comfort.

They followed Betta into a wood-paneled room furnished with a scarred desk, a battered chair, old crates, and scuffed barrels. No doubt an impressive large table and beautiful chairs would have graced the room before the Cataclysm, but those pieces were long gone, hauled away by those who could make use of them, or more likely, burned for firewood in the long, harsh winter.

Four men waited in the room, turning nervously as Folville and the others entered. The men ranged in age from their twenties into their middle years, all with the worn look of fishermen who had braved the worst that the sea had to offer. Their clothing was threadbare and they carried the smell of the sea on their skin and in their hair. Folville recognized the men, and noted with concern who was missing.

“We’ve gotten scouts back from the north coast and the south,” Betta reported for Voss’s benefit. “Two of the harbor scouts are back. We haven’t heard from the other two, and they’re now several candlemarks overdue.”

Folville frowned. “We’ve had clear seas all day. They shouldn’t have had any problem making it back.”

Betta nodded. “Aye. It’s reason for concern. But best you hear the tale they have to tell for yourself,” she replied, and stepped back.

“All right, Thad, let’s hear it,” Folville said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Thad was a short man with hunched shoulders. He held his stained cap in his hands, nervously turning it. “I had the north coast this time out,” Thad said. “Didn’t see nothin’ close by the city. But we went up the shoreline a piece, like we always do. Got to know some of the fishermen along the way, asked them to keep their eyes open for us, too.”

Thad turned his cap in his fingers like a talisman. “We heard tell about strange boats at night, spotted off the shore. Small boats, couldn’t have come from too far away. But they’re not from here, leastwise no one admits to knowing who they are.”

Voss shrugged. “Donderath’s coast has always been a haven for smugglers,” he said. “Have the villages reported thefts? Attacks?”

Thad shook his head. “No. But the men told me they’d seen places where it looked like a boat had been brought up on shore and taken out again, and someone used branches to smooth the sand and hide their tracks.”

“Any chance some of the folks out on the Barrier Islands are still alive?” Folville asked. “They’ve always been partial to raiders and ne’er-do-wells.”

“No one I know’s cared enough to go look,” Thad replied. “Could be them. But why?”

“And what’s the point, unless they came to steal?” Voss mused. “Can’t smuggle without a king’s tariff to cheat.”

“That’s a good point,” Folville said. “Anything else?”

Thad shook his head. “Nothing anyone can prove. Locals are saying that the ghost boats are back. Might be so, but I never worried much about ghosts myself. The living worry me more.”

Folville knew the story of the ghost boats. The Donderath coast was known for its fishing. Thousands of men went out onto the water. Not all of them came back. Stories abounded of the ghost boats, fishing vessels that sank out on the ocean, unable to return their crew among the living, coming back as close as they dared to see the lights of home.

“Thank you,” Folville said, and turned to the other men. “What have you seen?”

“Two of the fishing villages nearest Castle Reach to the south burned in the last several days,” one of the men replied. “Everyone’s gone. We went ashore, to see if there were survivors, but we didn’t find anyone. No bodies, no livestock, no boats. Just the ashes, still warm.”

“Any evidence of others making landfall?” Voss asked.

The men shook their heads. “Thing is, unless it was in the last few candlemarks since the tide turned, we wouldn’t see anything,” one of the other scouts said. He was a rawboned man with light-brown hair and hands scarred from hard work.

“If men were put ashore and then the boat went back to wherever it came from, the waves would take away the footprints mighty quick,” he continued. “But that leaves the question, where would the boats be coming from, and why would they burn the villages?”

Folville and Voss exchanged a glance. “It’s possible the Lesser Kingdoms sent sea raiders to scout the territory and bring back anything they could steal,” Folville said. “But it’s a long journey just to burn a few houses.”

“Jak and Skot went into open waters,” Betta said. “They came back. Hal and Eddard didn’t.”

“See anything out there?” Folville asked. Jak and Skot were among his most seasoned boatmen. Before the Great Fire, they had captained two of the large fishing boats that kept Castle Reach supplied with fresh daily catches. But the unpredictable weather and the strange magic of the Cataclysm changed the fishing grounds, and for most of the last year, fish had been in short supply.

“Well, on the good side, looks like the fish might be coming back again,” Jak said. “Might have to do with the storms dying down. Or maybe it’s the magic. We saw more fish in the last week than we’ve seen in months. If it keeps up, might be able to get my old fleet back together, start bringing in some real catches nice and regular,” he said.

“He’s right about the fish,” Skot said. “But twice, on the horizon, I thought I saw the masts of ships. It was hard to tell, so far off in the distance. But I’d swear to the king that I saw ship masts, and then the next time the waves took us up again, they were gone.”

“Thank you,” Folville said. “Your news has been valuable. Stop by the guards downstairs and we’ll make sure you get your pay.”

Betta saw the men out and closed the door behind them. Folville sat down on one of the barrels as Voss settled his stocky frame onto an old crate. Betta crossed her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall.

“Well?” she asked. “What do you make of that?”

“Could be nothing,” Voss said. “Hard to see much on the horizon in one of those small boats bobbing up and down.”

“If it weren’t Jak and Skot, I’d agree,” Folville said. “But they’ve lived their whole lives out on that harbor. It worries me if they think they’ve seen ships that close.”

“Maybe the ships want to trade,” Betta said, although Folville knew she didn’t believe it.

He gave a snort. “Trade what? We’re just now getting to the point where nobody’s starving. We don’t have enough extra to trade, and what would we trade for? Gold’s worthless. Maybe next year, we’ll have whiskey and grain enough to trade for more food, or cloth or tools, but not now,” Folville said.

“We never did find out how the Cataclysm affected the Cross-Sea Kingdoms,” Voss said. “For a while, it was the least of our worries. And even if we’d thought of it, there weren’t ships to spare. Long way to go only to find out they’re in no better shape, and then not have provisions to come home again.”

“Would it have hit them at all?” Folville asked. “After all, it was the Meroven mages and the Donderath mages getting caught up in the war that caused it.”

Voss shrugged. “We know that losing magic here made the magic stop working on Edgeland, at the top of the world,” he replied. “So there’s a good chance the anchor for magic here could have been the anchor for magic in the Cross-Sea Kingdoms.”

“Wouldn’t be the kind of knowledge you’d want to get around,” Betta said thoughtfully. “If you didn’t have an anchor for the magic on your own continent, you might not want others to know that what they did to the magic could affect you.”

“And if you had the only anchor for magic, you wouldn’t want to make a target of yourself,” Folville mused. “So you would keep the information as quiet as you could.”

“I’d say that getting those walls back up just got more important than ever,” Voss said. “I’ll see if I can spare more men to help.” He looked from Betta to Folville. “I don’t think there’s reason to panic people, but sooner or later, whether it’s now or next year or whenever, the Cross-Sea Kingdoms or someone else is going to come calling. We want to make sure the harbor and the city are secure.”

Folville nodded. “We’ll step up the coast patrols, just in case, and I’ll send men to the fishing villages to see what they know about the ghost boats and the burned houses. If we’ve got pirates out there, we don’t want them getting it into their heads that they can do as they please.”

Voss stood and stretched. “Gods above! I get stiff from sitting. Glad you shared the news with me. Don’t see much more we can do than we’re already doing, but it’s good to know we’re on top of things.” With a nod to each of them, Voss headed for the door.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said. “You know how to reach me. And I’ll talk to Penhallow, see if we can spare any talishte to help with the building. Might go faster if you had a crew that could work nights and move faster.”

Folville repressed a shudder, but he nodded. “I’d take them if he’ll send them, though I’ll need to do some explaining to my men. Some of them are a bit jumpy about the biters.” Betta looked away, her feelings clear in her face.

Voss left, and Folville turned to Betta. “You don’t like the deal.” They had been together long enough for him to read her movements, the way she held herself, the tilt of her head.

“I don’t like biters.” Years ago, when Folville had first met Betta, there had been rage and bitterness behind that statement. Now, it was a simple, unequivocal statement of fact. Too much had happened in the years since then, too many horrors and far too many nightmares. Biters were just another monster in a long list.

“We could use the extra help. They’re strong. We’ll get more than double the work done. They not only work all night but they’re faster than we are.”

“They drink blood, Billy.”

“We eat meat, but we don’t eat people.”

“It’s not the same.” Betta sighed and walked toward the window.

“Sure about that?” Folville countered gently. “We decide we don’t eat people, so we don’t. Penhallow’s talishte don’t attack his allies.”

“That’s not the same as not attacking anyone,” Betta pointed out. “They still kill people, just not certain people.”

Folville shrugged. “Yeah. So do we. It’s complicated.”

Betta did not reply, but she wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing tightly. Folville let out a long breath. We’ve all got our scars.

“If invaders come, whether they’re pirates or something else, they will kill to get what they want,” Folville said quietly. “Penhallow’s talishte are allies, not marauders.”

Betta turned to look at him, rage and loss bright in her eyes. “Talishte killed my sister. You know that. How can you expect me to work with them?”

He met her gaze levelly. “The same way I work with Larson and Hemmington and the rest of Lord McFadden’s soldiers. I choke down the anger and I take the help. And I remind myself, over and over again, that these aren’t the soldiers that killed my family.”

Betta swallowed hard, and let Folville put his arms around her. She rested her head on his chest. “We’re survivors,” she murmured.

He stroked her hair. Her arms encircled his waist. Strong arms, lean and muscular. Her body was just as thin and taut, made that way by years of living on the run, too many enemies, and too little food. “We’ve gotten to the top of the heap, Betta,” he said.

“The garbage heap?”

He chuckled quietly. “Maybe. Castle Reach isn’t exactly what it used to be. But we’re not hiding in the shadows anymore. The Curs are running this city, not stealing food away from the wild dogs. We’ve got proper places to sleep and a decent chance no one’s going to slit our throats during the night. By Raka! Look at us, living in the king’s tariff house!”

“I know.” Her voice was muffled. He knew Betta well enough that he did not take it as backing down. But once her blood settled, Betta was good at thinking things through, changing her mind if the evidence was good. “And you’re right. We’re vulnerable without the walls finished. If we’ve just gotten back on our feet, maybe other people have, too. And what are the odds they’d be friendly?”

They both knew the answer to that.

Betta gave him a squeeze and disentangled herself. “The city gardens are doing well,” she said, and he knew that her abrupt change of topic meant she had come to a decision. She didn’t like the biters coming, but she would find a way to live with it. He admired that in her. Practical.

“Enough to feed us for the winter?” he asked.

“Working on it,” she replied. “If it’s bare land inside the city or near the walls, we’ve got someone farming it. Guards helped me round up all the urchins we could find and give them to the wise women, so there are plenty of hands. Solved some other problems that way, too.”

Betta and Folville had both been ‘urchins’ in their day. Even back then, before the Cataclysm, when Castle Reach was a wealthy city, life was short and miserable for an orphan on the streets. King Merrill’s guards enjoyed hunting down the young thieves and pickpockets, the bread-stealers and coin-cagers. Easy prey. And when the city was full of the rich and powerful, the gap between the hungry and the overfed had been glaringly wide.

“Keep at it,” Folville replied. “If we can keep people fed and sheltered, they won’t go looking for new leaders. That goes extra for keeping them safe from attack. I kinda like this place. I want to keep it. Beats where we were before.”

Betta shot him a wry grin. He was sure she remembered the cellars and rats, the lofts and bats, all too well. “Is that your idea of incentive?” she asked with a dry edge. “Don’t worry. Even the slow ones understand food. And some of the old women planted some flax and rounded up the sheep that hadn’t been eaten. With luck, we might have some linen and wool again before long. Better have, or we’ll all be naked when these old rags fall apart.”

Folville chuckled. “I don’t know,” he teased. “These are some of the best rags I’ve ever had.” Clothing had been in short supply after the Great Fire except for what could be stolen from abandoned houses or looted from the dead. At the moment, Folville was wearing a pair of brocade breeches that were stained and threadbare in places, with a mismatched and equally stained doublet and a shirt that had seen better days. His shoes were good leather, although they did not match. Betta’s outfit had been stolen from a dead guard, uniform trews and shirt and a too-large coat that still showed the sword cut and bloodstain that dispatched its original owner.

He leaned against the big, battered desk. It and a mismatched, stolen chair were Folville’s seat of power, the place where he heard disputes between members of the Curs or the people under their protection, or where he met with allies like Voss.

Survive the end of the world, and you suddenly become more important, no matter what shape you’re in, he thought. He had that in common with the scarred desk. I’m the best of a bad lot. Nothing new about that.

“Why does Voss want the shipyards up and running again?” Betta asked, taking a seat on the corner of the desk.

“We’re a port. Sooner or later, we’re going to need to go to sea again,” Folville replied. “Donderath is rebuilding. Odds are, everyone else is too. One of these days, we’ll go looking for them, or they’ll come looking for us. If we’re lucky, they’ll want to trade. We’ll be able to rebuild faster.”

“And if we’re not lucky, they’ll come looking for us to take what we’ve got.” Betta was quick on the uptake, and she didn’t mince words. She was quiet for a moment, then turned to face him. “You’re still thinking about meeting Simmons, down at the Rooster and Pig tonight?”

Folville nodded. “Don’t see how I have a choice about it. He wants to parlay. I don’t think anything will come of it, but until we can get the last of the Red Blades out of the city, a truce is better than open war.”

“It’s probably a trap. You know that?”

Folville shrugged. “It’s as ‘neutral’ as territory gets. I’m not planning to go alone. I doubt Simmons will be alone, either. And I’ve already put in a word with Larson to have some extra soldiers in the area.”

“I don’t trust Simmons.”

Folville’s smile was cold. “Good. Neither do I. But he’s still better than Raig and the Badgers.”

“Does Voss know they haven’t left, or did you spin him a tale?”

Gods, she knew him well. “I might have overstated our control,” Folville allowed. “But it’s mostly true. That big flood broke the Badgers’ hold on the seawall, and they’ve never gotten their strength back.” He smirked. “We feed our people better, and I’m not much for whipping folks.”

“Maybe so, but Raig and his people are still holding their own on the northwest side,” Betta said. “I was with the patrols there last week. There’ve been problems.”

“And Simmons and the Blades still hold a corner of the Lower Nine,” Folville admitted, naming a part of Castle Reach that had been seedy before the Cataclysm and had not improved since then. The Lower Nine, named for the farthest-flung blocks of the city, had been home to tanners and pig herders and a motley assortment of untrustworthy alchemists, cheap whores, and taverns rumored to poison their customers and steal their belongings.

“Sooner or later, we’re going to have to take the territory from them,” Betta said. “Although I never thought I’d see the day anyone would want to fight over that godsforsaken stretch.”

Even among Castle Reach’s down-and-out, there had been a pecking order. The denizens of the Lower Nine were at the bottom. Most of the Lower Nine had drowned or burned in the violent storms and the Great Fire, and along with it, many of the Red Blades gang. Folville and his people had fought them off block by bloody block afterward, keeping the Blades from taking a chunk of the ruined city. But the threat remained, another reason Folville was willing to do just about anything to stay in the goodwill of Niklas Theilsson and his guards, and Traher Voss with his mercenaries and ‘friendly’ talishte. By themselves, the Curs could not hope to hold the city, let alone rebuild. But with allies, the impossible became a lot more likely.

“Do you know how those lords with their manors got their bleedin’ power?” Folville asked.

Betta chuckled. “I always imagined they stole it, like everyone else.”

Folville shook his head. “Go back far enough, a couple hundred years or so, and it was because they did a favor for the king, or protected his ass in battle.”

“There isn’t a king anymore,” Betta pointed out.

Folville met her gaze. “But there will be, sooner or later. The battles we’ve heard tell of, with McFadden and Theilsson and Penhallow and their allies, out on the Northern Plains and near the Riven Mountains? They’re fighting off the other warlords for territory and power. For control of Donderath.”

“And you’re betting on Blaine McFadden,” Betta said. “You think he’ll be king?”

Folville shrugged. “Better him than the others, if there’s to be a king. Maybe he’ll settle for warlord, but sooner or later, someone will want the crown. He’s already made me one of his Lords of the Blood. If we hold the city for him, if we do this right, I might get made a real lord, with land and a house. Imagine, Betta. We could do worse.” His new ability to truth-sense, gained in the ritual that restored the magic, had already been a valuable asset.

“And we will, if you’ve bet wrong,” she warned. “We’ve thrown in our lot with McFadden, and everyone knows it. If he goes down, so do we—and there will be a line of enemies, his and ours, waiting to shove in the knife.”

“You always know how to find the bright side in everything,” Folville said with a sigh, but a note of affection colored his words.

“I have your back,” Betta said. “And that includes telling you what you don’t want to hear.”

“So you’re coming with me, to meet with Simmons?”

“Of course. Maybe things will go wrong, and I’ll get to kick some Red Blades ass,” she replied.